The Dying of the Light

Here’s the good news first: not having to do much of anything (one thinks of work), I have plenty of time to learn about wonderful, fascinating places.

And the bad news?

They’re usually being bombed, looted, and destroyed.

And so it is, apparently, with Timbuktu, which I have invoked a gazillion times without being sure if it really existed.

Well, it’s cultural snobbery, I guess, that’s afflicted me all these years, because the city has an old and illustrious heritage. It was founded in the twelfth century, at the crossroads of several African trading routes. Here’s Wikipedia on the subject.

In its Golden Age, the town's numerous Islamic scholars and extensive trading network made possible an important book trade: together with the campuses of the Sankore Madrasah, an Islamic university, this established Timbuktu as a scholarly centre in Africa. Several notable historic writers, such as Shabeni and Leo Africanus, have described Timbuktu. These stories fueled speculation in Europe, where the city's reputation shifted from being extremely rich to being mysterious. This reputation overshadows the town itself in modern times, to the point where it is best known in Western culture as an expression for a distant or outlandish place.

All of this was taking place well before it got into Columbus’s head to check out whether he could get to the Orient by boat.

In fact, in almost exactly the same year that Columbus set sail, Leo Africanus was being expelled from Spain.

It was a disaster for Spain, the Reconquista—it robbed the country of a significant part of its cultural and intellectual life. Think of the Jews who fled Germany in the years before and during Hitler, and then got together to make that little bomb we dropped on Nagasaki….

And Leo Africanus must have been a character. He was born El Hasan ben Muhammed el-Wazzan-ez-Zayyat (don’t blame me if this isn’t right—I copy / pasted from Wikipedia) in Grenada and then, in 1485, gets kicked out of the country. Right, so he goes to Africa, studies, and then accompanies his uncle on diplomatic missions in Northern Africa. Then—here comes the fun part—he gets captured by pirates who decide to present him as an brilliant slave to Pope Leo X.

Speculation break—did the pirates reveal their professional activities to the pope? I can imagine it: a group of pirates wandering into the Vatican, turning a corner, and discovering the pope deep in prayer in the quiet gardens of his palace. “Yo, pope, wanna take a little look-see at this slave we captured,” one of the pirates calls. Head jerks up, “hey, bring him on,” shouts back the pope….

All right, historical fiction may not be my strongest point. Leo talks to the slave, decides to free him, baptizes him as Johannis Leo de Medici (sorry, it may be my cultural bias, but I think it’s a step up from El Hasan ben Muhammed el-Wazzan-ez-Zayyat….) and commissions him, shrewdly, to write an account of his travels in Africa.

Isabel, dear? That’s what you should have done with all those guys….

(Sorry, can’t help it—one wonders how Johannis felt about being baptized. Did he welcome it? Did he have any say in it? Does being captured by pirates lead to a sort of philosophical equanimity about such life events? One imagines him shrugging and saying, “oh well, what the hell…”)

Shrewd because for the next several centuries, all that anyone knew about Northern Africa came from Leo Africanus. Who had been, by the way, to Timbuktu at its heyday, and described it thus:

The rich king of Tombuto hath many plates and sceptres of gold, some whereof weigh 1300 pounds. ... He hath always 3000 horsemen ... (and) a great store of doctors, judges, priests, and other learned men, that are bountifully maintained at the king's cost and charges.   

Sounds like a place you’d want to be, hunh? Here’s more….

The inhabitants are very rich, especially the strangers who have settled in the country.  But salt is in very short supply because it is carried here from Tegaza, some 500 miles from Timbuktu. I happened to be in this city at a time when a load of salt sold for eighty ducats. The king has a rich treasure of coins and gold ingots.

Well, forget the salt, it was—more speculation—those gold ingots that grabbed the attention of the Western World. The city was closed to non-Muslims, and there’s certainly nothing like gold and mystery to whet the imagination. So finally, in 1824, the Société de Géographie puts up a 10,000 franc prize for the first non-Muslim to enter the city. Four years later, the reward is claimed by René Caillié, who enters the city alone and disguised as a Muslim.

Time passes, Timbuktu is no longer rich, no longer influential. North Africa falls under French rule in the Scramble for Africa (and yes, that’s an historical event—the big boys of Europe having decided that it was better to get together, drink some port, smoke cigars and decide among them how to slash up a continent—rather than waste their sons’ blood fighting wars about it. This is civilization, see?). Eventually, Timbuktu became part of Mali. And that was one of the beacons of democracy in African.

One of the tragic things about a civilization is the speed at which “is one of the beacons of democracy” can become “was one of the beacons of democracy.” Timbuktu has or had things like this:

It’s the Djinguereber Mosque, built in 1327. Or how about these?

It’s one of a famous set of tombs that the fundamentalist Islamists who overtook the city months ago decided was idolatrous. And you know what happens when those guys get that idea in their heads? Remember the Buddhas? Well, here the tomb is today….

Oh, and all that learning, all that intellectual activity? Those documents that one scholar had compared to the Dead Sea Scrolls? Those documents, some of which had not been examined or even catalogued, much less photographed?

Might be there, might not. On their way out, just before fleeing the city, the militants set fire to the library. Even now, the damage is unclear. But we may never know what we lost.

It’s a story of fanaticism, hatred, stony refusal to come anywhere near reason. Only Pope Leo gets it. Once, the Islamic world was the center for learning and culture. Once, Spain had a Golden Era. Once, Timbuktu was a city of riches and scholarship.

Dylan Thomas had it right: rage, rage against the dying of the light.

On Shrinks and Singers

“You really should review Iguanas,” I said to my shrink, to whom I had given a draft (and a very rough one at that) on my first visit early last year.

“I’m not gonna commit to that,” he said.

‘Hmmm, that’s very close to where “no” starts,’ I thought.

Well, those long years of toiling in the Wal-Mart fields taught me a few tricks.

“You know, your life is not gonna be fulfilled until your read that book,” I said.

He just laughed.

I should have known he wouldn’t buy in. True, he is a bit unschooled. He has only one diploma in his office, unlike the dozens any respectable doctor would have. So apparently he just attended that little school up there by the Charles River in Cambridge, Massachusetts. You know, the one founded by…

…John Harvard.

Right—so we can move that concern to the inactive list.

If you’ve never done it, the process of seeing a shrink is curiously personal and impersonal. There’s the shrink, who knows a lot about you. There’s you, who may know very little about the shrink. It’s a one-way window—the psychiatrist peering in, the patient seeing his own reflection.

Which may have been why I felt like a bit of a stalker, when I spent half an hour this morning this morning researching the guy. I had looked him up before my first visit; you really should know into whose hands—rather brains—you’re entrusting your psyche.

Here’s what I read:

Alan del Castillo was raised in Puerto Rico, the son of British and Spanish parents. He has pursued a rich variety of musical disciplines parallel to his medical career. He has traveled often in Latin America, absorbing musical influences from throughout the continent. He first fell in love with South American music when he was studying medicine while living in England. There he met Chilean refugees who deeply influenced him. He performed classical music with the University College Choir and Chorus of the Philharmonic Orchestra of London for 3 years, as well as recording for the BBC. After moving from London to Boston, he continued to play South American music with the trio Andanzas, recording and touring widely. He currently lives in Puerto Rico, where he practices psychiatry, though more often than not he comes to the U.S. to tour with Sol y Canto, particularly since the 1999 release of their CD, "En todo momento," which prominently features Alan as a vocalist. A talented singer, Alan's soulful quena and ocarina playing is one of his fortes.

OK—I’m a cellist, he’s a singer; that might work. Then I met the guy, liked him (which is nice) and trusted him (which is everything).

Well, does he pass the litmus test? That is, is he one YouTube? (Confession, I am not—so who am I to judge?)

The answer—very appropriate for a psychiatrist—is maybe. Sol y Canto is there, and is (with the exception of the songs aimed at children) wonderful. It’s clear—these are talented and committed people, the Amadors and company who make up the group. Rosi Amador is one hell of a singer, and her husband Brian is a great guitar player.

And they’ve attracted attention—garnering reviews from Billboard, The Christian Science Monitor, The Washington Post, and People en español.

Right, but where’s the good doctor, with his soulful quena and ocarina? In addition to “En todo momento” he also has recorded “El doble de amigos.” So I went to the group’s official site, logically if not very originally called solycanto.com, and listened to the little snippets they give you as musical samples. Besides Rosi, there’s another singer, a tenor.

But is it del Castillo or Brian Amador?

Fitting, somehow, that I don’t know, as I also don’t the man. I get glimpses, of course—he is blessedly far from being the sphinx that most Freudians are. He’s a gentle man, with a dry sense of humor, and—says Raf, who met him at a party—a very good mimic. He hates to drive, and thinks of retiring in a small Spanish town. He gets my being gringo, but can become very Puerto Rican on seeing an old friend—a receptionist who used to work in the office. He’s my age, but is still running around with a backpack—hasn’t he figured out he’s not back in Harvard Yard?

He uses silence, of course, as a good shrink should do. Which means that he’s quite happy to let the silence grow—he doesn’t return the conversational ball immediately. He’ll wait and see—is there more?

Or perhaps he’s reflecting, testing my comments in his mind. Or observing.

And though I suspect the thrill of being a shrink may have dimmed some for him, he does it with consummate skill. I’m lucky to have him.

Now, doctor, what about that review?

Ridiculous or Sublime—You Choose

OK—here’s the way I figure it. You have enough stuff in your life that makes you crazy—why read a blog that’s a constant rant?

Right—so no raging about the NRA, no screeds on The Fellowship, no angst today.

And that leaves us….

Where?

My shrink, as he often does, has the answer.

Where the hell is Matt.

You probably know the guy—but if you’re not among the people who have seen Matt 43,000,000 times on YouTube, you should check it out. This guy has a unique dance—vaguely resembling the prairie chickens’ mating ritual—and guess what! He’s gone all around the world getting people to dance with him.

People write him emails, inviting him to their city to dance. Occasionally, he’ll post a notice on his website announcing that he’ll be in a city, and invite people to come out and dance with him. Almost 200 people turned out in Madrid, but only a handful in Viejo San Juan. No matter, he photographs everyone, gets a signed release, and then they dance.

There are some places his doesn’t get emails from. So what does he do?

Kids—they’re naturals. Until, of course, they get the bright idea of going straight up to the camera and sticking their tongues out. And he’s got it figured out—better not to give money directly to the kids, but rather the teachers. The money gets better spent.

What’s great about Matt is that he’s making a living doing something he loves. And he’s apparently quite successful—he’s managed by Creative Artists Agency and has a corporate sponsor.

So today’s post gives you a choice. An idiot having good goofy fun with half the world, or 10 or 15 people playing and singing a sublime piece of music.

Of course, you could always do both!

Oh Yeah?

Readers of this blog will know about Doug Coe—the secretive force behind the National Prayer Breakfast.

Oh, and much more.

He makes no bones about it, though he doesn’t say much—really anything—publicly. He, and his group The Family (also called The Fellowship) minister exclusively to the rich and (especially) politically powerful. They form “cells” around congressmen and women, Coe can enter virtually any office and be received with hugs. Face time with the president? No problem! (At least with W.—don’t know about Obama….)

And he has a curious tendency to invoke Hitler as a supreme leader—a man with consummate rhetorical skills (can’t be denied….), a man with a gift for organization (true), and especially a man who starts with a handful of men and almost changes the world permanently (can’t dispute that). 

Now then, let’s move to Uganda.

Say what, you exclaim!

Bear with me.

There is in Uganda a transgendered man who is fighting—against horrific odds—against virulent homophobia. How virulent, you ask? Consider this:

Or this quote from Pepe Julian Onziema, the man adduced above:

I am here, still, in 2013, but I dread things as simple as shopping at a kiosk for groceries, because the owner has told me he doesn't sell to "such people." If I insist, he said, he will "teach me how to be normal." A full night's sleep is thwarted by the fear of a stranger who has followed me home or the neighbors who have formed a mob. My personal struggle is a small reflection of the entire LGBTI community's everyday apprehension.

That’s from an article in CNN entitled “Living Proudly in the Face of Uganda’s Anti-Gay Bill.” Here’s Onziema on the topic:

Since 2009, my community has faced the potential passage of an anti-homosexuality bill that threatens Ugandans in same-sex relationships with life imprisonment (there are conflicting reports on whether the original death penalty provision remain). This year, many Anglican Church officials and other leaders have declared the legislation's speedy passage as their New Year's resolutions, with the bill scheduled for discussion when Uganda's parliament reconvenes in February. As a transgender man, I am not safe.

I knew about this, of course, and signed an online petition against it. So did a lot of people. But the click of a mouse is a minor thing, a few minute muscles flexing, a little electronic blip going out into the world. The Ugandans may pass the bill. Onziema may end up as dead as his partner David Kato, with whom he founded SMUG—Sexual Minorities Uganda. This is the second anniversary of Kato’s…

…murder.

This would scare the bejesus out of me. How do you get that courage, that strength, to live with the constant fear of everything? A Cuban friend told me once a very simple definition of a free society. You’re in bed at two o’clock in the morning; you hear footsteps on the pavement outside your house. You yawn and go back to sleep.

That’s a free society.

Your body tenses, you sweat, you know you should run but are paralyzed.

Police state.

Well, the guy is still fighting, and still has hope. And one glimmer of hope is thrown lightly into a paragraph:

And I hope to win a U.S. lawsuit against American evangelist Scott Lively for the anti-gay terror he exported to my country.

Well, that rang a bell. We’re back to Doug Coe and The Fellowship, whose influence goes far and wide, into the little countries that no one knows about or cares about, or even knows where they are. But some of those places have minerals or other resources, and maybe even a little domestic strife, in which case a nice little weapons deal can be brokered with the (for now) leader who is, by the way, your brother in Christ. Oh, and want to sit at the president’s table for the National Prayer Breakfast? No problem!

And in fact, I knew that a group of Coe’s “fellows” had ventured down to Uganda, to talk about that ole devil, the gay menace!

Click, and I’m on Wikipedia reading up on Scott Lively. And it seems he is lively in several senses (you could see that on the horizon, couldn’t you?). I joke, but it’s not funny. Lively and company arrive in Kampala in 2009, and here’s his account.

"Thousands of Ugandans, including police officers, teachers and national politicians," reportedly attended the conference.[4] Lively and his colleagues "discussed how to make gay people straight, how gay men often sodomized teenage boys and how 'the gay movement is an evil institution' whose goal is 'to defeat the marriage-based society and replace it with a culture of sexual promiscuity.'"[4] Lively wrote days later that "someone had likened their campaign to 'a nuclear bomb against the gay agenda in Uganda.'"[4]

Nothing like thumping the Bible to stir up a little hate! And the guy is an author too (as well, by the way, as an abuser of women—he assaulted a woman in 1991, she sued, he got stuck for 31,000 bucks)!

You can guess the topic. But the title?

The Pink Swastika.

Here’s Wikipedia again:

Along with Kevin E. Abrams, he co-authored the book The Pink Swastika, which states in the preface that "homosexuals [are] the true inventors of Nazism and the guiding force behind many Nazi atrocities."[5] Several historians have questioned the book's claims and selective use of research.[6][7][8][9][10]

“Several” historians? Is there ANY historian—who doesn’t happen to be a religious nut case—who could possibly NOT question the book’s claims?

I take a pill that reliably wakes me up in the middle of the night with a craving for food. (OK—carbohydrates…) That gives me time to look into the crannies of the Internet, the places I ordinarily wouldn’t go. So I found myself spending time last night with Ruth Maier, often deemed the Norwegian Anne Frank.

An Austrian from a cultured family (father had a doctorate in philosophy and spoke nine languages), Ruth escapes to Norway, her sister—more luckily—makes it to Britain.

The footsteps on the pavement outside, one night, became her worst fear. She was deported to Auschwitz and gassed immediately.

And yes, she left behind a diary—one critic compares her writing to Hannah Arendt and Susan Sontag (wow!) And she had, it seems, a passionate affair with her soul mate—a woman called Gunvor Hofmo. They were, if my 2AM reading serves me, lovers.

Well, the Norwegian government apologized, almost exactly a year ago. Here’s more copy / paste from you-know-what….

The Holocaust came to Norway on Thursday 26 November 1942. Ruth Maier was one of the many who were arrested that day. On 26 November, just as the sky was beginning to lighten, the sound of heavy boots could be heard on the stairs of the boarding house “Englehjemmet” in Oslo. A few minutes later, the slight Jewish girl was seen by her friends being led out the door of Dalsbergstien 3. Ruth Maier was last seen being forced into a black truck by two big Norwegian policemen. Five days later the 22-year-old was dead. Murdered in the gas chamber at Auschwitz. Fortunately it is part of being human that we learn from our mistakes. And it is never too late. More than 50 years after the war ended, the Storting decided to make a settlement, collectively and individually, for the economic liquidation of Jewish assets. By so doing the state accepted moral responsibility for the crimes committed against Norwegian Jews during the Second World War. What about the crimes against Ruth Maier and the other Jews? The murders were unquestionably carried out by the Nazis. But it was Norwegians who carried out the arrests. It was Norwegians who drove the trucks. And it happened in Norway.

—Jens Stoltenberg, prime minister, 27 January 2012

There were 532 Jews deported that day.

An apology is an empty thing unless it gets backed up by something. Actually, an apology is a debt, an obligation to change, for which you will pay and struggle until the change is complete.

Half a million homosexuals were exterminated in the Holocaust. An American writes a slanderous book, piling blame on the victims. The Anglican Church of Uganda wants to rewrite and relive history.

To my knowledge, I haven’t played a part in any atrocity.

But anybody who doesn’t speak up is complicit.

I’ll borrow some words from the woman who gave me as much moral compass as I have.

“SCOTT LIVELY, GO STRAIGHT TO YOUR ROOM AND DON’T COME OUT UNTIL YOU’RE GOOD AND SORRY!”

¡Basta ya!

Let me tell anyone reading out there a little secret.

The world is a mess. Our country is a mess. Yes, the economy is slowly improving; some of us even have jobs! But there’s lots of stuff to do. We should be worrying—and maybe acting?—on global warming. We’ve got big issues like the widening disparity in wealth, the horrendous question of the national debt, terrible problems in our mental health system, to say nothing of a huge group of vets who are facing posttraumatic stress disorder.

Into this picture steps Dianne Feinstein, to whom I cheerfully gave four minutes of my time this morning (not, happily, having a job to have to get to…). 

Well, you can imagine that of course I like Dianne Feinstein—I was happy to be the choir at which she preached. Though I did find myself getting a bit annoyed with her. She was rational, she had done her homework, she was explaining one of the criticisms of the 1993 ban on automatic weapons and going into great detail about how gun manufacturers had gone around the law by removing one bolt or piece on the weapon, and boom! Legal!

So why was I annoyed? Don’t I want my senators to be intelligent, articulate, prepared? (Answer, for those who may need it—yes. Actually—with a nod southwards here—I’d really like my president to have the stated characteristics…)

Guys—how much time are we gonna spend on this issue? How many gazillion hours are we going to waste talking rationally to zealots who will never, never, never change their minds on the issue?

Oh, and by the way, didn’t we use to have a democracy, before the NRA roared into town, bought all the senators and representatives they could, and cowed all the rest? And weren’t there guys called journalists, who let us all know what was happening?

I spent four years of wincing as I watched Obama trying to reason with Tea Party republicans. And I felt the same way—almost—just now with Feinstein.

Well, well—I turned from that to the clip below. I knew that the fifteen-year old kid in New Mexico had taken his family out. And I know that apparently he had thought to go see my old pals at his local Wal-Mart—and no, not for those every-day low prices! He had the minivan all packed with his then-dead dad’s semiautomatic weapons.

So what happens? He decides to go to his church, instead. And spends the day there, hanging with his friends and girlfriend. A parishioner tells the pastor—something isn’t quite right with the boy’s family.

Well, by one of those things I call coincidence and more churchy people do not, there’s a guy on hand doing a drill on what happens if there’s a mass murderer in church. (Pretty obvious, I’d say—dive under the pews and pray!) So the guy giving the talk / drill speaks to the fifteen-year old kid, and they decide to go check it out. The kid has said, “yeah, I came home and discovered my whole family dead.” But he hadn’t called the cops, or told anybody but—presumably—his friends. Somewhere on the way to the murder scene, the former cop / now security consultant gets the whim-whams. He feels evil in the back seat, where the kid is riding. So he stops the car, pulls out his cellular, calls 911.

“Do you feel that you may have prevented the next Sandy Hook,” the reporter asks the pastor. The pastor thinks maybe.

Wrong question.

Well, we now live in the land of Google, where most questions now have answers. And so I looked into it—are guns an effective means of self-defense? Jack, my father who had a gun (kept in his underwear drawer—Sigmund? You in the house?) always said no. You hear a noise in the living room, it’s two in the morning, you get up, see the bastard, lift your gun, squeeze the trigger and BAM!

Killed the fucker!

Your fifteen-year old son, who had a little craving for cookies and milk.

And Google, predictably, has the answers. Guess what? According to something called guns4U.com (invented, but you get what I mean) the answer is….

OK, scroll down to a study by Harvard University. Of course the NRA won’t trust it, but the rest of us do. So what do they say? 

 Across states, more guns = more unintentional firearm deaths

We analyzed data for 50 states over 19 years to investigate the relationship between gun prevalence and accidental gun deaths across different age groups. For every age group, where there are more guns there are more accidental deaths.  The mortality rate was 7 times higher in the four states with the most guns compared to the four states with the fewest guns.

Miller, Matthew; Azrael, Deborah; Hemenway, David. Firearm availability and unintentional firearm deaths. Accident Analysis and Prevention. 2001; 33:477-84.

Now can we get down to work?

Famous and Unknown

There are guys who can make you laugh just by looking at you. Or repeating a word. Or making a gesture.

Consider that I have been laughing out loud in the café that became my office when Wal-Mart, during their realignment, realized that I (or my job) was outta line.

I challenge you—look at the clip below and try not to laugh. Unless you’re comatose, catatonic, or seriously, seriously depressed you’ll be chortling, giggling, laughing and finally holding your sides.

Victor Borge was born in Denmark in 1909. His father was an orchestral musician; Borge in turn becomes a child prodigy, later studying at the Royal Danish Academy of Music. He became one of Denmark’s greatest musicians, states the official website, and then turned to comedy.

Oddly, the website is the blandest of affairs (and could, incidentally, use a good editing—at one point, it speaks of “Victor borge,” another sentence manages to incorporate two mistakes….) I say oddly, because the site must have been shown to the family, who in 2008 participated in a documentary for Danish television.

And the documentary is anything but bland. Borge, for all that he appears the genial, grandfatherly character in later life, is a very talented, very handsome and…

…very nervous young man.

He plays the Rachmaninoff Piano Concerto Number Two for his first big concert. Then something happens—the musician’s worst fear. He gets stuck, he goes and talks to the conductor, and covers the gaffe.

Performance is interesting. There is a part of every musician that must be a racehorse, a thoroughbred—quivering sensibility, starting if not bolting at every slightest sound, and in an agonizing awareness of the surroundings. But it also requires the abilities of the plow horse—stamina, stolid nerves, brute insensitivity.

And what happens when the mix isn’t right? A descent into the abyss that couldn’t be swifter if you greased the toboggan.

Borge’s solution?

Humor.

Which has, as you know, a dark side. A Jew, Borge wasted no time lambasting Hitler; in the words of the BBC:

His lampooning of Adolf Hitler provoked the ire of Germany long before the Nazis invaded Denmark in April 1940.

Fortunately, Borge was in Sweden at the time of the invasion. Like so many other Jews, he fled to the States, arriving with 20$ to his name.

That’s what the article in the BBC says. But he’s not quite that hard up: he arrives with his first wife, and she has family in New York. But yes, it’s a struggle, not the least of which because he can’t speak the language (his wife has written out the Danish routines into English, Borge is reading them over the radio….) He gets a big break, though, when he appears on the Ed Sullivan Show, and then the Bing Crosby Show. There, he’s slotted for seven or eight minutes, but takes 30 minutes instead.

The documentary makes it clear—he’s an absent father. In fact, one of his sons says that for some time in his childhood, he thought his father was a family friend. He is obsessed with making it, and practices for hours at a time. Notice, for example, that even when he is accompanying a singer or soloist, he frequently is playing without sheet music. Has he memorized, or is he so good that he’s improvising the accompaniment?

After twenty years, the marriage fizzles. He’s been on the road a lot; his wife has no wish to travel. He meets a young woman from a small town in Indiana, he’s entranced, they marry.

And live a very European, formal, Victorian lifestyle. The children dress for dinner, speak only when spoken to, are taught to behave in a way that will be a credit to Borge. And the family is a unit doing one thing—promoting and creating the great man’s career.

And how big is he? Well, claims the documentary, as of 2008 he still holds the record for the longest run on Broadway, some 849 shows. That’s two and a half years. Oh, and nobody had ever done a one-man show before.

He gets rave reviews. Which he can only read about the next day. His own reaction? His nerves had gobsmacked him, he thinks he’s bombed, he wants to leave at intermission. His wife has to order him back on stage, as she will later forbid him to leave the party after the show.

He is obsessive, every detail counts. He goes back to Denmark, and is received like royalty. He buys a manor house, and lives in the grand style. And then, at the end of his career, the critics turn on him.

Well, it’s gotta be said. They guy was repetitive—he must have fallen off the end of his piano stool millions of times in the span of his career. But Borge is hypersensitive—the one word “repetitive” cancels out the thousand of words of praise. He’s filled, says the photographer who followed him around for two years, with fury.

And he had a problem—the stage was his life.

As was, apparently, his strong and independent wife. “They didn’t need each other,” said his granddaughter.

Well, it seems he needed her—the photo of Borge slumped in the chair of his wife’s bedroom beams agony as strongly as, on stage, he would beam comedy. He grieves deeply but as always, goes on. He travels for one last time to Denmark in 2000, and then, hours after returning to the US, dies.

He traveled in high circles, had many honors showered on him, and lived an elegant and rich life. He had, of course, a brilliant career.

One wonders—did he have a life? There were two Victor Borges, says the photographer who gave two years of her life to him, and who weeps in the documentary filmed seven or eight years after Borge’s death. The one always interrupting, and always cracking jokes. And the one whom no one knew. If no one knew you, could you really say that you had lived?

I think of another Danish musician, Gunnar Johansen. And they were fast friends, Borge and Johansen, respected each other immensely, and had wives from small towns in America’s heartland. Borge became known as “the funniest man in the world.” Johansen turned his back on fame, went into his studio, and emerged, ten hours later. He had, perhaps, recorded another piece, or learned a new piece, or maybe just practiced. But at the end of the day, he was at home, with his beloved wife, who worshipped him.

And Borge?

More often than not in a hotel room.

His children—one of whom is the page-turner in the clip below—speak fondly of him. His grandchildren as well. There must have been something in that Pagliacci, the world’s funniest man, the man nobody knew. 

4'33" Revisited

Well, it’s confession time. Most of my blook, Life, Death and Iguanas, is true. Adjusted, perhaps, filtered necessarily through my eyes and viewpoint, but true. If I didn’t tell you the whole story, well, sorry. No author does….

I did, I think, completely invent one chapter. And I say “I think” because, after reading the chapter numerous times, it now seems real to me. I needed something light, something funny. Comic relief after a chapter in which my brother John had forced the fact that I was suicidal out of me.

And there were, in fact, many light moments. The thirteen-lined squirrel—or whatever it was, and however we punctuated the beast—did exist. I did greet Franny one morning by saying, “good morning, Mother, how’s the dying going?” (And I can still hear Johnny yelping, “Jesus, Marc!”)

And yes, I do remember having a silly conversation on the porch. But what in God’s name were we talking about?

I settled on John Cage’s 4'33"—a piece which, technically, can’t be played. Rather it’s done, performed, or possibly just rendered. Written in 1952, Cage wrote a composition in which not one note is played—the piece consists entirely of the ambient sounds: the creaking of the chairs, the clearing of the throats, the whirl of air conditioner vents or heating units.

But what do I know; maybe it can be played. For, in fact, I have just viewed the clip below. And either the pianist is a wonderful actor, or he truly believes that he’s doing something. (Love the way he opens and closes the piano lid to indicate the movements…)

Well, the pianist appears to be taking it all seriously. Cage did too. Here’s Wikipedia:

In a 1982 interview, and on numerous other occasions, Cage stated that 4′33″ was, in his opinion, his most important work.

Wikipedia goes on to say:

4′33″ is an example of automaticism. (Author’s note—I’m happy to observe the red squiggle the computer has just put on the word “automaticism.” So it’s not just me!) Since the Romantic Era composers have been striving to produce music that could be separated from any social connections, transcending the boundaries of time and space. In automaticism, composers wish to completely remove both the composers and the artist from the process of creation. This is motivated by the belief that what we think of as "self-expression" is really just an infusion of the art with the social standards that we have been subjected to since birth. Therefore, the only way to achieve truth is to remove the artist from the process of creation. Cage achieves that by employing chance (e.g. use of the I Ching, or tossing coins) to make compositional decisions. In 4′33″, neither artist nor composer has any impact on the piece, so that Cage has no way of controlling what ambient sounds will be heard by the audience.[9]

Well, that’s interesting. I wonder, as a writer, if I could buffalo a significant percent of the intelligentsia into believing that a blank computer screen was my most important work. Or maybe, in fact, I should establish myself as major in every medium. For 100 bucks, I could frame a blank canvas, thus catapulting me to fame in the visual arts. An empty pedestal, or perhaps one with a chunk of untouched marble. Move over, Michelangelo! An empty stage, or perhaps one where ladies in pink tutus amble about. I’ve just blasted past Balanchine!

Well, I wrote the chapter pretty much in that vein. And it was funny, I think. It worked. And at one point, I stuck these words in my dead mother’s mouth: “If I sit for four minutes and whatever it is in silence—and I frequently do, you know—have I infringed on copyright?”

Well, we have our answer.

Quite possibly.

I know this now because I ran into a great blog: classicalconvert.com. And there, in a post entitled “The Stupidest Music Lawsuit Ever—Infringing on Cage’s 4’33”” I got the full dope on a settlement made by Mike Batt with Peters Edition, the publisher of Cage’s work.

Batt, apparently, does popular music; he’s got a band called The Planets (which, come to think of, the Estate of Gustav Holst might want to sniff into). And they did a crossover album, which soared to number one in the UK classical charts. One of the pieces on the album was called “One Minute Silence (after Cage)”

I don’t have to tell you, do I?

What I do think is funny is that, as part of the legal proceeding, they did back-to-back performances of both pieces, in order to note similarities and differences.

Well, Peters admitted that they didn’t have much of a case. But Batt settled out of court, wrote a six-figure check out of respect for Cage to the John Cage Trust.

Note to Peters—don’t even think it. Don’t have that kind of money….

30,000 Tragedies

“The death of one man is a tragedy,” said Joe Stalin, “the death of millions is a statistic.”

Well, he was a guy who should know. And the twentieth century had more than a handful of men who committed their share of “statistics.”

Not surprisingly, there’s an organization that got into bed with a lot of the last century’s despots, all to gain influence and broker some juicy deals.

It’s called “the family,” and it was started, I’m sorry to say, by a Norwegian immigrant in Seattle in 1935. The group has one public activity: the National Prayer Breakfast. The rest of the time they’re underground, or forming a spiritual cell around the next congressman or senator.

And they do keep busy. I know all this because I forced myself, this last weekend, to forego the jacuzzi and read Jeff Sharlet’s book, appropriately called The Family. And here’s Wikipedia on the subject.

The author Jeff Sharlet has criticized the fellowship's influence on US foreign policy. He argues that Doug Coe and the "networking" (or formation of prayer cells) between foreign dictators and US politicians, defense contractors, and industry leaders has facilitated military aid for repressive foreign regimes. Sharlet did intensive research at the Billy Graham Center, before the Fellowship Foundation archives were closed to those other than divinity scholars. Sharlet published a book about the history of the groups and their influence on US domestic and foreign policy from the 1920s to the present.[28] Sharlet in particular details the relationship with General Suharto of Indonesia in the 1970s, and with Siad Barre of Somalia in the 1980s. Also, in the archives, there are at least two nearly full boxes of documents describing the relationship with Brazil's long dictatorship of the Generals.[61]

Regarding his relationships with foreign dictators, Coe said in 2007, “I never invite them. They come to me. And I do what Jesus did: I don’t turn my back to any one. You know, the Bible is full of mass murderers.”[62]

Don’t believe me, or Sharlet? How about this guy?

“The Fellowship’s reach into governments around the world is almost impossible to overstate or even grasp,” says David Kuo, a former special assistant in George W. Bush’s Office of Faith-Based and Community Initiatives.

Well, great to know! Although it does appear that Coe isn’t quite as embracing to absolutely everyone. I copy and paste again from Wikipedia.

The Fellowship, through Representative Joe Pitts (R.-Pa.), redirected millions in US aid to Uganda from sex education programs to abstinence programs, thereby causing an evangelical revival, which included condom burnings.

In a November 2009 NPR interview, Sharlet alleged that Ugandan Fellowship associates David Bahati and Nsaba Buturo were behind the recent proposed bill in Uganda that called for the death penalty for gays.[75] Bahati cited a conversation with Fellowship members in 2008 as having inspired the legislation.[76]

Wonderful! And it appears that it’s not just in Somalia, Indonesia or Uganda that Coe exercises his power. Sharlet indicates that there’s virtually no office in Washington where Coe can’t drift in, pound on a few backs, gather the boys together in prayer, change public policy and broker another deal.

“In Washington, you must have a religion to get anything done,” writes Sharlet, or words to that affect. Even Hillary Clinton gets into the picture. Here she is on Coe.

Doug Coe, the longtime National Prayer Breakfast organizer, is a unique presence in Washington: a genuinely loving spiritual mentor and guide to anyone, regardless of party or faith, who wants to deepen his or her relationship to God.

Ummm, yes and no. The Family is devoted to those who have power. It’s a ministry that makes no bones about it—no money, no influence? Screw you!

The story of the family makes a good read—a shadowy man, a secret organization, evil and misdeeds, a perverted religion. I thought of it all this morning, on the trot. The death of millions is a statistic.

Is that the trouble with the gun control issue? 30,000 is just a number. But behind that number are 30,000 names, faces, lives. If we published the names, would it make it more real?

‘Let’s try,’ I decided. And went to a site that randomly generates names. So here are forty-five names—as much as will fill one page of a document with the font size set at 12.

OK—so how many pages would I need to list all 30,000 victims of gun violence annually?

Hold onto your seat.

666.

A revelation, hunh?

1.   Dona Schrom


2.   Darryl Ferriera

3.   Loraine Pietz

4.   Earnestine Kardos

5.   Mallory Mani

6.   Rae Nassar

7.   Fernando Lamborn

8.   Alana Ghoston

9.   Allan Kittinger


10.   Mathew Hoppes


11.   Jamie Vitiello


12.   Kelly Basler


13.   Jock


14.   Avis Heuser

15.   Malinda Brindle

16.   Javier Mckinsey


17.   Jessie Gowers

18.   Max Miraglia

19.   Saundra Vanderhoof

20.   Jamie Junker


21.   Cody Cassara

22.   Edwina Kilman


23.   Cody Calabria


24.   Marcie Ritts

25.   Tyrone Guard

26.   Kurt Spradling

27.   Lakisha Fasciano


28.   Kelly Mossey

29.   Avis Deasy


30.   Carlene Verge


31.   Allyson Yanes


32.   Guy Loew


33.   Ted Mariner


34.   Lonnie Bart


35.   Clinton Matthias


36.   Tanisha Bou


37.   Lorrie Kowalewski


38.   Elinor Doten


39.   Melisa Roose


40.   Jamie Jarrard


41.   Ted Mahnke


42.   Melisa Cerutti


43.   Roxie Marcial


44.   Zelma Rozar


45.   Sofia Detty