May 5, 2017

Bach on Spotify.

The rain has been long and doesn’t seem to be finished yet. Was trapped in the downpour last night, and coming home in it rammed into something in front of the theater. Whatever it was (maybe just the curb) seemed to have done no damage. Saw Stupid Fucking Bird at the Magnetic: an example of what can happen when a cast is comfortable with each other, with the script, with the director, and rolls like thunder from lights up to lights down. Impeccable direction; inspired acting. I think I was meant to like the script (a comment on The Seagull) better than I did. If it were done in alternation with the actual Chekhov, maybe? It is, in fact, just about as good as a pastiche/satire/commentary can be, yet therefore falling short of the power of a work that attempts the creation of a whole world. Most modern art is commentary on art that already exists, remakes, reboots, endless cinema series, plays made from movies, plays commenting on other plays. . . Original voices are thereby disadvantaged. The original is always more terrifying than another layer added to the known. Still, the fact is that I LIKE commentaries. . . myself adding to the sadness, I suppose.
.
The House passes the punitive repeal of Obamacare. It’s hard to imagine the Senate coming to its senses in time to sink this rat-infested ship, but miracles do happen. The one and only reason for the hatred of the Affordable Care Act is hatred for President Obama, a hatred so clearly racist and classist even the attempt to deny it should mortify. It is the hatred of the little for the great, of the mean and greedy for the generous, of the trifling for the far-sighted, of those born in privilege for those who seized status by their own efforts. It is the hatred of the plantation owner for the slave who did not pull his forelock at the front door. Never did I expect to see such gleeful war of the rich against the poor, of power against the powerless. Paul Ryan smirking and grinning over having done incalculable harm to incalculably many may be the most sickening image in American politics, ever. What is most terrifying is that these half-men aren’t even ashamed. They’re playing to their cronies. They’re little boys doing mischief to earn the approbation of little boys as wicked and ignorant as they. I am praying to all the gods that the attention of all the gods is upon them, now.

The attention from St Julian Press for Peniel seems genuine. I’m waiting for a shoe to drop–either one-- but at the moment, I am sanguine and, from the tip of one abyss to the another, joyful.