It’s a Alabama Symphony Orchestra performance week this week so I’ve been out at rehearsals every evening. It’s Beethoven’s 9th symphony (again) so it boils doen to an hour and three quarters of sitting in the choral balcony for fifteen minutes of singing. But what a fifteen minutes. From what I can tell, the chorus is in good shape so if you’re local, and you’ve never been to a performance of Beethoven’s Choral Symphony live, it would be a good thing for you to catch this weekend. I guarantee you’ll recognize the music. This is my third go round with this one with the ASO over the last decade. The last time was as the world was just coming out of pandemic shutdowns and choral singing was just coming back. The chorus was small for that one, but everyone was so happy to be back making music together that the energy made up for it. The other time was about nine years ago. Tommy was still alive and we were both up in the choral balcony, he with the tenors and me with the basses. It was the first time I experienced what I now refer to as tempo di Carlos in the final section where you have to hang on for dear life and hope like hell you don’t fall behind.
I get Sunday off from rehearsals and pick up again on Monday when I start rehearsing the play Soul Food with Encore Theatre and Gallery. Marc Raby is writing and directing and it’s the first time someone has written a scripted role specifically for me. I’m flattered. It has me playing the building super in a condo building full of African American folk falling in and out of love with each other. I’m going to have to work on my charisma and charm for this one I think. I don’t necessarily have a whole lot of that naturally so we’ll see what I can drum up for theatrical purposes. It plays the weekend before Thanksgiving at the Carver Theatre so make your plans now. I guess this means I have to go into line learning mode. I haven’t had to do that for awhile. It gets harder every year.
I’m as appalled at the demolishing of the East Wing of the White House without proper clearances and review as most of the rest of the civilized world. I am not, however, surprised. One just needs to look at the history of Trump real estate and historic preservation. Google the Bonwit-Teller friezes and the fate of Steeplechase Park at Coney Island. I’m becoming more and more curious about this magical ballroom. I’ve seen 3D model renderings and artist sketches but has anyone seen anything remotely resembling a blueprint? How is it going to be hooked into utilities and sewer and other necessities? Where are the kitchens going to be? Storage? How is something of 90,000 square feet supposed to fit onto the triangle of land formed by Pennsylvania Avenue and the Elipse? Is, as some have speculated, a means of digging up the plot to create a much larger bunker than the World War II era one that has been under the East Wing for nearly a century? There are so many unanswered questions.
I also have unanswered questions regarding Mike Johnson’s essentially putting the house, the people’s branch of the government into what looks like semi-permanent abeyance. The attempt to brand the shut down as the fault of Democrats is getting nowhere other than in MAGA land and even MAGA is getting restive, especially as new health insurance premiums are hitting their mailboxes. As the shutdown, and other idiocies, drag on, I cannot help but wonder how the Republican legislators who are letting the executive run amok by abdicating their constitutional duties are going to explain themselves to their children and their grandchildren in a few years and why how they are going to be able to tell posterity that they did not have the courage to stand up for what they knew was right. When I was a child, I was given a small printed card by my pastor with a quotation from Proverbs 22:1 on it. ‘A good name is rather to be chosen than great riches’. I kept that card in my wallet until well into adulthood when it had finally deteriorated too much to even be read. But I have always tried to live my life with that sentiment in mind. Pity that so few of our national leaders believe in it.
I’m waiting for next week when SNAP benefits will end in about half the states (Alabama amongst them) as part of the shutdown. I have been watching what’s going on with local communities of color. They are making plans to support and feed each other as necessary. They’re laying in supplies and coming together as they have needed to for generations to deal with the storm breaking upon them through no fault of their own. The rural white communities where I do my house calls have bought into the myth of rugged individualism promulgated by the Republican party since the 1960s and brought to its apogee by Ronald Reagan. You don’t need government and community, you need to make it on your own, That’s the American way. They aren’t going to take a hit anywhere near as well as they won’t come together for mutual support. There’s an old parable about heaven and hell that I first heard in high school. A man went to hell and found it to be a great feast piled high on tables. All around were the damned whose arms were strapped to boards so they could not bend their elbows and wrists and so they could not bring any of the delicacies near their mouths to eat and so they were writhing in torment. He then went to heaven and found it to be an identical place with a great feast and again the denizens has their arms strapped to boards. Only here, they were feeding each other and all were satisfied.
Get up, get dressed, go out, do good, feed each other. We all need it.
Life, The Universe, and Everything 