New York Debut
So…I meant to write about this earlier, but tomorrow I’ll be one of 200 guitarists and 16 bassists playing in contemporary composer Rhys Chatham’s piece, “A Crimson Grail.” It’s free.
It’s kind of crazy that–being a composition major and one of those guys who was always starting bands–I haven’t actually performed any music publicly or, for that matter, played with any other musicians since moving to New York almost two years ago. (Did I write those very words in an earlier post?) More on that at some other point, or just as it happens.
Anyway, are the deets:
800 Years of Minimalism
Friday, August 15, 2008, 7:00pm – 10:00pm
Damrosch Park Bandshell, W 62nd St between Amsterdam and Colombus Aves
Here’s their blurb on from http://www.lincolncenter.org/show_events_list.asp?eventcode=-62531:
“This special co-production highlights minimalist music spanning eight centuries of human experience, in a program exploring the transcendental and ecstatic dimension of music-making.
“Beata Viscera, an early-music vocal group, opens with a selection of works by the 13th-century French composer Pérotin.
“Next, composer Rhys Chatham and section leaders John King, Ned Sublette, David Daniell, and Seth Olinsky (Akron/Family) lead an oversized orchestra of 200 volunteer guitarists and electric bassists in the world premiere of A Crimson Grail for 200 Electric Guitars (Outdoor Version) performed not on the Bandshell stage but along the sides of the audience at Damrosch Park, to heighten the work’s polyphonic effect. The work, originally composed for Paris’ famed Sacré-Coeur, has been extensively revised to suit the dynamics of the Park’s outdoor acoustic.
“Concluding the show will be the U.S. premiere of composer and guitarist Manuel Göttsching’s hour-long masterpiece E2-E4, one of the most important, influential electronic records ever released. Collaborating with Göttsching for the first-ever U.S. live performance of E2-E4 will be the Joshua Light Show, led by multimedia artist Joshua White, which will fill the surface of the Damrosch Bandshell with its signature display of psychedelic visual effects.”
I knew they’d make something like this sooner or later
My friend Lidia just introduced to me www.ridethecity.com. It’s like hopstop.com but for bike routes!
That was a nice set of civil liberties we had there…
Here is the bill that will effectively give the administration the power to spy on American citizens (think: your phone calls, email, and internet usage) without accountability. In other words, it’s not illegal if the president says it ain’t. No warrants. No courts. No questions. This isn’t conspiracy theory, this is really happening. (e.g. Act II of last week’s episode of This American Life.) And regardless of the fact that Democrats now control BOTH houses, it looks like this thing is still going to pass. (I know it’s naive, but for a while I really thought they were going to derail it.)
I’ll leave the most of the commentary to Glenn Greenwald, a constitutional lawyer and writer for salon.com who’s been sounding the alarm on this issue for a while now. (If you haven’t already, seriously go read him now.) But I do wonder: what would Mrs. Kregness, my 9th grade civics teacher, say?
How do you even teach civics to kids these days? Aside from all the other wrenches this administration has thrown at the constitution, I would think they’ve seriously undermined a civics teacher’s lesson on the system of checks and balances.
“But Mrs. Kregness! You told us that the constitution was written to specifically to stop abuses of power.”
“Well, yes in theory it would…if the other people elected actually oppose those abuses.”
My parent’s generation saw Nixon get his comeuppance. (Well, sort of, if resigning in shame counts.) People my age grew up seeing the president getting impeached for perjury about a non-criminal act between two consensual adults–like, on a technicality–and even as redonkulous as that whole thing was, at least we saw the system in motion, goldangit! But what if we have a generation of kids who grow up seeing there really aren’t consequences for very serious breaches of the law? Will they–like I sometimes find myself doing–shrug their shoulders saying “well, that sucks but whachagonna do?” and wait for the next power-grab?
Yes, the constitution is malleable, is subject to ammendment and reinterpretation. That’s why they call it a “living document.” But what if you gut it of the very qualities that make it that way? What if everybody gets it wrong and nobody cares? If the constitution is a living document, can you kill it? Kill it dead?
And lastly, I want to echo Greenwald: where’s Obama on this? He had been a vocal opponant of telecom imunnnity and supporterd of Sen. Dodd’s revision of the FISA bill. I’m not in any way suggesting that Obama could wave his hand and make the problem go away (I know folks who hate when he’s characterized as some kind of Messiah, and so do I). But if he got the Democratic party to follow suit and reject money from lobbyists–no small feat–could he rally the party against this bill?
More, please!
I edited this "Campaign Trail" podcast for the New Yorker today. We recorded an interview with George Packer (!) at 11:00am and it’s already up on the web.
AND get this: I’m writing this update on the road from a bus with wifi on the way to meet up with friends in D.C.
Oh, the wonders of technology!
The Senate just passed a FISA bill including retroactive immunity for the telecoms that complied with the Bush administration to illegally spy on American citizens. This is bad news, dudes.
Glen Greenwald, a constitutional lawyer and writer for Salon.com does a good job explaining why here: http://www.salon.com/opinion/greenwald/
To quote:
What were the consequences for the President for having broken the law so deliberately and transparently? Absolutely nothing. To the contrary, the Senate is about to enact (ed: has already enacted)a bill which has two simple purposes: (1) to render retroactively legal the President's illegal spying program by legalizing its crux: warrantless eavesdropping on Americans, and (2) to stifle forever the sole remaining avenue for finding out what the Government did and obtaining a judicial ruling as to its legality: namely, the lawsuits brought against the co-conspiring telecoms. In other words, the only steps taken by our political class upon exposure by the NYT of this profound lawbreaking is to endorse it all and then suppress any and all efforts to investigate it and subject it to the rule of law.
Please contact your representatives in the house and tell them to stand firm against any bill containing immunity for the telecoms, and to support their own, previously passed bill, the RESTORE Act.
I don’t typically put too much stock in online petitions, but if you won’t contact your representatives, you can at least sign this one and pass it on to friends: http://action.firedoglake.com/page/petition/RestoreFISA
Not that it would have changed the outcome, but it’s worth mentioning that Obama voted for the defeated ammendment to remove immunity from the FISA bill, while Clinton didn’t vote at all. In my book, that’s almost worse than the 13 Democrats who voted against the ammendment. Not worse, but certianly more cowardly.
In other news, I’m ready to drink Obama’s Kool-Aid.
Bottoms up!
Oops…
My mom sent me an advent calendar, a box with little pieces of chocolate for each day until Christmas. Considering the number of days remaining versus the number of chocolates still remaining, I hope maybe Christmas will consider coming earlier this year. Like, um, tomorrow.