Sly Stone and Family

Posted on 15 Mar 2014 by Frank Moraes

Sly Stone There are a number of good and interesting people born on this day. Last year I talked about Ruth Bader Ginsburg. She’s notable for being the only liberal on the Supreme Court. I know, you probably think there are four liberal members of the Court. But there aren’t. It runs like this: one liberal, three moderates, two conservatives, and three (for lack of a better term) fascists. Just saying. And truly, I had to stop myself from talking about David Cronenberg today. He’s one of my favorite film directors. Videodrome and eXistenZ are two unquestionably great films. That’s two more than almost all film directors have made.

The great musician Sly Stone is 71 today. Back in 2011, there was a whole bunch of news that Stone was homeless and living in a van (Down by the river?) in Los Angeles. That does not appear to be true. But there is no doubt that the business side of the music business has been bad to him. He is such a great talent, and it speaks to what a terrible society we are that he’s gone so neglected all these years. We should treat him like a king.

I still listen to Sly and the Family Stone’s album Stand! all the time. There really isn’t anything better. Here is “Everyday People” performed live on The Ed Sullivan Show:

Happy birthday Sly Stone!

Michelangelo and Male Beauty

Posted on 06 Mar 2014 by Frank Moraes

Last year, I focused on Elizabeth Barrett Browning, so I’ll be moving on. That’s kind of odd, because I’m not a huge fan of hers, although I do admire her work. But I am a big fan of Michelangelo who was born on this day in 1475. Last year, I wrote of him, “I still remember when I saw David for the first time in Florence. Up to that time, I had no idea that art could be that powerful.” Of course, I had seen pictures of it before. But as with most great art, representations of it are not the same. And for one thing, it is big—17 feet tall. It’s also quite clear where his sexual interests lay: with men. It is the ultimate representation of male beauty.

In fact, when he was 57, Michelangelo met Tommaso dei Cavalieri, who was 23 at the time. He wrote many explicit poems to the younger man and the two of them were friends until Michelangelo’s death 31 years later. Did they have a sexual relationship? We don’t know. Does it matter? Well, it has to a lot of people since then who have found it embarrassing. To me, it doesn’t matter in the least, except that I hope the great old man got a little in his golden years. But for those who hate the idea of homosexuality, it seems silly to care. I don’t care if artists I admire lived exemplary lives. It’s nice, of course. I prefer that “my” artists are decent people. But there is no indication that Michelangelo was anything but a nice guy. And even if Cavalieri wasn’t sexually interested, it still must have been flattering to be so admired by the great artist.

Happy birthday Michelangelo!

Vivaldi’s Opera

Posted on 04 Mar 2014 by Frank Moraes

Last year, I wrote about Antonio Vivaldi who was born on this day in 1678. And I’m afraid that I’m forced to do the same thing this year. There are a couple of other interesting people, but I still have a couple of things to say about him. Vivaldi was one of the greatest Baroque composers. As I’ve gotten older, I have found Baroque music less interesting. But when I was younger, I loved his work.

He is mostly known for his instrumental work. The best known of these are the violin concertos The Four Seasons. I was found of his six flute concertos, most especially number 3, “Il gardellino.” I know that concerto so well that I’m pretty sure I still have it memorized, even though I haven’t played it in 30 years. I was surprised to find the following performance of it with James Galway on flute. It isn’t surprising that he would perform the piece, of course. But he’s reading music, and it surprises me that he doesn’t have it memorized. I suppose he isn’t as big a fan as I am. Of course, I never played it (or anything else) like this:

Another surprise to me was that Vivaldi wrote a lot of operas—at least 50, but according to one letter he wrote, 90! So I spent some time listening to some of his work. Now, I have to admit, I wasn’t hopeful. Opera didn’t really come into its all until the Classical period. And indeed, much of it is not terribly compelling. The over-technical aspects of Baroque music that work so well with most instruments sound awfully strained to me in the human voice. Still, there is much to like in Vivaldi’s operas.

Here is a bad video of a wonderful duet from one of Vivaldi’s later operas La Fida Ninfa. I think that translates “The Trusting Nymph.” It sounds playful. I will have to look into it more, but until then, enjoy this couple of minutes:

Happy birthday Antonio Vivaldi!

Three Nobels and a Funny Man

Posted on 28 Feb 2014 by Frank Moraes

Paul Krugman It has been one year since Pope Benedict XVI resigned. I think that is hilarious. I don’t begrudge him, but if God really cared about who the pope is, why would he allow such a thing? Wouldn’t he just kill the old man and have things work the right way? As with most thing religious, it just doesn’t make sense. But there is no doubt that the new pope is a much better choice to head the Catholic Church. While I don’t think that Pope Francis is going to do anything radical, he has already started to reform a lot of the corruption that is in the church. And if Catholicism is to survive as a going concern, it must evolve. And I say that knowing, as many conservative Catholics seem not to, that the church has always evolved. Once upon a time, the Catholic Church did not believe that a fertilized egg had a soul. Now it does. Perhaps it will further evolve to the point of understanding that it doesn’t. Pope Francis could lead the Catholic Church forward; Pope Benedict could only have led it backwards.

On this day in 1901, the great scientist Linus Pauling was born. His work spanned a number of fields. He was, at base, a chemist. His first Nobel Prize was for his work on chemical bounds in complex chemical structures. According to Wikipedia, “His discovery of sickle cell anemia as a ‘molecular disease’ opened the way toward examining genetically acquired mutations at a molecular level.” This is why Francis Crick said he was the father of molecular biology. Later in his life, he became a peace activist. His work against nuclear weapons proliferation and testing won him a second Nobel Prize. He also had some controversial beliefs about the effectiveness of vitamins in combating cancer. But no one is right all the time. He was far greater than any man has a right to be.

Last year, the day went to the great actor Zero Mostel who was born in 1915. As I noted then, I especially like him because of the feud that he had with Mel Brooks (a well established asshole who isn’t capable of giving anyone credit for anything) during the shooting of The Producers. Here he is in the film:

Other birthdays: philosopher Michel de Montaigne (1533); illustrator John Tenniel (1820); philosopher Ernest Renan (1823); screenwriter Ben Hecht (1894); pilot Jadwiga Piłsudska (94); actor Charles Durning (1923); actor Stanley Baker (1928); actor Gavin MacLeod (83); musician Brian Jones (1942); actor Bernadette Peters (66); actor John Turturro (57); and writer Daniel “Lemony Snicket” Handler (44).

The day, however, belongs to Paul Krugman who is 61 today. He is, as anyone who reads this blog knows, a great economist. His academic research was on deflation in Japan in the 1990s. That was perfect background for what has been happening in the west for the last seven years. The most important thing that he’s been saying since the start of this economic downturn is that inflation is not a problem. Slowly, it seems that liberal politicians have figured this out. Conservatives, of course, continue to think that hyperinflation is just around the corner. What’s really going on with conservatives is their belief that even the smallest amount of pain suffered by the rich is unacceptable. The truth is that if we doubled the current rate of inflation in this country, it would be a great thing for the working class. And it would not be that bad on the owning class. But given that the owning class also owns the political class, that will never be allowed to happen.

It is interesting that on this, his 61st birthday, Krugman also announced that he is leaving Princeton University to move to the Graduate Center, City University of New York. He says it is because his interests are now more in public policy than straight economics. Also, his life is more focused on New York. It still seems like an odd move, but I suspect City University is paying a lot for Krugman. Regardless, I like the idea of Krugman focusing more on public policy. I’ve always found his economic lecture slides kind of boring. But his outlook on the political environment is always insightful.

Happy birthday Paul Krugman!

John Steinbeck and Three Others

Posted on 27 Feb 2014 by Frank Moraes

John Steinbeck In 1807, the poet Henry Wadsworth Longfellow was born. I’m not a big fan of him, but there is no doubt that he was talented. Edgar Allan Poe, although at first an admirer of him later became his harshest critic. I don’t think it is widely know, but during his lifetime, Poe was known almost exclusively as a literary critic. People were not terribly interested in his fiction. Anyway, Poe correctly predicted that Longfellow’s work was derivative and would not live on. The main thing anyone knows is “Paul Revere’s Ride” and not because of its literary merit. But Poe was aware of his talent, having written that Longfellow was “a determined imitator and a dexterous adapter of the ideas of other people…” But Longfellow seems to have been a much nicer man than Poe. In the end, that matters a great deal more.

The great writer Irwin Shaw was born in 1913. I dedicated the day to him last year. I wrote:

About a year ago, I spent a couple of weeks with his Short Stories, Five Decades. It reminded me of when I first started writing about 25 years ago. I became obsessed with his short story “The Eighty-Yard Run.” I read it again and again. It tells the story of a man’s life from one day in high school that he looks back on as the pinnacle: an eighty-yard touchdown run during football practice. It is perceptive that Shaw used this example. In one way, anyone can understand that doing this would make a boy feel very good about himself. Life is like that: relatively little things can put on shine on life. But another way of looking at it is that it is pathetic. It is high school and it isn’t even a game—just a practice.

All of Shaw’s work is filled with unspoken truths. No one ever seems quite able to communicate what they think and feel—even to themselves. Everyone is left with the vague sadness that you think life is really all about when you are young. Of course, as you get older, you learn first hand that this is exactly what life is about. The one thing we all share is regret about everything. Shaw conveys this idea with an expansive collection of characters and their stories.

The great script writer Peter Stone was born in 1930. He is probably best known for writing the great screenplay for the film Charade. But he also wrote Who is Killing the Great Chefs of Europe? as well as the very lively script for Sherman Edwards’ 1776. Here is the wonderfully silly trailer of the wonderfully silly Chefs:

Other birthdays: the man who killed Christianity as a vibrant religion, Constantine the Great (272 AD); Russian realist painter Nikolai Ge (1831); jurist Hugo Black (1886); historian Arthur M Schlesinger Sr (1888); actor Joanne Woodward (84); actor Elizabeth Taylor (1932); activist Ralph Nader (80); actor Howard Hesseman (74); actor Timothy Spall (57); Sid Vicious’ murdered girlfriend Nancy Spungen (1958); and actor Richard Coyle (42).

The day, however, belongs to John Steinbeck who was born on this day in 1902. He is probably my favorite novelist. He grew up in a wealthy family. Of course, that was during the robber baron days when inequality wasn’t as bad as it today. So he wasn’t out of touch. In fact, he worked at nearby ranches during his summers where he was introduced to migrants and others who weren’t working as just a summer job. It is easy, however, for a person like Steinbeck to not see the problem. Doing a crummy job voluntarily and temporarily while you wait to enter Stanford University isn’t that bad. But the experience did have a profound impact on his life. And we see that in books like The Grapes of Wrath and Of Mice and Men and Cannery Row.

Steinbeck is a great writer in terms of raw storytelling ability, but certainly not better than William Faulkner. Yet I never think it is a good idea to go read some Faulkner, even though I greatly admire him. But I read at least some Steinbeck every year. Even as harsh as his stories sometimes are, I always find them edifying. Steinbeck’s point of view is eternally the same as mine: humanistic. He always understands his characters and sympathizes with them, even when they aren’t sympathetic. That’s the way I look at the world—or at least try to.

Happy birthday John Steinbeck!

Christopher Marlowe and Two Singers

Posted on 26 Feb 2014 by Frank Moraes

Christopher Marlowe Today is the anniversary of the birthday post. I made it! But the truth is that it evolved over time. At first, I just focused on a single person and then went on to do multiple people. The format we have today is probably only about six months old. I think I would like to go back to the single narrative, and I’ll start that on the first of March. Sometimes that will be a regular article and other times it will just be a paragraph. I’m not going to sweat it. And most of all, we will continue my usual style of using birthdays to go off on tangents. If you want to read biographies, there’s always Wikipedia and the local library.

Fats Domino is 86 today and still performing. He was the first person ever in the birthday post. Basically, it was just a video of him performing “Blueberry Hill.” Here is his first hit, “The Fat Man”:

Johnny Cash was born in 1932. He did some great work, but he is wildly overrated. But the world would be a poorer place without “Folsom Prison Blues.” I especially like when he performed it on At Folsom Prison. After the line “But I shot a man in Reno just to watch him die,” the prisoners cheer. It’s horrible and humorous at the same time. I think some people miss the pedagogical point of the song. Oh well. Here’s Cash on television four years later doing it to screaming teen fans:

Other birthdays: the great novelist Victor Hugo (1802); blue jean tycoon Levi Strauss (1829); cowboy showman Buffalo Bill (1846); actor Jackie Gleason (1916); actor Tony Randall (1920); art director Dante Ferretti (71); singer-songwriter Mitch Ryder (69); and musician Jonathan Cain (64).

The day, however, belongs to the great Elizabethan playwright Christopher Marlowe who was baptized on this day in 1564. His best known play is Doctor Faustus. This is a shame because in many ways, it is his weakest. I think the reason people still do it is because it is fun to stage. When Orson Welles directed the play in 1937, he let fly all of his interest in magic and turned the play into a magic show. But the language in Doctor Faustus is still very strong. I would say that Marlowe was a far more consistent writer than Shakespeare in that regard.

The thing is, Shakespeare was a slightly later writer than Marlowe. And as such, his plays are less poetic than Marlowe’s. If you watch a Marlowe play, you can actually hear the poetry. That isn’t often the case with Shakespeare, whose poetry is more like natural language. As a result of this, many scholars claim that Shakespeare is better. But playwrights after Shakespeare, like John Webster and Thomas Middleton, wrote in an even more natural style. None of them wrote anything like what one would consider natural dialog, however. So for my money, it is better to have poetry that sounds like poetry rather than vaguely stilted dialog. I recommend checking out Derek Jarman’s filmed version of Edward II. It is very good.

Unfortunately, Marlowe barely lived to the age of 29. He got in a fight and ended up being stabbed in the eye. This has caused some amount of speculation. He was awaiting trial for heresy. It was not the first time he had been arrested; Marlowe lived a colorful life. But given that he had done some spying for the court when he was at university, people speculate that he was “gotten rid of.” And it could be. Then again, Marlowe ran with a rough crowd, and it is easy to imagine them all getting drunk and ending up fighting. I tend to go with the more obvious theory. Of course maybe Marlowe faked his death and then went on to write Shakespeare’s plays for him!

(For the record, there is the ultimate reason why we know that Marlowe didn’t write Shakespeare’s plays: their styles are nothing alike. If there is one thing that all these years of reading and watching and memorizing Shakespeare have taught me, it is that Shakespeare repeats himself a lot. He has very definable cadences. He reuses the same phrases. His wit is quite distinct. Marlowe is nothing like that. I wish people would stop reading about these conspiracy theories and just read some of the actual playwrights. All of this discussion would go away.)

The following are two brief scenes from a production of Doctor Faustus at Shakespeare’s Globe Theater. The first scene is standard, in all versions of the play. The second scene is from the later version of the play and may or may not have been written by Marlowe. Regardless, the company has changed the scene a lot to rather good effect.

Happy baptismal day Christopher Marlowe!

The Renoir Patriarch

Posted on 25 Feb 2014 by Frank Moraes

Pierre-Auguste Renoir On this day in 1663, the English writer Pierre Antoine Motteux was born. He is most remembered today for his English translation of Don Quixote. It is generally regarded as terrible. When I first started studying the book, I wrote of this translation, “I originally thought that Peter Motteux’s translation dated from the Victorian period, because of its pomposity. In fact, it is the earliest translation that I looked at—dating back to 1712. Predating Jarvis by only three decades (When a decade meant something!), this translation seems like it comes from another world. I still find its writing style ‘sticky.'” My hero Samuel Putnam writes, “Peter Anthony Motteux was a tea merchant who dabbled in lterature, and it might have been better if he had confined himself to the China trade.” John Ormsby called it, “Worse than worthless.” Richard Ford called it “the very worst.” And Bertram Worlfe called it “the odious Motteux translation.” It has been, not surprisingly, the most popular in the United States until Putnam’s 1949 publication. Now, of course, really good translations seem to come out every couple of years.

Singer-songwriter George Harrison was born in 1943. Like all the members of The Beatles, he’s overrated. But I still like his stuff. Here he is doing one of his best, “My Sweet Lord”:

Doug Yule is 67 today. He was John Cale’s replacement in The Velvet Underground. He added a lot to the band. And Lou Reed was a total dick to him. I know, Lou Reed was a dick to everyone. But Reed was able to be a much bigger dick to Yule. Reed prevented Yule from being inducted into The Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. That was actually the thing that really turned me against Reed. That was when Reed was 54, so I don’t think there is any excuse for it except, of course, that Reed is a dick. Here is “Who Loves the Sun” from Loaded with Yule on lead vocals:

Comedy writer Jack Handey is 65. I only know him from his Saturday Night Live bits “Deep Thoughts.” This is one of the best:

Other birthdays: actor Zeppo Marx (1901); playwright Mary Chase (1907); actor Jim Backus (1913); comedy writer Larry Gelbart (1928); film director Neil Jordan (64); musician John Doe (60); and comedian Carrot Top (49).

The day, however, belongs to the great impressionist Pierre-Auguste Renoir who was born on this day in 1841. A problem I have with a lot of the impressionists is that their work is too pat. Renoir combines incredible skill with a unique perspective. His ability to capture light was as great as Monet’s, but he took it much further. That is especially true in the latter part of his career when he took a turn toward classicism. This eventually led to his best work like Grandes Baigneuses:

Happy birthday Pierre-Auguste Renoir!

Johnny Winter’s Mississippi Blues

Posted on 23 Feb 2014 by Frank Moraes

Johnny Winter On this day in 1685, George Frideric Handel was born. [Actually, that’s old calendar; his actually birthday was on 5 March 1685. -FM] As I’ve gotten older, I’ve become very bored with Baroque period music. I think that Classical period music is perfect because it has far more emotional depth than Baroque without hitting me over the head with it as much Romantic period music does. What we see is mostly a move from highly contrapuntal work of the Baroque period to an emphasis on harmonic structure in the Romantic period. I like all the counterpoint, but I want something more. Still, in the case of Handel, there is much that I still admire. Although I think that Bach is the more important composer, I enjoy listening to Handel more. Here is something great, “Ombra Mai Fu” from Serse:

Other birthdays: philosopher Richard Price (1723); public intellectual W E B Du Bois (1868); painter Kazimir Malevich (1878); philosopher Karl Jaspers (1883); film director Victor Fleming (1889); good hack film director Norman Taurog (1899); film director Claude Sautet (1924); actor Majel Barrett (1932); experimental filmmaker Paul Morrissey (76); actor Peter Fonda (74); humorist Tom Bodett (59); singer-songwriter Howard Jones (59); and actor Tamsin Greig (47).

The day, however, belongs to the great blues guitarist Johnny Winter who is 70 today. Despite the fact that his life is generally a mess, his music is always so finely crafted. I don’t know anyone who surpasses him in terms of his musical ideas. His lead playing is as good as anyone, including Hendrix. But what is most impressive is his rhythm playing. You see him doing both in this version of “Mississippi Blues”:

Happy birthday Johnny Winter!

Terry and Arthur

Posted on 22 Feb 2014 by Frank Moraes

Terry Eagleton On this day in 1732, the first US president George Washington was born. The less said about him, the better.

Arthur Schopenhauer was born in 1788. He is probably my favorite philosopher. Not surprisingly, he was a proponent of philosophical pessimism, which is “a worldview or ethic that seeks to face up to the distasteful realities of the world and eliminate irrational hopes and expectations.” I think that puts rather too rosy a gloss on what Schopenhauer wrote. I don’t actually accept his idea in The World as Will and Representation, but I nonetheless think he is onto something profound. The will is what keeps us living even though life is nothing so much as a sequence of painful events. As Wikipedia describes the will as it applies to ontology, “Schopenhauer presents a pessimistic picture on which unfulfilled desires are painful, and pleasure is merely the sensation experienced at the instant one such pain is removed. However, most desires are never fulfilled, and those that are fulfilled are instantly replaced by more unfulfilled ones.” On the other hand, if you look at those photos of him as an old man, I think you can tell that he saw humor in the absurdities of life. Ultimately, I think that is our only hope. Because life does not make sense and continuing through all of this pain makes no sense. If it gets better, it will only be temporary.

The tallest man in human history, Robert Wadlow was born in 1918. He was 8 feet 11 inches tall—three feet taller than his father. When I was a kid, I thought he was amazing. Now I look at him and I am filled with sadness. How can people look at him and think that there is a loving god. The man lived in pain most of his life and if he had lived longer, he certainly would have reached the point where he couldn’t walk. What a mess.

Other birthdays: the great Romantic period composer Frederic Chopin (1810); poet James Russell Lowell (1819); astronomer Pierre Janssen (1824); physicists Heinrich Hertz (1857); the great chess writer Savielly Tartakower (1887); the great film director Luis Bunuel (1900); actor John Mills (1908); announcer Don Pardo (96); film director David Greene (1921); actor Paul Dooley (86); statesman Ted Kennedy (1932); film director Jonathan Demme (70); actor Julie Walters (64); actor Kyle MacLachlan (55); and actor Drew Barrymore (39).

The day, however, belongs to the great Shakespearean scholar Terry Eagleton who is 71 today. But the truth is that I don’t know much about his work. I have one of his books, William Shakespeare. It was my first exposure to him where he wrote, “To any unprejudiced reader—which would seem to exclude Shakespeare himself, his contemporary audiences and almost all literary critics—it is surely clear that positive vlue in Macbeth lies with the three witches.” He goes on to discuss how the witches are democratic whereas the Scots are hierarchical and so on. How can you not love a man who would write such a thing?

Since then, I have read a number of Eagleton’s book. He writes these very insightful short books on philosophy such as Reason, Faith, and Revolution and On Evil. I especially like him because intellectually he is an outsider. Just as I am an atheist who offends all other atheists, he is a Christian who offends all other Christians. This is pretty much because my form of atheism is the same as his form of Christianity. Regardless, he is always worth reading because he always has something interesting to say, unlike most intellectuals.

Happy birthday Terry Eagleton!

John Rawls and David Foster Wallace

Posted on 21 Feb 2014 by Frank Moraes

John Rawls On this day in 1836, the French composer Leo Delibes was born. He composed primarily for the stage, so: opera and ballet. As you know, I’m not a great lover of later Romantic period music. But as it goes, Delibes really is one of the best. He crafted very strong contrapuntal melodies. For example, although you are probably unaware, you know “The Flower Duet” from his last opera Lakme, which is some of the most beautiful music you will ever hear. Since most of the people in my life hate opera for reasons that do not speak well for a single one of them, I offer up the following Pizzicato from his ballet Sylvia. You all probably know this from the same place we all got our original education in classical music: Looney Tunes:

The great classical guitarist Andres Segovia was born in 1893. Here he is toward the end of his life play Enrique Granados’ Danza in G:

One of the greatest writers of the 20th century David Foster Wallace was born in 1962. He is best known for the novel Infinite Jest, and interestingly, I just requested it from the library. I’ve decided to yet again make a pointless effort to write my own expansive postmodern novel with a hundred characters. The problem is not the characters. As a writer, character development is the only thing that I think I’m good at. The problem is the broader structure—making everything work together. And also the absolute overload of creative genius that comes from Wallace on the micro and macro scale. And what my limited mind can only call his breezy style. So my effort is doomed to failure, but at least I’ll get another pass at Infinite Jest. Where I think I might have more success is in mimicking Wallace’s nonfiction. This too is destined to fail. What bothers me about Wallace is that he was so great at describing life and at creating things that made life worth living, but that ultimately he was unable to deal with life. Here he is talking about how funny Kafka is:

And it is this, I think, that makes Kafka’s wit inaccessible to children whom our culture has trained to see jokes as entertainment and entertainment as reassurance. It’s not that students don’t “get” Kafka’s humor but that we’ve taught them to see humor as something you get—the same way we’ve taught them that a self is something you just have. No wonder they cannot appreciate the really central Kafka joke: that the horrific struggle to establish a human self results in a self whose humanity is inseparable from that horrific struggle. That our endless and impossible journey toward home is in fact our home. It’s hard to put into words, up at the blackboard, believe me. You can tell them that maybe it’s good they don’t “get” Kafka. You can ask them to imagine his stories as all about a kind of door. To envision us approaching and pounding on this door, increasingly hard, pounding and pounding, not just wanting admission but needing it; we don’t know what it is but we can feel it, this total desperation to enter, pounding and ramming and kicking. That, finally, the door opens… and it opens outward—we’ve been inside what we wanted all along. Das ist komisch.

Actually, it is not funny.

Other birthdays: religious reformer Shah Waliullah (1703); sculptor Goscombe John (1860); Russian painter Pyotr Konchalovsky (1876); French-language playwright Sacha Guitry (1885); English playwright Clemence Dane (1888); writer Anais Nin (1903); actor Ann Sheridan (1915); great director Sam Peckinpah (1925); humorist Erma Bombeck (1927); singer-songwriter Nina Simone (1933); destroyer of music David Geffen (71); actor Alan Rickman (68); and musician Jerry Harrison (65).

The day, however, belongs to the great political philosopher John Rawls who was born on this day in 1921. A few months ago I wrote, John Rawls and Disingenuousness. It was about his concept of universality in political legitimacy. The problem is that Rawls was a serious thinker. Now, all stripes of conservative cloak their faith-based and power-based beliefs in a patina of universality. So instead of arguing that abortion is wrong because God said so, for example, they argue that abortion is wrong because a woman is pregnant with a full citizen, even when it is just a fertilized egg without a brain. Nonetheless, it is thrilling to read Rawls, and spend time thinking about weighty moral issues instead of dealing with all the disingenuous political rhetoric that burbles from the right constantly.

Rawls is best know for his concept of the veil of ignorance. He argued that a just society would be the one you would pick if you didn’t know where you would be born into it. So, for example, no reasonable person would choose a slave society, because they might well end up a slave. Most people would choose a reasonably equitable society. To me, I think that beyond the issue of where you are born in society, you would need to consider how you were born. That would address questions such as, “How are we to treat the physically disabled.” It’s a very useful way of looking at moral questions.

Happy birthday John Rawls!

Richard Matheson and Andrew Bergman

Posted on 20 Feb 2014 by Frank Moraes

Richard Matheson Sorry to be gone all day. This working for money thing is very time consuming. I’m sure I would be doing a lot better if I had an actual job. But keeping clients happy is exhausting.

On this day in 1902, the great photographer Ansel Adams was born. He is best known for his nature photography. But of course, he did far more than that. In fact, his work spanned seven decades and just about any subject you can think of. Mostly, he was interested in nature, however. People especially know his work of Yosemite. I especially associate him with the Timber Cove Inn, which is one of my favorite places on earth. Like most places in California, Adams spent time there and photographed it. Unfortunately, I can’t find any of those photos online. So here’s just one of many beautiful photographs of his, “Workers Against Mt Williamson”:

The great film director Robert Altman was born in 1925. I don’t know quite what to make of him stylistically. To some extent, I think his brilliance was just in his willingness to do different things. So much of his work was simply playing with genres. That’s particularly true in things like The Long Goodbye and Gosford Park. But he also made films that are just unique like MASH and Nashville and 3 Women. But above all, he made one of my very favorite films, McCabe & Mrs Miller. This following scene from it provides a good idea of the moral universe of the film. The cowboy is probably the most likable character in the whole thing. But don’t get the wrong idea: it isn’t a world where evil triumphs. It just isn’t a world where anything especially triumphs. Everyone just muddles long.

The film writer-director Andrew Bergman is 69 today. I really admire his work. He is one of the greatest comedy writers ever. His script for The In-Laws is the funniest thing I’ve ever seen. He is also the true genius behind Blazing Saddles, although as usual, Mel Brooks has done everything he can to minimize the work of his betters. What has always amazed me about Bergman’s films (The Freshman, Soapdish, Striptease) is that they are funny all the way through. A big problem with most comedies is that they stop being funny in the third act. That is never the case with Bergman’s scripts and when he is also directing the comedy continues to the end like a freight train. It’s very possible I should have given the day to him. Unfortunately, like a lot of filmmakers I admire, he doesn’t make films anymore. Here is one of many funny scenes from The In-Laws:

Other birthday: Dutch Golden Age painter Jan de Baen (1633); Classical composer Adalbert Gyrowetz (1763); physicist Ludwig Boltzmann (1844); playwright Russel Crouse (1893); psychologist Elizabeth Holloway Marston (1893); architect Louis Kahn (1901); choreographer Gillian Lynne (88); actor Sidney Poitier (87); singer Nancy Wilson (77); director Mike Leigh (71); Patty Hearst (60); MST3K creator Joel Hodgson (54); basketball player Charles Barkley (51); actor French Stewart (50); model Cindy Crawford (48); musician Kurt Cobain (1967); and actor Lili Taylor (47).

The day, however, belongs to the great writer Richard Matheson who was born on this day in 1926. He is best known for having written I Am Legend, which was the basis for four feature films, including the film that terrified me as a child, The Last Man on Earth. But what is remarkable is just how much Matheson wrote. So much of the great stuff from The Twilight Zone was written by him, including the classic “Nightmare at 20,000 Feet.” He wrote the Star Trek episode “The Enemy Within” where Kirk is turned into his good and evil parts. He wrote a number of Roger Corman’s Edgar Allan Poe films, as well as the similar (and wonderful) The Comedy of Terrors. And he wrote the short story and screenplay for Steven Spielberg’s television movie Duel. He also wrote roughly 30 novels and countless short stories. He was truly an amazing writer.

Happy birthday Richard Matheson!

Circling the Sun With Copernicus

Posted on 19 Feb 2014 by Frank Moraes

Nicolaus Copernicus On this day in 1924, the chess Grandmaster David Bronstein was born. In 1951, he made it to the World Chess Championship to challenge Mikhail Botvinnik. And over the course of 24 games, they ended tied with 12 points each—five wins each, and 14 draws. So Botvinnik retained the championship. Garry Kasparov claims that based upon the quality of the play, Bornstein should have won. He was an extremely innovative player and one of the greatest chess writers. And shockingly, he won a major tournament at the age of 70.

John Frankenheimer was born in 1930. He was a great director whose films included a string of three in the early 1960s: Birdman of Alcatraz, The Manchurian Candidate, and Seven Days in May. He is best known for thrillers, such as Black Sunday. And then there is Ronin. I’m very fond of it: a very intelligent action film. It had some of the best car chases I had ever seen. This included a chase going the wrong way down a freeway. And then, I started seeing that in just about every movie. I’m pretty sure Ronin was the one that started it. Now, I hate to see it. But I still think this is pretty cool. Those other directors are amateurs.

The singer and songwriter Smokey Robinson is 74 today. I don’t have a lot to say other than he really is one of the greatest songwriters ever. Here he is doing “Tears of a Clown”:

Other birthdays: playwright David Garrick (1717); physical chemist Svante Arrhenius (1859); sculptor Constantin Brancusi (1876); expressionist painter Gabriele Munter (1877); actor Merle Oberon (1911); actor Lee Marvin (1924); game designer Danielle Bunten Berry (1949); novelist Amy Tan (62); fine actor Jeff Daniels (59); novelist Helen Fielding (56); actor Justine Bateman (48); and another really good actor Benicio del Toro (47).

The day, however, belongs to Nicolaus Copernicus who was born on this day in 1473. He’s the guy who put together the first model of the solar system with the sun in the middle. That was a brilliant insight. I remember a story about student talking to his teacher, “Those primitive people were so stupid to think the sun goes around the earth.” And the teacher replied, “Yes, just imagine how it would have looked if that were true!” The point is that it would look the same. There is nothing obvious about thinking the earth goes around the sun. Indeed, did you see this article, Poll: 26 Percent in US Do Not Know Earth Goes Around Sun. And the funny thing? “[Americans] did better than EU residents on the question about whether Earth moves around the sun.” Go figure.

There’s an interesting thing about Copernicus’ model, though. It wasn’t very successful. He had a brilliant insight, but it still wasn’t right. He had planets moving around the sun in circles. Well, they don’t move in circles. The world had to wait almost a hundred years for Johannes Kepler’s insight that the planets moved in ellipses. (Yes, I know that circles are ellipses!) So all those old models with the earth at the center of the universe might have been complicated, but they were still better at predicting where things would be in the sky. So old Copernicus made a necessary (And difficult!) contribution to knowledge, but all alone, it wasn’t sufficient to improve the practical science.

Also: Copernicus was old. And wise. He waited until he was dying to publish his book. No torture for him! That’s my kind of guy.

Happy birthday Nicolaus Copernicus!

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