He Knew All The Words

Stephanie’s vinyl copy of The River

Decades ago I took a long walk down Broadway from West 109th Street down to St. Mark’s Place on the Lower East Side. When I arrived at my friend Bill’s place, he was excited to play for me a track from Bruce Springsteen’s Live 1975–86 album. It was the title cut from The River and on it Springsteen takes a long, slow introduction to tell his story of teenage rebellion, his narrow-miss on being sucked into the hell of Vietnam, and his complicated and loving relationship with his father. All Bill said was “Listen to this” and he pressed play on the CD player. For five minutes we listened as Bruce told his tale. At the end, just before Bruce starts the song, when Bruce reveals the depths and the truth of his father’s love, Bill burst into tears.

After a long night of playing vinyl records tonight, when I finally turned to my sister’s old vinyl copy of The River, I remembered Bill’s sweet emotional reaction, and I bought the iTunes download of Live 1975–85. I jumped right to the track “The River” and listened to that long, winding tale of an intro for the first time in decades. I, too, burst into tears at the end.

And then Bruce and the band rock sweetly on with the song.

I’m obsessed with this video and wish I could dance like this man. Watch it full-screen for full effect.

I’m beside myself because my family and I are going to see Paris Opera Ballet on September 24. Just us, 2000 thousand Parisians, and the Palais Garnier. Oh, and some of the best dancers in the world. Doing an all Balanchine program! Serenade, Agon, and Prodigal Son — three ballets that could couldn’t be more different in style, but which are united in showing Balanchine’s absolute mastery and genius.

Third trip to Paris, third time seeing this company. I saw them twice in New York as well — once fifteen years ago and finally again this summer. But to have them doing an all Balanchine program is beyond my wildest dreams.

I wish Sen. Sanders a long, healthy, and politically active life.

The folks over at GetEqual used one of my tweets in a video pushing for President Obama to come out in favor of marriage equality. The last few days have seen a serious increase of pressure on the president, because of his previous statements about his views “evolving.” His arrival here in NYC today just as the Republican-controlled State Senate is turning itself into a pretzel trying to decide whether to vote on the marriage bill is causing a good number of his supports to push him harder. At the beginning of his term he asked us to hold his feet to the fire. Well, we are. The Advocate has a report on some US Senators calling on the president to get on the right side of history on the marriage question. And there will be a protest rally outside of his fundraiser tonight. I have no illusions that he’ll change his official view or announce anything new tonight. But it’s good to see the pressure build.

My tweet comes onscreen just after the 20-second mark of this video. And now the waiting for the State Senate continues….

UPDATE
Okay, so how’s June 23, 2011 gonna turn out? Let’s see what’s happened so far:
1. President Obama addresses an LGBT fundraiser and repeats everything he’s ever said — he understands our impatience, we deserve equal rights under the law, blah blah blah. Nothing new at all. He acknowledges the fight for marriage equality currently going on in Albany — and doesn’t even say he hopes we win. Then I see this tweet from a Huffington Post reporter:

You’ve got to be fucking kidding me.

2. Defense Secretary Gates delivers some LGBT news. He will NOT be certifying the repeal of DADT by the end of the month, when he steps down from his post. Incoming Def Sec Panetta has not given any indication of when certification might happen.

3. We are in a holding pattern, waiting for REPUBLICANS in the New York State Senate to bless us with our god-given rights. A vote may come tonight. It may not. If it does, it may pass. It may not. We’re relying on Republicans here, so, you know, you do the math…. Here’s hoping they prove me wrong.

Moving piano version of one of Gabriel’s best songs.

Rest in peace, Phoebe Snow.

And here is a wonderful Paul Simon song that features Phoebe Snow. It’s from his Still Crazy After All These Years LP:

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We two boys together clinging,
One the other never leaving,
Up and down the roads going, North and South excursions making,
Power enjoying, elbows stretching, fingers clutching,
Arm’d and fearless, eating, drinking, sleeping, loving.
No law less than ourselves owning, sailing, soldiering, thieving,
threatening,
Misers, menials, priests alarming, air breathing, water drinking, on
the turf or the sea-beach dancing,
Cities wrenching, ease scorning, statutes mocking, feebleness
chasing,
Fulfilling our foray.

–Walt Whitman, Leaves of Grass, 1900

Based on a story from Plato’s Symposium, this song by Stephen Trask from “Hedwig and the Angry Inch” is not only one of the best songs from a musical in the last 15 years, it’s one the best songs — period — of the last 15 years. It came on my iPod today as I was shuffling my whole music library, and even all these years later is still gives me chills. If you haven’t seen the movie, do.

After two decades of listening to the recording of John Adams’s Nixon in China, last night I finally attended a performance of it — with Adams himself conducting, at the Metropolitan Opera. It was absolute thrilling. The production is a modified version of the original 1987 production, by theater bad-boy Peter Sellars. And the role of Nixon was sung by James Maddalena, who originated the role at its premiere. These are Met debut performances for both him and Adams himself.

The music for Nixon in China is a wonderful blend of lyricism and minimalism — completely tonal and surprisingly catchy. And the structure of the piece is genius — three acts, with three scenes in the first, two in the second, and one in the third. And the brilliant libretto by Alice Goodman begins as narrative and plot, morphs into abstraction and metaphor, and ends as pure poetry. The entire libretto is written in couplets, and is a poetic tour de force.

Highlights of the staging include the Act I landing of Air Force One (or, The Spirit of ’76 as Nixon named it) with the two lead singers deplaning looking every bit the parts of Dick and Pat; the play-within-the-play second scene of Act II with terrific choreography by Mark Morris; and the dreamy, exhausted, reflective tone of having all six lead characters draped over their beds in Act III. I got the sense that this opera was way ahead of its time — with its current staging and status by being at the Met its first foray into being an actual standard repertory piece. Let’s hope so.

The world will be a better place because of this. I am sorry to hear it’s in 3D, as I think that’s a terrible format, but Wenders is such a master that I don’t think it will matter.

New York Harbor / Battery Park City / Laura Howell / January 2011

 

I had a call yesterday from Doctors Without Borders. I made a donation to them a year ago immediately after the earthquake, and they were following up to ask me to give again. I did, and urge you to do the same. Click below…

UPDATE:
After I posted this I saw this report at GiveWell.org naming Doctors Without Borders among the best places to give. In discussing various organizations to which people might make donations, they say:

With the information we’ve collected so far we feel that Doctors Without Borders, Partners In Health, and Direct Relief International stand out from the rest of the organizations we’ve reviewed, in that they have discussed their activities with unusual clarity (even if not what we consider strong clarity).