NFL Roundup + Victor Cruz, Interviewed

Classes start on Wednesday, tomorrow are the Iowa caucuses, so I'll keep this post light.  The NFL season finished today, and the team I root for, the Saint Louis Rams, lost to the San Francisco 49ers 34-27 and finished last in their division and worst in the National Football Conference, tying the Indianapolis Colts with a 2-14 record for most abysmal in the NFL.  Known a decade ago as "The Greatest Show on Turf" for their high-octane offense, the Rams have turned into a hapless crew since 2006 and managed only 197 points in 2011 while upholding their longstanding reputation as lacking any defense whatsoever, allowing opponents to score 407 points against them. While this wasn't the most points allowed this season, it was the worst points for-points against differential in either league, and a sign of how awful the Rams play, how awful their coaching is, and how awful the management has been in drafting and signing talented players. 

Sam Bradford, Rams QB

This morning the Rams' owner Stan Kroenke, to the relief of Rams fans everywhere and the surprise of no one, fired the coach, Steve Spagnuolo, a supposed defensive specialist, and General Manager Billy Devaney, who had been in place respectively since 2009 and 2008. Spagnuolo's record in successive seasons was 1-15 (2009); 7-9 (2010); and this year's 2-14 (2011), despite having a talented young quarter, Sam Bradford, and an outstanding runningback in Steven Jackson. Over the three-year span, Spagnuolo and Devaney went 10-38, while under Devaney's watch the team went 12-52.  Leading candidates for the job include former Tennessee Titans coach Jeff Fisher and former Tampa Bay Buccaneers coach Jon Gruden, but without a complete and thorough assessment of why the Rams continually lag in certain areas, such as a strong offensive line, a credible defense, and special teams play, not even the best coach available is going to be able to do anything with this gang except take the field and collect a paycheck. Clean house, and pronto.

Making the playoffs this year were several perennials, and some newcomers. In the NFC, the top team was the Green Bay Packers, who finished 15-1, and led the Central Division. Other playoff NFC playoff teams include the East Division champion New York Giants (9-7); the North Division's runner-up team, the Detroit Lions (10-6); the South Division's champions, the New Orleans Saints (13-3) and runner-ups Atlanta Falcons (10-6), and the always-shaky West Division's champions 49ers, who went 13-3 this season.  In the AFC, the top team overall was, yet again, the East Division powerhouse New England Patriots (13-3). Yawn. Other playoff teams include the North Division's Baltimore Ravens (12-4), who finished with a record identical to--but on differentials slipped past--division rivals the Pittsburgh Steelers (12-4). Also making the playoffs in the North Division were the Cincinnati Bengals (9-7).  A surprising playoff team was this year's South Division winner, the Houston Texans, who finished 10-6, ahead of the Titans, Jaguars and Colts, any one of which is usually a playoff candidate. The final AFC playoff team is the 8-8 Denver Broncos, who are probably best known these days not for their play but for a single player, the ultradevout quarterback Tim Tebow, who managed to complete only 8 passes over the last two games, but will face Pittsburgh next because the Oakland Raiders lost to the San Diego Chargers.

The playoff picture thus looks like this:

AFC:
(1) Patriots
(2) Ravens
(6) Bengals at (3) Texans
(5) Steelers at (4) Broncos

NFC:
(1) Packers
(2) 49ers
(6) Lions at (3) Saints
(5) Falcons at (4) Giants

Saturday: Bengals at Texans (4:30 ET); Lions at Saints (8 ET)
Sunday: Falcons at Giants (1 ET); Steelers at Broncos (4:30)

Jan. 22: AFC championship (3 ET)
NFC championship (6:30 ET)

Feb. 5: Super Bowl XLVI at Indianapolis (6:30 ET)

My predictions: either the Packers or the Saints vs. New England, which means I hope the Packers or Saints win. Should it not be New England the Pittsburgh Steelers make it to the Super Bowl, I'll go with them.

+++

Here is one of this season's standout players, Victor Cruz, a native of Paterson, New Jersey, speaking with Marly Rivera of ESPNNewYork, in Spanish--and Spanglish, about his team, the New York Giants, and his career.  He was not a Giants fan growing up, nor was he a supporter of the Jets either.  His team: Dallas! His favorite player growing up? Michael Irving! Say it ain't so, Victor.  Rivera asks Cruz some very personal questions, including whether he'll name his soon-to-be-born child "Vincent," after the coach and the Super Bowl's Vince Lombardi trophy. Hello? He has another name in mind--you won't guess it, but a hint: it's one of the main streets running through Hudson County, and an iconic American president. Embedding has been disabled, so click on this link to see the video, and the incredible Mr. Cruz.

News Bits + Word Quiz (Angela Carter)

Nelson Mandela, 93! & family
(Peter Morey/EPA)

Some news links that struck me today:

NY Times: "Obama taps former Ohio official for Consumer Agency"
(No Elizabeth Warren, but Obama does pick one of her close associates and a foe of the banks' excessive power and sway)

McClatchy: "Justice Dept. lawyers contradict FBI findings in anthrax case"
(i.e., the case against Bruce Ivins was weak, and the real culprits remain out there, as Glenn Greenwald and others argued long ago)

Guardian UK: "News Int'l hacking whistleblower Paul Hoare found dead in his apartment"
(Talk about strange "coincidences"....)

LA Times: "Borders finds no buyer, moves towards liquidation"
(One of the major chains is on its last leg, or half of one, and could be gone by the end of this week)

Raw Story: "US Senate confirms first openly gay district judge, Paul Oetken"
(Another major advance for LGBTQ equality, a month after NY State's approval of same sex marriages)

Mail & Guardian: "South Africans mark Nelson Mandela's birthday"
(Madiba turns 93)

The Mainichi Daily News: "Over 500 cows found shipped after having eaten radiactive straw near Fukushima reactor disaster"
(The ongoing worst nuclear reactor disaster ever, in northeastern Japan and exceeding that of Chernobyl, has not gotten anywhere near the coverage it deserves, and the Japanese government's response remains inadequate)

LA Times: "NFL owners may approve new labor deal on Friday"
(More revenue money for players, a lower salary cap, lower bonuses for rookies, $1 billion for pensions and benefits, and greater emphasis on safety, especially brain injuries)

***

WORD QUIZ: ANGELA CARTER

Most J's Theater readers in the US are probably well past their PSAT, SAT and ACT experiences--though I keep it fairly clean, so the youngsters can drop in here too if they like--and are probably not thinking about vocabulary tests. (I can't recall if there are vocabulary tests on the GMATs, MCATs, etc.--if so, keep reading). Recently, however, in the course of returning to stories in Burning Your Boats: The Collected Short Stories (London: Chatto & Windus, 1995), by the late, prolific and ever beguiling British writer Angela Carter (1940-1992) who, as her biographical dates suggest, died far too young, I found myself noting down a number of words from her stories that I had to look up or that I knew but felt compelled, because of their beauty and rarity, to record, in my notebook.

Carter usually incorporates these words, most of which are Latinate in origin, in such a way that they feel integral to the narrative voice and the narrative itself; in Bloody Chamber's stories, for example, the narration is often elevated in such a way as to take the reader outside of any chronological time, yet Carter will then juxtapose the exalted and sometimes baroque diction and syntax with a very contemporary word or phrase, a very up-to-date intonation, so as to jar the reader out of any easy or simplistic identification or understanding of what's going on. It also makes for thrilling prose; with language so arrestingly vertiginous, the plot and characters need not do all or even most of the work.

One quote, from "Master" (p. 76):

He travelled by jeep through an invariable terrain of architectonic vegetation where no wind lifted the fronds of palms as ponderous as if they had been sculpted out of viridian gravity at the beginning of time and then abandoned, whose trunks were so heavy they did not seem to rise into the air but, instead, drew the oppressive sky down upon the forest like a coverlid of burnished metal."

So: here's the challenge. Without looking up the words, see how many of the follow 10 you can define off the top of your head. The answers appear after the break (if you're reading this on the iPhone/iPad app, I'm not sure how it'll appear, so perhaps cover the answers with your fingers). I should add that I used one of these words in my second book and in my current one, and it remains as strange to me now as it did then, which is why I have employed it.

1.  palliasse
2.  lancinating
3.  stertorous
4.  osier
5.  linnet
6.  castellated
7.  reticule
8.  cloisonné
9.  lustratory
10.  prothalamion

End-of-Week Roundup + Memories of Chekhov

A girl holds a South Sudan flag with stripes symbolising the people, their blood and the land. Photograph: Ho/Reuters

After decades of war, South Sudan is now an independent country! It broke away from Sudan, has its new capital at Juba, and its new president is Salva Kiir. Eight facts about the new Republic of South Sudan. Congratulations!


Elizabeth Ann Bloomer Warren Ford, better known as Betty Ford (1918-2011), the wife of late 38th president (1974-77), Gerald Ford (1913-2006), has passed away. She was more progressive on many issues, such as equal rights for women and abortion rights, than her husband, and probably would have made a better president than either he or his predecessor.

A certain Nobel Laureate economist thinks the President (OK, quickly, did we elect a Republican in 2008, just asking?) is really off track. Said economic genius ain't alone....

Television is truly imaginatively bankrupt: TNT is resurrecting Dallas, a program appropriate to its era, for a new generation of viewers. Why not, say, Tent/Car City California, or Orlando: Foreclosureville, or, if a show must be set in Texas, San Antonio? Oh, I know, those would require...IMAGINATION.

The situation grows worse and worse regarding the hacking scandal at Rupert Murdoch's News International soon-to-be-nonexistent newspaper The News of the World. Its former editor, Conservative-Liberal Democratic former minister Andy Coulson, has been arrested.

The NFL lockout, in which the very rich owners are locking out the very rich players, who belong to a union, continues, as the US 8th Circuit Court of Appeals refuses to overturn the lockout. The NBA is also locking out its players. The assault on organized labor continues apace, even in its upper reaches.

The MLB All Star Game takes place next week, in Arizona. It should either have been canceled or moved rather than be played in a state with overtly racist anti-immigration laws, especially considering how many immigrant players fill the league's rosters and its stadiums. As a result, this is one of the first years in many that I can recall in which I did not cast a single vote for any of the players, though if I had, the New York Mets' José Reyes would have been at the top of my list, and I'm no fan of the Mets. (Sorry, Albert Pujols...).

+++

Every year I include on my undergraduate fiction workshop reading list at least one story by Anton Chekhov (1860-1904), who, as I need not tell any reader of this blog, I'm sure, was an exceptional playwright and one of the greatest short story writers ever. His influence flows through many a current of short and even longer fiction of the last century, and he is a writer whose gifts for characterization, scene-setting, tone, stylistic fluidity, varieties of irony, thematic openness and ambivalence, and narrative concision, displayed in all his mature works, offer a lesson any writer can learn from.  As I once mentioned to one of my advanced fiction writing classes, the basic argument in Francine Prose's Reading Like a Writer: A Guide for People Who Love Books and For Those Who Want to Write Them (HarperCollins, 2006) is, if all else fails, read and learn from Chekhov. The late Roberto Bolaño says as much (read and learn from Chekhov or Raymond Carver) in one entry I glanced at in Between Parentheses, New Direction's (June 2011) new book of his collected prose.

The current online New York Review of Books offers excerpts from a new book, Memories of Chekhov, edited by Peter Sekirin (Mcfarland and Co. Inc. Publishing), featuring memories of Chekhov by his peers, some of them, like Ivan Bunin (1870-1953), received the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1933. (Chekhov likely did not live long enough to merit consideration, though had he survived a few more decades, he ought to have been a leading candidate.)

Below is Bunin's excerpt; there are many more at the NYRB site:

I got to know Chekhov in Moscow at the end of 1895. I remember a few specifically Chekhovian phrases that he often said to me back then.

"Do you write? Do you write a lot?" he asked me one day.

I told him, "Actually, I don’t write all that much."


"That’s a pity," he told me in a rather gloomy, sad voice which was not typical of him. "You should not have idle hands, you should always be working. All your life."


And then, without any discernible connection, he added, "It seems to me that when you write a short story, you have to cut off both the beginning and the end. We writers do most of our lying in those spaces. You must write shorter, to make it as short as possible."

Sometimes Chekhov would tell me about Tolstoy: "I admire him greatly. What I admire the most in him is that he despises us all; all writers. Perhaps a more accurate description is that he treats us, other writers, as completely empty space. You could argue that from time to time, he praises Maupassant, or Kuprin, or Semenov, or myself. But why does he praise us? It is simple: it’s because he looks at us as if we were children. Our short stories, or even our novels, all are child’s play in comparison with his works. However, Shakespeare… For him, the reason is different. Shakespeare irritates him because he is a grown-up writer, and does not write in the way that Tolstoy does."

Danticat on Family & Haiti + Saints & Colts to Super Bowl

Haitian-American Edwidge Danticat (at right, www.swisseduc.ch) one of the most talented writers of her generation, writes in this week's New Yorker about the death of her cousin and one of his daughters, in the house she called home on her visits to Haiti, and how family members there are dealing with the tragedy. It's a brief yet powerful piece, made ever more so by Danticat's prose, with its casual unfolding, precise observations and gentle humor, appropriate here despite such a terrible tragedy. A snippet:

By the time Maxo’s body was uncovered, cell phones were finally working again, bringing a flurry of desperate voices. One cousin had an open gash in her head that was still bleeding. Another had a broken back and had gone to three field hospitals trying to get it X-rayed. Another was sleeping outside her house and was terribly thirsty. One child had been so traumatized that she lost her voice. An in-law had no blood-pressure medicine. Most had not eaten for days. There were friends and family members whose entire towns had been destroyed, and dozens from whom we have had no word at all.

Everyone sounded eerily calm on the phone. No one was screaming. No one was crying. No one said “Why me?” or “We’re cursed.” Even as the aftershocks kept coming, they’d say, “The ground is shaking again,” as though this had become a normal occurrence. They inquired about family members outside Haiti: an elderly relative, a baby, my one-year-old daughter.

The entire piece is available at the New Yorker's site. Also on the site, George Packer's article on rebuilding Haiti.

The Case Against Harold Ford + Prop 8 Trial Underway + NFL Playoffs

On Twitter, I posted this link (via Matthew Yglesias), to one of Harold Ford Jr.'s (right, NY Daily News) commercials from his 2006 Senate run in Tennessee, in which he lost to right-winger Bob Corker. In the commercial, as in his run, Ford Jr. is so far to the right that you have to remind yourself he's not a Republican. But for anyone familiar with his prior record, his ideological position in the Senate run was no surprise. As a Congressperson (a legacy, no less, inheriting the seat from his father, Harold Ford Sr., who was more politically progressive and underwent an intensive legal assault by Tennessee Republicans and the Reagan administration), Ford Jr. consistently took right-of-center positions, unapologetically claimed to "love George Bush," and after losing the election, in which he was repeatedly race-baited by the GOP, he soon went to head the Democratic Leadership Council (DLC), which is to say, the Democrat's GOP-lite annex, and to punditry gigs on Fox and then MSNBC, on which he has repeatedly demonstrated that in addition to having a pretty face, his ideological compass remains fairly rightward. (I.e., he's in the mainstream of the US corporate media.) The combo of post-defeat opportunities, which now include an executive post at bailout recipient Merrill Lynch, landed him in New York.

One thing that Ford Jr., as the son of a prominent and wealthy politician, has always possessed, it seems to me, is confidence, or to put it another way, chutzpah, and recently he demonstrated it when, at the alleged urging of various extremely wealthy New Yorkers, including New York's billionaire mayor, Ford Jr. announced his desire to seek the Senate seat currently occupied by Kirsten Gillibrand (below right, NY Daily News). She, readers might recall, is the not especially popular former center-right upstate Democratic Congressperson picked in haphazard fashion by New York's ineffectual and inept governor, David Paterson, after he directed his staff to trash Caroline Kennedy, the presumptive nominee and early patron of President Barack Obama. Since assuming the seat, Gillibrand has moved noticeably to the left, and approximates her senior colleague, Chuck Schumer, in her voting patterns; yet it would seem that a strong candidate from the left, running against the neoliberal, DLC-ish policies of the current administration, might make a case for replacing Gillibrand and pushing an even more progressive, pro-New York agenda. Congresswoman Carolyn Maloney, one likely candidate, had thought about it before decided not to run. The case for a right-wing quasi-Democrat, bankrolled by Wall Street types, with a longstanding anti-gay, anti-immigrant, and warmongering record, however, appears more difficult to make. In fact, Ford's record and rhetoric have been so far to the right that I would venture he'd have a hard time be electing in any Northeastern state as a Democrat, let alone a Republican, except perhaps in Pennsylvania. Yet he has been huddling with New York's mayor-by-default, Mike Bloomberg, and the Democratic Majority Leader, Harry Reid, recently came to plead with Bloomberg not to back Ford Jr. As to where President Obama stands on the matter, who knows, though given his tenor of his tenure so far, I could see him backing Ford Jr., whom he repeatedly campaigned for in 2006. (Obama, however, will not be campaigning this week for Ted Kennedy's likely replacement, Democrat Martha Coakley, who is in a tightening race in Massachusetts against Republican Scott Brown. Go figure.)

I have read comparisons between Ford's carpetbagging and Hillary Clinton's, or Robert F. Kennedy's (he was born in New York, however), and am aware of the long history of Americans who've tramped from state to state getting elected (cf. James Shields, 19th century US Senator from Illinois, Minnesota, and Missouri), but the Clinton comparison in particular focuses more on the political contours rather than addressing the specific ideological and policy cases against him running, and winning, in New York State. What would he bring to this race? Do New Yorkers, and black New Yorkers--which seems to be his hook--specfically, see any benefit from electing someone who has repeatedly supported policies damaging to most of them? Ford notes in the commercial that he supported the Patriot Act, defense spending, and against "amnesty" for "illegals." His record shows that he voted against ENDA and for the Iraq War, the Bankruptcy Bill, and the Federal Marriage Amendment. He supported the candidacy of Samuel Alito for the Supreme Court, and Republican legislation on behalf of Terri Schiavo's parents, against her husband. Ford Jr. did take some mainstream Democratic positions, including standing against drilling in the Arctic National Wildlife Reserve and supported federal stem cell research funding, but had he been elected to the Senate in 2006, his prior record would have placed him at the far right of the Democratic caucus, and to the right even of several Republicans, including Arlen Specter and Olympia Snowe.

Despite some recent moderation, which I imagine no one is buying, the main reason I can identify for his candidacy is that his patrons ("executives," to use the New York Times's term) want someone even more compliant with and willing to push even more reliably pro-corporate ("independent"--New York Times) politics from what was Hillary Clinton's and Al D'Amato's (a verifiably right-wing Republican) old seat. This argument mirrors the ones put forward when Mike Bloomberg was mulling a presidential run; I saw no natural mass constituency, only Wall Street and the social and business élites, who quickly coöpted Barack Obama--who made pilgrimage and paid fealty to Bloomberg, don't forget--instead. He has suggested that there needs to be a black person in the Senate (on the grounds of local and national representation and diversity, I would agree, though I don't think it should be him), especially now that Roland Burris will not be returning after this year, and so far no other viable African-American candidate for any of the open Senate seats has emerged. (While I would not to lose a single woman in the Senate, perhaps Barbara Mikulski will decide to step down and Maryland's Lt. Governor, Iraq veteran Anthony Brown, will run for her seat). This is not to attribute bad faith to Harold Ford Jr., but to suggest that there is no convincing case to be made, at least on behalf of the majority of New York voters, or the rest of the country for that matter, for his candidacy for this seat, right now or anytime in the foreseeable future. And I'm not kicking his dog, mind you. Just asking, but at this point in our ongoing national economic and political debacles, how stupid and gullible do the people in power think we are?

+++

Today was the first day of Perry v. Schwarzenegger, the federal trial challenging the constitutional validity of Proposition 8, which the San Jose Mercury News suggests may "be the signature civil rights fight of the 21st century." Depending upon the outcome, it could lead to a landmark US Supreme Court ruling, or Congressional legislation down the road, and as it concerns the most populous state in the nation and the popular reversal by referendum and constitutional amendment of rights underwritten by a court ruling, it's particularly significant.

The trial is underway in the United States District Court for the Northern District of California. Today the presiding justice, Chief US District Judge Vaughn Walker, appointed to the federal court by President George H. W. Bush, heard arguments from both sides; Theodore Olson, the conservative lawyer and former Solicitor General under George W. Bush, along with Clinton administration counsel David Boies, are leading the arguments on behalf of the plaintiffs, two same sex couples, Berkeley residents Sandra Stier and the eponymous Kristin Perry, and Burbank couple Paul Katami and Jeff Zarrillo, who were denied marriage licenses because of the Prop 8 vote. Prominent attorney Charles Cooper is arguing on behalf of the Prop 8 amendment of California's state constitution. California's Attorney General, former Governor and Oakland mayor Jerry Brown, refused to defend the law, saying it should be struck down, while Governor Schwarzenegger has argued that it raises important constitutional questions that need to be addressed.

As noted above, Should Olson, Boies and the plaintiffs win, the case could then move by appeal to the US Supreme Court. The higher court did stay Judge Walker's decision to permit delayed broadcast of the proceedings on YouTube, so for the duration media accounts will have to suffice.

+++

How about those New York Jets, who defeated the Cincinnati Bengals two weeks in a row, this time 24-14 on Saturday. Jets QB Mark Sanchez (right, NJ.com) became only the fourth rookie QB to win a playoff game. The Dallas Cowboys followed the Jets' victory by defeating the Philadelphia Eagles 34-14. The Cowboys' defense was out in full force, as was its running and passing game.

On Sunday, the Baltimore Ravens, long known for their defensive prowess, stopped the New England Patriots cold with a 33-14 victory and stupendous running by former Rutgers star Ray Rice (below left, NJ.com), who racked up 159 yards on 22 rushes, and 2 touchdowns. Later that afternoon, the Arizona Cardinals put on an offensive show and defeated the Green Bay Packers 55-41, in overtime. As the score suggests, there was hardly any defensive play to speak of, though the Cardinals got just enough when they needed it.

The Jets now play the 13-3 San Diego Chargers, while the Ravens play 14-2 Indianapolis, which was rolling towards an undefeated season until the Jets broke up their mojo. In the NFC Arizona plays the New Orleans Saints, who went 13-3, while Dallas plays the 12-4 Minnesota Vikings. I'm pulling for the Jets, but I see the higher seeds (Indy, Saints, Vikings) all winning.

NY Philharmonic Opening Night + Sports Roundup

A couple weeks ago I did something I haven't done in a while: I watched a live classical music concert on TV. The occasion was the PBS Live from Lincoln Center's broadcast of the New York Philharmonic Orchestra's season opener, which marked the début of its new Music Director, 42-year-old Alan Gilbert. I'd even made a mental note of the broadcast primarily because I saw that it would include Renee Fleming singing songs not by Schubert, or Strauss, or Faure, all likely opening-night and maestro-début and audience friendly choices, but...Olivier Messiaen.

I almost didn't believe my eyes or ears when I heard and saw this after an episode of The Newshour with Jim Lehrer, but then Gilbert, the son of two NY Philharmonic musicians, has from his earliest appearances with the orchestra shown an adventurousness that marks a change from the musty perspectives of his immediate predecessors, both consummate musicians, Kurt Masur and placeholder Lorin Maazel. Gilbert not only chose Messiaen's Poèmes pour Mi (1934), a serious of deeply religious, dramatic connubial songs written by the composer for his first wife, whose nickname was Mi, but also opened with a newly commissioned composition, EXPO, a continuously developing orchestral piece in a tonal idiom by the Philharmonic's composer in residence, Magnus Lindberg, and, after a break, concluded with...not Mozart, not Beethoven, not Brahms, Bruckner, Mahler, or Schumann, but...Berlioz's Symphonie fantastique.

The Lindberg piece, with its echoes of Sibelius and Americana riffs, was pleasant enough to listen to, and Gilbert and the orchestra played it with assurance and verve, as if they were enjoying themselves. This was also the first time in over 45 years that the Philharmonic had included a newly commissioned piece on its opening night program. I'm sorry but that's pretty pathetic, so even more props go to Gilbert. But the Messaien riveted me. Not only did Fleming convey the otherwordliness of the nine song's scores, capturing both their highest and lowest registers and the churning colors between, but Gilbert pushed the orchestra to fully evoke all of Messaien's shadings without ever overshadowing the singer. Perhaps the most striking moment came when Fleming sang the grim "Éprouvante," a wrenching vision of hell that the music did not stint in reflecting. It was also exhilarating to hear work by Messaien, a highly regarded canonical composer whose music nevertheless remains on the other side of the symphonic mainstream, on TV, in prime time. This bodes well, I hope, for future NYPO and other orchestral concert broadcasts, though sometimes tells me they'll still be dominated by the late baroque-to-late Romantic German standards.

As Fleming sang, I intermittently wondered what subscribers and critics thought of Gilbert's choices. As a sign of a new vision, they left no doubt. To people used to a mostly late baroque-to-late Romantic German repertoire with a few outliers (19th century French and Russian, early 20th century European late-Romantic and tonal modernist, a few American composers, and commissioned pieces, never to be played again), was probably upsetting. To end with Berlioz's vast, forward-looking 1830 symphony must have felt like a shockwave. Gilbert and the orchestra showed that they knew the score and in most of its sections, went below the surface to portray the richness of the moods Berlioz was aiming for. I'm no expert on Berlioz's work nor an authority on how other orchestras have played it, but I could hear both Gilbert's and the players' skill and precision, but also passion. It was never mechanical, as Maazel's performances often were.

Anthony Tommasini raved about Gilbert in his New York Times review of the concert the following day. He praised the Lindberg for not writing a "gnarly, intimidating modern piece"--Mr. Tommasini, it's 2009, and there are so many contemporary composers who do not write "intimidating modern" or "post-modern" or "post-post-modern" or whatever pieces that also are not treacly, neo-Romantic, ersatz movie music outtakes--and rained down kudos for Gilbert's choice of the Messiaen and Berlioz, though he was less fulsome when he described Gilbert's conducting of the latter work, saying that some listeners probably liked to hear it conducted with more of a"sumptuous feeling for color or more fantastical freedom" than on display in this concert. He nevertheless lauded Gilbert's assured and effective conducting, which not only brought the symphony to life but worked well with the two prior pieces, both in French idioms, broadly construed. The article's comment section, however, reflected more displeasure than happiness: lots of complaints not about Gilbert's music-making, which seems unimpeachable, but about his program choices.

I've been wondering about this as I've followed Greg Sandow's blog on classical music for several years. Sandow is a composer and professor at Juillard, and is writing a book about the present state of the US classical music world. One persistent element in his blog commenters' responses is a denial that the US classical music world is any trouble; another is that its audience is aging; a third is that the standard repertoire is just fine. Keeping these frequent threads in mind, I wondered to myself how much outrage there would have been had Gilbert gone farther, and in addition to the Lindberg, programmed all new music to launch his tenure. What if instead of Messiaen (whose career spanned the early to late 20th century) and the 19th century Berlioz, he had played two contemporary, living American composers, like John Corigliano and Ellen Taaffe Zwillich? Or two contemporary non-US composers, like Toru Takemitsu and Thomas Adès? Or two 20th century American composers who weren't exactly mainstream any more, like Roy Harris and William Schuman? Or truly avant-garde 20th century, post-Second Viennese school American composers, like Morton Feldman, Terry Riley, and John Cage? Or a composition in a jazz or rock-inflected idiom by the likes of Elvis Costello, or Wynton Marsalis? Would people have walked out of and lustily booed the concert as occurred at the Metropolitan Opera's premiere last week of the warhorse Tosca, based on Luc Bondy's new staging and direction?

Perhaps a better question is, would it ever happen, even under someone as open to the new as Gilbert? (When the extraordinary conductor James Levine, who heads the Met Opera's orchestra, took over the Boston Symphony Orchestra, which long been moribund under his predecessor, he jumpstarted its formerly progressive repertoire under Fritz Reiner by performing a slew of "difficult" 20th century works. I don't think, however, that he touched the likes of Daugherty, say, or Todd Machover, or Tania León.) It remains to be seen. I should note that Gilbert's second concert as Musical Director was conducting Mahler's Third Symphony, about as standard as things can get. This week he conducted Brahms's Violin Concerto, another standard piece, but paired it with Arnold Schoenberg's less frequently heard Pelleas und Melisande, which Tommasini described in his Friday review, typically, as "formidable" and "demanding," despite it's having been superseded by far more formidable and demanding Schoenberg scores (Chamber Symphony? Fantasie? Violin Concerto?), as well as innumerable more complicated soundworlds including many in rock, jazz, ambient, etc. I take the slotting in of even a fairly old-style (for) Schoenberg piece as a good sign, though. And he spoke to the audience about it! Looking through the upcoming concerts--and Gilbert will be taking the Philharmonic on the road to Japan, South Korea, Vietnam, and Singapore for a chunk of October--through December, it appears as though there will be lots of Mozart, Beethoven and Brahms, unsurprisingly, but throughout the 2009-2010 season Gilbert has slated a range of post-Romantic fare into the main concerts, including performances of Ligeti's Le Grand Macabre (semi-staged), Ives's Second Symphony, Anton von Zemlinsky's Lyric Suite, and, as part of the end of 2009 concerts, Webern's Symphony. Additionally, such very up-to-date works as Christopher Rouse's new commission, Zhizn ("life" in Russian), H.K. Gruber's Aerea, and pieces by Nico Muhly, Matthias Pintscher, Lindberg, and others, will be in both the main and Contact: The New Music series concerts.

To me, this programming in Gilbert's first year is a clear sign that the NYPO is moving into both the present and future, much as Baltimore's symphony has done under Marin Alsop, and Los Angeles's will under Gustavo Dudamel. Since I spend a chunk of each year in Chicago, I'm curious to know which directions new Musical Director Riccardo Muti will take the Chicago Symphony Orchestra for the five years of his contract. He is known as a strong conductor of Giuseppi Verdi, late baroque and early Romantic music, and of the standard repertoire, in a lean, recording-friendly idiom, and not so much of anything that new. At least since Mahler's time.

(I am skipping the Lyric Opera of Chicago's offerings this year; they aren't staging a single opera written since 1921--Leos Janacek's Kát'a Kabanová--while the Metropolitan Opera's tiny steps outside its narrow conventional doors are Alban Berg's Lulu, Dmitri Shostakovich's The Nose, and Janacek's From the House of the Dead. The unparalleled season Gérard Mortier had planned for the New York City Opera is now nothing but a phantom, like that opera company itself.)

+++

The Saint Louis Cardinals are now officially in the playoffs, after defeating the Colorado Rockies 6-3 last night. They joined the Los Angeles Dodgers, who have also made the playoffs and currently have the best record in the NL. In the AL, the Yankees are now in the playoffs, having defeated their arch-nemeses, the Boston Red Sox tonight at the new Yankee Stadium 4-2. The Philadelphia Phillies and Los Angeles Angels of Anaheim both seem bound for the playoffs with dwindling magic numbers and the Red Sox are well ahead in the AL Wild Card Race, but the AL Central-leading Detroit Tigers are hanging on for all their lives, and the NL Wild Card race is increasingly a toss up, as Atlanta surges and Colorado falters. I'm just glad the Cardinals and Yankees are in. Now they have to keep winning.

EAST RUTHERFORD, NJ - SEPTEMBER 27: Mark Sanchez #6 of The New York Jets runs upfield after catching a pass against The Tennessee Titans during their game on September 27, 2009 at Giants Stadium in East Rutherford, New Jersey. (Photo by Al Bello/Getty Images)

As of tonight, the New York Jets are 3-0; rookie QB Mark Sanchez's 3 straight wins are a league first, and the defense allowed more than 10 points for the first time this season in today's 24-17 victory over the Tennessee Titans. The Saint Louis Rams, however, are 0-3 after another uninspired, sloppy loss, this time to the Green Bay Packers. With the Detroit Lions' victory over the Washington Snyders, the Rams have the longest losing streak, at 13 games dating back to last season. They look awful enough to make it 29 if they maintain this abysmal level of play. But they're in good--or bad--company so far: Miami, Cleveland, Kansas City, Tennessee, and Tampa Bay have also lost 3 games without a win and Carolina has 2 losses without having won one. Which of this sorry group will turn things around first? I say Tennessee or Tampa Bay, but don't hold me to that.

October Equality March + Carter's Comments + Sports Roundup

A while back I believed I'd mentioned that I'd heard there'd be a march in Washington for Marriage Equality this fall. One of my former students, sailor and author Miriam (of the bread recipes, who also introduced me to "fan fic"!), asked that I post a more definitive link to the event, Equality Across America, which is set to take place on October 10-11. I don't think I'll be able to attend, because I'll be returning from a black LGBTQ lit conference in Austin, but everyone who supports true and real equality should attend if they can.

As you also may know, earlier this week Congressman Jerrold Nadler proposed repealing the abominable Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA). If this is an issue that matters to you, please do call or email your Congressperson to urge her or him to consider cosponsoring and supporting this bill (along with the public option, investigations into the Bush-Cheney torture regime, repeal of the Patriot Act and Big Oil subsidies, ending the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, and anything else you believe is pertinent).

+++

The right-wing and mainstream corporate media's (MCM) hyperventilating reactions to President Jimmy Carter's statement that racism underlines a great deal of the conservative outrage towards President Barack Obama and his policies do not surprise me at all. Any thoughtful or considered discussion of race, let alone racism, in the wider media always dissipates like iron steam. What frustrates me, however, is the MCM's continual conflation of "race" with "racism," and their focus on the former, rather than the latter. The MCM cannot seem to untangle the two, willfully I often think, because speaking about the former allows them a way out of addressing the pervasiveness of the latter. Speaking about the latter might also force them to register several premises, which include that those in the MCM also belong to certain races and have experiences shaped by this fact, and that in regular social and political discourse, some people are raced and some are not, and that doing so often occurs through the prism of racism. What's I also find frustrating is the way that the MCM reduces every issue to numbing simplicity, especially when "race" is broached, and in doing so attempts to attribute it to a single cause, as if truly complex economic, political and social phenomena were as easily diagnosed as the mumps.

Bob Somerby, for many years now, and Glenn Greenwald and others more recently have been pointing out that the right wing, with tremendous MCM help, fomented extreme hatred against our last Democratic president, Bill Clinton. (One could go further back, of course; shortly before Kennedy's assassination, "Wanted" posters went up in parts of Dallas.) Almost immediately upon Clinton's election, the nutcases, often funded by extremely wealthy individual and corporate interests, some of the same ones behind the Teabaggers, did everything they could to ruin Clinton's presidency, often in conjunction with the Republican opposition. If anyone thinks it's possible to minimize the craziness Clinton faced, culminating the multiyear, multimillion-dollar investigation, aided eagerly by The New York Times, and for which both President Clinton and Hillary Clinton were exonerated, just recall the ultimate GOP-led act, the attempted impeachment in 1998. I can vividly remember when the uproar among Democrats from that insane spectacle seemed so great as to ever prevent anyone from the GOP ever winning the presidency again, and yet a year later, the GOP and MCM (reporters and columnists at the NY Times and Washington Post, figures from NBC, Fox, etc.) began their "War on Gore," and we ended up with the Supreme Court coup that installed the disaster known as George W. Bush on us.

I mention this history because while I am--as are, I'm sure, quite a few people around the US--quite aware that racism and white supremacy are always in operation in this society, I do believe that attributing the current derangements of the right solely or even primarily to racism denies this prior history, which was still firmly in place when Clinton left office. Racism, while a major source, is still only one of many behind the behavior on display at the town hall rallies, the recent Teabagger rally in Washington, and above all, on the right-wing/corporate propaganda headquarters-channel, Fox News. Had Hillary Clinton won, we wouldn't be seeing the same sort of direct racist and racialist animus (the Curious George T-shirts, the "birther" push, the signs of Obama as a witch doctor, etc.), though racism would be in the mix, as it was during the Clinton years (remember the obsessive push to end welfare, even though corporate welfare reached insane heights under Bush, and affirmative action, which, studies in the late 1990s showed, primarily benefited white women?). With a President Hillary in office, we probably would be seing even more and outlandish displays of sexism and misogyny, and not just from the right, but from the MCM, whose members (Chris Matthews is notorious) have long been among the worst offenders. But attacks on undocumented immigrants and "producerist" arguments, prettified by the likes of David Brooks, wouldn't be unthinkable.

Let me be clear: my aim is not to minimize the particular foci of some of the worst attacks on Obama, but to note that we had the militias, the anti-government nuts, the millenialists, and so on in full force from 1992-2000, alongside a GOP Congressional caucus that took political and personal destruction of the sitting president and complete repeal of the New Deal legacy as its organizing principle. Newt Gingrich did not simply want to stop Clinton's presidency in its tracks, he wanted to shred Clinton personally. Think of some of the most outspoken figures on the right during the impeachment drama and the revelation of Clinton's affair. When their efforts failed repeatedly, this led, as we now see, to even more thuggish tactics, such as installing a president and Congress, by hook or crook (or voting machine) who could just dynamite the government entirely. According to a recent Census report, according to almost every economic indicator the vast majority of Americans finished the 8 years of Bush's presidency worse off than before. The wealthiest .1 percent and many corporate interests--or at least the people running them, if not the shareholders--were the economic losers.

To quote The Atlantic on this topic:

On every major measurement, the Census Bureau report shows that the country lost ground during Bush's two terms. While Bush was in office, the median household income declined, poverty increased, childhood poverty increased even more, and the number of Americans without health insurance spiked. By contrast, the country's condition improved on each of those measures during Bill Clinton's two terms, often substantially.

The Census' final report card on Bush's record presents an intriguing backdrop to today's economic debate. Bush built his economic strategy around tax cuts, passing large reductions both in 2001 and 2003. Congressional Republicans are insisting that a similar agenda focused on tax cuts offers better prospects of reviving the economy than President Obama's combination of some tax cuts with heavy government spending. But the bleak economic results from Bush's two terms, tarnish, to put it mildly, the idea that tax cuts represent an economic silver bullet.

I'm hardly saying anything that most J's Theater readers don't already know, but I mention this record, all but buried by the MCM (tell me, when have you seen any of the major "liberal" or "progressive" MCM reporters or columnists discuss this record at any length, to inform the majority of people out there what's going on) to say that one of the great sources of the rage on display at last weekend's rally, is ignorance, which the MCM have only helped to deepen rather than dispel.

The reasons behind this are numerous, but one central one is that corporate interests (just like our Congress, which willingly works hand in glove with them) benefit by keeping people as misinformed as possible. There is also, as this telling clip of CNBC's scandal-plagued anchor Maria Bartiromo demonstrates, the fact of media personalities' own gross ignorance (again, cf. Chris Matthews). But rather than go on, I'll post the clip below, which has been making its rounds on the Net. It illustrates perhaps more powerfully than anything I might say here what I'm talking about. Please watch it till the end, because it shows, for a rare change, a reporter breaking the supposedly objective, journalistic frame and politely stating and clarifying facts for some of these people. Unfortunately, this happens so very rarely that it's hard not to be cynical. Whatever the source of the MCM's ongoing silence, it's a major problem and will continue to be for the rest of Obama's (or any Democrat's) terms. What's even more unfortunate is that I don't get the sense that he or many in his team, like many in Congress, have any clue or, worse, care at all about this. The results, however, could be something worse than the Bush administration. Mike Huckabee, Sarah Palin, Jim DeMint, Rick Santorum, and any number of other very dangerous characters are lurking out there, and with a heavily corporated-funded campaign with pseudo-populist aspects, we'd all be in very serious trouble. 2001-2008 might end up looking like the Coolidge years.

(Please watch to the end to see the reporter challenge the protesters' ignorance.)


+++

On the sports tip, the New York Jets have started the NFL season 2-0, defeating their nemeses, the New England Patriots 16-9 today, preventing a comeback by the media darling Tom Brady. The Big Green have a sharp new coach, Rex Ryan, and one of the most talented young quarterbacks in the league, rookie Mark Sanchez (at right, Nick Laham/Getty Images) of USC. The Jets don't have the toughest schedule this season, so they could conceivably go 12-4 or 13-3. That is, if they can keep playing like they are now, or even improve. Then the playoffs will be more than a mirage.

The Saint Louis Rams, however, are 0-2, losing 9-7 to a shaky Washington squad, and look no better than their 2-14 predecessors of last season. In fact, they look worse. 10 years ago they were known as the league's highest scoring teams, with iffy defense. Now they have middling defense and no scoring capability at all. Their quarterback is sacked at will, they cannot convert drives into runs, and they make countless mistakes game after game. I am starting to think the new ownership may be trying to once again ship a team out of St. Louis towards more financially beneficial (southern California?) climes. Looking at their schedule, they face both pushover and tough teams (though no AFC East teams, nor the Giants or Eagles, thankfully), but they still could conceivably go 0-16. They do meet the Detroit Lions at midseason, so a 1-15 outcome isn't impossible.

In the MLB, the Yankees have the best record in the AL, at 95-55. Perennial All Star Derek Jeter has broken Lou Gehrig's team hit record, CC Sabathia (at right, AP) is powering his way to a Cy Young Award at 18-7, and the team overall, like the finely tuned machine it has been for long stretches over its history, is humming along under manager Joe Girardi. The other top teams in the AL are the Boston Red Sox, who lead the Wild Card race (again), the Detroit Tigers, and the mouthful but ever talented Los Angeles Angels of Anaheim. The Yankees and the Angels are the teams to beat, but the Red Sox are always dangerous.

In the NL, the Saint Louis Cardinals are again atop the NL West, though they don't have the league's best record. That honor goes to the Los Angeles Dodgers. The Cardinals do, however, have the league's best pitching--two starters, Adam Wainwright (18-8, 2.59 ERA), and Chris Carpenter (16-4, 2.43 ERA), are leading contenders for the NL Cy Young--and its best overall hitter in Albert Pujols (47 home runs, 119 runs scored, 127 runs batted in, .328 average), a latter day Stan Musial. He and the pitching have kept the team afloat; the last week the Cardinals have staggered more than swaggered. The Dodgers, however, have more balance across their lineup, and could be dangerous in the playoffs. The other top teams are the East leaders, the Philadelphia Phillies, last year's World Series champions, who look powerful enough to go all the way, and the current Wild Card leading Colorado Rockies, who always have a strong home-field advantage and great batters. I'm rooting for the Cardinals, but this quartet is a toss-up.

The Cardinals vs. the Yankees (which last occurred in 1964, with the Cardinals winning four games to three) would be my preferred World Series matchup. Will it happen? Let's see.

Belichick's Cheating

I figured Arlen Specter might be good for something. Pennsylvania's armadillo of a Senator finally got the NFL Commissioner, Roger Goodell, to reveal something some people have long suspected: that New England Patriots coach Bill Belichick (photo at right, Newsdayblogs.com) has been taping opposing teams' defenses since 2000, when he took over as head coach.

Specter says this is illegal. Goodell disagrees with Belichick's actions and suggests they're not okay (i.e., illegal?), but took no action, at least none that the public knows about, until the Patriots were blatantly caught spying on the sad-sack New York Jets before the first game of this past season, the very season that the Patriots were waltzing through, undefeated, until they ran smack into the New York Giants for a second time, in the Super Bowl. It turns out that the NFL had looked into Belichick's cheating going back to 2002, but said zero about it until this revelation. To Specter.

Belichick, who has more than once demonstrated a lack of class, claims he wasn't doing anything wrong. Since 2000. At any rate, Goodell levied a slap on the wrist and then, unaccountably, destroyed all the evidence from the investigation. The tapes, everything else. He claims it could have gotten into the wrong hands. Like a prosecutors? Specter, who rarely if ever raises a voice of protest about the Bush administration's destruction of evidence (cf. White House emails, etc.) or the Constitution for that matter, did seem to be vexed by these strange and possibly illegal goings on. I doubt anything will come of this, and the sports media, which adore Belichick as one of the greatest coaches ever, have, from what I can tell, mostly been silent.

Most of the articles on this huge revelation I first came across were AP stories, or versions thereof. Or foreign media accounts. The people who've invested so much of their reputations in pumping up Belichick are silent. My questions: Who on the Patriots knew about this, and did anyone on any other teams know about this? Did Patriots owner Robert Kraft know that Belichick was engaging in this activity? How long has the NFL known what Belichick was up to? Will the "genius" and his team be stripped of their Super Bowl championships? Will he be officially sanctioned, if not by the NFL, which appears to have participated in a cover-up, by Specter and Congress? Will the NFL suffer any penalties, such as the loss of its anti-trust exemption? Should I even been wasting energy on this issue, given the 1,000 other pressing issues out there, but also give how our culture has utterly normalized cheating, spying, and unfair advantages?

I think of well-known athletes decried as cheaters, such as Barry Bonds, Marion Jones, etc., and I wonder, will this high profile but incredibly sleazy coach receive relentlessly hellish treatment anywhere near what they've endured? (Cf. Roger Clemens.) I have my doubts.