What goes around comes around

“What goes around comes around” may be the  lyrical tome sweeping&resounding through out  the minor planet all we humans inhabit.

 

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The common thread for its needling mode is the Lincoln Douglas debates of hundred and fifty years ago, the 16trh President taking it to the contender. A light touch and a scorching tongue were the faces of etching character that elevated his debating to the oval office and the ensuing Gettysburg address during the Civil War.

 

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The forum for setting the relative tongue lashing may well be in the eyes of the beholder, depending on how the audience sees and hears the clashing arguments.

 

Clarence Darrow of Chicago’s Leopold Loeb notoriety, took his Spencer Tracy cosmic consciousness to a Tennessee classroom, the teacher Stokes, being maligned for espousing evolution in laying the foundation for the Darwin’s raison de etre in the breeding of a higher   intelligence, beyond natural selection in the photosynthesis of vegetation on the Galapagos Islands.

 

William Jennings Bryan nee Frederic March (“Inherit the Wind”) in advocating the Holy Bible and its Old Testament’s genesis as the truth. That Darwin’s evolution denigrates man  it his ascent toward “house money” and divine providence.

 

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Finally within the limitations of the digital century, President Obama and Governor Romney, had ther own “go” at it in a town hall forum held in the Big Apple’s backyard. Eloquent gifted public orators and debaters, they fought out their positions, rallying their supporters like it was the fiery debates of the Lincoln Douglas debates a hundred and fifty years ago.

 

Probing and penetrating weaknesses and intangibles, their mobile experienced tongues “spritzed”    the truth of their party’s brethren, the moderator and the questioning participants defining their moment of being alive.

 

The excitement and the buzz thru the classrooms of international power and the campus flavor

of Hofstra’s Hempstead  campus.  TV cameras,  parking lots and the global internet links and dinky rink satellite connections.

 

 Revolution War’s”Battle of Long Island”  October 16, 2012

Not young enough to cry but old enough to feel disappointment

Quoteth Adlai Stevenson, the Presidential contender, on losing the nomination to J F K, in the 9^th inning of stormy Democratic conventions.

                                   

                                                    II

 The New York Yankee birthright  on the surface maybe crumbling. But Monument Park with its testimonial to immortal players and their larger than life dreams ,transcends their being “wasted” after being swept on the road to Detroit four straight , prelim to the World Series, their collective batting average 188.

Yet in the City that never sleeps, the spectators are for the most part immigrants listening with their third ear, visionaries into the Statute of Liberty’s legacy.

 Even the players themselves from their sandlot roots..... the Dominican Republic, Mexico, Puerto Rico, Cuba, Costa Rico, Venezuela, Argentina, Australia, playing out their little leaguer multi lingual aggressions and match ups....right handed hitters versus left handed hurelers and vice versa.

The fans identified with their moments of glory and despair,( not hitting in the clutch, leaving men on base (except for Ibanez’s  homers) their highs and lows.

Granted the names of Sultan of Swat, **the Iron Horse, the Yankee Clipper, Yogi’s “itis not over till its over”,  Red Ruffing, Johnny Mize,  Red Rolfe Joe Gordon, Crosetti, M and M boys, the Scooter”, Bill Dickey, Spud Chandler“Old Reliable,”Casey Stengel in his winning constancy as manager.

”Mr October” Billy Martin Don Zimmer, Joe Page Don Mattingly, Don Larsen’s World Series no hitter,, Lefty  Gomez, Mike Messina, Joe Torres, Bernie, O’Neil, Tito Martinez

“John Sterling & his “companero” “Susan Waldman” in the radio booth.,Sterling “erudition” for 26 years in that role.

**“”I’m the luckiest man alive”(Lou Gehrig) metamorphoses as ”We’re the luckiest humans alive”

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And of course, the surrogate father owner,  George Steinbrenner, the aristocrat who was never at a loss for words in assembling his own field of erstwhile Little League dreamers.

 

So whether or not the City that never sleeps sees the 2012 season wasted in a 162 game marathon, played out in physical and emotional soul searching

Burnt out “mojo”..

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The Yankee manager’s father and role model dying,(alzheimers) the team’s strategist tending to the last rites near the end.. The Captain and shortstop, Derek Jeter, fracturing his ankle in the post season.

The clutch hit never showing up, players left on base.

 The greatest relief pitcher Mo Rivera ( on the mound, at his New Rochelle diner) gone for

the season, Andy Pettit coming out of retirement for his last hurrah in his field of dreams, playing out in the new House that Ruth built.

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The empathy and joy of identifying with these heroic optimistic pin strippers, regardless of their demons plaguing their souls, we’re witnesses to their agonies and  stress.

                                           

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Where else on our minor planet, can we discover ourselves among these larger than life pin strippers as ourselves and our palpitating hearts, trying to discover our moments of being alive in our own field of dreams  that transcend Picasso and Braque’s surrealism.

 

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The “say hey” kid at 81 years (Willie Mays), inspirational Jackie Robinson on a squeeze bunt, stealing home in a swirl of dust, breaking the color line across the River, at Ebbets Field..

The Robert Merrill Gladys Gooding song of songs, Hilda with her clashing pots and pans band, Sinatra ‘s “New York, New York”, the fans sounding “Cookie” into their own 9^th inning allegory playing out .

For the ages....

 

The City that never sleeps, October 20, 2012

The combative joy of Beethoven’s “Ode to joy” of his 9th Symphony is again playing out

The combative joy of Beethoven’s “Ode to joy” of his 9^th Symphony is  again playing out .Not in Vienna, but in the city that never sleeps, Lincoln Center. the battle ground for 69 year old maestro James Levine’s return to the podium strata ..

A motorized wheel chair at his side,   will transcend his 2 year absence. 3 surgeries of  neurosurgeon Dr. Patrick O’Leary and his team at the Hospital fdor Spoecial Surgery....

”A major surgery”

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“Two years before the mast” the beloved Mehtas (Zubin and Z) successors will the grace of God and technology will groove the elevating transmission. In sync with the wheel chair, the many manifold rehearsals to  free the fearless flow of notes me11asures themes and motifs of the glorious music that never wavered not since J S. Bach played out his fanfares at wakes and funeral homes in Liepzig..

Stowowski’s arrangement of the Prelude in “Fantasia” at the Coney Island Avenue Leader movie theater in 1940, never faltered, “Stokie‘s” old age, beyond his 97 year life, arranging the Prelude in his Philadelphian metrics of arrangements...to be alive to hear those rarified earth shaking fusion of sounds from another galaxy.

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Beethoven at 26, experienced his first symptoms of going deaf... No electronic cues to pick up the clouds of darkness that would overwhelm any composer. But a genius... ah that’s another question.

Beethoven grabbed fate by the throat, deleting Napoleon’s name from his Eroica, thwarting any recognition or vanity by the Emperor. No  patronizing, the growing deaf genuis transcending his immortality with a stroke of his pen.

“ You phony Emperor.  . To Elbaa, farethewell..

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Yet his consciousness seemed to be on fire, the throbs of silence in his ear drums,driving his passion for ferocious energy beyond the Oracle of Delphi’s sound barrier.

The “Ode to Joy” is a  manifest to life’s ephemera and the of murderous bullies captured in the La Brea tar pits, the MINOTAUR morphing into survival of the fittest and original sin...

                                              

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May maestro Levine likewise regain the majesty of his terrain, knowing his role at the podium is blessed. The  spinal stenosis, paralysis by his fall, a damaged dorsal spine into  the 4^th vertebrae,  three spinal surgeries, the mild Parkinson’s aggravated by L dopa, has not dampened the audience’s embrace of his rehabilitating essence

Not unlike Beethoven’s own calling, two hundred and fifty years ago,

may they embrace his own “Ode to Joy” playing out...

The Philharmonic’s promised land, May 2013 ...inscribed 10/ 14, 2012

Viva no not Zapata

“Viva no not Zapata” but the 40 year old Raol Ibanez,.coming off the Yankee bench, pinch hitting for”Arod”, the Bronx Bombers two outs away from an American League East playoff loss, one game away from tasting the next challenge to the World Series.

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But the miracle of “Raol is so cool” is not only the poetic justice and the reality of the “Field of Dreams” playing out but that Ibanez, not only tied the nine inning allegory or metaphor depending on the reader interpretation, is that Ibanez and Rodriquez were drafted at the same time decades earlier in their careers.

Arod, a slugger, chasing homers for his legacy, was taken numero uno. “Raol so cool” drafted 1005..

The the reversal of roles seems ironic in the sense that Girardi, the manager, in throwing

 the dice, benched “Arod” for “Raol so cool” , Arod having struck our three times during the game.

Where was the clutch hit, the Yanks syndrome leaving men on base, their nemesis being themselves

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“I try not to do too much” said the hero before 50,000 palpitating hearts As he replicatred his “field of dreams” in the 12tth inning... taking the first pitch, walloping his dream above the Monumnt Park, into the bleachers where we used to sit so many aeons ago as a knothole kid at Ebbets Field across the  River.

So walking up to the plate in the 12^th inning, Raol is so cool ” smashed his game winning four bagger, the Yankees winning 3-2 against the Baltimore Orioles.,game 4 of the 5 game mseries tonight.

His third “Sultan of Swat” homer during the last month.

“Thank the good Lord I try not to do too much , I jump the first one.””

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“Raol is so cool”also captures the Bard’s “we are the stuff that dreams are made  of, our little lives  rounded with a sleep” ..  

The City that never sleeps, 10/10/12

Why Plato banned the artists

   

The spiritual ambiguity of art... its connection with the limitless unconscious...its use of irony..its interest in evil worried Plato.

 But the very ambiguity and voracious ubiquitousness of art is its characteristic freedom.

Art ,especially literature is a grand hall of reflection where we can all meet and where everything under the sun can be examined and considered.

Iris Murdoch, Oxford University, May 21, 1991

 

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 “So the Lone Ranger conned you, huh Momma “said her son, now in University.

“Well, what do you expect. You got no education You and the name detective aka the language pro, should have stayed in Flatbush, not unlike like the Dodgers, distancing themselves in their Chavez Canyon spread.. Why didn’t you?”

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Momma, a young sixtyish, brushed her left hand through her silvery red hair. She eyed her son, a former high school do gooder (delivering WW2 telegrams to Gold Starred Mothers , and now a student at the University.

“I wanted to be a writer. A screen writer,” she said, brushing her right hand through her silvery red hair. “Taking night classes at Manual Arts, where Frank Capra used to go.”

“But momma” said the son, now in University.”Southern California is a T.S Eliot wasteland for scribblers.. Trapped in quicksand. You should have known better. Faulkner is in Mississippi. Poppa Hemingway in Cuba. Mailer in Brooklyn Heights. Sartre on the lefrt bank.

All you got out here is a big circus. A high wire act, that’s all.”

                                         IV

He turned his back on the Momma He was in University and his Momma should realize he had insights,  he didn’t have in High School “What good were all those courses if your own Momma didn’t come to me and ask for moral support and a sustaining point of view.

“My son. my son, now you tell me, “ said the Momma. “I wasted all that time taking those courses, trying to make contacts on the tennis court. Learning to hit a backhand down the line. A forehand cross court. I chased so many balls I thought I was reincarnated  as a ball boy.”

                                             V

“I defaulted on tennis , the little you know, snot nose. Got the want ads. Read about a writer needing a junior writer.”

“Who was the writer, Momma?”.

“The Lone Ranger. He had a conspicuous consumptive ranch off Coldwater Canyon in Beverly  Hills. A tycoon to the core..

“Fore,” on the 18th green for the delivery of his fan mail... Seeing I wasn’t an outlaw into his masked man caper, he took me in his golf car tourt as he had done thousands of times, tinsel town’s caste system playing out..

“There’s Willie’s castle (William Randolph Hearst) Mary Pickford ‘s(Gladys Smith)a la  Flatbush Avenue’s Prospect Park..”  

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“Then into his role as chauffeur, he parked the golf cart. “My library” ,the masked man waxing, his fingers dancing across his  passion. “I wrote ‘em all, sweetheart.”’.

“Who was your publisher?” asked the Momma, thinking of Bennet Cerf’s Rtandom House. Leon Shimkin’s Simon&Schuster. Max Perkins Scribners..

“Published them myself. Using a nom de plume. Same as Daryl Zanuck on Waner Brother’s “G Men” with “Cag” (Jimmy Cagney)

                                               VII

“Didja meet Tonto, Momma?” (Walt Disney rolling the dice, Johnmy Depp as the Lone Ranger’s kimosabi  of an alter ego, 10/3/12))

“No way.”

“Didja do any scribbling, surfing the net, Momma? Did the masked man ask for any credits? What have you done lately?. Harold Lloyd ? Laurel&Hardy? Mae West? W.C.Fields??”

“The masked man was a control freak, my son my son. He wanted a typist at a dollar an hour. Like your Momma was still living in the dark ages...East New York Brownsville the candy store syndrome of  ‘My lady” immigrants ,the exodus off the lower East Side, sweeping into the 4 Boroughs. Staten Island.

“He didn’t want to pay extra for dictation. An additional two bits, twenty five cents.,” said the Momma.

                                            VIII

“But he’s the Lone Ranger, Momma,” said the son, now in University.”He always gets his outlaw. A kimosabi of moral authority..”

The Momma placed her two hands on her son’s shoulders.

“You may have been a High School graduate and all that.

A University degree someday, my son, my son.” .

“But the masked man never went to  University, Momma.

 He stayed out so long, he matriculated on his steed’s stance..”

The Momma turned her head to he son. She ran her hands through

her silvery red hair.

“Hi Ho Silver,” she murmured..

“Hi Ho Silver.” responded her son now in University.

Why Plato banned the artists, October 4, 2012