A Little Poetry for My Friday

Morning Music

The CD is as old as a friendship gone bad.

The case was cracked and lost

And the songs occasionally skip a beat

   like memories made deliberately sketchy through time and wear.

But I still play the tunes

   even though they show my age

   and reveal a sentiment I scarcely share anymore

Because once upon a time, when I heard them,

I was happy.

/b

10/18/13

Movie Review: Immortal Beloved

The last time I saw Immortal Beloved was when it came out in the theaters in 1995--jeez, 13 years ago! Time does fly, doesn't it? I don't recall the film being quite as good as the other "big composer" film in my lifetime, Amadeus, which covered the rivalry between Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart and Antonio Salieri. So what possessed me to pick it up now? Confession: it was an impulse buy, driven by a new Barnes & Noble in the neighborhood (two miles closer to me, anyway), a fresh 20% off coupon, limited funds, and the absence of my intended purchase in the store (Gotham Night, which was nowhere near as culturally uplifting, but what the hell).

So what can one say about a film one hasn't seen in 13 years? Well, first, I found it much more involving upon a second viewing. This film, like Amadeus, does have a "frame story" with a lot of flashbacks showing different parts of Beethoven's life. In truth, it owes a great deal of its filmmaking structure to Citizen Kane, with its shifting viewpoints of a single character. In fact, its structure is almost a spot-on match, when one considers that the story begins with Beethoven's death, followed by a single man--his secretary, not a reporter--trying to find out something crucial about the composer's past. Instead of "Rosebud," we have a letter addressed to Beethoven's "Immortal Beloved," a mysterious woman to whom he has left everything.

The remainder of the story follows the secretary as he pursues several women who might be "the one." Along the way, we learn something of Beethoven's behavior, his politics (he was a [French] Republican at the time of the Napoleanic Wars before Napolean had himself declared Emperor), his personal relationships, his deafness, and how all of these are reflected in his music. For me, that was the true genius of this movie, in addition to Gary Oldman's truly stunning portrayal of the irrascible Beethoven. Now this is--like Amadeus--just a story. It has some grounding in reality, though I confess I know too little about LvB to know for certain how much is reality and costume drama and how much is BS and 20th century psychoanalysis (but then I repeat myself). Be that as it may, there are some truly inspired moments in this movie, most especially the depiction of the Ode to Joy, which comes as close as one can to attempting to depict a state of mind through both music and visuals.

So give this movie a watch if you haven't seen it in awhile, then throw in Amadeus another night. They might just be stories, but they're also great stories about what can go into making music.

Space and Culture

I wrote the following as part of an exercise during my all-day English tutoring class today. I'll discuss the class in another post. I'd like to focus on this topic here to keep my food groups separate.

***

The culture of a spacefaring society will be as important to its members as the technologies that keep people alive. Machines sustain the body, but culture will sustain the soul. The simple fact of living in space will mean a whole new realm of experiences that people will want to communicate. This will take the forms we already know well--literature, art, music, religion, etc. However, the sheer uniqueness of an alien world or zero gravity might result in completely new forms of artistic and cultural expression.

What will dance look like in zero gravity? How will sculpture be different in the low gravity of the Moon? What stories might be told or hymns written in the dark places between worlds? To some extent, we will carry our old traditions with us, but as we explore and experience new places, those traditions will inevitably change, as they have changed since the dawn of history.

***

That's all I had time for in class, but I think this would make an interesting article for Ad Astra. Space advocates talk a great deal about the technologies needed to travel through and survive in space, but somewhat less attention is paid to the lifestyles of the people living there. That's why I've been pushing for artists contributing to the NSS Space Settlement Calendar to show people or more domestic activities (sports & recreation, home & family, romance, work). Most people cannot picture themselves piloting a spacecraft or performing a scientific experiment, but they could imagine building a snowman on Mars, praying in a cathedral beneath the Peaks of Eternal Light on the Moon, or skiing on the slopes of Europa.

So:

• What will a spaceborne culture look like?
• What will their traditions/rituals/laws/taboos be?
• What will their art look like?
• How will they dance?
• What will their music sound like?
• Will their paintings be realistic--to capture the real wonders around them, will they go even further abstract than art today, or will artists of the future create more "back to Earth"-themed works?
• Will space-based blogging become an art form unto itself?
• How will people entertain themselves on other worlds?

Your thoughts are welcome.