Do you remember Brigadoon? I fell in love with its story and its music long ago when I first saw it on TV. Cannot figure out why it never was restaged for stage or TV screen. A loss indeed. But in any case, I was very pleasantly surprised on Friday when suddenly I heard the song Jean, sung by Oliver, come thru the speakers. I listened and sang along and for the rest of the day could not get the song out of my head. Why? I wondered and thought.
I think it is because it represents something that appears to be missing from today's screens and music. In Brigadoon the love for Jean was eternal, soft and yet strong, strong enough for the voice and import of it to reach through the air (and this before the Internet!) and wake up a sleeping woman, a sleeping town, and break the precedent of centuries. Love, not lust, can remake the world, it seems and I wonder where this portrayal of love has gone.
No more do we see the love of Love is a Many Splendored Thing. No more do we see that eternal love portrayed in An Affair to Remember. What we see is a love that expresses itself in a lust so powerful that the couple involved turn into almost animalistic things, consumed with the need to slam the other into a wall or down on a hard kitchen table, stickiness and crumbs included, to grab at their clothing and practically rip it off - both of them - or a lust so overpowering that it causes people to run into a hospital linen closet or a corner of a business and literally, take care of their "love" business. Really now. I would like to know how many people have seen this happen or notice two disheveled people come out of a closet in a hospital.. I bet none.
Where is the gentleness? Gone, as it appears to be gone from the world. Now, no one is claiming that the past was all flowers and soft kisses. We also had nuclear bomb drills and crime, the Cold War and more wars in Israel as it fought for its survival. The world cannot be seen only through a rose colored pair of lenses, but we definitely have lost something and replaced it with nothing worthwhile.
Cold war over? Not if one has read the papers of late. Russia under Putin is replaying the Soviet role under a new name, buzzing our Navy and our AF, making threats. The Cold War is hot once again. North Korea is going for its fifth nuclear test as its loony leader keeps shooting all who displease him, including his relatives. We welcome back into the fold of nations one which is run by vitriolic lunatics who support terror and then give them a break when they violate the terms of the Treaty and test ballistic missiles (Iran).
We look away from, or worse, join in, the now hate filled voices of people who find it PC to voice their vicious hatred of Israel and Jews in general and make no mistake about it. When "protesters" stand and scream words of hate, mad threats, with insane faces of overwhelming hatred, when they shout , "Palestine, from the river to the sea" leaving no room for Israel, when they blow up Jews all over the world, target them and then target others as much for the fun of killing them as for anything else, then what kind of a world is it? Why and when did we allow this to happen?
For the first time since growing up, I am truly frightened for the future. Where will this hatred lead us? Where it will it end - if at all? Why do misguided and misthinking Jews feel they will be immune from this hatred, forgetting that the Jews of the Judenrat, the Jewish heads of the blochs of the death and work camps, the Jewish ghetto police - they all went the same way as the regular one in the ghetto, the victim all of hatred, a murderous hatred. When my grandson and children and grandchildren of my friends have to hide their kipot on campus, when they are threatened in a physical manner, when Jewish professors who dare to speak out against the anti Semitism and the rampant bias on campuses, when they are forced into long Sabbaticals or retirement even, then this world has definitely gone astray.
.....And ye shall know the truth, and the truth shall set you free" (The Gospel according to John). Here is a statement that is true for all religions, for all people. But we ignore the truth, particularly if it is ugly, turn our faces from it and hope that we can claim ignorance and feel free of blame. But the smell of lies, the reek of violence, the emptiness of warm and kind feelings, the lack of the gentleness of love - they are all here and we cannot hide from them.
Even here in the Village there is a sense of that nastiness. I think Gracie is lacking a couple of bricks, and even after the nasty stuff she sends me, mostly repetitive statements with garbage contents, I will still say to the person who wrote that nasty comment on another blog, one which did not even have a connection to the topic raised, that we do not need that vitriolic poison. It should have no place here and to accuse a woman, any woman, of what this did - it is totally unacceptable. Take it down. Truly. Be a step above those who send us nastiness and poison. Be above those who spew forth words and shouts of hate, who suppress freedoms that we are guaranteed under the law.Fight with words, yes, but make them clever, even sarcastic, but not nasty like that.
"Truth is truth/ To the end of reckoning." Shakespeare, in Measure for Measure, knew what he was talking about (for the most part). Truth is truth and no amount of obfuscation is going to change that fact and if one needs another hint from Willie, then here is one, Over and over again, one of his themes is the fact that the world of Nature and the world of Man reflect each other. Disorder in one will be reflected by disorder in the other. Floods, tsunamis, earthquakes, monster storms, severe drought, vicious tornadoes and the list goes on. Time to think? I believe so. Shall we all sing Jean together? Send out the right vibes into the universe?
.
No comments:
Post a Comment