I'm sitting here waiting for the numbers to come in. It's great that our votes actually make a difference this time. Well, I guess if you are a Republican you might not feel that way. I switched to Democratic for just such a reason.
But the real story of the night is what happens after. Will Hillary Clinton drop out if Barack Obama makes a good showing? PA is not winner-take-all, but representative. Math-wise, she can't make it without Florida and Michigan. She could with the super-delegates, but at what cost?
8:37- WHYY is still prattling on about voter registration changes. Well, I'm one of them. Over here whole counties have switched their party make-up. I would think that looks better for Obama.
Back to the prior topic- I think last week's debate showed a the shift in what many Americans want in their politics and political coverage. People were not clogging ABC's comments box in the hours and days afterwards because they thought the moderator's were "mean" or "unfair". The people were loooking for coverage of the issues. Deep discussion of the issues. We are in a war that is draining our economy and troops, gas prices are going up (not necessarily a bad thing, IMO), the climate is changing, resources are being depleted, our current administration has condoned torture, our economy is shaky, our foreign relations are shaky. The American people, or at least this one and her husband, really would like to hear something about that. We get enough scandalous new from Hollywood (and state governors). I think we would like our national politics to be a little less tabloid and a little more TIME.
8:45- Clinton w/ early lead in Pittsburgh and Scranton, Obama w/ an early lead in Philly.
8:50- WHYY is explaining how the number of red lights in a town and distance between towns can affect numbers. Fascinating.....
8:59- The AP just called it for Clinton. What? What numbers are they getting that I'm not? According to mine, only 1% of the votes are counted. Weird.
OK, Blogger just ate my last edit. I'm annoyed. I had a whole big thing.....
It was about the actual title of this post. If Hillary Clinton cannot not get a math-turning, decisive victory, should she drop out? I say yes. Not necessarily for the good of the party, as I only consider myself a half-Democratic. But to save herself, her party and her country the embarrassment. This could become an ego trip, bordering on denial, especially considering the amount of debt her campaign has accrued.
Speaking of which, that seems irresponsible. If that is how you handle your campaign funds, what are you going to do with the national funds? Hope the Congress keeps you within your budget? They've been great so far.... Is anyone else concerned by this? Is this another case of government spending money because they can just "make more"? She has debts not just to advisors, but for working class establishments like diners.
9:11- Fox and CNN have called it for her as well.
9:14- 9% in, Clinton 53%, Obama 47%. That would hold with prior polls for the differentials. But there's a lot more votes to get in.
9:19- from Matthew Yglesias http://matthewyglesias.theatlantic.com/archives/2008/04/its_official_2.php
I should probably be studying.
9:25- WHYY is sharing coverage with WQED! I watched Seasame Street on this channel growing up! Cute old lady with a Hillary sticker upside down on her head.
9:29- Fox just reference a NYT tech piece saying Obama is the MAC to Hillary's PC. Interesting. I'll have to find that.
9:30- 13% in. NPR and NewHour join the call.
9:35- The Harrisburg station needs a better cameraman.
9:49- 25% in, 46/54
9:55- 42%- 55/45. Double-digits is bad for Obama. Bad.
I'm taking a break to watch SVU. I'll be back if something earth-shattering happens.
Tuesday, April 22, 2008
Tuesday, April 15, 2008
Friday, April 11, 2008
Art in Times of War
From the NYT Blog today: "Running out of art and artists means that we are losing the civilized face of our society, and losing the appreciation of beauty … and love." Read it all here: http://baghdadbureau.blogs.nytimes.com/2008/04/10/graven-images-2/ (hat tip [that's what I say, right?] Andrew http://andrewsullivan.theatlantic.com/)
My thoughts on this:
As a dancer and choreographer, the arts are incredibly important and interesting to me. Over the summer I read "The Ministry of Culture" by James Mullaney. It's fiction, but addressed this very issue of art in Iraq, albeit in 1984, during the Iran-Iraq War (I was 2 at the time, so I don't remember much about it). Great story about the murals and how war can rob art from the souls of artists.
I wonder, though, if it gives fodder for others; but maybe that only works if you are detached from it (say, a continent away). I think film has a hard time making war into "art", as it tends to be just carnage. But modern dance and songwriting seem to be two areas, in my experience anyway, that can use hard topics and create beautiful (as in artistic, not necessarily as in pretty), meaningful works. Even visual artist seem to use the "ugly"(Picasso with Guernica, Goya).
Artists, I think, are more willing to struggle with the hard, the nonsensical, the incomprehensible, the ugly. Some never get out of their struggle. Some use that fighting energy to create works seen world-wide, some in just a local performance/gallery. But they have all taken the time to see their world, and to try to create meaning from it. Which is what art is- creation of meaning (at least for the artist, if not for the audience). So, I hope they keep painting murals. That the artists in Iraq can keep seeking to creating meaning. I cannot comprehend how difficult it must be some days.
The last sentence of the NYT Blog- "Running out of art and artists means that we are losing the civilized face of our society, and losing the appreciation of beauty … and love."- makes me so sad. It is deeply true. And I can't help but feel responsible. We have allowed this to happen. In our quest to "civilize" them, the opposite is occurring.
My thoughts on this:
As a dancer and choreographer, the arts are incredibly important and interesting to me. Over the summer I read "The Ministry of Culture" by James Mullaney. It's fiction, but addressed this very issue of art in Iraq, albeit in 1984, during the Iran-Iraq War (I was 2 at the time, so I don't remember much about it). Great story about the murals and how war can rob art from the souls of artists.
I wonder, though, if it gives fodder for others; but maybe that only works if you are detached from it (say, a continent away). I think film has a hard time making war into "art", as it tends to be just carnage. But modern dance and songwriting seem to be two areas, in my experience anyway, that can use hard topics and create beautiful (as in artistic, not necessarily as in pretty), meaningful works. Even visual artist seem to use the "ugly"(Picasso with Guernica, Goya).
Artists, I think, are more willing to struggle with the hard, the nonsensical, the incomprehensible, the ugly. Some never get out of their struggle. Some use that fighting energy to create works seen world-wide, some in just a local performance/gallery. But they have all taken the time to see their world, and to try to create meaning from it. Which is what art is- creation of meaning (at least for the artist, if not for the audience). So, I hope they keep painting murals. That the artists in Iraq can keep seeking to creating meaning. I cannot comprehend how difficult it must be some days.
The last sentence of the NYT Blog- "Running out of art and artists means that we are losing the civilized face of our society, and losing the appreciation of beauty … and love."- makes me so sad. It is deeply true. And I can't help but feel responsible. We have allowed this to happen. In our quest to "civilize" them, the opposite is occurring.
Monday, March 24, 2008
Vitamins
I bought some vitamins yesterday at Trader Joe's. I took one this morning, and the act prompted the following questions-
Why, oh why must vitamins:
Why, oh why must vitamins:
- Look like solid chunks of grass clippings?
- Smell like seaweed?
- Be larger than most bites of food you would typically chew?
Do they still make Flintone Vitamins?
Thursday, March 20, 2008
The Draw of the Liturgy
I switched to the Anglican church in 2004. Something about the liturgy and the repetition is very "right" to me. This article (copied here from www.bustedhalo.com) gets that attraction. The liturgy really is a whole-person experience.
In The Dark Dark, noisy and nearly forgotten, a 20-something makes a case for reviving Tenebrae
By Greg Ruehlmann
It is the great peculiarity of the Church of Rome, that it presents to its worshipers an extraordinary variety of services, each of which has a special significance and fitness for the period of the year in which it is celebrated. Among the most beautiful of these offices are those which are celebrated during Holy Week, and which are called Tenebrae.
The notice above entitled “Tenebrae Services in the Roman Catholic Church” and published in the New York Times, on March 27th, 1872, sounds a little antiquated (when was the last time anybody said “Church of Rome?”), but it none the less rings true for me. Though it might be an odd choice, Tenebrae has long been my favorite service of the liturgical calendar. On the whole, I’m a liturgical progressive; I’ve never once longed for a return to the pre-Vatican II days when the congregation could only hope to get a good view of the priest’s back during services. But somehow I’ve fallen in love with a service that feels like a relic from an earlier, more austere time.
Tenebrae is literally set in darkness, at the height of the gloom preceding the Easter Vigil. It has not been popular in decades, and it would be misleading to call it a “best-kept secret” of the Catholic Church—it’s celebrated by some mainline Anglican and Lutheran communities as well. Further, such an assertion would require more Catholics to be in on the secret, which they aren’t. Most followers of the “Church of Rome” have never even heard of Tenebrae.
Happy FaultI wish they would discover it. Tenebrae perfectly fits the Lenten season, when spring struggles outside to wrest the climate from winter, and inside, we hear readings about the Israelites in peril and Christ in extremis. We speak throughout the year of “felix culpa”—that “happy fault” of ours and Adam’s that brought about the Resurrection. But from Ash Wednesday up to the Easter Vigil, the happiness of that fault is purposefully obscured. “Alleluia” is banished. And if Lent is our Church’s season of discontent, beautiful Tenebrae is its grandest liturgical expression. Its very name (Latin for “shadows” or “darkness”) evokes the heavy ache of Christ’s passion.
Tenebrae originated centuries ago as a late-evening combination of the Divine Offices of Matins and Lauds, which are now the modern, less elegant-sounding Office of Readings and Morning Prayer from the Liturgy of the Hours. In Tenebrae’s traditional, pre-Vatican II form, all of the lights in the church are dimmed, save for a triangular candlestick on the altar with fifteen lit candles. What takes place is not a Mass, but rather an extended, prayerful interaction between clergy, choir and congregation—in some ways similar to evening Vespers, for those familiar with that service. The celebrant leads in a series of readings, mostly consisting of passages from the Book of Lamentations and from psalms of lament like Psalm 22 (“My God, my God, why have you abandoned me?”). The plainsong motets of the choir suffuse the air with mystery.
Gradually, every candle but one is extinguished—plunging the church into near pitch-blackness. The whole thing feels like a funeral (they even call the pointed candlestick the “Tenebrae hearse”), and the darkness drapes the church like a pall. At the close of the readings, following the singing of the Benedictus—Zachary’s prayer from Luke 1:68-79, which always concluded Lauds—the assembly creates a loud, jarring sound by pounding the pews or stomping. Called the strepitus (Latin for “great noise”), this clamor symbolically represents the earthquake that followed Christ’s death; it also indicates that the service has ended. The priest carries the last lit candle away from the altar, and the congregation exits in silence.
For Catholics, good liturgy has always aimed to engage the body and its senses. We kneel, sit and stand throughout the Mass, and cross our brows, mouths and hearts before the proclamation of the Gospel. We taste the body and blood of Christ and inhale the perfume of incense. On special occasions, we rub our palm branches between our fingers, or smudge the ashes on our forehead. We listen, and we watch.
SensoryOur tactile impulses certainly enhance the appeal of hammering away on the nearest pew at the conclusion of Tenebrae. But the service’s chief sensory aim is to deprive us of our vision, in a startling way that feels fresh, and forces us to shed our sometimes-rote relationship to the Mass. By the end of the service, all that remains is a church full of shadows—the sheer absence we experience during Lent is made real and sacramental.
After centuries of accumulating dust, the Church decided during Vatican II to tidy up and let some light into the room, so to speak. That thinking was certainly understandable, but it didn’t bode well for grim, melancholy Tenebrae, however deliciously fitting that melancholy might suit Holy Week. Some churches re-packaged the service in sunnier, post-conciliar terms; many discontinued it altogether.
But anyone willing to look hard enough can still find a Tenebrae service that’s as dark and sorrowful as it’s intended to be. Many diocesan cathedrals have held out, and keep Tenebrae alive. There are some small variations from church to church. A few celebrate the service on all three days prior to the Easter Vigil. At St. Patrick’s Cathedral in New York, on the other hand, Tenebrae takes place on Good Friday, in the morning hours. And at the University of Notre Dame’s Basilica of the Sacred Heart (where I first encountered the service as an undergraduate), they celebrate Tenebrae at night on Holy Thursday—just right, I think, because the darkness is almost total, and the service poetically shepherds the community into Good Friday.
In this year, especially, when Easter comes early and nearly all of Lent unfolds in the cold grey of winter, the nearly forgotten ritual of Tenebrae feels all the more fitting. It blunts none of the mourning these forty days demand of us. And yet it ushers us forward with something to hold onto. In the midst of the concluding darkness, the celebrant departs with one tiny candle—a single glimmer of hope that will carry us through till Easter.
Greg Ruehlmann, 26, writes from Augusta, Georgia.
In The Dark Dark, noisy and nearly forgotten, a 20-something makes a case for reviving Tenebrae
By Greg Ruehlmann
It is the great peculiarity of the Church of Rome, that it presents to its worshipers an extraordinary variety of services, each of which has a special significance and fitness for the period of the year in which it is celebrated. Among the most beautiful of these offices are those which are celebrated during Holy Week, and which are called Tenebrae.
The notice above entitled “Tenebrae Services in the Roman Catholic Church” and published in the New York Times, on March 27th, 1872, sounds a little antiquated (when was the last time anybody said “Church of Rome?”), but it none the less rings true for me. Though it might be an odd choice, Tenebrae has long been my favorite service of the liturgical calendar. On the whole, I’m a liturgical progressive; I’ve never once longed for a return to the pre-Vatican II days when the congregation could only hope to get a good view of the priest’s back during services. But somehow I’ve fallen in love with a service that feels like a relic from an earlier, more austere time.
Tenebrae is literally set in darkness, at the height of the gloom preceding the Easter Vigil. It has not been popular in decades, and it would be misleading to call it a “best-kept secret” of the Catholic Church—it’s celebrated by some mainline Anglican and Lutheran communities as well. Further, such an assertion would require more Catholics to be in on the secret, which they aren’t. Most followers of the “Church of Rome” have never even heard of Tenebrae.
Happy FaultI wish they would discover it. Tenebrae perfectly fits the Lenten season, when spring struggles outside to wrest the climate from winter, and inside, we hear readings about the Israelites in peril and Christ in extremis. We speak throughout the year of “felix culpa”—that “happy fault” of ours and Adam’s that brought about the Resurrection. But from Ash Wednesday up to the Easter Vigil, the happiness of that fault is purposefully obscured. “Alleluia” is banished. And if Lent is our Church’s season of discontent, beautiful Tenebrae is its grandest liturgical expression. Its very name (Latin for “shadows” or “darkness”) evokes the heavy ache of Christ’s passion.
Tenebrae originated centuries ago as a late-evening combination of the Divine Offices of Matins and Lauds, which are now the modern, less elegant-sounding Office of Readings and Morning Prayer from the Liturgy of the Hours. In Tenebrae’s traditional, pre-Vatican II form, all of the lights in the church are dimmed, save for a triangular candlestick on the altar with fifteen lit candles. What takes place is not a Mass, but rather an extended, prayerful interaction between clergy, choir and congregation—in some ways similar to evening Vespers, for those familiar with that service. The celebrant leads in a series of readings, mostly consisting of passages from the Book of Lamentations and from psalms of lament like Psalm 22 (“My God, my God, why have you abandoned me?”). The plainsong motets of the choir suffuse the air with mystery.
Gradually, every candle but one is extinguished—plunging the church into near pitch-blackness. The whole thing feels like a funeral (they even call the pointed candlestick the “Tenebrae hearse”), and the darkness drapes the church like a pall. At the close of the readings, following the singing of the Benedictus—Zachary’s prayer from Luke 1:68-79, which always concluded Lauds—the assembly creates a loud, jarring sound by pounding the pews or stomping. Called the strepitus (Latin for “great noise”), this clamor symbolically represents the earthquake that followed Christ’s death; it also indicates that the service has ended. The priest carries the last lit candle away from the altar, and the congregation exits in silence.
For Catholics, good liturgy has always aimed to engage the body and its senses. We kneel, sit and stand throughout the Mass, and cross our brows, mouths and hearts before the proclamation of the Gospel. We taste the body and blood of Christ and inhale the perfume of incense. On special occasions, we rub our palm branches between our fingers, or smudge the ashes on our forehead. We listen, and we watch.
SensoryOur tactile impulses certainly enhance the appeal of hammering away on the nearest pew at the conclusion of Tenebrae. But the service’s chief sensory aim is to deprive us of our vision, in a startling way that feels fresh, and forces us to shed our sometimes-rote relationship to the Mass. By the end of the service, all that remains is a church full of shadows—the sheer absence we experience during Lent is made real and sacramental.
After centuries of accumulating dust, the Church decided during Vatican II to tidy up and let some light into the room, so to speak. That thinking was certainly understandable, but it didn’t bode well for grim, melancholy Tenebrae, however deliciously fitting that melancholy might suit Holy Week. Some churches re-packaged the service in sunnier, post-conciliar terms; many discontinued it altogether.
But anyone willing to look hard enough can still find a Tenebrae service that’s as dark and sorrowful as it’s intended to be. Many diocesan cathedrals have held out, and keep Tenebrae alive. There are some small variations from church to church. A few celebrate the service on all three days prior to the Easter Vigil. At St. Patrick’s Cathedral in New York, on the other hand, Tenebrae takes place on Good Friday, in the morning hours. And at the University of Notre Dame’s Basilica of the Sacred Heart (where I first encountered the service as an undergraduate), they celebrate Tenebrae at night on Holy Thursday—just right, I think, because the darkness is almost total, and the service poetically shepherds the community into Good Friday.
In this year, especially, when Easter comes early and nearly all of Lent unfolds in the cold grey of winter, the nearly forgotten ritual of Tenebrae feels all the more fitting. It blunts none of the mourning these forty days demand of us. And yet it ushers us forward with something to hold onto. In the midst of the concluding darkness, the celebrant departs with one tiny candle—a single glimmer of hope that will carry us through till Easter.
Greg Ruehlmann, 26, writes from Augusta, Georgia.
Wednesday, March 19, 2008
Making a new body
Again, a shameful lack of posting! I'm going through a deep journal writing phase right now, that will hopefully lead to more blogging. But right now, I'm not ready to share it with the world.
What I am ready to share is news many of you have been hoping for (No, I'm NOT pregnant! Why did you think that first?). I am working conscientiously toward gaining weight. Basically, my body has hit the plateau for muscle mass. At my current weight, I simply cannot get any stronger. I need more protein and iron to make more muscle. With all of the Pilates I have been doing, I need more strength. Pilates was made originally for men, by a man after all.
Hearing this was a shock. I think I'm pretty strong! I certainly look very toned. But that is a deceptive thing about long limbs. They look great with not much work. So I will be working to build more strength in my core and arm/shoulders especially.
There are 2 challenges with this new quest for strength:
1. Gaining weight is foreign to me. I have weighed between 110 and 115 for the past 5 years (for me a "healthy" weight). Moving beyond these numbers is actually going to take effort- to put it on, and then not freak out about it. Hopefully, really wanting to do this Pilates program will be enough motivation for me.
2. How do I do it?
A. Supplements/Bars? I have tried Muscle Milk- yucky aftertaste and it made my stomach hurt. Chris did whey protein a while ago and it made him break out in hives. The Trader Joe's Vanilla stuff is really gritty, but mixes well into oatmeal. I don't know that I could drink it straight, but Travis tells me if I combine it with ice cream, it's better (isn't everything better when combined with ice cream?). Most of the bars taste like dirt. Or cost a lot of money
B. Vitamins? I should probably be doing this anyway.....
C. Diet? Still not a big read meat fan. And the more I read about the food farms/cattle raising habits, the more I am conviced not to eat it. I guess the free-range, organic is the way to go, which is what I try to do with our poultry and eggs. But, then again, cost becomes a factor.
I will try to keep this updated with my adventures in protein-rich food. So far, gold star for Trader Joe's Natural Peanut Butter!
What I am ready to share is news many of you have been hoping for (No, I'm NOT pregnant! Why did you think that first?). I am working conscientiously toward gaining weight. Basically, my body has hit the plateau for muscle mass. At my current weight, I simply cannot get any stronger. I need more protein and iron to make more muscle. With all of the Pilates I have been doing, I need more strength. Pilates was made originally for men, by a man after all.
Hearing this was a shock. I think I'm pretty strong! I certainly look very toned. But that is a deceptive thing about long limbs. They look great with not much work. So I will be working to build more strength in my core and arm/shoulders especially.
There are 2 challenges with this new quest for strength:
1. Gaining weight is foreign to me. I have weighed between 110 and 115 for the past 5 years (for me a "healthy" weight). Moving beyond these numbers is actually going to take effort- to put it on, and then not freak out about it. Hopefully, really wanting to do this Pilates program will be enough motivation for me.
2. How do I do it?
A. Supplements/Bars? I have tried Muscle Milk- yucky aftertaste and it made my stomach hurt. Chris did whey protein a while ago and it made him break out in hives. The Trader Joe's Vanilla stuff is really gritty, but mixes well into oatmeal. I don't know that I could drink it straight, but Travis tells me if I combine it with ice cream, it's better (isn't everything better when combined with ice cream?). Most of the bars taste like dirt. Or cost a lot of money
B. Vitamins? I should probably be doing this anyway.....
C. Diet? Still not a big read meat fan. And the more I read about the food farms/cattle raising habits, the more I am conviced not to eat it. I guess the free-range, organic is the way to go, which is what I try to do with our poultry and eggs. But, then again, cost becomes a factor.
I will try to keep this updated with my adventures in protein-rich food. So far, gold star for Trader Joe's Natural Peanut Butter!
Wednesday, February 13, 2008
Save the Date!
“FLY ME TO THE MOON”
Save the Date
“Fly Me to the Moon”
Saturday April 12th
6- 9pm
Brownies 23 East Ardmore
A fundraiser to help us continue to bring hope and community back to the kids of New Orleans through music and dance
For More Info About Our Mission visit:
www.firstpositionmac.com
Contact At: First Position Movement Arts Center 610-853-9656
Invitation to follow
Indigenous Pitch Dance Collective
Mission Statement
We are a collective of Philadelphia-based dance companies whose goal is to perform works of artistic excellence that reflect and highlight the diversity of our city and its native, homegrown dance styles. Through the art of dance, we also seek to assist and nurture children who have been affected by natural, environmental and/or economic disasters. We further this mission through performances, residencies and workshops throughout the United States and abroad.
Save the Date
“Fly Me to the Moon”
Saturday April 12th
6- 9pm
Brownies 23 East Ardmore
A fundraiser to help us continue to bring hope and community back to the kids of New Orleans through music and dance
For More Info About Our Mission visit:
www.firstpositionmac.com
Contact At: First Position Movement Arts Center 610-853-9656
Invitation to follow
Indigenous Pitch Dance Collective
Mission Statement
We are a collective of Philadelphia-based dance companies whose goal is to perform works of artistic excellence that reflect and highlight the diversity of our city and its native, homegrown dance styles. Through the art of dance, we also seek to assist and nurture children who have been affected by natural, environmental and/or economic disasters. We further this mission through performances, residencies and workshops throughout the United States and abroad.
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