Liberty Was Also Attacked in Boston

by Ron Paul

Reprinted from http://lewrockwell.com/paul/paul858.html

Forced lockdown of a city. Militarized police riding tanks in the streets. Door-to-door armed searches without warrant. Families thrown out of their homes at gunpoint to be searched without probable cause. Businesses forced to close. Transport shut down.

These were not the scenes from a military coup in a far off banana republic, but rather the scenes just over a week ago in Boston as the United States got a taste of martial law. The ostensible reason for the military-style takeover of parts of Boston was that the accused perpetrator of a horrific crime was on the loose. The Boston bombing provided the opportunity for the government to turn what should have been a police investigation into a military-style occupation of an American city. This unprecedented move should frighten us as much or more than the attack itself.

What has been sadly forgotten in all the celebration of the capture of one suspect and the killing of his older brother is that the police state tactics in Boston did absolutely nothing to catch them. While the media crowed that the apprehension of the suspects was a triumph of the new surveillance state – and, predictably, many talking heads and Members of Congress called for even more government cameras pointed at the rest of us – the fact is none of this caught the suspect. Actually, it very nearly gave the suspect a chance to make a getaway.

The “shelter in place” command imposed by the governor of Massachusetts was lifted before the suspect was caught. Only after this police state move was ended did the owner of the boat go outside to check on his property, and in so doing discover the suspect.

No, the suspect was not discovered by the paramilitary troops terrorizing the public. He was discovered by a private citizen, who then placed a call to the police. And he was identified not by government surveillance cameras, but by private citizens who willingly shared their photographs with the police.

As journalist Tim Carney wrote last week:

“Law enforcement in Boston used cameras to ID the bombing suspects, but not police cameras. Instead, authorities asked the public to submit all photos and videos of the finish-line area to the FBI, just in case any of them had relevant images. The surveillance videos the FBI posted online of the suspects came from private businesses that use surveillance to punish and deter crime on their property.”

Sadly, we have been conditioned to believe that the job of the government is to keep us safe, but in reality the job of the government is to protect our liberties. Once the government decides that its role is to keep us safe, whether economically or physically, they can only do so by taking away our liberties. That is what happened in Boston.

Three people were killed in Boston and that is tragic. But what of the fact that over 40 persons are killed in the United States each day, and sometimes ten persons can be killed in one city on any given weekend? These cities are not locked-down by paramilitary police riding in tanks and pointing automatic weapons at innocent citizens.

This is unprecedented and is very dangerous. We must educate ourselves and others about our precious civil liberties to ensure that we never accept demands that we give up our Constitution so that the government can pretend to protect us.

April 29, 2013

The Artist and the Model

Directed by Fernando Trueba

This film is very similar to the film, Renoir, that I reviewed here a couple of weeks ago. I wonder if they borrowed the script? An aging artist (Jean Rochefort), who isn't named, is sitting out the war (World War II in this case) in a placid pastoral landscape. He meets up with a gorgeous young girl (Aida Foche) who becomes his model. The girl spends a lot of her time on screen naked, which really makes the film. Some young girls bodies are so compelling that you can just look at them for hours and hours without losing interest. They have a mesmerizing quality about them that just won't let go. Foche has that, and that is what keeps this film alive. Because there is not a whole lot going on. Watching somebody sketch and sculpt and walk through the country meadows can wear out after a fairly short time. But Foche's nude body does not.

There is a lot of silence in this film, which I liked. It gives you a chance to think about the characters and what is going on. Unfortunately, that is not a lot. The script is not as well constructed nor is the story line as interesting as Renoir. Nor is the conversation as stimulating and as thought provoking. By every measure this film is inferior. So if you only have enough money to attend one of these, make it Renoir. I would have said it is a good film, interesting to watch, although mostly devoid of action and rather slow moving, but the ending made me mad at the director and the screen writer. It made absolutely no sense. It completely nullified everything that had been established about the character throughout the film. I took it as a gesture of futility on the part of the filmmakers. They didn't know what else to do, so they trashed the whole movie, their lead character, and everything the film had set out to do. Were they so dissatisfied with what they did that they decided to turn it into Romeo and Juliet? It's utter nonsense.

The film is in black and white. In French with subtitles. Seen at the San Francisco International Film Festival, Sundance Kabuki Cinema, April 28, 2013.

Blackfish

Directed by Gabriela Cowperthwaite

I have never been to SeaWorld, and I've never had any desire to go there. It always seemed to me like shallow entertainment which gives people the wrong impression of orcas in particular, and the relationship between humans and the animal kingdom in general. This film starts to set things in the right relationship.

It is a documentary about SeaWorld, the whales that perform in their shows, the trainers that train them, and whether or not it makes sense to be doing this. The impetus and center of gravity of the film is the death of trainer Dawn Brancheau, who was killed on February 24, 2010, by Tillikum, a 12,000 pound male orca at SeaWorld, Orlando, Florida. Brancheau was 40 years old and a senior trainer who knew Tillikum well and was comfortable with him. SeaWorld blames Brancheau for the mishap, but Tillikum had killed at least two other humans prior to Brancheau, and he also had a history of maltreatment, not only at SeaWorld, but also before he came to SeaWorld from Sealand of the Pacific in Victoria, Canada. The film explores all of this material in great detail. It is well documented and accentuated with interviews with former trainers who know Dawn Brancheau, and who provide much background and insight into the world of training orcas, the relationships of the trainers to the whales, and the conditions the whales are forced to live under at SeaWorld. Did Dawn Brancheau make a mistake that cost her her life, or was this a ticking time bomb destined to go off sooner or later? You decide.

The film makes the case that it is not such a good idea to be keeping these huge animals in the cramped quarters of the SeaWorld pools, separated from their natural social connections, and it is even less prudent to be letting young trainers, who don't really have a clue what they are getting into, to swim into a tank with these powerful undomesticated animals.

How do you think a behemoth like Tillikum gets to be 12,000 pounds? Not by eating potato chips in front of his TV. These animals are top predators. There are good reasons why they are called "killer" whales. There is one dramatic sequence in the film of several whales attacking a seal that is stranded on an ice floe. The whales work together to tip the ice floe enough that the seal is toppled into the water. Once that happens, it is all over for the seal in seconds. It seems to me that this is the truth that people -- including children -- should see about these whales.

There is a video on YouTube of a man clowning on a beach at the water's edge. Two orcas creep up on him right at the shoreline, knock him down, and devour him in seconds right before your very eyes. Some people think the video is fake. It shows you how strong is this will to believe in the benign nature of fierce predatory animals. Perhaps it is a way of denying our own vulnerability and how quickly we can be snuffed out and disappear at the hands -- or rather jaws -- of natural enemies. But this sort of thing goes on in the animal kingdom all the time every day. An animal can be placidly going about his business, and suddenly, without warning, be beset and completely devoured within seconds. It is a discomfiting thought which we would prefer to dispel, how sudden our lives can be snuffed out by powerful predators, who don't really hate us, they just want to consume us. It's nothing personal. Just as it is nothing personal when we raise chickens, or pigs, or cattle on factory farms in minimal conditions feeding them just enough to get their weight to a certain point in an optimal number of days at which time they will be abruptly and unceremoniously slaughtered. You don't stew about that when you sit down and enjoy a sumptuous steak in a fine restaurant, do you? Predators cannot afford to be sentimental about the animals they must kill in order to survive and thrive. The orcas did not feel sorry for that seal they toppled from the ice floe, nor for the man they probably mistook for a seal on the beach. Rather than dwell on that unsettling thought that these animals in their natural habitat would kill us in a moment, we turn them into friendly teddy bears, companions who can communicate with us and be friends with us. Denial is a first line defense against anxiety.

The film does not mention the parent corporation of Seaworld (which used to be Anheuser-Busch until it was sold to the Blackstone Group in 2009). It is now called Seaworld Entertainment Inc., which is 63% owned by Blackstone. The Blackstone Group is a multi-billion dollar private equity firm based in New York City, with offices around the world. Just this week Blackstone held an initial public offering of Seaworld Entertainment stock. According to the Wall Street Journal the stock went up 24% on the first day of trading (Wall Street Journal, April 22, 2013). After this film circulates I wonder how well the stock will do?

Blackstone cares about making money, and they're making a lot of it on Seaworld. They don't particularly care about the trainers at Seaworld, much less the orcas. They refused to be interviewed for this film or make any comment about its findings. This is an entertainment business that sells illusions. Illusions are strongly held beliefs or viewpoints that are in contradiction to facts or conditions that should be obvious. They reflect a human need to see things in a certain way in order to allay anxiety, to provide a consoling view of life that offers comfort or a feeling of security.

The illusion in this case is the belief that the natural world is a benign place where humans are in control and living in harmony with the other creatures in nature: that orcas, who are top predators in the wild, are actually benign, friendly, good natured companions to humans who can be domesticated to behave like entertaining pets. However, this illusion is starting to wear a little thin and fray around the edges. In order to maintain it, much truth has to be concealed, downplayed, and outright falsified, which the film documents very effectively.

The Seaworld trainers seem to be goodhearted, but naive, young people who have very little background in orca behavior or ethology, but are possessed of the illusion that you can get into a tank of water with a 12,000 pound captive whale that lives by killing, make him do all kinds of ridiculous things that he would never do in the wild, and be perfectly safe. People want to believe that they can be friends with their natural enemies, that the most fearsome predators can be tamed and transformed into loving companions. Yes, the animals have personalities, they have intelligence, they have a complex social life, they have sophisticated ways of communicating among themselves. Some people seem surprised and charmed to discover this. But it doesn't mean you can be friends with them. They cannot be a substitute for wholesome, loving human companionship. The captive environment is very artificial and the animals understand their dependence on their human handlers in this extraordinarily unnatural situation.

The film points to a record of at least 70 incidents where killer whales have attacked their human trainers and several where the trainers have been killed. Seaworld consistently blames the trainers, saying they made errors which led to the attacks. In some cases this was true, but on the other hand, you don't have a lot of margin with killer whales, and it is also true that the whales are kept under inhumane conditions and often treated badly, which, over time, probably builds up a lot of rage and resentment. Sometimes the whales reach a point where they decide enough is enough.

The film brings to light a lot of unsavory conditions in an inherently perilous enterprise that SeaWorld would prefer to keep under wraps, and which they have done pretty successfully for many years. This speaks to the power of this illusory phantasm of the benign natural world in the public imagination. People want to take their kids to this grandiose spectacle and be dazzled by huge powerful animals cavorting to entertain human audiences pleased with themselves to have subdued and dominated these breathtaking creatures. But it is insipid and barbaric. It gives kids the wrong message about the relationship between humans and animals and it gives them a very wrong impression about killer whales. Don't go to Seaworld. Watch this film instead. Seen at the San Francisco International Film Festival, Sundance Kabuki Cinema, April 27, 2013.

Isaac's Storm: A Man, A Time, and the Deadliest Hurricane in History.

By Eric Larson. New York: Vintage/Random House. 1999. pp. 323.

This is a harrowing story of survival and death during the Galveston Hurricane of 1900. The book bills it as the deadliest hurricane in history, however the hurricane of 1780, which struck the Western Caribbean during the American Revolution, and Hurricane Mitch of 1998, did cause greater loss of life. But the Galveston Hurricane of 1900 is right up there among the most deadly with an estimated 8000-12,000 deaths. This book is not only a story of the Galveston Hurricane, but it is also a history of meteorology and hurricane forecasting, a history of the U.S. Weather Service, and a biography of Isaac Cline, the Weather Service's agent in charge of the Galveston Bureau at the time of the hurricane.

The book is a magnificent accomplishment. I truly admire it. It has been scrupulously researched in original sources at the National Archives, the Library of Congress, and the Rosenberg Library of Galveston, many of which have not been touched since they were deposited. There are detailed footnotes. It is a gripping narrative with many sub-narratives that interweave, yet do not get in each other's way. The style is very readable and draws the reader in and takes hold of you. What I especially liked was Larson's ability to create a pervasive tone of ominous foreboding amidst the retelling of rather mundane occurrences. People blithely went about their daily routine business in Galveston during the days leading up to the hurricane without a clue what was coming. Small decisions were made that proved fateful. Minor events, seemingly trivial, contained a hint of menace. Of course, it is hindsight that enables one to make such a reconstruction. But there is also the lingering question of whether greater attention had been paid to certain small indicators, might the catastrophe been mitigated? No one had any concept of the magnitude of what was coming. There had been storms in Galveston before. People, including Isaac Cline, constructed their houses on stilts in anticipation of flooding from storms. They thought they were well prepared. The problem was they underestimated Nature and the massive power it can unleash.

Many of the lessons of this story will seem familiar and timeless. The mercilessness and indifference of Nature to the fate of living things and civilization. Nature truly does not care if we live or die. We are not being punished, nor are we being cared for, by anything that occurs in Nature.

The power of denial. There are a number of examples of this throughout the book, but I will single out two. Isaac Cline observed an interesting phenomena during his first summer in San Angelo, Texas, of 1885 (before he was transferred to Galveston). It was a long, hot summer on the Texas prairie. The Concho river was dry and temperatures went as high as 140 degrees.

One evening in mid-August he was walking toward town along his usual route, crossing the footbridge over the riverbed, when he heard a roar from somewhere far upstream. Not thunder. The roar was continuous, and got louder. He saw a carriage carrying a man and a two women descend into the riverbed at a point where wagons and horsemen often crossed. An escarpment of water that Isaac estimated to be fifteen or twenty feet high appeared beyond the carriage. Isaac began to run. The water caught the carriage broadside and ripped it from the soil. Isaac reached the other side of the riverbed just as the water surged past him, the carriage tumbling like a tree stump in a spring flood. The wagon passed. Rescue was impossible.

His heart racing, Isaac looked upstream. Men had gathered and with their bare hands were plucking fish from the water. Large fish. As Isaac walked toward the men, he saw a fish two feet long drift slowly by. Me moved closer. The fish did nothing. He reached for the fish. It kept still. Isaac thrust his hands into the water, and two things happened. He caught the fish; he froze his hands.

It was August in Texas but water had abruptly filled the riverbed and this water was the temperature of a Tennessee creek in January, so cold it paralyzed fish.

But where had the water come from? Isaac scanned the skies for the rolling black-wool cloud typically raised by blue northers, but saw nothing.

Days later, townsmen recovered the bodies of the carriage driver and his two female passengers.

And a week later, the mystery of the ice-water flood was resolved.

Visitors from the town of Ben Ficklin fifty miles up the Concho came to San Angelo and reported that a monstrous hailstorm had struck about ten days earlier, the day of the flood. The storm discharged stones the size of ostrich eggs that killed hundreds of cattle and fell in such volume they filled erosion gulches and piled to depths of up to three feet on level ground. The ice melted quickly.

For Isaac this was explanation enough. The deadly flood was the downstream flow of flash-melted hail. He wrote an article on the incident for the weather service's Monthly Weather Review, edited by Cleveland Abbe. To Isaac's "surprise and chagrin," Abbe rejected the article on grounds it was too far-fetched to be believed. (pp. 61-2)

Isaac was annoyed at this rejection and went on to document other cases of massive hailstorms across the Great Plains that caused great destruction. They are not by any means unprecedented.

Another case of denial is exhibited by the U.S. Weather Service's handling of the storm in its forecasting. It was a widespread belief among forecasters at the time that all hurricanes followed a curving path from the Caribbean through Florida and then northeast into the Atlantic. They did not believe it was possible for a hurricane to proceed from Cuba, west toward Galveston -- but that was exactly what this hurricane did. Reports of the storm and forecasts were issued consistent with these false expectations, but contrary to facts on the ground. The Cuban Weather Service, however, reported accurately on the storm and warned of its danger. The U.S. Weather Service banned the Cubans from transmitting their reports over telegraph lines to the United States. They enlisted the help of Western Union in this effort.

Willis Moore, acting Secretary of Agriculture at that time, wrote a letter to General Thomas T. Eckert, president of Western Union .

The United States Weather Bureau in Cuba has been greatly annoyed by independent observatories securing a few scattered reports and then attempting to make weather predictions and issue hurricane warnings to the detriment of commerce and the embarrassment of the Government service. . . I presume you have not the right to refuse to transmit such telegrams, but I would respectfully ask that they be not allowed any of the privileges accorded messages of this Bureau, and that they be not given precedence over other commercial messages. (p. 106)

The Cuban weather raised vigorous opposition to the ban, but they were suppressed. After the storm, with Galveston in ruins, The Cuban Weather Service's Julio Jover visited H.H.C. Dunwoody, head of the U.S. Weather Bureau in Cuba, and had a contentious discussion about hurricane prediction. At one point Dunwoody told Jover

"a cyclone has just occurred in Galveston which no meteorologist predicted."

Jover, incredulous, paused a moment. He said, slowly as one might address the inmate of an asylum: "That cyclone is the same one which passed over Cuba."

"No sir," Dunwoody snapped. "It cannot be; no cyclone ever can move from Florida to Galveston." (p. 114)

Although Larson's book is straightforward history, there are many parallels to contemporary events. Larson does not draw them, which is to his credit, but it can readily be seen that the mentality and often the methods of bureaucrats and government leaders seem to have a timelessness that transcends historical contexts.

Governments and corporations find it extremely important to control the flow and quality of information about public events. It is through the selective use of information (or misinformation) that public attitudes and can be shaped and behavior controlled. It is also how credibility and authority are maintained. We see this today in the government's handling of the Boston bombings, 9/11, the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, the Kennedy Assassination, the Lincoln Presidency, and above all in the so-called "War on Terror", that phantasm of the imagination that has no beginning, no end, and no fixed enemy, except whom the government declares it to be. It is the ultimate power grab because it does not admit contradiction by any "facts." Actually, the facts disappear. Reality becomes what solely the government declares it to be. This same pattern can be seen over a hundred years ago in the Galveston Hurricane.

The biggest elephant in this room of denial and dismissal of imminent catastrophe is climate change. This, I think, gives this book special relevance to events occurring before our eyes today. We often see today, in the media and in the government, people who refuse to accept, in the face of overwhelming evidence, that the earth's climate is changing, that it is changing rapidly, that human activity is the cause of the change, and that the consequences are potentially devastating on a scale heretofore unimaginable. It is very similar to the underestimation that the people of Galveston and the officials of the U.S. Weather Service made before the Galveston Hurricane. People simply had no concept of the vast destructive potential of Nature and how quickly it could be visited upon them. We are in that same state of impoverished imagination and blissful denial today before the specter of global warming. There are some people who know and are trying to sound the warning. But they are discounted and dismissed. The scenarios of doom they paint are too fantastic to be credible. Yet once these forces are unleashed, or rather, once they begin to break upon us, it will be too late and the outcome will be inevitable.

I once shared some of my concerns about this with a friend of mine, explaining to him that San Francisco draws most of its water from the Hetch Hetchy Reservoir in the Sierra Nevada mountains. The pipeline from Hetch Hetchy to San Francisco crosses a number of major geological fault lines, but the concern I was sharing with him was that climate change may make our weather much drier and warmer. If the Sierra snowpack were to disappear, and the Hetch Hetchy Reservoir were to dry up, where will that leave San Francisco for a water supply? His response, "Well, I guess we'll just have to drink Perrier."

Bureaucratic infighting and turf wars impaired the Weather Service's functioning and weather forecasting became politicized. It is worth noting that an important motivation for the improvement in weather forecasting was the military. Naval fleets were often sunk by storms, and being able to understand and predict weather was important to maintaining military strength and superiority. President McKinley ordered the creation of the hurricane warning service in the Caribbean on the eve of the Spanish-American War. "I am more afraid of a West Indian hurricane than I am of the entire Spanish Navy." (p. 74)

Once the storm began to break upon the city and people saw they were in real trouble, there were divisions between people over how to respond. There were sharp differences among family members including Isaac Cline's over whether to move to a presumably safer location or stay put. These decisions were fateful. Many families perished as a consequence of these decisions. Larson points out an interesting gender divide. Men tended to stand pat and ride out the storm, where women wanted to flee. Many of these were their last marital arguments.

Much of the book is taken up with dramatic anecdotes of survival and death. But many larger issues of great interest are also discussed along the way.

One interesting small point that Larson only mentions in passing, but I find worth drawing attention to, is a description of a walk Dr. Samuel Young, Secretary of the Cotton Exchange made the night before the hurricane.

Ahead, Murdoch's pier blazed with light. The crests of incoming waves seemed nearly to touch the lamps suspended over the surf. There would be no nude bathing tonight -- unlike other nights, when as many as two hundred men would gather in the waves beyond the reach of the lamps and swim frog-naked in the warm water. (p. 130)

Apparently, there was a vibrant homoerotic culture in Galveston around the turn of the century. I wonder how common such gatherings were across the United States at that time, before the suppression of male-male sex became firmly established in the culture?

After the storm there were so many corpses that disposing of them became a major public health issue. Cremation was a rare practice in 1900, but many bonfires were built across Galveston to burn the many dead bodies from all over the city. There was racism. Rumors were spread of black people defiling and robbing the bodies. Black males were recruited at gunpoint to help load and dump bodies into the ocean for which they were paid in whiskey (p. 239). But the bodies were not weighted enough and by the end of the day many of the bodies dumped into the ocean were washing back up on the beaches of Galveston.

Larson notes the sources of relief contributions for Galveston. The State of New York gave the most at more than $93,000. New Hampshire sent $1.

One of the final chapters details how the spin doctors went to work in the aftermath to influence how the media portrayed the storm to the public and the Weather Service's handling of it. A lot of it sounds very familiar.

[Willis] Moore continued to portray the bureau as having expertly forecast and tracked the storm, and credited in particular the West Indies Service. . . Most U.S. newspapers, unaware of the nuances of the bureau's performance and inclined in those days to be more accepting of official dogma, adopted Moore's view. (p. 252)

Which was in direct contradiction to the facts.

Isaac Cline lost his wife in the storm -- arguably in consequence of a decision he made to remain in his house. The subsequent lives of many of the participants are noted by Larson, which makes for satisfying closure.

Willis Moore wrote at the time "Galveston should take heart, as the chances are that not once in a thousand years would she be so terribly stricken." (p.272) But Galveston was hit by hurricanes in 1915, 1919, 1932, 1941, 1943, 1949, 1957, 1961, and 1983.

Toward the end of the twentieth century, meteorologists still considered Galveston one to the most likely targets for the next great hurricane disaster. Unlike their peers in the administration of Willis Moore, they feared that the American public might be placing too much trust in their predictions. People seemed to believe that technology had stripped hurricanes of their power to kill. No hurricane expert endorsed this view. None believed the days of mesoscale death were gone for good. The more they studied hurricanes, the more they realized how little they knew of their origins and the forces that governed their travels. There was talk that warming seas could produce hypercanes twice as powerful as the Galveston hurricane. (p. 273)

This is the not so subtle message of this book for our time that goes beyond its being a historical narrative or a gripping adventure story. The conditions created by the warming earth and the warming oceans will eventually bring storms upon us of a much greater destructive scale than we have ever experienced. People of our time would do well to heed the lessons of the city of Galveston in not being too smug and arrogant against the monumental power of Nature, which can outstrip our imagination for sudden and ruthless destruction. We like to believe that the world is a congenial place and meant to support our lives. It does not have to be that way, and it can change in a very short time. Reading the story of Galveston can help bring that message home for whatever good it might do, and Larson's account is as powerful and effective a recounting as any that might be done.

Shantala Shivalingappa

Namasya -- Dance Performance

Herbst Theater, San Francisco

April 16, 2013

I didn't care for this. This was a solo performance of Indian dance in the Kuchipudi style, to Indian music. The music was better than the dancing. I couldn't relate to it. I found it wearisome and dull. It lacked engagement. It was solipsistic. Some of it reminded me of those pantomime games where one person acts out a scenario and the rest of the group tries to guess what it is. It was like she had something in her head, but I couldn't seem to connect with what it was.

She started out on her back toward the rear of the stage making painfully slow movements as if she were getting up in the morning very, very slowly -- a decidedly downbeat way to start. I often get up like that myself first thing in the morning, but it is not interesting to watch, and I would never have the temerity to perform it on stage and expect people to be interested in it.

Most of this performance was slow and static, decidedly undramatic and even disengaged. For a couple of segments she left the stage allowing screens came down and a video of her dancing in costume appeared on the screen. It was a video I would never watch were it to be given to me. It was totally uninteresting. I couldn't understand why this was presented in a video. Was she too lazy to just go out there and do it herself? I think it emphasized her unwillingness to make full contact with the audience, which seemed to be a theme of this performance.

A further segment underlined this. It was done mostly on her knees with her back to the audience making movements with her arms and torso. When her back was not to the audience, she hid her face in her arms. It was as if she were avoiding making contact with the audience, refusing to look at them. I got the same feeling from it that I have had sometimes pursuing a woman I am interested in and she is making no response. Not a negative response, but no response. As if her back is to me and she is ignoring me, totally stonewalling, not willing to be engaged or communicative in any way whatsoever. Not exactly the way for a woman to get a good review from me, and that was how I felt during much of this performance.

I made up my mind as I was sitting there not to even review this show. I don't like to write this kind of a review. I like young women and I try to encourage them, but I started getting annoyed as it dragged on. This woman is unprepared to be doing this kind of a performance, and San Francisco Performances did not do her a favor presenting her in a venue for which she is not artistically ready. Someone has to tell her. A reviewer also has a responsibility to inform the public what they are in for when they take time and spend money to attend a performance. Why should I keep silent to protect a poor performer who is out there soliciting paying audiences?

When you go out on a stage and do a solo performance: an hour or more of nothing but you, it has to be strong, and you have to have an imposing presence that can connect with the audience and sustain their attention. People are paying money and spending their time to view this. It has to have something to offer, something to engage them, stimulate them, connect with them on some level or other. You can't just bore them to death and expect them to like it. You take a big risk when you do a show like this as a solo performer. If people don't like it, it all comes down on you. You're not part of a group that shares responsibility and offers support. Shivalingappa does not have the kind of presence and artistic strength necessary to pull this off. This performance was not substantial. It was tedious. She is way out of her league. She should be dancing in a troupe learning her craft.

Maybe I am spoiled. I just saw the San Francisco Ballet the other night and those dancers are first rate. Every single one of them is masterful with a commanding presence that you can feel all the way up to the top of the balcony. Shivalingappa is not anywhere near that caliber and certainly not of a stature to be doing a solo show on her own. But it was mercifully short. That was the best part. Some serious rethinking need to be done with this one. I'm sorry, but I cannot recommend this.

Renoir

Directed by Gilles Bourdos

This is an outstanding dramatization of the French painter Pierre-August Renoir (1841-1919) (Michel Bouquet) in his later years. (In French with subtitles.) It takes place in 1915 during the First World War. At the time Renoir lived on a farm in Cagnes near the Mediterranean coast above Nice. He seems to have had an entourage of women around him who took care of the household and attended to him. The film never explained exactly who they were or what their relationships were to him. Some of them seem to have been former models. His wife of 25 years, Aline, died prior to the time of the film, which would have been recently. He had three sons with Aline, two of whom figure prominently in the film, Jean (Vincent Rottiers), the older, and Claude (Thomas Doret), the younger.

The film begins with the arrival of Andree Heuschling (Christa Theret), a.k.a. Catherine Hessling, who becomes his last model and the future wife of his son, Jean. Born in 1900, she would have been fifteen at the time of this film, although in the film she appears to be somewhat older, probably in her early 20s. Renoir's son, Claude, whom she encounters at the outset, in actuality was only a year younger, although in the film he appears to be at least ten years her junior.

Theret is gorgeous and she spends a good part of her time in this film naked or nearly so, which is a huge plus. Her naked body helps a great deal to maintain interest in this somewhat slow moving domestic film. There isn't a lot of action in this film. It is domestic drama, but it is interesting and has substance. The characters are intriguing and their circumstance dealing with the aging patriarch against the backdrop of the horrendous First World War give the film a strong engagement.

The center of gravity of the film is not really Renoir, who mostly sits and paints throughout the film, and sometimes talks -- and what he has to say is always interesting -- but rather, the romance that develops between the older son, Jean, and Andree. I'll let you watch the film to see how that goes, but it is very well done and both characters are strong and captivating, particularly Andree.

What I want to talk about are some of the comments Renoir made on painting and art. Renoir's paintings, particularly in his later years, are warm, colorful, and his subject matter tends to be benign: domestic scenes, landscapes, portraits, and nude women. His colors are strong, but tend to be pastel, softening contrast and shapes. He didn't use black very much. He felt that viewing a painting should be an enjoyable encounter, reflecting positive, uplifting themes. It wasn't that he was unfamiliar with the darker side of life, but he did not wish to portray it. And this is the point. A painting, or a work of art more generally, reflects the inner reality, and especially the values, of the artist who created it. The choice of subject matter and the way it is portrayed say a lot about who the artist is as a person and what he finds most important and valuable in life. It takes considerable time, sustained attention, and skill to create a work of art. What you choose as a subject matter upon which to spend that time, attention, and skill is not arbitrary. An artist chooses to depict what he feels is interesting and important to share with others. When you view a work of art, you are immersing yourself in the mindset and world view of another person. You are allowing your attention to be guided by the interest and outlook of another person. He may be a good person or a bad person. His outlook may be positive and constructive, or negative, hostile, and biased. But it is highly personal, individualized, and idiosyncratic. This is the reason why art and artists often run afoul of prevailing morays and attitudes of their societies. If they make political statements, they may get into trouble with the authorities.

Art, at least in our western tradition of individual creators, is a forum that lifts up the inner world of particular persons for public view. In contrast to say, commercial art, which does not do this, or does it to a greatly circumscribed extent. The operating values in commercial art are to sell a product, promote a name, or create an image associated with a brand or company. The artist who is commissioned to do such work has limited, if any, choice over the subject matter or how it is to be portrayed. The artist becomes something of a technician, executing work with a predefined object. If he is skilled and imaginative, he may have some influence over the final depiction, but the work does not come from his own initiative, his inner need to share of himself. He is doing the work in the service of an agenda that has been brought to him by someone else. In the Middle Ages, when life and art was dominated by the church, religious themes were the norm in art. Individual artists found ways to express themselves within that context, but radical departures from this prevailing mindset were not tolerated and simply had no venue. The names of artists who created artworks in ancient times were not recorded. The individual was not important and the individual's perspective was not to be emphasized in the public forum of art. Art's role was to reflect the values of society as a whole, or at least the dominant class within it.

Modern art that you see in museums and galleries today, celebrates highly individualized, idiosyncratic perspectives. If you contrast the paintings of women by Renoir, and say, Picasso, you see very different attitudes toward women and how they are portrayed. Renoir saw women as beautiful and sensual, somewhat idealized, perhaps, but women are exalted in his paintings. They are set in congenial circumstances in warm, vibrant colors. You see their faces with expressions reflecting the mood and personality of the woman. Picasso's women, by contrast, are distorted, grotesque, their faces blank, cold, expressionless. There is nothing beautiful or inviting about them. Many of them are frankly hideous. Certainly there is no idealization. Neither is more "real" than the other. The point is that artists depict the world, not as it is, but as they need to see it. These needs are largely unconscious and are shaped by early experiences going back to the beginnings of their lives. What you see in art is an interpretation, not "reality". When you look at a work of art, you are seeing a selective view of the world the way the artist needs to see it and chooses to share it. So it is very personal. Art is a way of connecting with other people on the level of the inner self through selective symbolic communication. It is inherently limited, but on the other hand, it exposes one to aspects of another person not readily available, and can thus expand one's awareness of the external world, the inner world of another, and awaken unexplored aspects of oneself.

The film is not so preoccupied with this philosophical topic of the nature of art -- which might be a relief to you. It emphasizes, rather, the romance between the young lovers, which is intriguing and spirited. It is well crafted and well acted. Not an action packed film. You have to wear your thinking cap for this one, if you have one. It does offer a convincing picture of Renoir in his later years, and particularly the inspiration he derived from attractive young women. Renoir seems to have used his wealth to isolate himself from the world in an idyllic landscape surrounded by beautiful, attentive women. (I would do the same thing, if I had the money.) This was a cause for some tension between himself and his older son, Jean, who had been a soldier at the front. Wounded in battle, he felt the pull of responsibility to his comrades and the nation, choosing to reenlist and go back to the war, against the strong opposition of Andree and his father. Renoir senior sat out the war painting naked girls. His warm, sensual, inviting paintings didn't seem to sit so well with Jean, who had seen action at the front, which gave him a very different perspective on life from what his father portrayed. Renoir painted until the very end of his life in 1919. He was still painting on the day he died. The film is an excellent introduction to his life and work.

Program 7 -- San Francisco Ballet Performance

April 13, 2013

There were three separate ballets on Program 7. The first was called Criss-Cross, choreographed by Helgi Thomasson. This is a celebration of beauty and grace, superbly performed by the San Francisco Ballet dancers. It is lively and energetic. The first section is done against the music of Domenico Scarlatti, arranged by Charles Avison, and the latter part is done to the music of Arnold Schoenberg, taking off on George Frederic Handel. You don't have to think too much for this one. It is visually interesting and the mood is upbeat. The highlight for me were the two male-female duets. The first was beautifully romantic and elegantly performed. The second one in the latter half of the performance was more somber, almost languid. The choreographer seemed to be listening to the music when he composed this. The dance was well suited to the musical score, which is something I like to see. It is a solid, enjoyable, well-executed performance that does not challenge too much.

The second ballet was Francesca da Rimini, choreographed by Yuri Possokhov. This was my favorite of the three. The set, lighting, special effects, costumes and choreography are interesting and imaginative. The dancing fits well with the music, which gives a feeling of solidity and stability. This one is supposed to have a minimal story line, although this staging is not concerned over much with telling a story. It is actually dominated by a duet which is done to powerful effect. It contrasts with the duets in the previous ballet in that this duet is much less romantic. It is sensual, even lurid. One does not get any sense of an illicit affair in this performance, which is the original story line. Supposedly Francesca falls in love with Paolo, the younger brother of her husband, Gianciotto, who is supposed to be ugly and crippled. The tall, robust dancer who plays Gianciotto, Vito Mazzeo, doesn't exactly fit that description. He does discover the lovers and murders them, true to the original script, but then Possokhov gives it a twist, which I think is a great improvement. Instead of the adulterous couple being consigned to Hell, as in Dante's Inferno, Gianciotto, the jealous murderer is dragged off to Hell. I like Possokhov's conception better and congratulate him on his modification of the story.

The Symphony in Three Movements by Igor Stravinsky rounds out the program. It is choreographed by George Balanchine. It is imaginatively done, with lots of visual activity and interesting configurations that blend and morph in interesting ways. This is one where the dance does not well reflect the mood and temper of the underlying music. There is a lot of distress in this music, but the choreography seems oblivious to it. The choreographer seemed to have his own agenda and he wasn't going to let the music get in the way of it. The dancing is generally more positive and energetic than the music. This one is interesting to watch. It has complexity and many different elements that work together smoothly. It is well thought out from the point of view of the choreography, but it was clearly not conceived from the music as the starting point. I had the sense that the dancers like doing this one. I could feel a vigor and enthusiasm from them that seemed inspired by the work itself. This seems to be one they would choose to do themselves.

Generally an enjoyable, stimulating performance with lots of visual interest, imaginative staging, good positive energy and first rate dancing by the San Francisco Ballet dancers.

Stevie Nicks: In Your Dreams

Directed by Dave Stewart and Stevie Nicks

This is a self-indulgent infomercial for Stevie Nicks recent CD, In Your Dreams. If I had known what it was going to be, I wouldn't have gone. Ninety percent of it is Stevie Nicks. Most of the other ten percent is people telling how much they love Stevie Nicks, thanking her for everything she has done, and rhapsodizing about how great she is. She is a great song writer and a great singer. That still works. The music in this is good. There should have been more music and less talk. You do learn a lot about her character. However, I didn't like a lot of what I saw. I think she is a very needy woman in the depths of her heart with an insatiable need for attention and adulation. She has to be the center of attention at all times and completely dominates everyone around her. She is very self absorbed and preoccupied with herself. I found her oppressive after a while. This kind of extreme neediness taxes me beyond my limits. I don't think I could stand being around her for very long. But I would go see her in a concert. Her voice still has that sultry, smoky, mesmerizing power that it always did, and her songs are still thoughtful and poignant. The people who filled the theater where I saw this film applauded enthusiastically. They seemed to be exactly the kind of adoring fans she needs. Parts of the film mimic those video pieces for MTV, where an imaginative, theatrical video depicts the song being featured. But the film also casts some light on her sources of inspiration and the creative process in writing a song and putting a recording together. For example, Cheaper than Free started from a remark of Reese Witherspoon offering to let her use a condo she owns. Dave Stewart is her guitarist and lead partner in the songwriting. Mick Fleetwood appears and plays drums on a number of the songs. Lindsay Buckingham also participates on a few of the numbers -- but says little or nothing. The recording took place in her Southern California home. It presents each of the songs on In Your Dreams, informatively and sympathetically. I would rather have seen a documentary about her life and career, preferably not directed by her. If you are a dedicated fan of Stevie Nicks, you'll probably enjoy this, but I would suggest instead just skipping this film and buying the CD.

Emperor

Directed by Peter Webber

This is two films in one. The main story is a narrative about the aftermath of the Japanese surrender to the Americans at the end of World War II and General Douglas MacArthur's deliberations over what to do with Japanese Emperor Hirohito. The issue was whether he should he be tried and executed as one of the architects of the war, or allowed to continue as titular ruler of Japan? The film is misnamed. It is not about the Emperor. The Emperor is only a minor figure in the film. It is about General Bonner Fellers on MacArthur's staff, who is charged by MacArthur with investigating Hirohito's guilt in war crimes. His report will provide a justification for a decision that MacArthur had already made to allow Hirohito to continue on as Emperor of Japan. The secondary story is a love story between Fellers and a Japanese woman Fellers met in the United States, who is related to a senior officer in the Japanese military. The love story is much more interesting and better presented than the political narrative. The girl is gorgeous (Eriko Hatsune) and she plays the role perfectly. I think if this film had been recast to present the love story as the center weight of the film with the political drama as a backdrop, it might have worked better.

I am not steeped in the history of this period or in the biographies of any of the individuals portrayed. So I am taking the film at face value. I won't make any judgment about whether the portrayals and the facts and the interpretations are historically accurate. I will say that I did not find the performance of Tommy Lee Jones as Douglas MacArthur convincing at all. In general, none of the portrayals of the American military officers came across as genuine. On the other hand, the Japanese actors who played the roles of the Japanese officials were very effective.

The film attempts to teach some lessons on the nature of Japanese culture or the essence of the Japanese soul. These discussions between Japanese and American officials take place mostly in the context of the military investigation into the role of Hirohito during the war. This also has a superficial quality about it that I found myself resisting. What actually taught more about the Japanese mentality and the culture was the romance. It did it through the action and characterizations rather than through analytical discussion.

The film also tries to raise the issue of responsibility for the war and the nature of war crimes by comparing the war time behavior of the Japanese military and the American. Again, this is a lightweight treatment that is completely unimpressive. The romance (and Eriko Hatsune) is the best part of this film.

The film is engaging and tells an interesting story -- actually two interesting stories that are intertwined. The things it tries hardest to do probably don't succeed all that well. The subplot that simply told itself and didn't think too much worked a lot better.

Liberty Was Also Attacked in Boston

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