“Caught” in mid-air

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David Parsons is not a well-known dancer/choreographer, except among dance aficionados. But his company, which I’ve followed for decades, is most definitely worth watching.

In 1982 Parsons choreographed a solo with strobe lights known as “Caught.” I’ve seen it about four times and it never fails to astound, nor does it pall. One of the reasons I attend performances of his dance company so often is in hopes that this piece will be danced that particular night.

And so I thought to check out You Tube to see whether there’s a video that “catches” the dance’s essence. The following is the best I can do. It’s only a minute long, and the fun (and the strobe) doesn’t really start until halfway into it, at around 36 seconds. What’s more, the illusion on a small two-dimensional computer screen has nothing like the impact of the three-dimensional kinetics on stage.

But it’s still pretty amazing:

Well, Hillary’s certainly got a point

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In leading polls of Democratic voters, Obama leads Hillary. And he also leads her in the only vote that counts, the delegates to the convention.

But take a look at recent Gallup polls for the general election. Right now McCain leads Obama, and for the last couple of weeks they’ve been exchanging the lead in a pattern that indicates the race between them would be close to a dead heat. Continue reading →

Obama’s doublethink

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Jack Kelly (and others) has noted that Obama is giving a mixed and contradictory message on Hugo Chavez and whether to isolate him or to negotiate with him.

But that’s not a unique situation for Obama; for example, he’s got more positions on Iran than the Kama Sutra. Obama seems to have no trouble holding and/or promulgating mixed or even contradictory messages. It’s his specialty, in fact, one of the ways in which he’s going to bring us all together.

Like the fictional O’Brien in 1984, Obama appears to subscribe to the idea that in the service of a cause (in this case, his own election) one ought to practice doublethink. Continue reading →

The multitudinous world inside your elbow

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One of the more formative experiences of my life was reading Theodor Rosebury’s book Life On Man back when it first came out in 1969. It revealed that our efforts to sanitize the world and rid it of those seemingly pernicious bacteria were not only futile, they were counterproductive.

Our bodies and the surfaces of nearly everything on earth teem with bacteria, most of them friendly, some of them even helping us gain immunity. But sometimes we can get too much information about this phenomenon; it’s not always comforting to think of ourselves as a vehicle for so many hitchhikers of the miniscule variety.

Now comes the news that scientists are mapping the demography of the whole thing. Continue reading →

Memorial Day: mourning and honoring

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Before Memorial Day became a national three-day weekend in 1971 and the official kickoff to summer festivities, it was Decoration Day.

I’m not all that ancient, but my earliest recollection of the holiday is of the latter name. It was a day on which people brought flowers and flags to graves of the war dead, and maybe held a parade featuring some tottering old vets and their strange hats.

One also might be stopped by an elderly gentleman selling a poppy. Not a real poppy, but one made of crepe paper. Continue reading →

Grieving parents in war: from Kollwitz to Sheehan

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Who is this woman?

The serene young artist, glowing with life:

The worn-out older woman, lines of age etched deeper by profound grief:

She’s Kathe Kollwitz, one of the greatest graphic artists of all time, in two of her extraordinary self-portraits. Born in Germany in 1867, she had the sorrowful distinction of living long enough to see her beloved son Peter die at age nineteen in one of the earliest battles of World War I, and her beloved grandson die fighting in WWII. She never got over her grief at either event, but transmuted it–at least partially–into art.

Kollwitz was a socialist and a pacifist. As such, she supported neither war waged by Germany, and so she didn’t even have the solace available to those who did.

I first encountered Kollwitz’s spare and haunting work about three decades ago, at an exhibit devoted to women artists, and was immediately struck by its power and uncompromising sorrow. Here was a woman who had no need to prettify things. Take a look at some of her graphics, which focus mainly on loss and grieving, particularly in war. Continue reading →

John Kerry advocates talking with the enemy: again

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John Kerry has a piece in today’s Washington Post that champions Obama’s policy of talking to any and all comers, friend and foe alike.

It’s full of Kerry’s overheated and outraged rhetoric towards the opposition. Bush’s mention of appeasement in his Knesset speech was “slander” towards Obama (even though he didn’t mention his name), and “toxic rhetoric” as well. I’m surprised Kerry didn’t label it “swiftboating,” but perhaps he’d like us to forget that particular episode in his own past.

Of course, there are other even more relevant episodes in Kerry’s past that he’d like us to forget, although he once seemed quite proud of them. I refer to his own talks with the enemy—this time, an enemy in a hot and ongoing war: Vietnam. Continue reading →

The networking Valley Boy (Silicon, that is): how Obama raised his money

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Every time I’ve read that Obama has been one of the largest political fundraisers of all time, I’ve wondered how he did it. Here’s the answer.

He did it by innovative networking-type fundraising among computer-savvy people who were excited by the newness and youth of his candidacy. Google and Facebook and You Tube were started by the very young, and they’re wildly successful. Why not a president who understands such things and isn’t hampered by too much prior experience? Experience just hobbles the mind. Who needs it—and who needs to know much about history? Not Obama.

Here’s the flavor of his appeal: Continue reading →