Some consider the Nation’s Capital as “Fantasyland on the Potomac”. Other outsiders are “Fed Up” with the Federal City. It's better to consider D.C. as “the District of Calamity” (sic).
In promotion of ex FBI Director James Comey's new book Higher Loyalty: Truth, Lies and Leadership (2018), he gave a five hour interview with former Clinton press flak George Stephanopolis. Instead of revealing new information about his untimely exit from the helm of the FBI after the Clinton Email scandal and the allegations of Russian meddling in the 2016 election, Comey's tome seemed to be a self justifying exercise to settle scores, particularly against President Trump. Clinton loyalists like Lannie Davis still think that Mr. Comey cost Hillary Clinton the 2016 election, and label his self righteous antics as being a retrograde narcissist. While those on the right look his stated philosophy about investigations and contrast it to how he wrote an exoneration for Hillary Clinton weeks before interviewing the principal witness, concluding that he was a dirty cop.
Either way, Mr. Comey sure enjoys the limelights as he blames others for the messes which he is embroiled. Perhaps surrealist artist Claude Martin conveyed could convey Comey's persona best.
The 6821 Quintet performing at the National Gallery of Art, March 26 2018
For the last few years, the National Cherry Blossom Festival has been privileged to feature the 6821 Quintet, an ad hoc group of musicians, which was formed in 2015 and is comprised of members from Japan, New York and Philadelphia with through the support of the Ryunji Ueno Foundation. The 6821 Quintet derives its name from the distance between Washington, DC and Toyko, Japan. This year’s ensemble is comprised of violinist Mayu Kishima, violinist Eric Silberger, violinist Meng Wang, cellist Clancy Newman and pianist Jason Solounias. Sakura on the Potomac, which premiered at the 2018 National Cherry Blossom Festival was composed by Japanese composer and producer Kunihiko Murai. Sakura is the Japanese word for Cherry Blossom Tree, which includes the twelve species of Cherry Blossom Trees that encircle the Tidal Basin in the Nation's Capital since Japan’s generous gift to America in 1912.
The 6821 Quintet also played Songs of Spring and Portraits of Sakura– our memories of bloom, which were respectively the prior two years commissions for the National Cherry Blossom Festival. During the final performance at the National Gallery of Art, two of the three composers of National Cherry Blossom Festival commissions were present. Michael Djupstrom had performed with the 6821 Quintet for a couple of years, but also composed Songs of Spring for the 2016 Cherry Blossom Festival. Mr. Djupstrom commended the 6821 Quintet for their remarkable cohesiveness in their artistry, especially since they only perform together one week a year.
Kunihiko Murai had written over 300 songs and 30 film scores, so composing a tone poem like Sakura on the Potomac was a new adventure. Mr. Murai revealed that he associated lyrics in his head for Sakura on the Potomac but did not reveal them. The composer, however, noted that he was inspired by the T.S. Eliot quotation “April is the cruelest month, breeding lilacs out of the dead land”. This seems apt as the blossoming of the Sakura on the Potomac signals Spring in the District of Calamity (sic), a.k.a Washington, DC.
The 6821 Quintet pose with Sakura on the Potomac composer Kunihiko Murai
Alas, the 2017 Kennedy Center Honors was not just about recognizing career contributions to the arts, but was serving as a platform for artists to make political statements to and about President Donald Trump.
James Woods pointed out that the vast majority of stars in the entertainment industry have reveled in rebuking the 45th President, so why in the world would you subject yourself to attend in order to be abused.
As we enter into the Awards season, in which celebutards congratulate themselves and take turns exchanging engraved Lucite blocks or gold plated statuettes, it will be interesting if they are retrospect about the rampant sins of sexual abuse in the entertainment industry. But it is more likely that they will assume that being in the limelight makes them illuminated to pontificate about politically correct policies which are commonplace in Hollyweird (sic), a.k.a. Hollywood.
Author Robert M. Pirsig died at the age of 88 in South Berwick, Maine after a period of failing health. Pirsig was renowned for writing Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance-- An Inquiry Into Values (1974), a loosely autobiographical travelogue of a 17 day cross country road trip in 1968 with his 11 year old son and two friends during which he pondered weighty philosophical problems to discern the metaphysics of quality, Pirsig had served in the Army in the Far East before the Korean War. During a trip on leave to Japan, Pirsig became fascinated by Zen Buddhism. After his military service, Pirsig received graduate degrees in Philosophy from the University of Chicago and Banaras Hindu University. Like the unnamed protagonist in the novel, who sometimes referred to himself as Phaedrus (a name inspired by Plato's Dialogues), Pirsig was a brilliant thinker with a high IQ who eventually suffered a mental breakdown which was treated by electro-shock therapy that altered his personality. By delving deeply into undercurrents of thought, the novel can be seen as a detective story of a man in search of himself.
Robert M. Pirsig, 1975
The title of the book was a play on another popular tome Zen and the Art of Archery (1971). Pirsig's playfulness was also evident in the forward in which the author wrote:
"Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance should in no way be associated with that great body of factual information relating to orthodox Zen Buddhist practice. It’s not very factual on motorcycles either.”
But the book contemplated how man relates to machines, the roots of our culture and what inspires madness.
Plato & Aristotle "The School of Athens" Raphael (1510)
Phaedrus ordered existence between "classic" values (like rational problem solving in fixing motorcycles) and "romantic values" (like beauty and the arts). This philosophical chautauqua ("circus of ideas) which Phaedrus grappled with in his deep thoughts was how the Western mind had separated ordinary experiences from transcendent experiences because Plato and Aristotle had done so. Moreover, the mind-body dualism championed by the Greeks stoked a mental civil war which stripped rationality from its spiritual underpinnings and spirituality of its reason. What man really ought to strive for is quality. As Pirsig contemplated:
"Quality . . . you know what it is, yet you don't know what it is. But that's self-contradictory. But some things are better than others, that is, they have more quality. But when you try to say what the quality is, apart from the things that have it, it all goes poof! There's nothing to talk about. But if you can't say what Quality is, how do you know what it is, or how do you know that it even exists? If no one knows what it is, then for all practical purposes it doesn't exist at all. But for all practical purposes it really does exist."
The book became a phenomenon which the author later described as a “kulturbarer" (Swedish for culture bearer), which developed a near cult popularity amongst hippies. Pirsig mused: “I expressed what I thought were my prime thoughts and they turned out to be the prime thoughts of everybody else." Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance truly appealed to Baby Boomers. When the novel was first published, New York Times reviewer Christopher Lehmann-Haupt wrote:
"[H]owever impressive are the seductive powers with which Mr. Pirsig engages us in his motorcycle trip, they are nothing compared to the skill with which he interests us in his philosophic trip... when [Pirsig] comes to grips with the hard philosophical conundrums raised by the 1960's, he can be electrifying."
When reflecting on the impact of ZAMM, Todd Gitlin, a counter cultural sociologist speculated that by blending the deep thoughts with the drudgery of daily life, such as motorcycle maintenance: "Pirsig provided a kind of soft landing from the euphoric stratosphere of the late ’60s into the real world of adult life.” The counter cultural novel sold over one million books in the first year of its publication and sold several million more since then. Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance became the biggest selling philosophy book of all times and remained on the best sellers list for over a decade. This is remarkable for a manuscript which was rejected by 121 different publishers before William Morrow signed hi for a small $3,000 advance. After the unexpected success of Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance, Pirsig won a Guggenheim fellowship, some fortune and unwanted fame. Pirsig got so freaked out by what his neighbors called "Pirsig Pilgrims" to his Minneapolis home that he eventually packed his bags and would live in a camper or a sailboat for months. Pirsig spent the last 30 years of his life in a small town in Southern Maine Pirsig wrote one other book, Lila- An Inquiry into Morals (1991), which achieved neither the same success nor cultural impact. But sometimes one oeuvre is enough to make one's mark on the world. Personally, I found Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance to be a highly influential book. Believe it or not, it served as a textbook for an Advanced Placement American History course in high school. Despite the unorthodox textbook, I achieved highest marks on the exam as it honed in me an incredible analytical inclination which remains with me to this day (sometimes to the consternation of those close to me). While I may not be an adherent to Zen Buddhism, nor will anyone catch me fixing motor scooters or the ilk, I am graced by the idea that there is a nexus between the simply joys and drudgery of daily life and the transcendent. More than a quarter century later, I am still inspired by a quest for quality. To be so deeply impacted by a book demonstrates its importance.
According to the Gregorian calendar, April 23rd is the Feast of St. George (or Georgemas). The Orthodox also admire the attributes of St. George but follow the Julian calendar which marks the feast on May 6th. St. George born in Syria Palestrinia in the late Third Century who served as an officer in the Roman army that guarded the Emporer Diocletian, but who was martyred for not renouncing his Christian faith. The emperor tried to bribe George to renounce his faith and tortured him, but to no avail. Before he was decapitated, St. George gave all of his wealth to the poor. St. George is one of the most venerated saints in the Catholic Church, among Anglicans, Orthodox, East Syrian churches. Even Muslims revere this honorable military man. In the Twelfth Century a legend was attached to St. George about slaying a dragon. The standard Orthodox icon of St. George depicts him slaying a dragon with a woman in the background.
The dragon is generally understood as being both Satan and the monster from his own life (Diocletian). The woman in the background is Alexandra, the wife of Emperor Diocletian. Crusaders credit an appearance of St. George. This was probably legend which traveled back with the Crusaders from the Holy Land and was embellished in courtly Romance retellings. Legend has it that a plague bearing dragon came down from the mountains and
terrorized the countryside. The dragon could not be appeased with ransom of livestock. This dragon would not
stop his rampage unless the King tied a young maiden to an oak
tree in the center of the village. The King's nobles used a pigeon to decide what to do. If the bird flew to the east then,
they must take the King's own daughter Sabra and tie her to a tree, as
the dragon
demanded.
The pigeon flew off to the east. But as fate would have it, the pigeon managed to attract the attention of a knight called George and guided him back to the princess. Just as the
dragon was about to devour
the princess, the good knight clad in armor fortified himself with a sign of the cross and then brought the fight to the dragon. George cunningly
slowed down the dragon by driving a ball of pitch down his throat, and
then speared the dragon with a grievous wound with his lance.
The Wedding of St. George and Princess Sabra by Dante Gabriel Rossetti (1857)
According to Eastern versions, the knight rode back to the city along with the princess and the dragon in tow. As George approached the city, he promised to slay the dragon if the town would become baptized Christians. Fifteen thousand men took to the baptismal waters and George slayed the dragon with his trusty sword Ascalon (recalling the city Ashkelon in Israel). The king was so grateful that he bestowed nobility (some say Sainthood) to George and gave his daughter Sabra's hand in marriage and promised to build a church were the dragon was slain. St. George is the patron saint of England yet it is not a public holiday in England. The reasons why celebration of Georgemas is muted are cultural, historical and now tinged with political correctness. St. George was neither English nor roundly associated with England, even though King Edward III formed the Order of the Garder under the patronage of St. George in 1348. The Reformation played a part as Protestants did not care much for saints' days. In addition, celebration of St. George's day has been in decline since the Act of Union between England in Scotland completed in 1707. In today's world, the Daily Telegraph reports that many English people are concerned that national symbols like St. George can be considered racists, Aside from the fact that many pubs in England are named after George and the dragon, it makes one wonder why this legend matters. Modern man is quick to dismiss myths (unless it is anthropogenic global warming), but this is short sighted. Myths convey essential truths although the romantic story elements may not be exact. For instance, the story of George Washington chopping down the cherry tree may have been apocryphal but it does "I can not tell a lie" does illustrate some of the virtues of Washington's transcription of "The Rules of Civility and Decent Behavior", which molded the first President's life and were put into practice at the founding of the American Republic. The reason that St. George matters so much to the English is that the legend reinforces characteristics which the English admire and seek to emulate. St. George is a knight who exemplified chivalry. St. George and the dragon also champions the little guy as well as the triumph of good over evil. The versions which depict him making the sign of the cross depict deep dedication to principles (if we dare not declare faith). These romanticized virtues along with the more verifiable versions of his hagiography make St. George a man worthy (bank holiday or not) for Englishmen to emulate.
