media: August 2006 Archives

The trend continues:

August 26, 2006: Europe Pledges a Larger Force Inside Lebanon

[The NYTimes posts - again - a link to Maira Kalman's blog art: Heaven on Earth.]

Another bloglink, Line of Fire: A conversation about the new Mideast conflict, describes the current Israeli "inquiry time, the season in the Israeli calendar that comes after disappointing wars, as inevitable as the headaches and bruises and questions after a bar-room brawl in which everything seemed so necessary and inevitable while it was happening and so jagged in memory."

Meanwhile, Iran steps up nuclear production, the Palestinians strengthen their national government, Nasrullah continues to be heroicized. Fundamentalist Islam is radically strengthened throughout the political sphere of the Arab world. I ask my friends, "Where in your discourse have you built a foundation to blunt the gathering forces of repression and (dare I say it?) internalized, stratified oppression?"

It is good that Arab forces have established equity in international debates. It is as questionable what they will do with this power as any other world power, namely Israel and the US. Who will dissent from the inside? Who will be the anti-Islamists from within to join with the anti-Zionists Jed championed? (The Economist, btw, described those giving themselves this label as fringe groups, extremist in their own way. [reference the edition two weeks ago])

Meanwhile, can artists open dialogues that politicians cannot? "The [cartoon] exhibition is intended to expose what some here see as Western hypocrisy for invoking freedom of expression regarding the publication of cartoons that lampooned the Prophet Muhammad while condemning President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad of Iran for questioning the Holocaust."

Some friends and I discussed the cartoons published in Denmark last winter. Will the discourse about the “Holocaust International Cartoon Contest” ("Holocust"?) become another tit-for-tat reinforcer of static national and religious identities or can it function to open spaces for the genuine appreciation of different perspectives?

August 24, 2006: Gaza Captors of 2 Newsmen Pressure U.S.

August 21, 2004: Europeans Delay Decision on Role Inside Lebanon. I attend a protest in Istanbul.

August 20, 2006: Truce Strained as Israelis Raid Lebanon Site

August 17, 2006: I attend a Barenboim-Said concert that invokes much thought on the snippit of discourse that unfolded through initial responses to each other on the subject of Israel-Lebanon-Hizbullah.

August 13, 2006: I struggle within myself not to respond in kind to a discourse limiting what one can know based upon who one is. Puru posts a newslink.

August 11, 2006: I reflect theoretically on identity, home, and voice.

August 10, 2006: The post, Lebanon is responded to by Tejal and Jed.

August 7, 2006: The post, Diving in Headfirst is responded to by Amanda.

August 6, 2006: Berger on Philosophy" is a snapshot of my philosophical frame for discussing Mideast (and any other) politics.

August 2, 2006: Day 21 (Israel vs Hezbollah) is responded to by Jeff and Yasser.

August 10: Israel, Seeking Rocket Buffer, Sets Expansion

August 11: Israel Asks U.S. to Ship Rockets With Wide Blast. (Second headline; topped by the British capture of 24 men intending to blow up several planes.)

August 12: U.N. Council Backs Measure to Halt War in Lebanon

August 13: After U.N. Accord, Israel Expands Push in Lebanon

August 14: Cease-Fire Begins After a Day of Fierce Attacks

August 15: Testing How Long the Mideast Cease-Fire Can Last with videocommentary from the journalist, Steven Erlanger.

August 16: Hezbollah Leads Work to Rebuild, Gaining Stature

August 17: nothing on Lebanon, Israel, Hezbollah.... back to Iraq.

The applause after the first number, Leonore Overture, No. 3, Op. 72, was overwhelming. Beethoven is usually rousing, but there was a quality to the upsurge of gratitude and appreciation that seemed to exceed recognition of the quality of the performance. My own guess is that a significant component of the emotion was sheer relief - for now, at least, the Israeli/Hezbollah ceasefire plan in Lebanon appears to be working.

This orchestra is the 1999 brainchild of intellectual and public critic Edward Said (a Palestinian); and conductor and pianist Daniel Barenboim (an Israeli). Its performances raise money to support young people from the Middle East and Israel to play classical music together. The Foundation, now based in Seville, Spain, issued a declaration in 2004, and

An ancient hall of Topkapi Palace, the Hagia Eirene Museum was sold out but we obtained standing room only tickets and wound up sitting (comfortably enough) in the rear stairwell (our view from below, first half; for the second half we made it to the uppermost stairs). Acoustically, I was amazed at the sound. It was stunning. I wondered about performances in this space over the millennia (!) and the constitution of audiences. What kinds of court intrigues and politics occurred during and regarding public performances? How public was “public”, then? (I was unaware at the time of the cancellation and reinstatement of the concert for political purposes.)

I haven’t attended a live orchestra performance for at least 20 years. Various impressions flitted through my mind mixed with vague memories of growing up. Have I heard these pieces before? It was an educated audience, no one applauded falsely between the many movements of Schubert’s Trout Quintet. After the third or forth movement the audience and musicians had cohered. The warmth of the summer evening and lack of ventilation heated up the air to the edge of discomfort: the discipline of sitting still and listening was released in a full group rustle of throat-clearing, rapid brochure-fanning, and general bodily rearrangement. Such was reenacted in each pause thereafter.

What a contrast with Depeche Mode and its audience’s constant, unrestrained movement and attention leapfrogging between the music, mobiles, location, beer…

I also thought about voice and modern-day, mass-mediated politics. I imagined mideast politics as a symphony. There’s the constant thrum of the violins, the basics of everyday life, ebbing and cresting in twitters, chirps, and plucks of melancholy, pleasure, contentment, discord. Occasionally deep swells converge in coordinated harmonies, complimenting or contesting other tides. The deeper strings, brass and woodwinds vacillate among drawing out the dark power of living and accentuating the surface manifestations of conflict and dissension. Percussion marks the points of decision. Commit or retreat but know that whichever is chosen is consequential, even if only circumstantially so.

I know my characterization is crude: I am not a musician. But I felt the music and this is what I thought: a strong voice was needed to pound the drums long and hard enough to force political forces to stop the surface burst of unbelievable human violence. Let’s say the voices of my friends raised in outrage were the cellos and horns, and I came in as a woodwind. Or perhaps I was a lone French Horn against the trumpets. My notes were heard (?) as a threat to the cohesion of the necessary cumulation of voice (sound, power). I would prefer to be positioned as a complementary voice playing an alternative melody, or striking my notes along a different yet compatible scale (but this may be out of my control). What matters to me is the overall “sound” – the co-generated orchestral production. What a good conductor does is balance the volume of each section (sometimes even each individual instrument) so that each thematic strand is auditorily consonant with every other; but the conductor cannot make this happen, the musicians must be responsive, they must trust the conductor’s ear, which hears that which they cannot.

I suppose I came up with this analogy because of a section in Brahms Symphony No. 1 in C Minor, Op. 68. I am not sure which instrument it was, perhaps (?) the contrabassoon. Its sound was almost too deep, too soft to be discerned yet Barenboim coaxed it up, quieting the violins just enough for the lone voice to emerge with the distinctiveness of its own rhythm.

Of course, the difference in social relations and musical collaboration are that there are no conductors (or too many, smile) for social relations. There is also little precedent for such wholistic orchestration in societies or groups where, for instance, we are mostly strangers to each other. Hence, our attunements are more likely random and historical rather than deliberate and visionary.

At the end of the concert I wanted more. So did the vast majority of the audience, and I believe the musicians did too. No go. :-( Maybe Barenboim wasn’t feeling well; maybe he was affected by the absence of the double-bassist who had been called back to Berlin for some reason (leading to an alteration in the program). Who knows. The love was there. :-)

The audience’s appreciation did not dim after that first round of applause, making me wonder if it was “only” the music after all. Or perhaps the even more simple effect of the fundraiser wine we had to gulp before entering? :-) The music was extraordinary, of that there can be no doubt. The setting was magical, the timing historic, the company superb. (Erdem did make sure there was no confusion about our relationship.) ;-)

The title of the orchestra is from Goethe's poem of this name, West-Eastern Divan, "in which he brings the poetic culture culture of the Islamic and Western worlds together" (liner notes). Goethe is noted for beginning to learn Arabic after the age of 60 as well as for truthfully representing "the Eastern spirit of poetry." Imagine! Old dogs can learn new tricks!

I posted a few days ago about a new trove of data for internet researchers, with accompanying debates regarding the ethics of using it.

It seems AOL released the data in error.

Meanwhile, it is suggested that the release violates the Electronic Communications Privacy Act. (A law everyone affecting everyone who uses email.)

Posted by Wojciech to the air-l listserv, air-l Digest, Vol 25, Issue 8, August 8, 2006.