“‘You should dream more, Mr. Wormold. Reality in our century is not something to be faced.'”
— Graham Greene, Our Man in Havana, 1958
Category: Arts & culture
It’s not just me
Seen in the blogosphere: “…internet search is broken these days….”
I’m so glad others have noticed this.
Internet search is broken in many ways. Like this: Sometimes I don’t want searches that only apply to the U.S., or another smaller geographical region. And I don’t want any search to point me to websites obviously pirated from other sources and rewritten by crap “AI” tools. And if I put something in quote marks, I don’t want search results that don’t include that exact search string. And if I search for a given search string and add “site:.sampledomain.com” I don’t want to see search results from other domains. And so on….
This has been going on for a while
The whole nonbinary gender thing is new and different, right? I mean, that’s why old people are so worked up about transgender and nonbinary, because it’s so new. Right?
Well, no. Now that I’m officially past the age of sixty, I qualify as old people (you can’t call me middle-aged, that’s for sure). And to me, non-binary gender seems normal. It doesn’t feel new at all. So how come an old guy like me feels that way?
Russell Arben Fox has been doing a series on pop music from 1983 at his blog In Media Res. I’ve been following his series in a desultory fashion, and I finally tumbled to one of his main point — that a lot of pop music from the early 1980s bent or broke gender norms. David Bowie was especially well-known for androgyny. I remember a friend, someone we’d now call nonbinary gender, commenting on how great it was that Bowie was so publicly gender non-conforming. Prince came along a bit after Bowie, became far more famous, and was just as androgynous. Among less well known musicians, Annie Lenox, the lead singer of Eurythmics, frequently wore androgynous clothing. In the New Wave band The Human league, singers Philip Oakey, Susan Ann Sulley, and Joanne Catherall, wore the same makeup. The list goes on….
You can find a lot of androgyny in early 1980s pop music. It was the logical extension of cultural trends that began in the 1960s — guys with long hair and big Afros, the feminist revolution challenging gender roles, and so on. By the early 1980s, Poly Styrene of X-Ray Spex felt no need to play the role of a sexy girlie lead singer — she could just be herself without being forced into someone else’s (mis)conception of what it meant to be female. Nor was it just the musicians — that’s what people going to clubs, or just listening to the music, were doing, too.
That historic moment didn’t last long. The Reagan revolution rolled back progress in gender. The Clinton years cemented the regression. In this century, everyone seems to have forgotten that nonbinary gender was a thing, before it was even called nonbinary gender. I’d forgotten about it until I started looking at those old music videos from that era. But it did happen. For a few years, when I was in my late teens and early twenties, androgyny was socially acceptable (in the big cities, anyway). As a product of that era, no wonder I’m much more comfortable with nonbinary gender than with the strict gender roles and gender norms that came later.
Personally, I’m glad nonbinary gender is back. I feel it’s much easier than everyone being crammed into the same tiny little gender boxes. Sigh. Too bad Ron DeSantis and the Florida state legislature don’t feel the same way.
Abuse in school sports
One of the reasons some people give for leaving organized religion is that they’re disgusted by the hypocrisy of organized religions in allowing sexual abuse to go on. But from what I can see, all of our human institutions are open to abuse. Schools, politics, the for-profit world, entertainment, sports — all of these human institutions are capable of harboring and hiding abusers.
I’ve come to believe that the next big abuse scandal is going to erupt in school sports. We’ve seen the beginnings of this in girls’ gymnastics, but I think it’s going to get much bigger than that. School sports often require very little supervision of coaches and other adult leaders, and many coaches and adult leaders don’t get much oversight from any authority that can really hold them accountable. We’ve all heard of those schools where the school principal would lose their job if they dared to criticize a winning football coach. But this lack of accountability and oversight is the perfect environment for sexual predators — which means that there’s a high probability that sexual predators have sought out positions in schools sports in order to have access to victims.
With that in mind, it’s enlightening to read Dan Kennedy’s blog post on how school sports are avoiding scrutiny for racist and homophobic harassment. The Massachusetts Interscholastic Athletic Association (MIAA) has been stonewalling journalists who are trying to report on school sports harassment. This is classic behavior in situations where legal minors are being abused, where the watchdog is guarding the perpetrators rather than guarding the victims.
Journalists are reporting that the MIAA receives around one new complaint a week. Yet the MIAA is defying state public records law by refusing to make those complaints public. Ironically (or maybe not), the lead journalist working on this story is with the Boston Globe, the newspaper that uncovered the Catholic sexual abuse scandal nearly two decades ago.
Again, speaking from my experience of nearly three decades of youth work, the current situation in school sports may provide the perfect cover for adults who want to abuse kids, whether that abuse involves sexual abuse, humiliation, or some other sick power trip. The solution to the problem is the same as with the church abuse crisis: open and transparent supervision of all adults leading school sports; watchdog groups that don’t engage in cover-ups; expulsion of abusive adults regardless of how charismatic or talented they may be. But at the moment, the school sports juggernaut appears to be even more resistant to reform than the Catholic church hierarchy was twenty years ago.
More on this topic: Presiding judge in the Larry Nassar trial calls for widespread investigation into school sports — 13% of student athletes have been sexually abused during their participation in sports (see pp. 42 ff.) — child athletes appear to face a higher rate of abuse than average.
Reading list: Search
Bev loaned me the book Search: A Novel (Penguin, 2022), by Michelle Huneven. Search is the story of a ministerial search committee in a Unitarian Universalist congregation in southern California during their year-long process to find someone to replace their retiring minister. Michelle Huneven actually served on a ministerial search committee, and the book is a fictionalized account of her experiences. Bev, who loaned me the book, is a long-time lay leader who has lived through six different ministerial searches in the past quarter century. She told me that I really need to read this book. So I did.
(Spoiler alert: I’m going to reveal key elements of the book’s plot. Continue at your own risk.)
Is that what’s going on?
I was talking with someone about how we were both feeling a bit out of sorts — little things like getting appointments slightly wrong, nothing really serious but constantly annoying. We both had good reasons for feeling a bit out of sorts (for my part, I moved, started a new job, my partner’s father died). But I’ve heard quite a few other people say they feel the same way. So I said to this other person, The pandemic emergency officially ended a couple of months ago, but I feel like it’s still lingering on; I mean, this time last year, we were still in partial lockdown. This other person said, It’s like we all have PTSD. I said, I’m not a clinician, I’m not qualified to diagnose PTSD, but I think you might be right.
Celebrating Juneteenth
Recently, I read an article quoting a Juneteenth activist saying something like: The time between Juneteenth and July 4 should be a sixteen day celebration of American freedom. Opal Lee, who championed the holiday for many years before it became a reality, said: “Juneteenth will be the bridge that we can all go over. We should celebrate from June 19th to the 4th of July!” As someone who grew up celebrating Patriot’s Day — April 19, or the commemoration of the Shot Heard Round the World — I agree that we need more days to celebrate the American dream of freedom. So I’m grateful that my employer decided Juneteenth is a paid holiday for staff at our congregation, and I’m using the day to celebrate American freedom.
Although maybe I’m celebrating U.S. freedom in an unusual way. For me, an important result of freedom in the U.S. is the freedom we have for artistic expression. And with that in mind, this Juneteenth I’m celebrating by listening to music by Anthony Braxton. National Public Radio has said of him:
“Anthony Braxton has always done things his own way. He’s famous for creating his own musical syntax and strategies, in work that straddles jazz and classical traditions but conforms to no established pattern. He is a true American original — and by his own account, a perpetual work in progress.”
Isn’t that perfect for a celebration of American freedom?… combining cultural influences… conforming to no established pattern… creating your own way… a perpetual work in progress.
With that in mind, today I’m listening to one of my favorite works by Braxton: “Composition No. 19 (For 100 Tubas).” A recording is available from Braxton via Bandcamp. You can also see two short video clips of an outdoor public performance here and here. While I suspect Braxton would resist any easy interpretation of this composition, I can’t help but hear this as being in small part a musical commentary on John Philip Sousa’s patriotic marches, but in a musical idiom that is much more powerful and much more nuanced.
Update, 6/19: Here’s a video of another performance. Definitely worth watching, since there’s a whole visual aspect of this composition, too.
Update, 6/20: Added Opal Lee quote.
Pee-on-earth Day is June 21!
It’s that time of year again — if you’re in the northern hemisphere, get ready to pee on the earth! June 21 is annual Pee-on-earth Day, a day to urinate outside.
By urinating outside, you don’t have to use water for flushing. As climate change gets weirder we’re going to have more droughts, so why waste drinking water to flush your pee? Besides, it’s fun to pee outdoors. At least, as long as no one can see you. And if someone can see you, just pee in a bottle and then spread your pee on some needy plant outdoors. Urine makes good high-nitrogen fertilizer, though you might want to dilute it first.
You can learn more about Pee-on-earth Day from its originator, Carol Steinfeld (she’s my spouse) here. She even wrote a book about it titled Liquid Gold: The Lore and Logic of Using Urine To Grow Plants. If you want to order a copy, leave me a comment and I’ll try to get you a deal….
Bells
The Guild of Carilloneurs in North America (GCNA) held their annual “congress” at St. Stephen’s church in Cohasset. St. Stephen’s has a 57-bell carillon — this gives it a range of over four octaves, and apparently qualifies it to be called a “great carillon” (it’s the largest carillon in New England). There aren’t that many carillons with that kind of range in North America, and as you’d expect, the GCNA annual congress has been held here before to take advantage of this instrument.
Our apartment is right next door to St. Stephen’s, so we have a front row seat for the eight recitals spread out over five days. I’ve been working most days, so I didn’t have a chance to actually sit and listen to an entire recital, but what I heard sounded quite good. However, we also had a front row seat to hear eleven exam candidates. I’m not sure what the exam was — presumably some kind of professional qualification for carilloneurs — but the skill level and musicianship of the exam candidates covered quite a range. Some of the candidates were, in my opinion, excellent musicians, and I really enjoyed hearing them play. At the other end of the range, a couple of the exam candidates were mediocre at best (I’m being polite). And, to be honest, I didn’t think much of one or two of the experienced carilloneurs; technical skill and musical intelligence don’t always go together.
But overall, the good music outweighed the mediocre music. We got to hear free recitals of excellent music performed by professional musicians, with composers ranging from J.S. Bach to Florence Price to contemporary compositions by young composers. There was even a recital of music by women composers, which unfortunately I had to miss. It was fun being next door to the GCNA congress. And how many people can say they’ve heard eight carillon recitals in five days?
What the Southern Baptist vote means
A few days ago, the Southern Baptist Convention voted to expel some local churches that had women as pastors. They kicked Rick Warren’s huge Saddleback Church, and they also kicked out a small church where as woman has been serving as pastor for three decades. If they’re suddenly kicking out a church where there’s been a woman as pastor for three decades, that makes it clear that this is not a situation where suddenly women are becoming Southern Baptist pastors. It’s the denomination that has changed its opinion.
Rabbi Jeffery Salkin, who writes an opinion column for Religion News Service, makes this observation:
“This is a war the right wing is waging: roll back women’s rights…. If you are looking for the symptoms of incipient fascism in this country, pay attention to the signs: the growth of antisemitism, a parallel growth of misogyny and a powerful growth of anti-LGBTQ hatred.” Salkin adds that this new rise of fascism doesn’t look like 1920s Germany so much as it looks like 1950s United States of America.. That was the decade, according to Salkin, of “women who did not work outside the home … queer folks in the closet … an America where Blacks were still in the back of the bus and where Jews and other ethnic and religious outsiders faced serious restrictions.”
I’m inclined to agree with him. The fascism of Trump, DeSantis, and others should not be compared to Nazi Germany. They are not trying to impose a new type of fascism on the U.S. Instead, they want to go back to a time when conservative White men were firmly in control of U.S. society. We don’t like to think of the 1950s as a time of fascism, but it was — not Nazi Germany fascism, but a distinctly American kind of fascism. Nor was it only Blacks, LGBTQ+ people, and women who were targets of this uniquely American fascism — Joe McCarthy’s House UnAmerican Affairs Committee also targeted White men whose politics happened to be anywhere to the left of the John Birch Society, destroying their careers and sometimes sending them to jail.
And this week’s Southern Baptist vote shows just one of the ways conservative White men (and the women who submit to love them) are trying to make 1950s U.S. fascism return. Get those doggone women out of the pulpit before they mention that Phoebe, a woman, was one of the leaders of the early Christian church — i.e., get rid of the women before they reveal that 1950s U.S. fascism was not rooted in Christianity at all, but instead springs entirely from the fevered imaginations of conservative White men who want to retain their ill-gotten power.