Tom and Jerry — Down Beat Bear.  This Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer cartoon was released on October 12, 1956.

Produced and Directed by Joseph Barbera and William Hanna. Story by Joseph Barbera and William Hanna. Animation by Ed Barge, Lewis Marshall, Kenneth Muse, and Irven Spence (as Irvin Spence). Layouts by Richard Bickenbach (as Dick Bickenbach). Backgrounds by Robert Gentle. Voices (in alphabetical order) by Daws Butler (2nd Radio Announcer- uncredited), Paul Frees (1st Radio Announcer – uncredited), and Bill Hanna (Dancing Bear’s screams – uncredited). Music by Scott Bradley.

Grab your popcorn, put your feet up on the seatback in front of ya, and aim your spitballs at the ushers please. This is Late Late Night Firedoglake, where off topic is the topic … so dive in. What’s on your mind?

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What may be the single most influential musical composition of all time, Russian composer Igor Stravinsky’s le Sacre du Printemps, premiered in Paris on May 29th, 1913.  The music, and its starkly iconoclastic ballet choreography by Vaslav Nijinsky so jarred many audience members, it produced an unprecedented demonstration, considered by many to have been “a riot.”

[T]here is general agreement among eyewitnesses and commentators that the disturbances in the audience began during the Introduction, and grew into a crescendo when the curtain rose on the stamping dancers in “Augurs of Spring”. Marie Rambert, who was working as an assistant to Nijinsky, recalled later that it was soon impossible to hear the music on the stage. In his autobiography, Stravinsky writes that the derisive laughter that greeted the first bars of the Introduction disgusted him, and that he left the auditorium to watch the rest of the performance from the stage wings. The demonstrations, he says, grew into “a terrific uproar” which, along with the on-stage noises, drowned out the voice of Nijinsky who was shouting the step numbers to the dancers. The journalist and photographer Carl Van Vechten recorded that the person behind him got carried away with excitement, and “began to beat rhythmically on top of my head”, though Van Vechten failed to notice this at first, his own emotion being so great.

{The premiere’s conductor, Pierre] Monteux believed that the trouble began when the two factions in the audience began attacking each other, but their mutual anger was soon diverted towards the orchestra: “Everything available was tossed in our direction, but we continued to play on”. Around forty of the worst offenders were ejected—possibly with the intervention of the police, although this is uncorroborated. Through all the disturbances the performance continued without interruption. Things grew noticeably quieter during Part II, and by some accounts Maria Piltz’s rendering of the final “Sacrificial Dance” was watched in reasonable silence. At the end there were several curtain calls for the dancers, for Monteux and the orchestra, and for Stravinsky and Nijinsky before the evening’s programme continued.

Although the ballet went on to become accepted by audiences as both dance and as a concert work, Nijinsky’s unique choreography disappeared after the 1913 Ballets Russes season, until it was reconstructed for the Joffrey Ballet in the 1980s, by a team led by Millicent Hodson.  There have been several other choreographic interpretations of Stravinsky’s music and scenario, and the publisher estimates the ballet has undergone 150 productions worldwide since its composition.

Le Sacre‘s influence on composers during nine decades of the 20th century, and into this one, has been substantial.  What Stravinsky did in the music, was to combine new harmonic ideas, bordering on atonality, with a rhythmic freedom which was unprecedented, all portrayed symphonically by a very large orchestra of 110 players, with a huge rhythm section.  In terms of composers’ approach to rhythmic units, there is BLS and ALS (Before Le Sacre and After Le Sacre).  American composers as diverse Aaron Copland and Frank Zappa described encountering the work’s jagged sonic and metric vistas as having changed their lives.

In a brief period of time, less than a decade, when the shock of new music was represented by Richard Strauss’ sensually depraved Salome (1905) and Arnold Schoenberg’s atonal Pierrot Luniere (1912), Le Sacre stood out.  Because it led so many composers and other musicians in so many searches for freedom of expression, in so many different ways, I regard it as the most influential composition, not just of the 20th century, but of all modern history.

Happy 100th Birthday, Le Sacre du Printemps.

Here is the definitive performance of this masterpiece in the original (reconstructed) choreography.  The orchestra and dancers of the Kirov Ballet are directed by Valery Gergiev:

Image by dalbera under Creative Commons license

Michigan Medical Marijuana | Green Bee Collective | Ann Arbor, MI

What may be the single most influential musical composition of all time, Russian composer Igor Stravinsky’s le Sacre du Printemps, premiered in Paris on May 29th, 1913.  The music, and its starkly iconoclastic ballet choreography by Vaslav Nijinsky so jarred many audience members, it produced an unprecedented demonstration, considered by many to have been “a riot.”

[T]here is general agreement among eyewitnesses and commentators that the disturbances in the audience began during the Introduction, and grew into a crescendo when the curtain rose on the stamping dancers in “Augurs of Spring”. Marie Rambert, who was working as an assistant to Nijinsky, recalled later that it was soon impossible to hear the music on the stage. In his autobiography, Stravinsky writes that the derisive laughter that greeted the first bars of the Introduction disgusted him, and that he left the auditorium to watch the rest of the performance from the stage wings. The demonstrations, he says, grew into “a terrific uproar” which, along with the on-stage noises, drowned out the voice of Nijinsky who was shouting the step numbers to the dancers. The journalist and photographer Carl Van Vechten recorded that the person behind him got carried away with excitement, and “began to beat rhythmically on top of my head”, though Van Vechten failed to notice this at first, his own emotion being so great.

{The premiere’s conductor, Pierre] Monteux believed that the trouble began when the two factions in the audience began attacking each other, but their mutual anger was soon diverted towards the orchestra: “Everything available was tossed in our direction, but we continued to play on”. Around forty of the worst offenders were ejected—possibly with the intervention of the police, although this is uncorroborated. Through all the disturbances the performance continued without interruption. Things grew noticeably quieter during Part II, and by some accounts Maria Piltz’s rendering of the final “Sacrificial Dance” was watched in reasonable silence. At the end there were several curtain calls for the dancers, for Monteux and the orchestra, and for Stravinsky and Nijinsky before the evening’s programme continued.

Although the ballet went on to become accepted by audiences as both dance and as a concert work, Nijinsky’s unique choreography disappeared after the 1913 Ballets Russes season, until it was reconstructed for the Joffrey Ballet in the 1980s, by a team led by Millicent Hodson.  There have been several other choreographic interpretations of Stravinsky’s music and scenario, and the publisher estimates the ballet has undergone 150 productions worldwide since its composition.

Le Sacre‘s influence on composers during nine decades of the 20th century, and into this one, has been substantial.  What Stravinsky did in the music, was to combine new harmonic ideas, bordering on atonality, with a rhythmic freedom which was unprecedented, all portrayed symphonically by a very large orchestra of 110 players, with a huge rhythm section.  In terms of composers’ approach to rhythmic units, there is BLS and ALS (Before Le Sacre and After Le Sacre).  American composers as diverse Aaron Copland and Frank Zappa described encountering the work’s jagged sonic and metric vistas as having changed their lives.

In a brief period of time, less than a decade, when the shock of new music was represented by Richard Strauss’ sensually depraved Salome (1905) and Arnold Schoenberg’s atonal Pierrot Luniere (1912), Le Sacre stood out.  Because it led so many composers and other musicians in so many searches for freedom of expression, in so many different ways, I regard it as the most influential composition, not just of the 20th century, but of all modern history.

Happy 100th Birthday, Le Sacre du Printemps.

Here is the definitive performance of this masterpiece in the original (reconstructed) choreography.  The orchestra and dancers of the Kirov Ballet are directed by Valery Gergiev:

Image by dalbera under Creative Commons license

Michigan Medical Marijuana | Green Bee Collective | Ann Arbor, MI

James Rosen

It seems my friend Dan at Pruning Shears and I are having a disagreement. I don’t think we’re actually as far apart on the government surveillance of the media as he does. I think I made rather clear in my earlier post on James Rosen and also on the AP records grab that I don’t condone secret government surveillance on the media — or anyone. Unfortunately it doesn’t appear that the government conducted these investigations illegally. The laws that make it possible have been creeping into our judicial system long before the Obama administration arrived. And let’s not lose sight of the fact that Rosen isn’t being charged with a crime regardless of the dicey allegations made by the government to get its authorization for his records.

Booman and I differ on that point. I don’t consider Rosen a criminal. I think he’s an irresponsible journalist. Rosen’s email to his source made clear his main interest was in scooping his competitors, not in changing any policy. However, his piece was written in a way that revealed our intelligence operation. If he had simply done the usual anon source says N. Korea will blah, blah blah… without revealing we had an inside source in N. Korea and had lost track of their missiles, I wouldn’t have seen it as damaging.

While Dan Ellsberg would probably disagree, I don’t see any comparison between the Pentagon Papers and what Rosen did. The Pentagon Papers revealed serious government misconduct. Our government lied to the people and to Congress. Big lies that resulted in tens of thousands of lost lives. That was whistleblowing in the service of public interest. I’m wondering what government wrongdoing Dan sees as having been revealed by Rosen.

I don’t suggest we blindly accept every government claim of acting in the interest of national security while they abridge our civil rights. We need to look no further than the odious NSLs the Bush administration was so fond of to see the danger in that. But neither do I trust the motives of our present day media so much that I’m willing to unequivocally defend them. Surely Jon Karl and his anon source who provided altered emails to perpetrate a false GOP narrative would suggest our skepticism should go both ways. What good is a free media if they lie to us too, or jeopardize our intelligence assets, simply to drive traffic? As far I’m concerned neither secret surveillance nor irresponsible journalism should be defended. We deserve better from both sides.

Michigan Medical Marijuana | Green Bee Collective | Ann Arbor, MI

Sometimes it seems like we aren’t accomplishing anything, progressive websites don’t have very many readers, Republicans ridicule us, Democrats ignore us, and tens of millions of Americans don’t even know we exist. The following words reflect how many of us feel . . .

It’s difficult in times like these: ideals, dreams and cherished hopes rise within us, only to be crushed by grim reality. It’s a wonder I haven’t abandoned all my ideals, they seem so absurd and impossible to carry out.

I simply can’t build up my hopes on a foundation consisting of confusion, misery, and death. I see the world gradually being turned into a wilderness, I hear the ever-approaching thunder, which will destroy us too, I can feel the sufferings of millions.

Many of us feel this way, but those words weren’t written recently by a progressive diarist, they were written by this diarist . . .

Like so many of us, Anne Frank had doubts and fears, she felt the weight of despair and disillusionment and depression, but she didn’t give up, she didn’t let the darkness overwhelm her, she knew where she wanted to be and let her words take her there, she let her words take all of us there, she kept writing . . .

I still express my ideals because I still believe, in spite of everything, that people are truly good at heart. When I look up into the heavens, I think that it will all come out right, that this cruelty too will end, and that peace and tranquility will return again.

Everyone has inside of him a piece of good news. The good news is that you don’t know how much you can love. What you can accomplish. And what your potential is.

How wonderful it is that nobody need wait a single moment before starting to improve the world.

I must uphold my ideals, for perhaps the time will come when I shall be able to carry them out.

Imprisoned in a slave labor camp, Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn wrote every day on scraps of paper and hid them away so they wouldn’t be confiscated by the guards and vanish forever. He didn’t know if he would ever be released, he didn’t know if anyone would ever read his words, but he was determined to bear witness to the inhuman cruelty tens of millions of people were being subjected to, he became their voice and the world heard them.

The words Aleksandr wrote on those scraps of paper became The GuLag Archipelago, they became One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich, millions of people ultimately read his words.

Anne didn’t know if anyone would ever read her words, Aleksandr didn’t know if anyone would ever read his words, but they wrote them anyway, they resisted injustice because resisting injustice matters, it has always mattered, it always will matter.

Your resistance matters, FDL matters, MyFDL matters, what we’re doing here matters. The value of our words cannot be measured by Site Meter statistics, the Truth has timeless value. Affirm it, never let it be overwhelmed by the darkness of deceit, don’t ever stop telling it.

Keep the faith. Write what your heart tells you to write. Let your words take you where your heart wants to go.

Michigan Medical Marijuana | Green Bee Collective | Ann Arbor, MI

I just submitted this petition to the White House niche, We the People:

We petition the Obama Administration to Invite Medea Benjamin to the White House for a beer.

On May 23, 2013, President Obama gave an important address at the National Defense University. Near the end, indefatigable peace activist, Medea Benjamin, pled with the President to consider important issues he had not addressed directly in his speech. The President stated, “The voice of that woman is worth paying attention to.”

We the undersigned believe the same. We encourage President Obama to invite Ms. Benjamin to the White House for a beer or two, so that he may redeem his pledge.

It needs 150 signatures before it goes up on their front page.

For anyone unfamiliar with the subject, here are two excerpts from the May 24th edition of Democracy Now:

The relevant parts of Obama’s speech:

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ANAHEIM, Calif. (KABC) -- Anaheim is shutting down 11 medical marijuana clinics. The city has been battling the pot shops for years, but now has the California Supreme Court on its side. A new order took effect Friday, forcing the clinics to close down.

Michigan Medical Marijuana | Green Bee Collective | Ann Arbor, MI

Trainwreck OG

Michigan Medical Marijuana | Green Bee Collective | Ann Arbor, MI

Welcome Jaron Lanier (JaronLanier.com) and Host John Nichols (The Nation) (Twitter)

Who Owns The Future?

It has been understood for several decades now that Jaron Lanier is a big thinker when it comes to the technologies that define our lives. The computer science pioneer who explained virtual reality to the rest of us inspires journalists to employ terms such as “digital visionary” (The Observer) and “Internet guru” (Publisher’s Weekly).

But he is another kind of thinker as well: a humanist speaking from an enlightenment perspective that recalls the Lunar Society days of two centuries ago, when there was broad recognition of the meeting group between technology and poetry. And where the great scientists of a new age wrestled with not just formulas and calculations but also with the question of how to build a just and humane society.

In his groundbreaking 2010 book, You Are Not a Gadget (Vintage), Lanier challenged the digital utopianism that tells us that the solutions to all our problems can be found on the Web. It may have become “fashionable to aggregate the expressions of people into dehumanized data,” he explained, but it not healthy for citizens or for society. Rather, Lanier argued, we should recognize the value, the necessity, of human initiative and reasoned argument.

You Are Not a Gadget was an invitation to think differently about everything. And the conclusions Lanier reached confirmed conclusions that Bob McChesney and I had come to as we prepared our book The Death and Life of American Journalism. We shared – and share – Lanier’s conclusion with regard to the direction of a digital transformation that was emptying out traditional newsrooms but failing to replace them with a sufficient online journalism to employ all the laid off reporters – let alone to serve a democratic society.

“Here’s just one problem: It screws the middle class,” Lanier explained in a 2010 Amazon.com interview on the rise of ‘Web 2.0’ designs. “Only the aggregator (like Google, for instance) gets rich, while the actual producers of content get poor. This is why newspapers are dying. It might sound like it is only a problem for creative people, like musicians or writers, but eventually it will be a problem for everyone. When robots can repair roads someday, will people have jobs programming those robots, or will the human programmers be so aggregated that they essentially work for free, like today’s recording musicians? Web 2.0 is a formula to kill the middle class and undo centuries of social progress.”

Lanier’s exceptional new book, Who Owns The Future? (Simon & Schuster), builds on that argument with a scorching critique of a digital transformation that is empowering not the great mass of citizens but high-tech monopolies; that is creating not equality of opportunity but a wealth gap that leaves even our most creative people with fewer and fewer options.

“The old ideas about information being free in the information age ended up screwing over everybody except the owners of the very biggest computers. The biggest computers turned into spying and behavior modification operations, which concentrated wealth and power,” Lanier explains. “Sharing information freely, without traditional rewards like royalties or paychecks, was supposed to create opportunities for brave, creative individuals. Instead, I have watched each successive generation of young journalists, artists, musicians, photographers, and writers face harsher and harsher odds. The perverse effect of opening up information has been that the status of a young person’s parents matters more and more, since it’s so hard to make one’s way.”

Jaron Lanier is reopening one of the old debates that Henry David Thoreau was wrestling with when he suggested the prospect that: “We do not ride on the railroad; it rides upon us.” We’ll wrestle with these ideas today, here in the Firedoglake Book Salon.

Michigan Medical Marijuana | Green Bee Collective | Ann Arbor, MI

Nearly half of Americans say that growing marijuana should be legal, and even more support legalizing the growing of hemp, according to a new HuffPost/YouGov Poll.

Michigan Medical Marijuana | Green Bee Collective | Ann Arbor, MI