An Unexpected Proposal

     I should begin by sharing that my future bride and I are avid Tolkienites.  Though I'm ascribed the honor of resident Star Wars nerd where I teach by virtue of the many Lego Star Wars vessels hanging from my classroom ceiling and advisorship of the Sci-Fi Club, The Lord of the Rings is without question my sci-fi/fantasy franchise of choice.  So when it came time to propose, I knew from the outset it ought to be very us.  And frankly, few things are more Laura and me than a shared penchant for British period drama, which we agree finds a kind of high-water mark in Tolkien's saga of wise, immortal Elves; stout-hearted Dwarves; brave Hobbits; sinister Orcs; and us, humankind, a last hope for the becoming world in a long-past, mythical epoch of transition known as Middle-Earth, of which the central conflict, of course, hinges upon the Ring of Power, the One Ring forged by the Dark Lord Sauron in a bygone age, with the power to ruthlessly dominate all life.

     Now, I honestly can't recall a longstanding notion of how I wished to propose to my future wife, but I chose to ask Laura to marry me December 13, 2013, the very night we attended an

Dickens' Favorite Kid

He wrote 15 novels, and the story goes, his favorite of these well-regarded children was David Copperfield, the 877 pages of which I recently finished, and found myself moved to believe it one of my favorites as well.  Now, to be fair, it is to date my only cover-to-cover Dickens experience, so calling it my favorite Dickens is accurate by any standard.  I mean then it's become one of my all-time favorites, and one to which I may return.  It was touching, compelling, poetic, and everything else a novel should be.  What's more, you'll find in the opening chapters maybe the most poignant description of childhood in not only the Victorian canon, but in all of literature.  It isn't surprising to find

Indian Summer Blues

I've been acquainting myself with a collection of solo piano tunes called Indian Summer by jazz legend Dave Brubeck.  Of course, I made it through another working summer seeking enrichment and renewal in many ways.  But in the end, the seemingly endless parade of concerns concurrent with my job take their toll, and I resolved to spend the last two weeks of summer vacation keeping an intentional distance from work, a kind of Indian summer in itself.  And Brubeck helped. 

Summer school's a pretty relaxed and straightforward enough gig, though not entirely conducive to a sense of real "staycation," especially in light of all the fun and trip-taking so many close family and friends seemed to have enjoyed.  I had plenty of fun myself, for sure: saw my lady quite a bit, swam and barbecued, read and wrote, and otherwise tried taking it easy as often as I could afford to.  But here's hoping this was my last summer spent teaching.  Altogether it really wasn't so bad; the kids were great, and all went fairly smooth-like, everything considered.  At the same time, I'm naturally anxious to have a bit more balance,

A Little Revolution

It's been more than a year that I've neglected Serenity Now, and with good reason; the majority of my artistic life has been spent making progress on the most ambitious creative project of my life so far, a novel called Stuart Delaney.  Now that I've managed to make it a quarter of the way through that literary behemoth, I felt like there was a little room to breathe and take a day or two to share some of the thoughts that have drifted through my mind since the recent Criterion blu-ray release of the 1971 dark comedy and downright epically unassuming cinematic treasure Harold and Maude, which is more than a little apropos since many of its themes run through my own opus, not the least of which include a wayward vocational vector, rejection of social mores, and youthful disillusionment.

On Losing Virtue, Part 2

A while back, I wrote an article about the modern cultural fluency that governs sexuality. I argued specifically that our secular humanistic culture exalts sexual gratification out of a conspicuous pandemic of impatient self-indulgence. With this seemingly cavalier attitude toward sexuality, we attempt to “cheat” and acquire a level of intimacy we haven’t truly earned. In other words, we try to get it cheap, and like children having just succeeded in some grand misbehavior, we revel in the freedom from any accountability inevitably tied to the sex act. In biblical Christian doctrine, however, God is glorified by preserving sexual intimacy for the marriage bed, where the solemn promise of fidelity has already been secured, and the requisite emotional attachment, devotion, and all the responsibilities implicit in sexual congress (including the possibility of pregnancy and all the rest of it) are guaranteed, having already been pledged ceremonially through the blessing and sacrament of marriage. Many try to downplay the significance of such ceremony, as if their hormonal impulses alone were blessing enough. We try to get sex cheap, without having to earn it by winning someone’s love and respect and promising lifelong fidelity before God. As I stated in that

Storied in a Box

The summer of 1996 saw me finally adopt two notable tastes as a moviegoer. One values the advantage of letterboxing, while the other is simply the appreciation of black-and-white film. Ironically enough, the same movie happened to cultivate both appetites. My affection for black-and-white in particular afforded a rich new legacy of movies to embrace, beginning right here with Billy Wilder’s bittersweet romantic dramedy The Apartment. Not many people dare to buy a movie they’ve never seen. For me, it was one of those rare moments when I ventured out on such a limb, largely because the odds, I wagered, didn’t appear too steep, since the film had much to recommend itself, in particular its starring Jack Lemmon and Shirley MacLaine and having won the Best Picture Oscar in 1960. As it was, I took a chance and struck gold; not only did it awaken the previously mentioned appetites, but moreover it became a true personal treasure, one of my all-time favorite movies.

The Apartment was shot with a fairly wide anamorphic lens, the result of which requires letterboxing on just about any standard or widescreen television set. Letterboxing is, of course, quite common these days, but I suspect a great many people still don’t fully understand the history of the word widescreen and how it relates to the viewing of movies and television programs. I don’t mean to criticize; I was once among the same ranks throughout a time when I was certainly an avid movie-goer and considered myself an admirer of film as art. So, for those who aren’t familiar, the issue of letterboxing and the novelty of widescreen TVs both concern what is referred to as the aspect ratio of an image. Since nearly all motion picture and photographic images are rectangular, the ratio concerns only two dimensions: width and height. 60 years ago, this wasn’t much of an issue, since a great many motion pictures were still shot and presented in a standard 4 to 3 (width to height) aspect ratio. With the advent of television in the 1950s, broadcasters and manufacturers adopted the same standard ratio. However, as far back as the 1920s, filmmakers were experimenting with wider-angle (or anamorphic) lenses, and by the 1950s, a variety of wide-angle lenses and film resolutions were commonly used. Eventually, the 4:3 ratio was virtually abandoned in cinema, and for many years now, 21:9 has been the widest lens ratio commonly used in motion picture photography, and is the specific ratio in which The Apartment was filmed. When I worked for Edward Cinemas during my years as an undergraduate in college, we referred to the 21:9 ratio as “scope,” which was short for CinemaScope—the trademark name for the anamorphic process of widescreen motion picture presentation. The alternative was the smaller 16:9 image, which we called “flat.” These two types of film actually required us to alternate between two different projector lenses. And if one of our theaters was presenting a “flat” movie, a switch on the projector would extend masking curtains in the auditorium, obscuring the edges of the screen not used in the presentation of a “flat” film. Likewise, the curtains would have to be opened to present a “scope” film.

Now, like many people, I initially avoided home videos presented in letterbox format, since it seemed to be limiting the composition of the image, even though the situation is actually the exact opposite; most movies actually have to be cropped on the sides to completely fill a 4:3 screen, with the image occasionally panning and shifting to comprise the characters and the majority of the action within this limited frame, which is how we got the term pan-and-scan. Whenever a video box or a broadcasting station mentions that a film has been “formatted to fit your TV screen,” this is exactly what they’re talking about, and it always means that the image has been cropped. It was my training and work as a projectionist that finally allowed me to understand the purpose and advantage of letterboxing on a TV screen. But not until The Apartment did I appreciate it. Letterboxing is nothing more than a way of “cropping” the area of the screen itself, similar to what the masking curtains achieved in the auditoriums at Edwards, and presenting the wider image of a film, thereby retaining the full composition of the frame in its complete, albeit dilated (or slightly smaller), form. Now, there was, I admit, a short period during which I continued to dislike letterboxing simply because I found the notion of a smaller image too unappealing. But The Apartment was where I began finally to value seeing everything and to ignore the somewhat reduced image. Of course, with a widescreen TV, this diminution is all the more negligible.

While presented in letterbox format, the story is "boxed" another way, too—a story, in a manner, told “in a box,” as it depicts the tale of “loyal, resourceful, cooperative,” friendless, and wed-to-his-job insurance clerk C.C. Baxter, played by Jack Lemmon, who permits the use of his apartment for executive flings. Such a premise might seem almost dramatically trite by today’s standards, but the moral quandary explored here was certainly an adequate propellant in 1960, particularly when Baxter realizes that Fran Kubelik, the elevator girl with whom he’s so sweetly taken, played by Shirley MacLaine, is actually his boss’s own mistress. However, at 21, budding film aficionado that I was, what struck me so about The Apartment was only in part its subject matter. There are plenty of romances (comedic and otherwise) set to film and plenty of stories that canvas the complexities of corruption and corporate politics. Like many films, what makes it stand out is the execution, the manner in which the story is brought to life by virtue of script; performances; directing; music; and yes, despite the limited setting in the second half of the film, cinematography. In particular, what makes it still a compelling work today is the sharp wit demonstrated in the writing of Billy Wilder and I.A.L. Diamond, which is legendary for being so well-crafted as to only be diminished by improvisation. These were skilled writers whose work continually bears the mark of excellence, like the tasteful use of a rhetorical refrain, such as corporate exec Mr. Kirkeby’s habitual use of the –wise suffix to qualify a statement, which becomes a kind of catch-phoneme adopted by the two principle characters and by which a number of important conversations and themes unfold. It would almost become irritating, but as with so many things in life, as Baxter himself observes at a key moment in the film, “That’s the way it crumbles, cookie-wise.”

In addition to a sterling script, I’ve come to realize that its rather understated yet clever art direction and the manner in which The Apartment was photographed were significant factors in its having won my affection. There’s something about the setting itself that Lemmon’s character explains so simply and perfectly in the opening minutes of the film: “nothing fancy, but kind of cozy, just right for a bachelor.” Baxter’s apartment has an intimate and, at the same time, an expansive quality when delivered by the anamorphic lens and how Wilder used it. The frame is composed in such rich and stylized ways but with objects and characters of seemingly ordinary significance. The film then has the remarkable quality of drawing the viewer into its world so as to lend extraordinary significance to these otherwise mediocre people and their lamentably corrupted lives. It invites us to look closer, particularly at Baxter himself, to see a tenderness and a kindly simplicity, despite his immoral motivation and the lengths to which he extends himself for professional advancement. You almost get the sense that Lemmon’s character is simply too nice for his own good, too naïve, not quite accustomed to saying no. In another respect, a simple and unassuming goodness seems to permeate his character, which fortifies the modest and unassuming nature of the film itself.

Adding to its considerable allure is a charming score by Adolph Deutsch, at times buoyant and wry, at others jazzy and pensive, infused with a bewitchingly bittersweet theme originally titled “Jealous Lover” by Charles Williams. If ever music could inspire the tenor of nostalgia in an instant without any familiarity or association, this is it. And as the score is wound wistfully through the narrative, we find ourselves drawn into a world both sad and sweet, bitter and beautiful. And the apartment itself, specifically the manner in which it’s photographed, sets the ideal tone in which the themes of the story are so poignantly developed. The fact that the majority of the action occurs in this “box” is a testament to the narrative powers of Billy Wilder and art director Alexander Trauner, who used an array of wiles to create the cozy but shabby look of Baxter’s domicile. It was this domicile that so affected me along with the subtle manner in which Wilder continually composes the frame, with such vivid warmth and scenic charm, in tasteful combination with the contrasts of black-and-white film, creating a winning and comfortably threadbare, dog-eared kind of tone that saturates the entire story, made all the more beguiling by Lemmon and MacLaine’s endearing performances.

Perhaps the aspect of the film, then, that appeals most to me is a kind of lighthearted counterpoint between pathos and levity, which makes it feel, in a sense, very real. There is a broad menu of conflict at work here, particularly in the two principle characters. And yet the plot and its themes unfold in such an engaging way. In the hands of Wilder and Diamond, the story tackles some considerably dark terrain, including infidelity, corporate greed, emotional alienation, suicide, prostitution, and romantic angst, all with a delightfully refined wit, a teary but tasteful sweetness, and a plenitude of captivatingly mundane ambience. It’s truly as touching and tender as they come. If you’ve never seen it, do so, with my heartfelt endorsement. Take a step inside The Apartment and make a memory which, in all its treasury of toil and tenderness, will never disappoint. Invite your significant other, a sibling, or a dear friend; pop some corn; and keep on hand a tissue or two in the event your eye starts to leak.

Too often compared to its hilarious cousin Some Like It Hot, Billy Wilder and I.A.L. Diamond’s claim to comedic immortality made only a year before and also starring Jack Lemmon (however tempting the comparison may be since AFI crowned Some Like It Hot the funniest movie of all time), The Apartment is a preeminent achievement, multi-faceted and thematically embellished, that quite defies echelon and type. Is it comedy? Is it drama? A tale of corporate intrigue? Or your standard naïve-boy-meets-indifferent-girl story turned on its drearily optimistic ear? Well, yes. Imagine, if you will, the least likely to draw your attention in a box of adolescent pups, the most diseased and flea-ridden, mangy and mongrel, but the quiet, quirky, and wide-eyed spirit of which makes it the most ironically fitting and altogether wonderful choice to take home. Okay, that’s a bit of bias speaking. But still… It’s a keeper. Story-wise.

It's a DJ Wonderful Life

A week or so before last Christmas, as first semester neared its end, I battled exhaustion, as is sometimes the season to do in education. But despite my own end-of-term deflation, like most teachers, I also faced the relentless and somewhat irksome lethargy of my students, whose behavior clearly communicated, whether done well or not, I wish only to be done. I can understand this. I was a student myself once upon a time. You begin to wish desperately to inhabit some future version of yourself who’s already finished and presently celebrates total freedom from the commitment of scholarship and the demands that compel you, day by day, to sustain your energies as you traverse a certain span of growth and learning, though to many, it’s merely a span of accountability; whether we grow or learn is often a matter of intentionality, or even circumstance. The fact remains, most high school students lack the foresight that would prevent their delving solely toward the most immediate satisfaction and the “cheapest,” least edifying path to completion. So often we prefer ease over gain. A great many of my students would honestly rather sit and multiply single-digit numbers to get an A and claim they’ve learned Precalculus than to embrace the challenge of doing so in fact. It’s human nature, I suppose. It certainly takes an open,

On Losing Virtue, Part 1

I once dated a girl who told me her therapist had, at one point, suggested that people take sex too seriously, that intercourse in particular is “just friction.”  She admitted to me, however, that she didn’t entirely buy into this view, nor did I, though at the time, I was scarcely certain as to why in any concrete sense.  Thirteen years later, I believe I’m now able to fully understand the lie that was begging to be believed.  I had a friend from high school who definitely felt I took sex too seriously and used to tell me, whenever I would share my romantic frustrations, that I needed to get laid.  He was teasing, of course, though only in part; despite his understanding my desire to connect with a woman intellectually and spiritually as well as physically, he made it clear he believed I was elevating sexuality to a significance it didn’t truly merit and that it could indeed be at once satisfying and meaningless.  Again, I had to disagree.  The only difference now is that I know precisely why.  I should have agreed with him at the time except for having some vague sensibility about the lie for which he seemed to campaign so lucidly.  It is simply this: sex doesn’t have to mean anything, or to be more specific, it only means something if we intend it to.  And by such a myth is our cultural fluency poisoned and the notion of casual sex directed, a notion that feels all too casual these days.

In the apologetic opus Mere Christianity, C.S. Lewis identifies chastity as “the most unpopular of the Christian virtues,” and reflects that we’ve inherited a world filled with propaganda favoring unchastity.  This seems at least as true today as when it was first published in 1952, though I believe it is perhaps more so now; broader media restrictions and the ease of access to information through technology and the internet seem to have exacerbated the enormous mess we’ve made of sexuality, drawing it to the attention of younger and younger ages and encouraging ourselves to believe that the self-control necessary to lead a chaste life is not only somehow perverse, but virtually impossible.  Lewis makes a valid point, too, when he says, “There are people who want to keep our sex instinct inflamed in order to make money out of us.  Because, of course, a man with an obsession is a man who has very little sales-resistance” (Lewis, 99).  This always makes me smile, it’s so true.  Then again, while I can think of many benefits to entrepreneurial vigor and commercial ingenuity, the exploitation of lust is not one of them.

To clarify my own view, I see in the present age an obsession with sexual gratification that seems to annul all sense, though I admit it is perhaps merely symptomatic of a larger cultural pathology, which is an obsession with both personal fulfillment and freedom from accountability.  For now, however, I restrict myself to a discussion of sexuality, in which the current moral temperature seems uniquely characterized by a determination to divorce ourselves completely from any traditional wisdom in the matter.  It is now considered highly antiquated to remain sexually pure, particularly if you are in a committed relationship, and particularly one that seems headed for marriage.  Proponents of chastity, then, find in one another a kind of fellowship in being generally regarded by the greater population as zealots who favor self-deprivation out of some senseless religious dogma, suppressing an impulse that is perfectly natural and healthy.  Hedonistic culture currents aside, however, chastity also seems quite frequently viewed as quaintly old-fashioned, an endearing and somewhat Victorian relic of an option—which places the couples who practice it in some hyper-romantic vein of sentimentality—as opposed to a vital, reverent, and sober degree of self-control and spiritual obedience with universal benefits that bind us to the will of a benevolent Creator.  To a vast majority of the ordinary, down-to-earth people in the world, and even to some Christians, such a principle is completely ridiculous.

A young woman I once knew was dating a guy who tried to convince her that fornication was not in fact a sin at all, quoting 1 Corinthians 7:36, in which the apostle Paul discusses the merits of marriage, not fornication: “If anyone thinks that he is not behaving properly toward his betrothed, if his passions are strong, and it has to be, let him do as he wishes: let them marry—it is no sin.”  The guy’s purpose was predatory, of course.  This was not a young man soberly considering the truth revealed in Paul’s letter, but rather using a text in which he had no faith himself to attack the faith of my friend in the hope of fulfilling his own thoughtless sexual appetite.  He was quick to follow her refusal by remarking what a shame it was she would allow her religion to keep them apart.  In other words, if appealing to her doctrinal allegiance proved fruitless, he was more than happy to ask her to reject her faith completely—a move which, of course, smacks of desperation.  Every horny guy is liable to act desperately, but so is every love-starved girl.  Together, the two are spiritually volatile.  One wants desperately to be loved and appreciated.  The other wants desperately to be physically gratified.  Both sides of the stereotype can be understood, but neither can be excused.  And in fact, even among couples who have agreed to a mutually superficial exchange of affection, it doesn’t hold up.  Sexuality is only casual to those who have tried to divorce themselves from the mystery of true intimacy.  In other words, they have given themselves permission to believe a woefully permissive and thoroughly comfortable lie.

There is nothing casual about sex.  Consider perhaps the most superficial and seemingly innocuous form of “casual sex”: pornography.  And let us not waste too long on questions like is porn degrading to women? or is it art?  Of course it’s degrading to women, but it’s also degrading to the person who looks at it.  Of course it’s not art.  The purpose of porn is nothing but to excite sexual desire, and so it cannot be art, because its purpose is not artistic.  Let’s rather proceed to the simple issue of indulgence.  As Lewis further reveals in Mere Christianity, “Poster after poster, film after film, novel after novel, associate the idea of sexual indulgence with the ideas of health, normality, youth, frankness, and good humour.  Now this association is a lie.  Like all powerful lies, it is based in truth—the truth, acknowledged above, that sex in itself (apart from the excesses and obsessions that have grown round it) is ‘normal’ and ‘healthy’, and all the rest of it.  The lie consists in the suggestion that any sexual act to which you are tempted at the moment is also healthy and normal.  Now this, on any conceivable view, and quite apart from Christianity, must be nonsense.  Surrender to all our desires obviously leads to impotence, disease, jealousies, lies, concealment, and everything that is the reverse of health, good humour, and frankness.  For any happiness, even in this world, quite a lot of restraint is going to be necessary; so the claim made by every desire, when it is strong, to be healthy and reasonable, counts for nothing” (Lewis, 100).  The argument is perfectly fair, and pointedly delivers us to the most important issue concerning sexual immorality, which is the questionable validity, or rightness, of the propensities and excesses of human nature.  Porn, by many accounts, is entirely natural, though only as natural as any other human vice.  Lying is natural.  Vengeance and even murder, under a variety of circumstances, may be seen as natural.  On a larger scale, the human race seems to have come by war quite naturally and quite regularly for thousands of years.  Lots of things are natural.  Let us not allow human nature to wear the guise of virtue any more than a court of law, for instance, may wear the guise of justice.  Despite their purpose, courts are corruptible and laws abused and stupidly interpreted, because a court of law is no better than the people who operate it.  Likewise, a human being can never be of unilaterally good instincts.  So, as Lewis illustrates so clearly, the argument that sexuality is natural is a genuinely poor and altogether naïve justification for such as adultery, promiscuity, fornication, casual sex, and audience with pornography.  Some would undoubtedly argue that sexuality in fact requires no justification, that it simply is what it is and that we shouldn’t try to moralize it with sophomoric religious dogma.  Never was a view more sophomoric than to believe that the potential for human frailty and vice can transcend moralization, and once again, I believe such persons have attempted to divorce themselves from the hard-won reward of complete intimacy in deference the more immedate payoff of partial intimacy.  They have allowed a very comfortable lie to supplant their capacity for wisdom, because all people, when able to transcend their primal appetites, seek completion—that communion by which we may achieve a transcendent spiritual peace, which is an echo of the divine in each of us and a fundamental understanding of righteousness apart from one’s own instinct.  Denial of this is simply a matter of postponement.  The young man who attempted to pervert the meaning of the 1 Corinthians verse is simply too far from that stage of life at which he is able to recognize his truest need.  Or, he is so acutely aware of it that he believes fornication is his best hope in contrast to a level of intimacy he suspects he may never achieve.  In this way, sexual immorality may be a simple matter of impatience.  Sexual desire is part of being human, to be sure, but unless we’re able to govern it, like other human passions, it will govern us.  And it does.  The young man I’ve mentioned criticizes his prey for allowing her religion to upset their prospects as a couple.  Asking her to carry the entire blame is, of course, sheer hypocrisy, since he is the one who deserves it; he himself is, at least for a time, in pious deference to his own kind of doctrine, a devotion entirely accountable for impeding a right and balanced relationship.  His religion is libido.

It is a matter of passion.  No sex is casual.  The truth is we don’t get to choose what’s sacred and what’s profane.  Something in us knows the difference, and while we so desperately try to legitimize the sinful employ of the sexual appetite, it is my belief that those who claim to have emancipated themselves from the traditional ethics of chastity have simply disguised their own weakness, fear, or impatience, which is not emancipation at all, but total enslavement to these motives.  The traditional ethics of orthodox Christian doctrine do not condemn sexual passion.  The sin rather lies in the enslavement, and human beings are likely to attempt all manner of ways to rationalize their enslavement to sin.  Sexual hunger is elemental, God-given, to the person of faith, but like all things in our nature, it is susceptible to corruption.  Our hope is that if we can trivialize sexuality, we might be able to disguise how much we want it.  “Just friction” nothing.  The fact is, we want sex so badly that we’re willing to lie even to ourselves, to pretend it doesn’t mean what it really does, and we clearly wouldn’t want it so badly if it didn’t.  We’re eager, in fact, to entertain such a lie, since it allows the experience of physical pleasure in isolation from accountability and the hard work of building intimacy.  As such, sexual immorality may also represent a kind of emotional sloth.  In lieu of addressing the true meaning of sexuality and establishing its righteous context in the bonds of a commitment, many would rather just fire some neurons in the skin and call it a day.

As Lewis illustrates, “The Christian attitude does not mean that there is anything wrong about sexual pleasure, any more than about the pleasure of eating.  It means that you must not isolate that pleasure and try to get it by itself, any more than you ought to try to get the pleasures of taste without swallowing and digesting, by chewing things and spitting them out again” (Lewis, 105).  To people of faith, such self-control is difficult, but not impossible, certainly not with the help and strength of the living God, who desires right relationships, not clumsy, ill-conceived ones.  Chastity then goes hand-in-hand with acceptance principally of a universal moral law, which, according to Lewis, is known to us and yet transcends our instincts.  Instinct, then, cannot be universally trusted.  There’s a good reason sex feels right, even when it’s wrong.  If human impulse cannot be universally trusted, our trust, or faith, if you will, must then be in a higher source, a God, and in the words He has spoken to us.  But if our desire and God’s are one and the same, which is to intimately commune with a single partner, why then is sex wrong for those headed for marriage?  Rather, I would ask, what level of passion or impatience directs the previous question?  Certainly, it is not a sober one, but rather, once again, the unbridled urge to indulge without check, without commitment.  And we have a word for the commitment: marriage.  The evil of food lies in excess, but the potential sin in our sexuality is not a matter of mere temperance per se, but rather one of context and purpose.  Adopt the true purpose of sexuality, and you’ll quickly realize that the legitimization of an unchecked and uncommitted sexual lifestyle is impossible.  My opponents in this issue will surely ask, why is commitment necessary?  Who is hurt in a situation where two people already in a committed relationship allow themselves to express that commitment by engaging in sexual congress?  My response: Sexual intimacy, despite the immediacy of the pleasure it affords, demands of us, by its very design, an enormous degree of accountability in terms of the mutual exchange of trust, and the inherent safety implied by that trust; the complexity and depth of emotional attachment; and naturally, in the case of intercourse, the potential for bringing into the world a new human life and the overwhelming duty to bring that child up in, one would hope, a responsible and loving manner.  In fact, we’re required to go to great lengths of contraception to avoid the potential for pregnancy and, subsequently, an entire life, which is the natural outgrowth and clearest biological function of sex.  We have to intercept gametes in ways that admittedly defy sterling reliability.  Of course, instead of leaving these things haphazardly to one’s physical whimsy, what’s right is to work them out ahead of time.  Again, it’s called marriage.

The depth and importance of these issues, which surround the most intimate physical connection, as a reflection of the emotional and spiritual connections that justify it, ought to inspire a gravity and a reverence that supersede, in one’s judgment, the immediacy with which physical passion might otherwise be gratified, and it disgraces both parties to supplant commitment with immediacy, to take such intimate measures beyond the protection of the soberest and most sincere promise.  In other words, the only reason we insist on asking the question is because we’re too intemperate to wait.  There are many reasons to wait, but only one reason not to.

The isolation of sexuality then also signifies a salient depreciation of marriage.  The two go hand-in-hand, the one with the other.  As my good friend and colleague Jim Altizer has often said, “Passion without fidelity is adultery.  And fidelity without passion is captivity.”  The deepest measure of commitment validates the deepest measure of physical intimacy.  Likewise a lack of such commitment forfeits such intimacy.  And let us not kid ourselves that we are fully committed simply because we say we are or because we’ve entered into exclusive relationships.  Such alliances are transient.  But marriage is a solemn promise and a blessed endeavor.  Without such blessing, we are captives in sexuality.  As Lewis says, we’ll have to resist a great deal in our own nature to find peace or contentment.  To the devout Christian, this is largely a matter of obedience.  Such a person is aware that chastity is the only way to glorify God with one’s sexuality.  For many, however, even a variety of Christians, this is a tenuous incentive.  What would the world be like if all of us were of the requisite humility for it to be enough?  However, I believe my point here is to address the person of the second type, the one who isn’t satisfied not to touch the boiling pot because mom or dad says no, but who needs rather to understand that the reason is because it is boiling and quite harmful to touch, or worse, who must actually touch it and get burnt before the understanding is achieved.  Spouses might think that their sexual indiscretions prior to walking down the aisle were harmless, but the harm is in their believing so, which seeds must necessarily breed further sin, whether it is in their own actions or those of their children, having inherited the same structure of belief and the subsequent potential to debase themselves by equal or worse degrees.  Either way, firsthand experience of sex with your partner should, in my belief, never be a determining factor in your decision to, in fact, become their partner.  Don’t bother with a question like what if the sex isn’t good?  The best sex you will ever have is with the person whom you love and adore deeply and truly with all your heart, and if that love hinges on their expertise as a sex partner, it cannot be a very deep love, nor a lasting one.

The cultural diminishment of sexual virtue addresses not merely the antiquation of chastity, but also, in my view, that of humility and supplication, which are the seeds of true wisdom and both necessary to lead a good life.  Not that actually practicing chastity isn’t terribly difficult, but rather, imagining it outdated, quaint, irrelevant, or pleasantly beyond the scope of moral consideration is not well and good.  What’s strange is that even many Christians seem to find chastity so unpalatable that they prefer to ignore it or deem it quaint—yet another indication of how insidiously we’ve been convinced that our want is so great as to seem foolhardy to control.  But who is the more foolish, the one who lies or the one who believes the lie?  Hard as it is, I would rather have an insoluble, ageless faith than a conventional one that hinges on the climate of the culture in which I find myself.  Likewise, I would rather practice abstinence than give myself over to sexual desire completely, which enslavement is precisely what a “casual” approach to sexual ethics requires.  If it isn’t fashionable to be chaste, it certainly isn’t honest to oneself not to be.

Work Cited

• Lewis, C.S.  Mere Christianity.  HarperCollins, 2001.

Sweet as Carbonite

My earliest memory is of seeing the original Star Wars at the drive-in. Specifically, I have an image of Carrie Fisher as Princess Leia, with the cinnamon rolls on each side of her head, looking anxious and worried, perhaps during the TIE fighter assault on the Millennium Falcon. It’s distant, but it’s certainly the earliest picture in my mind. Some memories are murky and muddled, made of images like old photos reposed beneath layers of dust on a closet shelf. Others are crystal clear and ready to surface with arresting authenticity at the slightest trigger, perhaps precipitated by another memory or idea that scurries across the desktop of the mind. Still other memories stretch out like streams of garland gently wound about the interplay of one’s thoughts and experience, transcending any specific instance or set of images. This is such a memory, and such a feeling. It encompasses an enormous family of occasions, images, and sounds that fill a place of the imagination and a space of life. It begins on Wednesday, May 21, 1980. I can’t rightly recall if we were there opening day, but we could not have made it past that first weekend. I do remember entering the old Melody theatre—which used to be located in a shopping center at the intersection of Moorpark Road and Janss in Thousand Oaks—with my dad and my older brother Anthony, and my tiny self was aquiver with anticipation; I had not only been exposed to a variety of puzzling photos in the pages of the double-LP original soundtrack recording my parents had bought me, but had been fed a variety of disturbing rumors by Anthony and his friend Billy, who had supposedly already seen the movie, things like Luke dies, Han gets his arm cut off, or C-3PO gets blown up, all of which worried my five-year-old mind considerably. And among the pictures in the aforementioned soundtrack was the above screen shot, on which I remember fixating, wondering who Lando Calrissian was and what provocative conversation was being had between Darth Vader and this Boba Fett. I had briefly debated which main character—Han or Luke—was indeed the subject of those dark and terrifying photos of having been frozen in something called carbonite. And Han certainly appeared to be the one dipping the princess in some curious, romantic gesture, an image transfigured among other story elements and brought to life by Roger Kastel’s artistry comprising the original “A Style” (or Gone with the Wind manner) one sheet for the film. I remember standing outside the Melody, while Dad bought the tickets, staring at it quizzically in the poster case near the entrance, wondering, with some irrepressible combination of distress and excitement, what would happen, what strange and mysterious fates awaited the heroes we had met in the previous film and whose countenances were borne upon the many action figures we had been playing with for at least the two previous years, which, as you know, is a considerable epoch to a little kid. I believe I felt I had grown to know and love the characters in the Star Wars universe, and the anxiety bred by the dark dooms that awaited them in this second installment was alarming, for sure, but at the same time, electrifying, perhaps the most rhapsodical curiosity this miniscule Moya had ever known.

The film holds such a place of honor in my heart that it’s difficult to separate the various aspects of its technical and aesthetic excellence from my own nostalgic attachment. I remember being hospitalized when I was five for some kind of stomach ailment, and one of the things my parents did to cheer me up while I was there was to bring me two of the new action figures that had been released: a Han Solo in Hoth outfit and Luke in Bespin fatigues. I was delighted, of course, and slept that night in the hospital with both figures reposed happily on the pillow next to me. I remember, after my hospital stay, browsing the toy section of our Simi Mervyns with Anthony and happening upon what appeared to be the last Yoda action figure in stock. I had never seen it before and stood marveling momentarily. But before I had actually reached for it, another little boy went to take it off the hook on which it so happily rested. I can’t remember anything about this boy. But I do remember my brother asking him to let me have it, because I had already picked it out and had my heart set on getting it. By any standard, the playground charter of kid-dom or otherwise, I had positively no right to this action figure, but my brother was adamant, and the little boy let me take it.

The year or so that followed the film’s release was filled with even greater heights of play than had been waged in the era of my childhood that followed the original Star Wars and preceded Empire. I spent several years attempting to construct the Millennium Falcon and various other spaceships and scenes using only the immense cache of block-style and space series Legos from the early 1980s that lived in a giant storage box under my bed and got dragged out and spread across my bedroom floor sometimes several times a week, especially in the summer and over Christmas break. Quite simply, the story of Empire, more than either of the other two episodes in the original trilogy, became a focal point of my young imagination. By the release of Return of the Jedi three years later, I was still into it and continued to play with toys, Star Wars toys especially, for several years. And of course, I’ve never grown tired of watching the films. But there’s something special about Empire which has stuck with me.

I found myself rather recently on an Empire kick, and what a marvelous coincidence that 2010 is the 30th anniversary of its release. It’s always been my very favorite in the series, though I would like to go so far as to crown it the best beyond any sentimental preference of my own. In fact, I would rather call it one of the finest films ever made. This perhaps comes as no surprise, and I might start to seem quite the stereotype, given the enormous popularity of the classic trilogy—and of Empire in particular—among thirty-somethings. Some would roll their eyes, I imagine, particularly those who tend to reject a franchise simply out of the reactionary impulse to oppose what is widely appreciated. Incidentally, while I intend no offense here, resistance or objection to something due solely to its popularity has always seemed to me a characteristic of youth, perhaps a sign of either latent rebellion or residual immaturity. Such contrary feelings that lack sensible justification reflect the impulse to reject established norms and credible ideas in an effort to claim a unique identity. Too many people roll their eyes at Star Wars, Harry Potter, or Twilight fans for this reason alone, when in truth, all three franchises explore time-honored ideas in a unique, exacting, and authentic way. Even if they’re not your cup of tea, few can deny that the ideas are good and build on universal human themes in a legitimate and compelling way. For certain, part of Empire’s unique claim on my interior landscape is pure nostalgia. But as many would agree, it is a superior cinematic achievement for a number of reasons. It is certainly the darkest and most compelling installment in the original trilogy, and, one could argue, in the entire series, not merely by virtue of a powerful and emotionally resonant story, but also due to excellence of craft and aesthetic. Director Irvin Kershner, in particular, can be credited with broadening the performances of the actors and helping to create the grave and eerie ambience that permeates the story.

The film even opens with the ominous dispersion of Imperial probes and the descent to the icy bleakness of Hoth, followed rather quickly by the mauling and abduction of Luke by the wampa. And in the subsequent two hours of story, we find our heroes subjected to the most harrowing series of misfortunes and pummelings—delivered blow after blow by the dastardly Empire—that their plight becomes more real than in any of the other episodes, and the operatic nature of the entire saga seems almost defined by this one film. From the defeat of the Rebellion on Hoth to the relentless failing of the Falcon’s hyperdrive; the blasting apart of C-3PO; Lando Calrissian’s betrayal and being nearly strangled by Chewbacca; Luke’s monumentally unwise and impetuous departure from Dagobah, the severing of his hand, the crushing discovery of Vader’s paternity, his pathetic pleas to Ben while dangling helplessly above a fatal plunge from an antenna beneath Cloud City; and of course the torture and subsequent freezing of Han Solo in carbonite, as entertainment editor Dalton Ross says, “It’s tough to be a hero in Empire” (Ross, 39). And though it might not exceed Revenge of the Sith in its tragic proportions or its effects, it does far exceed it by virtue of script, direction, performances, and the moody atmosphere pervading its brilliant art direction. We find in Empire a very different kind of sequel. Or perhaps we find the very notion of a sequel reimagined; this movie was perhaps the first in a series of prominent sequels over the past 30 years to significantly outdo its predecessor, and given the seminal achievement and success of the original Star Wars, that’s saying something.

There are three major segments to the film: the Hoth segment, Dagobah and pursuit of the Millennium Falcon, and the Bespin segment. In these three chapters, Empire happens to contain just about all of my favorite scenes of any Star Wars film, the first of which is the Battle of Hoth and the escape of the Millennium Falcon following the Imperial penetration of the Rebel base. Countless afternoons as a child, I played out some variation of this scenario, as my play persona, whomever it may have been that particular day, raced frantically aboard a spaceship, pursued by nefarious forces, just as Han, Leia, Chewie, and Threepio rushed aboard the Falcon, narrowly avoiding the clutches of Darth Vader and his coterie of snow troopers. The Battle of Hoth is lauded to be one of the most riveting battle sequences ever set to film. Each of the three original Star Wars films contains a single large-scale battle between the Rebellion and the Empire. Another aspect that sets Empire apart is that this battle occurs not at the end of the film, like the Battles of Yavin and Endor in Star Wars and Return of the Jedi respectively, but rather at the beginning. It is also the only one of these three battles in which the Rebellion is engaged—and essentially defeated—by the Empire and not the other way around. The entire sequence is a marvel of entertainment, a classic treasure of movie-making drama from beginning to end. I remember how frightened I was for the Alliance and for the main characters when the Rebel soldiers signaled their retreat.

Another aspect of Empire that merits my devotion is that it is, by far, the most Falcon-intensive film in the original trilogy. I admit I was no different from any one of the thousands of other kids in the world who thought the Millennium Falcon to be the coolest spaceship ever to grace the stars of any space fantasy. And not only is Empire the most Falcon-intensive film, in which we are treated to the most elaborate and comprehensive exposure to the spacecraft’s interior (cool as it is), it is also the first time we get to see it darting, spinning, and dodging in all its acrobatic glory, unlike the action shots in the original theatrical version of Star Wars, which, majestic as they are, really deliver no more than somewhat static impressions of the Falcon charging either toward or away from something. The Empire sequence in which the Falcon braves the asteroid field to elude Imperial fighters is arguably one of the neatest, coolest space melees in movie history. That’s right. It’s just neat.

The central section of the film, in which the Falcon is pursued by the Empire, also details Luke’s fulfillment of Ben Kenobi’s instructions to seek out Jedi Master Yoda. As Lucas has mentioned, much of the film’s success rested on this puppeted performance, which, if not entirely believable, could have been an epic disaster under which the entire project would have collapsed. This is because Yoda is truly the emotional centerpiece of the film, and in this segment, we find something unique to all six episodes. Luke’s stay on Dagobah, during which he meets and trains with Yoda for a time, occurs in a series of rather slow-paced interludes, during which their conversations take on a languid, reflective, almost poetic quality. These scenes act very much like an emotional fulcrum by which Luke’s maturation is propelled and a variety of revelations about the Force and its duality are revealed. Yoda himself gives perhaps the most rousing and impressive speeches of all the films while describing the crudeness of the physical world and the nature of good and evil—topics of sufficient weight to have made his performance so crucial. It is in this thought-provoking middle section that we find my very favorite scene of all the Star Wars films. Luke’s failed attempt to retrieve the sunken x-wing from a dense morass on Dagobah leads to one of Yoda’s most stirring speeches and one of the most pivotal moments in Luke’s education. Luke simply cannot believe that what Yoda says about the Force is actually true. Rather he thinks the little green master is demanding something out of sheer autocratic stubbornness. In the subsequent moments, Yoda delivers more than just words and wisdom. He proceeds to retrieve the giant ship himself through the use of the Force, setting it securely on dry land. When an incredulous Luke utters, “I don’t believe it,” Yoda’s response is simple, affecting, and didactic: “That is why you fail.” It is a critical moment for Luke and one of the most moving scenes in the film. There is no easy, well-packaged success for Luke in these scenes, and we begin to empathize with how dearly he struggles to learn the ways of the Force. It is not an easy task, and these are not easy scenes. But all the better, for they lend greater weight and a true sense of realism to the difficulty inherent in the training of a Jedi knight, particularly in a swampy forgotten backwater of a war-torn galaxy in which the age-old Jedi tradition is but a faint and feeble memory.

This reflective centerpiece is, of course, interrupted by Luke’s vision of Cloud City and his premonition of the suffering of Han and Leia, at which point he foolishly cuts short his training on Dagobah in the hope of coming to their aid. What a stroke of narrative ingenuity. Luke leaves. He does exactly what he shouldn’t, and you feel a deepening sense of some terrible doom that awaits him. The moment of initial confrontation between Luke and Vader in the carbon freezing chamber is indeed one of the most epic and riveting moments in the entire saga. How can this go well? It doesn’t. And in fact, we’re left almost with a sense of gratitude at the good fortune that Luke even escapes this encounter with his life, since it quite easily could have gone the other way.

The entire Bespin sequence draws us further still into the circle of calamity that engulfs our heroes. Lando’s betrayal and the torture of Han Solo were intensely disturbing to me as a child, though I was practically glued to the screen throughout the ordeal. And following the last kiss between Han and Leia, in those fateful moments as he’s lowered into the carbon freezing pit, and Leia follows his eyes in tender desperation, Lando stares in agonizing conflict, Vader and Boba Fett “glare” ominously through the smoke, Chewie howls passionately, and the music soars above it all in a canticle of anguished majesty, at the tender age of five, my heart hung faithfully on every note, every moment. And Empire has you in its grip till the very end, as Darth Vader orders a boarding party for the Millennium Falcon, soon to be in range of their tractor beam, and it appears the ship and its passengers may well be captured. Only through the efforts of the conscientious and stout-hearted R2-D2 does the Falcon, carrying what survives of our exhausted heroes, narrowly escape.

I must at some point discuss the impact and significance of what is, in my opinion, one of the film’s most outstanding ingredients: the music, which is among John Williams’ finest and most poignant scores, sweeping in its dramatic scope, exhilarating in its punctuation of the action, and both touching and monumental in its emotional depth. This is the score that gave us, for the first time, the “Imperial March,” which is among the most recognizable movie themes ever written. It came to define the character of Darth Vader and is, to a great extent, a sonic banner for the entire saga. This is also the score that delivered what is, to me, among the most hauntingly beautiful pieces of music ever written and one that conveys both a passionate brilliance and a tender gravity which enable the viewer to transcend the story’s wealth of conflicts. It is “Yoda’s Theme.” Lest my reader believe me only too conspicuously attached to anything tied to one of my favorite characters in all of cinematic literature, while I admit to a miniscule degree of personal bias, one need only listen to “Yoda’s Theme” to feel the transcendent beauty and emotional grandeur John Williams gave this film through its music. It is the same score which also gave us a theme called “Han Solo and the Princess.” At once lofty and tender, this sweepingly romantic theme becomes a central motif, repeated at various points and in a variety forms, a theme so beautiful and, at the same time, so versatile that it might be credited with the majority of the story’s resonance, impact, and appeal. It is, in fact, the theme played in the very final moments of the film, in a powerful and grandiose incarnation, as the Millennium Falcon departs and the Rebel fleet sails into the cosmic horizon in the hope of some future triumph, and the viewer’s heart is left to swell at the scope of what has happened.

For me, Empire is the apotheosis of Star Wars and a sterling example of the sheer delight in being truly enraptured by drama and danger, the dance of mind and plot, both beautiful and terrible, wherein characters dear as old friends are brought to a simmering richness of peril and the bitterness of their conflicts alchemized in the carriage of a sweet and fragrant story. This place of the imagination, this space of life is the complete package of artistic fulfillment: the music, the images, the themes, countless hours of playing with toys, a sense of being part of the story and going with the characters through the fray of jeopardy and their arc of feats. And particularly as a child, you partake of their heroism in a way that is very different from any other time of life. Just as childhood goes with you, as subtext to what you experience and understand as an adult, so the story of Empire has gone with me, and more than any other chapter in the Star Wars saga, it shaped much of my childhood and continues to impact my understanding and appreciation of great storytelling, fine movie-making, and epic drama. Whereas the prequel trilogy can rightly be considered a different species, though I personally find Revenge of the Sith to be a genuinely good film, whether we consider the classic trilogy, in all its unaltered glory, in isolation or with its admittedly inferior prequels, the zenith of the Star Wars franchise, the jewel in this crown is The Empire Strikes Back. Even as the classic trilogy goes, all three are great, but the Force is strong with this one.

Work Cited

• Ross, Dalton. “The Empire Is Back!” Entertainment Weekly, 16 April, 2010: 39.

A Tale of Two Skivvies

It was the best of times, it was the worst of times, it was the age of wisdom, it was the age of foolishness, it was the epoch of relief, it was the epoch of irritation, it was the season of Support, it was the season of Neglect, it was the spring of elastic, it was the winter of jersey, we had convenience before us, we had exasperation before us, we were all going direct toward Comfort, we were all going direct the other way—in short, the period was so far like the present period, that some of its noisiest sensations insisted on its being received, for good or evil, in the superlative degree of comparison only. For many, the choice was clear when these superlative comparisons arose. And this conflict of comparison sprang from two households, both alike in dignity, but distinct in fundamental conviction. For to one, there was no greater claim than that of stability, which some have called restrictive, and its devotees held in contempt the negligent audacity characteristic of the liberty the other called its creed, which some have called reckless, lacking the security that sufficient support would undoubtedly provide. And while this age-old feud between houses—or let us call them parties—ultimately precipitated a third provision that attempts to offer the best of both, it seems

Peaks, Parks, and Politics

If there were an Olympic event for the slowest bona fide effort to read through a particular book, article, or other text, I would be a promising contender, a quality which occasionally leads to the lamentable state of failing to read at all; depending on the density of the language, I can often spend considerable time reading and not feel as though I’m really getting anywhere. Yes, you can imagine the difficulty I had as an English major at Cal Lutheran. Two plays per week in Dr. Murley’s Shakespeare class was enough to drive any undergraduate to sweat a few beads and shed a few tears, but for yours truly it was altogether Herculean. That my slowness should at times deter me from reading is personally

My First Mania

My mom has shared with me on multiple occasions since I was a kid that in my earliest years, I was easily entertained, and because I walked and talked so late and seemed otherwise content with little attention and minimal stimulation, she came to suspect in me a somewhat deficient mental capacity. In other words, she supposed I was retarded, or as we now say, mentally challenged. I was at the very least, by all accounts, a rather mellow baby. Apparently, I could occupy myself for considerable spans with just a handful of toys rolling around the interior of the play pen. She recalls, "Sometimes I even forgot I had you," because I remained so quiet in whatever contained space she had placed me.

The photo at the right shows me in November of 1976, lounging rather contently next to my dad. The next, just below, was taken on December 22 of the same year and shows me handling one of Dad’s LP recordings of the music of Czech composer Leos Janacek. Apparently, not only did my dad have few hang-ups

Without a Country

A few weeks ago, I attended the dance concert at Oaks Christian—where I work—on the same night, it turned out, as a group of young female teachers who happen to be friends of mine as well as colleagues. There had been a cursory discussion between myself and a couple of the teachers about going to dinner beforehand. So, the afternoon before the performance, I sent an email to one of them to see if any dinner plans had crystallized, but received no reply. I then approached the other to see if she had made any plans. Seeming to have forgotten any mention of dinner in our discussion from a few days before, she said she had already agreed to go to dinner with one of the English teachers along with the other young women in the group. And I got the distinct feeling that I was not welcome, and more specifically, that it was a girls-only affair. I also started to realize, from having seen them congregate in various contexts and places around campus, that this group of about five young teachers had become a kind of clique. In truth, it makes a lot of sense. These young women are all friends, and it’s entirely natural for them to bond and to wish to spend time together apart from friends and colleagues outside their situation,

Confessions of a Triskaidekaphobe

Friday, December 13, 1996, I found myself driving eastbound on Los Angeles Avenue in Simi Valley, on my way to a Carl’s Jr. to order food for myself, my friend Andy, and several other coworkers at Edwards Simi 10 Cinemas. And as I approached the intersection of L.A. Avenue and Sycamore, I suddenly realized I was in the rightmost lane and would soon miss the left lane that would allow my approaching turn. In a moment of haste, I began to merge left having checked only my side mirror, but not my blind spot. No matter what anyone says, it will forever be the case that the one instance you fail to check said blind spot during a lane change, it will be hiding an enormous Peterbilt, with a bumper wide as a bulldozer blade and front grill like the grimace of a giant Halloween mask. Murphy’s Law, it seems, in all its

A Flowering Moment

The evening of Friday, May 15, 2009, was a most auspicious point of felicity. In one of the final performances of the 2008/2009 Los Angeles Philharmonic concert season, I heard a resplendent work performed under the baton of the composer himself, John Adams, who, it so happens, is now the philharmonic’s new creative chair, which not only enriches the artistic potential of the orchestra, but might also bless future concerts with Adams’ music, attendance, direction, or perhaps all three.

The program consisted of A Flowering Tree, one of Adams’ most recent operas, based on an extremely old South Indian folk tale of a beautiful young peasant woman named Kumudha, who discovers herself endowed with the magical ability to transform herself into a tree, the flowers of which are sold by her sisters to support their impoverished family. A love burgeons between Kumudha and a rather selfish young prince, who happens to witness the transformation. The prince’s father eventually consents to their union, and on their wedding night, Kumudha discovers the prince quite obsessed, having almost “fetishized” her ability. After a cruel incident plotted by the prince’s sister, who also discovers the ability, Kumudha is left in a grotesque state of mid-transformation and subsequently disappears in horror, leaving the prince in shame and despondence at having driven her away. Kumudha is later discovered by the queen of a neighboring city—another of the prince’s sisters, as it turns out—and is brought to her residence in an attempt to raise her brother’s spirits. Upon being reunited, Kumudha and the prince recognize each other at once, and the prince uses two pitchers of water to return the young woman to her human form.

The opera was commissioned for the New Crowned Hope Festival in Vienna, for which the festival director and longtime Adams collaborator Peter Sellers had invited a variety of artists to respond to the late work of Mozart in commemoration of the 250th anniversary of the composer’s birth. Adams used The Magic Flute as his thematic impetus for A Flowering Tree. Both works use fantastical narratives to explore universal human archetypes, and both occur in far-off locales seen as somewhat exotic to Western minds. The premiere of Adams’ work, however, demonstrated an unprecedented cultural alloy—an opera on an Indian folk tale in both English and Spanish premiered by the Joven Camerata di Venezuela, performed by Indonesian dancers from Java, sung by the Schola Cantorum Caracas chorus, and written by a composer from California. Peter Sellers, who co-wrote the libretto with Adams and is responsible for the stage direction, remarked at Upbeat Live before the performance that opera may be the art form of the 21st century, simply because it begs the question, how many people can we fit in the room? Unlike the multiculturalism that characterized the 90s, in which it was common for people to share their culture with one another, in our present era, we find that people actively participate in each other’s cultures, and opera involves a unique degree of artistic collaboration that reflects this. A Flowering Tree, then, shows how such an aesthetic can yield a result at once grounded in tradition and, at the same time, fresh and original.

The music of John Adams has captivated my spirit and mind ever since my dad first played the final movement of the pseudo-symphony Harmonielehre on the stereo in my parents’ living room some 15 years ago. Adams’ music has a relentless ethereal quality, as of dreamscapes continually unfolding. And though he has used the language of minimalism as rhythmic subtext for much of his work, it is far more organic than pure minimalism, a la Philip Glass, Steve Reich, et al. Harmonielehre was my first significant exposure to a minimalist aesthetic, however peripheral, and my first moment of intense adoration for Adams’ art. The final movement is a thing of ebullient sublimity. I remember my dad describing the first few minutes as so euphorically beautiful, it reminded him of the soul’s wonder at entering paradise. He used this analogy, I remember, in reference to four different works, of which the other three were the Verdi Requiem, Death and Transfiguration by Strauss, and the Second Symphony of Sibelius. As with so much of Adams’ music, however, the movement doesn’t remain long at this point of transcendent beauty, but is gradually transformed into what my father described as a “wall of sound,” pounding, shining, and spiraling its way up to an expansive tumult and a final plume of blazing brass. This is music at once introspective and majestic, music that reaches deep into the heart and stokes the fires of the imagination with harmonies and instrumentation of a singular, otherworldly nature. Few words can describe the awe with which I approached this piece. And so began my odyssey with the music of this remarkably gifted composer.

My first experience seeing Adams in the flesh followed a performance of Harmonielehre at the Barbican Centre in London. I attended the performance with my parents, and none of us expected him to actually be there. So it was a real treat to see him take the stage to be recognized during the applause. I saw him again six years later, the afternoon of January 21, 2007, at an L.A. Philharmonic performance of one of his more recent symphonic opuses titled Naïve and Sentimental Music, which had been commissioned by the philharmonic. Esa-Pekka Salonen led the orchestra in a splendid performance of the piece following Beethoven’s Second Symphony. I have to say, as wonderful as Beethoven is, Naïve and Sentimental Music was exhilarating beyond measure. Adams ascended the stage just prior to the performance and offered a few words about how it came to be and what it means to him. It’s tremendous when composers and performers enrich the concert experience in this way. He said the piece was meant to evoke a journey of gradually-shifting musical vistas. The second movement, for example, he described as a desert landscape in which more massive forms, such as mountains and canyons, gradually take shape. The steel-string guitar in that movement, gently weaving through the string accompaniment, was particularly beautiful. The third movement was a rhythmic riot, full of thrilling pulsations and a transcendent, explosive conclusion, after which I was so moved, I started clapping and thought I would never stop. The Upbeat Live that preceded this performance was conducted by a music professor who shared some interesting insights. Apparently, Adams himself had found it meaningful to think of the haunting, plaintive melody that opens the first movement as the protagonist of a Dickens novel, who wanders into the story and, through a series of developments, pursues his destiny—an altogether satisfying analogy given the deep affection for David Copperfield I’ve been harboring these past few years. What an experience! I remember leaving the auditorium that night thinking, thank God there is such music to quench and renew a thirsting heart.

The evening on which the opera was performed, this sentiment was crowned with a new and richer experience. The score of A Flowering Tree is intensely luminous, and the performance was magnificent. Adams himself conducted the philharmonic, a handful of soloists and dancers, as well as the Los Angeles Master Chorale. Furthermore, my mom and I had discovered at a performance the previous week that Adams would be on hand in the Grand Avenue lobby afterward to sign copies of his CDs and his newly-released memoir. Needless to say, I was aquiver with anticipation. And after the shimmering glory of Kumudha’s final transformation and the transfigured embrace of husband and wife supported by the irrepressibly sonorous fire of the orchestra had brought the opera to a gorgeous, arresting conclusion, we clapped fervently for what seemed like an eternity, then headed downstairs and ended up only third or fourth in line in the lobby. It was astounding. Not only had I sat less than twenty feet from Adams before the performance while he shared thoughts and details about the opera and his craft, I even got to meet the man and shake his hand, a moment of transcendent delight, to be sure. I told him how greatly I enjoyed his work, and he asked me if I played an instrument. I shared that I was a percussionist, to which he smiled and simply replied, “Well, we need you.” It was a rather ordinary and pleasant little conversation, reminding me of course that he was simply a person like anyone else. Mom and I shared how much we had enjoyed the performance of Harmonielehre at the Barbican Centre some years before. He seemed so appreciative, so benevolent, and even allowed us a quick photo before we left. However extraordinary, Adams is simply a man. And yet, I'm doubtful as to whether residents of the 19th or 20th centuries felt any less a spirit of adulation in the presence of greatness having met and shaken hands with Beethoven or Stravinsky, and this was certainly a moment of equivalent quintessence.

I cannot convey my excitement about attending the upcoming November 29 concert at which the philharmonic's new music director Gustavo Dudamel will conduct Adams' latest work, City Noir, a piece commissioned by the philharmonic for the new season and also as part of a celebration of California music titled "West Coast, Left Coast," which is being curated by Adams. But rather than speculate or paraphrase on what might await the audience and myself at this momentous offering, I should like to defer to the man himself. This is a video I took of Adams during Upbeat Live, just before the May 15 performance of A Flowering Tree, in which he elaborates on being commissioned and the dark side of L.A. that drove the aesthetic of City Noir.


My father once remarked, after we had finished listening to Adams’ Violin Concerto one evening, that he believed John Adams could turn out to be the greatest composer of his generation. Truly, I find nothing in the present life of modern music to contradict this notion. Here’s to you, Dad.