The point is not that “The Death of Klinghoffer” shouldn’t be performed. Fine, let it be performed. When it comes to anti-Semitism, “The Merchant of Venice” is far worse. But then let it be protested as well without whining.Because if you protest our protesting, it's whining; if we protest your protesting (say, in Ferguson), it's just reasoned debate.
No one gainsays the question when people protest the staging of “The Merchant of Venice,” because every honest person acknowledges what is profoundly offensive about it even as they admit it is an undeniably great work.As witnessed by all the celebrity wingnuts protesting whenever The Merchant of Venice plays. Whoops, sorry, no Palestinians in that one! (Maybe he means this.)
Perhaps there are people who can honestly argue “The Death of Klinghoffer” is a work so aesthetically vital every culturally literate person must see it or be deemed a Babbitty boob.Remember, whenever you make a case for a work of art and John Podhoretz doesn't like it, what you're really doing is insulting simple, salt-of-the-earth folk like John Podhoretz.
No, what they wanted was a nice, comforting, fake controversy, one of those controversies that makes something seem larger and more relevant. This is a violation of the true aesthetic purpose of an arts institution.Spoken like a guy who used to review movies over a little meter that showed how "left" and "right" they were.
You know how you can recognize propaganda from other kinds of bad writing? By the inescapable sensation that it couldn't have made any sense even if its author had actually tried.
UPDATE. "I've never seen The Death of Klinghoffer, and the fact that Rudolph Giuliani has valiantly joined the protesters is not convincing enough for me to oppose its performance," says mortimer 2000 in comments. "Has Donald Trump weighed in yet? His take is always much more persuasive."
To Podhoretz's charge that the Met's staging is "a violation of the true aesthetic purpose of an arts institution," tigrismus answers, "It's the Metropolitan Opera. Their 'true aesthetic purpose' is to perform opera. Which they did." Sorry, comrade, the new idea is that all citizen-art will first be approved by rightwing fussbudgets -- maybe in this case we can call them anti-social justice warriors. Of course, as coozeldad reminds us, such a protocol would drastically reduce the available options: "These morons top out at Richard Strauss or whatever they can hum along to. Anything other than that is art fags."
Lulz also to cole -- "Can't wait to read Kevin Williamsons's review! I hope it involves plenty of phone-throwing!" -- but really, as usual the commenters have my own work beat, go look.
propagandoola anti-semitismoola death of klinghoffer too
ReplyDeleteput 'em together and what have you got
you're deemed a babbitty boob
I like this work well enough, though not as much as Nixon in China, and I can understand why some people get worked up about it. But honestly, if Richard Taruskin—who ranks among the most accomplished musicologists of the past hundred years—can't mount a halfway coherent critique of this opera without descending into froth and spittle, then my hopes of receiving an aesthetic revelation from J-Pod on the subject are relatively low.
ReplyDeletebe deemed a Babbitty boob
ReplyDeleteI want to be a bibbity babbity bobbity Babbity boob.
(Who the fuck other than a wingnut (or me) would even GET a Babbitt reference these days? Fucking cultural relevance, how does it work?)
No, what they wanted was a nice, comforting, fake controversy, one of those controversies that makes something seem larger and more relevant.
ReplyDelete"Those stupid fisherman, thinking they can trick us into biting on those lures. Yeah, we bite every time, but I don't see how that's relevant."
Bobbit is a reasonably recent reference; Babbitt's a well-known work, but the song is from an old Disney cartoon (Cinderella), and it doesn't amaze you that everyone knows it?
ReplyDeleteSomething must be wrong with my Google. I can't find the article where Podhoretz urges people not to watch Twelve Years A Slave because it glorifies slaveholders.
ReplyDeleteI don't think it's as well-known as It Can't Happen Here or maybe (maybe) Elmer Gantry.
ReplyDeleteThe song makes sense (Disney has soaked into cultural awareness) but Sinclair Lewis?
Spoken like a guy who used to review movies over a little meter that showed how "left" and "right" they were.
ReplyDeleteThe Choc-O-Mutt Gage.
Look, it's a small victory whenever a wingnut needs a shorthand for 'stuffy, pretentious killjoy' and doesn't go straight for, I don't know, Gloria Steinem or something. I'm impressed enough to temporarily ignore that Podhoretz's argument is a big ol' strawman. (No one involved with the production is arguing that "every culturally literate person must see it" but I guess that's how you think when you see the whole world as a culture war and every piece of art as a bullet.)
ReplyDeleteThe Pod: The “instrumentalization” of serious art is its subordination to a social or cultural agenda outside art itself.
ReplyDeleteThink the Pod is willing to acknowledge that *the entire rightwing cultural apparatus* is unable to interact with "serious art" without subordinating it to a social or cultural (or political) agenda? You do? Grow up.
"Perhaps there are people who can honestly argue “The Death of Klinghoffer” is a work so aesthetically vital every culturally literate person must see it or be deemed a Babbitty boob."
ReplyDeleteSome few could argue that honestly, but they'd be wrong, whatever its merits (I've heard of it). That, or "culturally literate" is vague-to-meaningless. And anyway, I could never be a Babbitty boob: I know, because I've tried it 9-to-5 and couldn't pass nohow. I guess I'm saying that I'm as "culturally literate" as anyone, but that I don't see many plays, for the same reason I don't travel: lack of time and money. If anyone finds fault, I'd say they're classist and egging me onto imprudence. I should be workin' and payin' down my debts, right?... But this isn't about me, I know.
I love you for that last sentence, roy. Its perfectly turned.
ReplyDeletewhat they wanted was a nice, comforting, fake controversy
ReplyDeleteOh, like, for example: Benghazi, death panels, that long-form birth certificate, the IRS/Tea Party thing, ACORN, or any one of the other 2325* things over at americanconservative.org? Please, Mr. Podhoretz, tell me all about a nice, comforting, fake controversy.
*I am not making this number up.
I read that as "but that's how we stay relevant", which also works.
ReplyDeleteOf course they'd understand the reference; it's that wascally Babbitt in the cartoons.
ReplyDeleteHe's the one who says "What's up, Dork?", right?
ReplyDeleteActually, I think I ran across a reference (in a liberal blog, of course) today or yesterday. Charles Pierce, perhaps? You'd think that with Ebola people would be bringing up Arrowsmith instead, but no.
ReplyDeleteBabbitt came up on the "Leonard Lopate Show" today- it was cited as a must-read by the author of Reading Lolita in Tehran. I guess the book's time has come again.
ReplyDeleteWhere would they be without fake controversies? Hell, even the Benghazi "scandal" is really about semantics.
ReplyDeleteUh, #WhatWouldSinclairLewisDo is twitter's new favorite meme, obvs. Where ya been?
ReplyDeleteYou know, it is worthy of note that a number of Likud fanciers have been making as much racket as possible to distract people from the ongoing slaughter in Gaza. What better place for racket than in the Lincoln Center?
ReplyDeleteNobody's arguing that "every" person must see this opera or be considered a Babbitt. They're just saying that those who want to see it (or produce it) ought to be able to without being accused of every crime in the book. Of course JPod is just as tendentious and dishonest in argument as the rest of his disgusting family.
ReplyDeleteIt seems kinda low.
ReplyDeleteThis is a violation of the true aesthetic purpose of an arts institution.
ReplyDeleteWe stage world-class opera, at no small expense, just to piss off conservatives.
He's just mad the Koch brothers can't shut down the Met for a production they didn't like the way they did to the City Opera.
ReplyDeleteWhat's JPod on about? He is upholding the Met's right to stage Adams' opera, but if rightwingers think that the opera is Politically Unsound, then it's wrong to tell them that the Met is entitled to stage the opera? He is saying that rightwingers are making absolute philistines of themselves, therefore liberals must have chosen the production in order to provoke rightwingers into looking like philistines, therefore it is all liberals' fault? I am confuse.
ReplyDeleteI am also lost as to the ultimate roots of the current Skreefest (except that Culture, therefore reaching for revolvers). I have listened to a fair few of John Adams' compositions over the years, and if there is a quintessential American composer than shirley it's him. He takes the hardline Minimalism of Reich and Glass and blends it with American vernacular music (Shaker Loops and Appalachian banjo and such as). He is high- meets low-brow. He should be a cause for celebration. His Violin Concerto didn't work for me but we didn't have ideal seats that night.
Are there not enough arias in “The Death of Klinghoffer” denouncing terrorism and the Palestinean cause? Is it that recent tragedies should not be viewed through an aesthetic lens, and operas should restrict themselves to 19th-century Bohemians dying of tuberculosis?
Is it that recent tragedies should not be viewed through an aesthetic lens, and operas should restrict themselves to 19th-century Bohemians dying of tuberculosis?
ReplyDeleteSomeone still needs to write an opera about the Goncourt brothers and syphilis. And the Met needs to do Cats. On ice.
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ReplyDeleteIt's not about the opera's actual content, it's about what they imagine is in the opera.
ReplyDeleteCan't wait to read Kevin Williamsons's review! I hope it involves plenty of phone-throwing!
ReplyDeleteNo one gainsays the question
ReplyDeleteJPod's stream of dribble might make more sense if he confined himself to words whereof he knows the meaning.
This is a violation of the true aesthetic purpose of an arts institution.
ReplyDeleteSo to sum up, the principle of the freedom of artistic expression is so important that it should not be trivialised by staging operas in which culture-warriors choose to find Wrongthink.
Is that it? Have I grasped his point now?
I see references to Babbitt from time to time. Being conservative means repeating complaints passed down through the generations. They will always be angry about Chapaquiddick even when they no longer remember Ted Kennedy and will always punch hippies, long after the last has died.
ReplyDeleteStevie Tyler was never the same after he gave up junk.
ReplyDelete"You know how you can recognize propaganda from other kinds of bad writing?"
ReplyDeleteHowsabout if it includes the word "gainsay"?
"I have listened to a fair few of John Adams' compositions over the
ReplyDeleteyears, and if there is a quintessential American composer than shirley
it's him."
Thank God Thomas Kinkade died before he finished his take on "The Last Supper".
Hell, even the Benghazi "scandal" is really about screamantics.
ReplyDeleteOh, let's face it... wingers won't be satisfied until David Mamet and Ted Nugent finish their collaboration on "Atlas Shrugged, The Musical".
ReplyDeleteI've never seen The Death of Klinghoffer, and the fact that Rudolph Giuliani has valiantly joined the protesters is not convincing enough for me to oppose its performance. Has Donald Trump weighed in yet? His take is always much more persuasive.
ReplyDeleteAn uninteresting aside: Our family once owned an original RotoBroiler -- the electric rotisserie invented by Leon Klinghoffer -- a magnificent product that made a divine roast leg of lamb that even Palestinian terrorists might have enjoyed. It would probably still be working today had it not been abandoned in one of our many moves.
OK, I'll be that guy.
ReplyDeleteI see the Met is doing Die Meistersinger several times in December; conducted presumably by James Levine as usual. Will there be protests? Have there been? If so, will Podhoretz comment?
This is true; few if any of the people I've read complaining have seen it.
ReplyDeleteThis is a violation of the true aesthetic purpose of an arts institution.
ReplyDeleteIt's the Metropolitan Opera. Their "true aesthetic purpose" is to perform opera. Which they did.
Have you seen the score? John Galt's Address to the Nation runs over seven hours, and the stage notes call for the lead to be hooked to an IV laced with amphetamines so he doesn't die of dehydration. No word on what the orchestra, crew, and audience have to do.
ReplyDeleteThese morons top out at Richard Strauss or whatever they can hum along to. Anything other than that is art fags.
ReplyDeleteNo word on what the orchestra, crew, and audience have to do.Die of dehydration ... they hope.
ReplyDeleteI'm a little confused about the controversy myself. The opera's 20 years old, fer crissakes. I can only conclude, seeing Rudy 911!!!! Giuliani front and center of the protests, that this is his first springboard to Iowa.
ReplyDeleteOvertime, I imagine.
ReplyDeleteUnpaid overtime. "Off-the-clock volunteering", I've heard it called.
ReplyDelete"John Galt's 'Address To The Nation' runs over seven hours..."
ReplyDeleteI'd be down with that if it were set to the tune of "Una Paloma Blanca":
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CsqnG-w3zIk
I don't get how "this work contains anti-Semitic characters" is equivalent to "this work is anti-Semitic". You're only encouraged to sympathize with the hijackers to the extent of feeling remorse for how misguided they are, and the title character's death itself isn't presented as anything but a senseless, insulting tragedy. Then again, I've actually skimmed the libretto, and aren't just imagining some kind of all-singing, all-dancing "The PLO Is Amazing" revue...
ReplyDeleteI think you mean "tops out at John Phillips Souza."
ReplyDeleteId see that.
ReplyDeleteI'm working on a light musical based on "Le Horla".
ReplyDeleteNow, now--Rudy has a strong background as an art critic. He was at the forefront in criticizing Piss Christ and Madonna and a bunch of other art that he'd never actually laid eyes on. It's the same infallible judgment that led him to pick Bernie Kerik and to move the emergency response center to the World Trade Center after the first bombing in 1993.
ReplyDeleteForget it, smut. It's conservative town. Words there have no meaning, and any meaning, and every meaning. If you know what I mean.
ReplyDeleteThis song needs to be buried in an abandoned salt mine somewhere. For the good of humanity.
ReplyDeleteGiven that "does it piss off the libs?" is Litmus Test Numero Uno for pretty much anything conservatives do...
ReplyDeleteConservatives don't do nuance. If the opera isn't continuous condemnation of the PLO (and Arabs in general), then by definition is MUST be "The PLO is Amazing."
ReplyDeleteIt's the same way that anything less than full-throated support for conservative political positions is perceived as violent opposition to those positions.
Holy crap. Two pedophiles in one video. Pity the investigations were decades later. They could have been busted just for this song.
ReplyDelete"Over Galt's Gulch I would fly...
ReplyDeleteNo one can take my FREEDOM awaaaaayyyyy..."
As if the original wasn't not bad enough, I now have this stuck in my head. Where's that home trepanning kit when I need it?
ReplyDeleteD'you know where there's a convenient salt mine? I'm thinking about burying myself, because humanity came up with this video, too.
ReplyDeleteI would like to take this comment for a head-spinning ride in a pumpkin carriage drawn by draught-mice.
ReplyDeleteI'd almost like to see such a thing. I envision it a mindbending mashup of disciples, Pilgrims, geese, Currier & Ives cottages, and big-eyed Precious Moments children. Sort of like Norman Rockwell being violated by the Hallmark Channel.
ReplyDelete"Kincade's Last Supper . . . is some messed-up shit." —Salvador Dali
Tops out at an old guy with tissue paper over a comb.
ReplyDeleteAct I: NO KILL I
ReplyDeleteI'm going with "babbity boob", but "gainsay" certainly adds to the reactionary toff vibe.
ReplyDeleteIf only. Back in the late '80s, when middle-class white people o'er the land got whipped up in a froth about so-called Porn Rock, the broad-brush legislative attempts by wingnuts and Won't-Someone-Please-Think-of-the-Children types to regulate musical content featuring explicit sex and violence would have effectively banned all opera.
ReplyDeleteOn the plus side, the PMRC hearings allowed Dee Snider, Frank Zappa, and John muthafuckin' Denver to make it into the Congressional Record, so that's cool.
maybe in this case we can call them anti-social justice warriors
ReplyDeleteSocial Justice Worriers...
Could just look at the byline...
ReplyDeleteWhat's JPod on about?
ReplyDelete"He's on about his 3rd pot brownie"™ Yes, I've used that before. And I'll use it again...
I used to own a RotoFlo3000, a paint flinging device I dubbed the BozoFlo, for reasons that will become obvious if you read the link...
ReplyDeleteNot to mention Frank Zappa...
ReplyDeleteI really meant Horla, OTOT, a deMaupassant/ST:TOS crossover would be five shades of awesome.
ReplyDeleteOr even skimmed the Wikipedia entry, it seems.
ReplyDeleteGood guide to life, that. This is from just the Precautions section on p. 2. http://s27.postimg.org/7miq31fb7/tool.png
ReplyDelete...some kind of all-singing, all-dancing "The PLO Is Amazing" revue...
ReplyDeleteWith a thousand elephants!
No word on what the[...]audience have to do.
ReplyDeleteSomething tells me that won't be an issue.
It'd be like complaining "The Diary of Anne Frank" contains anti-Semitic characters.
ReplyDeleteI love how with most Right Wing criticism of movies, stage presentations and TV shows, the cornerstone of the critique boils down to "The bad guys aren't oversimplified enough."
ReplyDeleteyes, I know, it was a joke ;)
ReplyDeleteAn adaptation of "The Horla" was one of the first episodes of the CBS Radio Mystery Theatre I remember listening to, back when I was a lil' nipper. 10:07 pm on the electric radio.
Make it so!
ReplyDeleteI would totally see an opera revolving around 2nd-Empire characters who died of neurosyphilis, as long as one of them is Dr Tourette.
ReplyDeleteLet me try another JPod rephrasing:
ReplyDeleteIt would be wrong to demand that the Met cancel their production of an opera just because a skreemob of Kulturkampfers don't like it... for that would be censorship. But by staging the opera, the Met have provoked a a skreemob of Kulturkampfers, so they should cancel it.
I was thinking more along the lines of the "Horst Wessel Lied", but that's just me.
ReplyDeleteDon't forget Chris Ofili!
ReplyDeleteDid this story make it to the US? The West Australian Opera changed its mind about staging "Carmen", so they used the plot element of tobacco as an excuse:
ReplyDeletehttp://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2014/oct/09/australia-opera-drops-carmen-smoking-scenes
The Right Wing was OUTRAGED. “Political correctness gone crazy”!
Is it that recent tragedies should not be viewed through an aesthetic lens, and operas should restrict themselves to 19th-century Bohemians dying of tuberculosis?
ReplyDeleteFunny you should allude to La boheme. It turns out that John Podhoretz doesn't much approve of that one either:
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/804745/posts
(original NR posting not available)
"Perhaps there are people who can honestly argue 'The Death of Klinghoffer' is a work so aesthetically vital every culturally literate person must see it or be deemed a Babbitty boob."
ReplyDeleteNot me. Such an argument would imply that you can't be a culturally literate person without being an opera fan, a contention which is too rich for my blood. (Besides being fundamentally absurd, and therefore worthy of its source.)
This is a violation of the true aesthetic purpose of an arts institution. Which is how the conservatives see everything. There must be a true purpose which is in the mission statement and does not involve upsetting JPod and his gang of merry pranksters.
ReplyDeleteI was going to ask it to put my slipper on.
ReplyDeleteVery nice. But if 'twere true, would he write and think as he does? Wouldn't there at least be a giggle now and again?
ReplyDeleteI actually had L'Horta in the original comment, until I corrected it because it just didn't sound right.
ReplyDelete"I shoulda taken that left toin at Gofer Praree."
ReplyDeleteeveryone can get to change your mind if you really are ready, but is not the case, sorry, it's very annoying so take that as you can libros navidad 2014
ReplyDelete