The Awkward Pose

When John Adams described America as ‘a nation of laws, not men’ he was reacting against tyrannical royal rulers and imagining a country that would be sustained by a system of shared tenents that transcend individual personalities.  I have always thought that the most engaging aspect of the United States as a nation is that we have not been shaped by territorial borders, as most other countries are, but by our shared vision of this way of governing.  Over the past 200 plus years our country’s growth has been shaped as much by voluntary entry by groups seeking our system than by traditional military conquest (although there has been some of that as well).

There are times when the equanimity implicit in ‘a nation of laws, not men’ works against popular will.  That is why we need the Bill of Rights and groups like ACLU to defend it, although there are times when even the most open minded of us are appalled by the stances that group is obliged to take.  Still, every time we bend the concept of the rule of law for expediency, righteousness, or popularity, I am convinced that any short term gain we realize is ultimately undermined by deteriorating this elemental aspect of our nation. 

Over the past few years there have been many examples of our country shirking the requirements of acting as a nation of laws in every sphere of endeavor.  The scales of justice are not evenly balanced if you are a prisoner in Guantanamo Bay as opposed to one in Fort Leavenworth, if you are a homeless man accused of pedophilia as opposed to a priest, if you rob millions through shifty financial instruments as opposed to using a gun at a bank, or if you are Lindsey Lohan as opposed to just about anyone.  The strength of our system is that it relies on human judgment, and therein lies its weakness, as we will inevitably by swayed by societal norms, celebrity, and patriotic stirrings.

The counter to the intrinsic swaying of our system is the diversity of the press.  Imperfect as it is, the press plays an important role in framing both sides of challenging arguments.  Would things have been worse at Guantanamo without reporting? Would the Catholic Church still be protecting their perverted priests?  Would AGI still be sailing blind?  I fear so.  Even Lindsey Lohan may yet find public redemption. After all, look at Robert Downey, Jr.

So I want to know where is the counter argument to the euphoria surrounding the United States military action in Pakistan that murdered Osama Bin Laden?  The press reports appear to be only jubilant celebrations.  At University of Massachusetts, where my children attend, 2,000 students spilled out for a spontaneous riot the night the news hit, which a later email from administration to parents described as a patriotic outpouring. David Gergen, UMass’ commencement speaker, praised the student’s demonstration and hailed the military action without reservation.  Obama’s ratings are up.  Everyone is feeling good.

Except me.  Because I think a murder is a murder and an eye for an eye is the rule of Hammurabi, not the United States.  It is interesting to note that Old Testament statements about an eye for an eye (Exodus 21) are applied only among social equals; an owner who injures a slave does not receive the same disability.  Alternatively, Leviticus makes the case for a more universal legal code – one system of justice applied across all peoples (referred to as the alien and the citizen) but does not reference an eye for an eye as the appropriate system.  For what have we done by acting independent of law and murdering Bin Laden except put ourselves on the same playing field as the terrorists?  When we act like them, we legitimize them.

It would have been more difficult to capture Bin Laden, to try Bin Laden in an international court, to work through an arduous process to establish guilt and assign punishment.  Not that guilt would be have been difficult to prove.  The man was a demon and he took pride in letting everyone know it.  The reason for taking the legal road would not have been because guilt was in doubt, but because that is the way we are supposed to do it, even with someone as heinous as Bin Laden.  Laws do not only apply to nice people, they apply to all people.  And though International Law is not the same as our own, we should abide by it, at a minimum, and abide by our own if it is more stringent, because in theory it is what we truly believe in.

Instead we retaliated.  Blood flowed, adrenalin flowed.  We feel good.  Bin Laden is dead.  But we have lost our ability to proclaim a higher ground.  We chose force – efficient and exciting – over due process.  Now we wait for the counter retaliations. And how will we respond to those?

As Gandhi said, “an eye for an eye for an eye for an eye and the whole world is blind”.  Let us remain clear sighted.  Not because it is popular or satisfying, but because we have the responsibility to live by the high ideals our forefathers so wisely established.

It’s May Day, the blooms along Brattle Street are breathtaking, we had a Royal Wedding this week, replete with flowing trains and outrageous hats, and today I ate my first watermelon of the season.  Despite front page news of war and destruction, The Awkward Poser can find little tension in this world.  In honor of so much spring, I offer a puff piece on a place I love without reservation – The Boston Conservatory.

The Boston Conservatory is the little brother among Boston’s three major institutions of music.  The New England Conservatory opened after the Civil War in 1867 and its 750 students are part of an internationally known home of classical music and conducting.   Berklee College of Music opened after World War II with the express purpose of teaching the music of the times, and has grown to 4,000 students, focusing mostly on jazz and other contemporary forms.  The Boston Conservatory (TBC) is venerable (also dating to 1867) and smaller (650 students), though it offers a full complement of musical experience in orchestra, dance and theater.  TBC’s tagline – The Boston Conservatory Performs! – is accurate to the point.  Students at TBC are trained to make a living in every arena of live performance, and they do it with astonishing energy and ability.  Combined, the three schools can hardly be said to have campuses; they inhabit buildings intermingled in a wedge of Boston real estate between Mass Ave and The Fenway, Boylston to Huntington.  It is impossible to walk those streets without the sound of a saxophone or soprano wafting down from the brownstones; a magical quarter mile.

Although TBC is the jack of all trades of music schools, it is best known for its musical theater program, one of the few schools in the country to offer a specific degree in that form.  There are always a dozen or so TBC graduates in current Broadway shows; at present the stars of Memphis and Priscilla, Queen of the Desert are TBC alums.  I have attended their fall and spring musicals for over fifteen years; they rival any show in Boston and many in New York.  In an era when it is cost prohibitive to stage giant shows with huge choruses, TBC has the quality and quantity of talent to produce a Sweeney Todd or West Side Story without stint.

Four years ago I met Richard Ortner, President of TBC, and we became fast friends.  Richard introduced me to wider offerings of the school – the dance recitals, orchestra concerts and fully staged operas.  Suddenly my fall and spring evenings became full of student productions.  At the same time TBC has built a new theater and performance studio space.  It is no rival New England Conservatory’s famous Jordan Hall, still it is a fine space to experience live performance, and I am proud of my small role in its success.  But the essence of TBC, and why it is so special to me, cannot be witnessed on the main stage.  The wonder of the place happens in the Zack Box.

The Zack Box Theater is a black room in the basement of an old building.  It sits sixty people at most, and tickets to its shows are hotter than the Yankees at Fenway.  Most productions are advertised only through word of mouth or posters plastered on the bulletin boards around the school. Most Zack Box shows are student affairs.  Every senior and graduate student has to produce a show; they often write, direct and star in them as well.   They corral fellow students to perform, which means that many TBC students are in 3-5 shows per semester with Zack Box productions often conceived and executed in two to three weeks.

So how good can a two week student production be?  Excellent.  I saw the best production of Assassins ever at Zack Box, an inventive interpretation of Hair, and a jubilant production of Bat Boy.  I’ve attended premieres of original shows based on The Glass Castle and The Wally Show (a hilarious riff on Leave it to Beaver) that have legs strong enough to go on the road.  In addition to these performances, the Zack also hosts the annual Drag Show and staged readings of the musical theater classes.  Roger and Hammerstein’s Allegro, was recently presented as one in a series of shows mostly forgotten, yet the production had great spirit and represents an important link in theater history.  The fifteen year old Stephen Sondheim was the gofer on Allegro and many threads of later Sondheim triumphs course through the book and the score.

Good productions aside, the real treat of seeing so many shows at TBC is witnessing the same young actors test their range.  The chubby freshman from Dallas who was frightening as Samuel Byck, Nixon’s crazed assassin one week, turned up the next week shuffling through Guys and Dolls’ Fugue for Tinhorns; the alcoholic father of The Glass Castle sang a love ballad in the Freshman Revue; while the ever faithful Fifties mom from The Wally Show turned into the Acid Queen in The Who’s Tommy.

And then there are the parents, the siblings, the aunts who fly in from Phoenix and LA or drive up from Connecticut, filling the tiny venue in support of their children’s dreams.  The tireless support they give these kids in their uphill struggle to make a life in performance is inspiring; yet they are equally pleased when during intermission chat I acknowledge that I don’t know a soul in the cast; I attend because the productions are so good.  I provide important affirmation that their children’s talents are valued beyond family ties.

Still, my amazement at TBC transcends any of these specific experiences.  As I child I loved to sing and dance and I have some talent in each.  My fantasies were full of a life on stage, yet never once did I actually consider making those fantasies real.  They were too removed from the workaday world of our tract house, they required a leap of faith and support well beyond my parent’s ability to give, and ultimately I did not have the confidence to embark on such an uncharted course on my own.  It would be an overstatement to report this as regret, still I admit it is a dream that I allowed to whither unexplored.

So when I see those kids up there – the six foot four rail thin homosexual boy, the plump girl with Ethel Merman lungs, the absurdly handsome Adonis who would rather sing and dance than be a football star, and the leggy blonde who twists the lyric line of a soul tune – I see kids who were likely were outcasts in their high schools (at least, before the Glee phenomenon) but who have found a home at TBC.  A community that allows them to embrace their uniqueness, develops their live performance skills despite our digital age, and fosters their vibrant talent.  Some will make it to Broadway, a few will be stars, but my hat is off to all of them for their courage to try.

I spent today, Easter Sunday, with my children, who are both students at UMass Amherst.  During the day I was reminded of a class trip we took ten years ago to the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston.  May is Museum Month – go and visit, you never know what you might see.

May 2001

Let’s start with the statistics.  Fifty-four sixth graders from the Cambridge Public Schools embark on a class trip to the Museum of Fine Arts, an adjunct to their studies of ancient Egypt.  There are six teachers and ten parent chaperones.  The children reflect the diversity of the City; about 40% Black, 40% White and 20% shades of other origin.  One teacher is Asian, but the rest are white.  All the parents are white.  They have the kinds of jobs that allow time off in the middle of the day.  They choose to devote that time to their children.

The teachers have assigned the children into groups, one adult for every four children, but within minutes the children have reassigned themselves according to their own preferences. The Black kids hang together.  They fuse into a mega group that has the strength of numbers.  They are rowdy and mischievous; they test the adults at every turn, teacher and parent alike.  The white kids form smaller groups with more focused compulsions.  Three children play a continuous game of Dungeons and Dragons the entire day, with cursory connection to their fellow students.  Another group is likewise mesmerized by the card game, Magic.  The white children are quieter than the black children.  They are easier to manage, but equally uninterested in the museum’s collection of Egyptian artifacts.  Then there are the brown kids; Indian and Hispanic.  They are more recent arrivals.  Many know little English.  They hang together by default rather than common interest.  Finally, there are the odd balls; the kids with Special Ed plans who don’t fit with any social group because they cannot socialize.  They meander without regard to the world around them, oblivious of anyone else, possibly even themselves.  They are pinballs, aimlessly careening through a world where the flippers are the scorn of their fellow classmates; the bumpers are turning cars and subway trains.

I am a parent chaperone, assigned to the Dungeons and Dragons freaks and a lone boy prone to dart off the curb in an instant.  As we wait in line for the Museum staff, outside, in the back, in a cold place that signals these visitors are not important, I am discouraged by the divisions among the class.  I want all the children to get along, I want them to be friends, to appreciate each other’s differences and savor their similarities.  But there is no time to dwell on these ideals; I am too busy monitoring my buddy who’s prone to roam, giving warning to a boy hitting a girl in a provocative region with his newspaper, and rousing the D&D gang to move along.

We are assigned to a beautifully coiffed matron who can barely disguise her displeasure with our group. She speaks in hushed, museum tones. The children can barely hear her, and don’t much care.  I stand on the periphery of the circle, nudging the children closer.  After a few minutes they come upon something that resembles a picture from their books on Egypt and they take an interest.  A few start to answer the guide’s questions, proud peacocks showing off.  Enthusiasm would be too strong a word, but there is learning going on. 

One boy dawdles well behind the rest.  He takes no interest in the art work, but when we cross the grand stairs, I ask him if he’s ever been to the Museum before, he stands still, stretches his neck across the vaulted ceiling, and replies, “No.”  I realize not only has he never been to the Museum, he’s never been anywhere remotely like the Museum.  A few more prods and he admits that he has never been out of Cambridge.  He stands with his head back, mouth wide in amazement at the magnificent grand stair. How insignificant it must seem for him to focus on a particular artifact of art or history when the entire experience of traveling to this formidable place is so unprecedented.

The tour lasts barely an hour but the children’s attention span is even shorter.  On the way home, during our lunch stop, I realize there is one boy who flows easily among the disparate groups.  A white boy, big for his age, heavyset and smiley, with three earrings and spiked hair.  He jostles with the black kids, tells body part jokes with the white kids, even redirects the lost wanderers with a firm tug of their shoulders.

We shepard the children back to the subway.  I have no idea whether their knowledge of ancient Egypt has increased, but it has been a day out of the ordinary, a day they will remember.  Each will take something away from the experience, though we adults will never know what.