When Silence is what is out of range

This idea is much like 'Does a tree fall in the woods, even if you can not hear it? But until today's CBS Sunday Morning Fast Draw - I only thought of the tree sound as out of range because it is too far away. I did not consider the unheard in a broader range like some silence is by design, some by choice and some by consequence. The Fast Draw Team of Mitch Butler and Josh Landis focused on frequencies designed by Nature not to be humanly heard. The story reminded me of special sound places on the Internet I tagged in 2006: Biosonar and soundtoys. Since 2006 these locations have been part of my silence and that of others with no updates since 2001 and 2006 respectively. I also flashed on my 2004 awareness I2 concerts with musicians sounds coming together from different locations concurrently where silences are being broken still . Then my memory leaped back to then introduction to U2 as a piece of broken record that somehow found its way to my backyard most likely out a car window as folks younger than me challenged the relevance of the 1983 song about 1972. So Reach me, I know I'm not a hopeless case - let me find what is now silent to experience A Beautiful Day, daily.

Pencils, white text and the revelations as history

As I begin to tap at the keyboard -- I sense that I am facing challenges yet to be overcome. Contributors to this sensation include that I do not type, trifocals challenge accuracy in seeing, and what it feels like to write with a pencil is a very distant memory. I face the New Year with fatigue, lack of momentum and an intention to commit to basics. I am half-heartedly assessing the public medium for which I find that ideas must be coaxed, shuffled, strained and simplified to have value. This requires resources that have been depleted.

Therefore I must challenge the purpose of glimpses through stained glass as a blog. Is this just a public scribble? Does it qualify as a journey journal? Can it be more than an expose in my inconsistency and ease of distraction?

Random memory: a peer who communicated with another peer at the day job playfully included personal hidden messages in his emails. His messages were hidden by changing the text from black to white. This sharing was discovered unexpectedly because the email was sent to print and all printed text is in black. What does this story memory invoke? Other memories like the lemon juice experiments of my youth (play, discovery) and thoughts about understanding cloaking,exposure, innovation and all of there potential impact on privacy.

So no deep dives here - just nagging thoughts in response to popular media. Our former VP speaks and I quiver. He infers that terrorists did not succeed in attacking on American soil after 911 - and the true level of threat must remain cloaked. So if Truth is cloaked in fear and hyperbole --- will history reveal if we were protected or scammed by these fear mongers. In the 80's I took a course on International Law. Terrorism was a key subject matter. I believe a Lesson Learned from that course was that terrorists are empowerd by breeding fear. It seems that this is now a living history.

qoals, quotes, and quixotic bipolarity

So this public place was to be a place to deep dive on things that distract me. The absence of entries does not directly collolate with lack of distraction.

Ample: Star Quality

A tear: I cried on November 4^th 2008. So is my tear a good predictor of the power of the play A Civil War Christmas: An American Musical Celebration? Probably not, but my tear’s affirmation is.

On November 28, 2008 I was part of the alchemy of the first full run of this plays' world premier at the Long Wharf Theater in New Haven. Under the direction of Tina Landau, the creative team engaged me, audience member, in the historically rooted fictionalized events of December 24, 1864.

With austerely orchestrated music, subtly transformational movement navigating precarious staging, a chandelier, an anvil, the communality of coffee and symbolism of gloves; a diverse and talented cast of fourteen embodied ninety characters, both human and animal. Yes, there was a talking horse, potent musical parody, powerfully executed solos, inter-faith choruses, and elevated historical facts & figures from our Civil War History, three wise men, a lost child, a scarcity of trees and a disrobing and much, much more. Three stories were concurrently told, weaved together with seasonal and period music.

The musical celebration is the engine of this storytelling. This work is so abundant with detail, symbolism and intent that this could be under-estimated. An older white male audience member behind me repeatedly described the play as like a high school musical review. However, an older white Canadian male in the audience wondered if this dramatization of America through song could safely be shared south of the Mason-Dixon Line. And the everyman with me said that traditional songs were, for him, infused with new meaning and the parody was on par with the power of late night TV. For me, Oh Christmas Tree will be forever equated with spreading hope and gladness far and wide.

In this play, more suitable for all ages than is her reputation, Pulitzer Prize winning Paula Vogel does not leave risk taking behind. America’s ghosts and the take no prisoners’ tension illuminates some fundamental struggles at the core of our country’s formation as united states. Within the decade of its gestation, this playwright cultivates information about geography, history, music, ideologies, and most critically the under-told stories of the other. The result is an abundance of food for thought for theater-goers potentially for years to come.

• For those students of theater, exposition of the three stories joined together by song has ample elements to explore. And if non-period references stay in the play after preview week, the pros and cons of the directorial decision on the potential for the story as a classic can certainly be debated.
• For the fact finders, the weaving of fact and fiction provides ample room for clarification. When did Walt Whitman leave the battlefields? Do mules and horses have pheromones in common? Did Henry Wadsworth Longfellow disapprove of his son Charles fighting in the American Civil War? Were any African–American freeborn at the time of the War? Did Mary Todd Lincoln buy American? This is a random list of question, however, a formidable course-worthy list of questions could be explored.
• For students of American History, an exploration of the story interconnections could evoke conversation about the building of a national identity, the rise of social movements, and the challenges of social justice.
• For star gazers, the implicit setting of a star a top of the Christmas Tree with gladness of heart can be the communal coffee of any gathering of family or friends during the Holidays.

If I were asked at intermission, Do you expect to have an emotional response to this play? I would have confidently said NO. However, I was not alone in ultimately feeling a deep fundamental emotional response to both the pain and the hope. Mine was not the only tear. And even if I personally found the unveiled Christmas Tree was over the top and too current in design - I was captured by the implied topping of the tree with a star - I was held prisoner.

I am confident that this story will become annual holiday fare. If your personal economics allow, I strongly urge any student of American Theater to see this production this season.

If I could give a gift to our new President and his family, it would be tickets to this play.