* Manhattan's own DSK (Digital Straus-Kahn)

* My "Miss Wilder" papers to go to Yale's Beinecke Rare Book Library

Miss Wilder  chatting with my parents,
at the 1985
 Thornton Wilder Commemorative

LINK to my blog containing most of the papers

(Miss) Isabel Wilder 1900 -1995: No immediate family members survive?

Dear Mr. Keane—

Many thanks for your note; I have consulted with my colleagues in Manuscripts and Archives and we are all in agreement that your correspondence from Miss Wilder really does belongs here at the Beinecke, where it will have a rich context of related materials about Miss Wilder, her life and her work. I assure you that we will give the collection its own descriptive record indicating that you are the source of the materials and thus keeping the materials distinct from the other Wilder Family materials in our holdings. We will, also, permanently acknowledge your generous gift in our public collection records. I hope this will be agreeable to you.

Sincerely,

Nancy Kuhl

Curator of Poetry, Yale Collection of American Literature

The Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library
Yale University
121 Wall Street, P.O. Box 208240

* Manning Up

Faith in Mindless Technology:

Our Unmanning

It is time for our government to man-up and tell us the truth.  And the truth is that it has been lying to us for fifty years, since Eisenhower left office in 1960 warning us about the "military-industrial complex' which originally read in his speech as the "Congressional-military-industrial complex" until it was censored by whoever it is who dares purge presidential prose of potential political problems.

It lied about Viet Nam from the Lyndon Johnson twisitng of the Gulf of Tonkin resoloution to the Henry Kissinger  "declare victory and withdraw." It lied to us about Watergate; about Iran Contra; about weapons of mass destruction; and now about secret surveillance systems.

It is disgraceful to impugn Bradley Manning's character for trying to provide us with documents which reveal the truth with such barbs as:  personal notoriety; confusion over sexual identity; immaturity. 

All these pejoratives have been thrown about to demoralize  and humiliate him  --- in addition to solitary confinement and the underwear ordeal.  

Unlike Macbeth, there was no "I am unmanned" uttered by Bradley Manning.

It hasn't worked. 

Who of us would accept the consequences without a whimper which Manning is about to have imposed upon him by a military judge (a possible 116 years in prison)?

If there is anyone who has proved himself a man here it is this slight young uniformed idealist who has tried to alert us that our faith in the mindless technology which allows Asiana airplane pilots to come into a runway too slowly, or a train engineer in Spain to approach a curve too fast, is the same technology which mindlessly scans (and records !)  every mouse click and very cellphone digit of every American every minute of every day.


Our unquestioned faith in god-the-machine has made  us all Macbeths. 

We are unmanned.

* Intellectual Property Rites [sic]

Thief  for the Ages

Leopold Mozart told of Wolfgang's accomplishment in a letter to his wife dated April 14, 1770 (Rome):

"…You have often heard of the famous Miserere in Rome, which is so greatly prized that the performers are forbidden on pain of excommunication to take away a single part of it, copy it or to give it to anyone. But we have it already. Wolfgang has written it down and we would have sent it to Salzburg in this letter, if it were not necessary for us to be there to perform it. But the manner of performance contributes more to its effect than the composition itself. Moreover, as it is one of the secrets of Rome, we do not wish to let it fall into other hands…."

http://www.classical.net/music/comp.lst/works/allegri/miserere.php

* Good men do 'Something' --- even Edward Snowden

" And so begins [with Edmund Burke's apocalyptic rhetorical tendencies] that strange note, found to this day in American conservative magazines, whereby the most privileged caste in the most powerful country in the most prosperous epoch in the whole history of human-kind is always sure that everything is going straight to hell and has mostly already got there." (p. 72)

Adam Gopnik

"The Right Man: 
Who Owns Edmund Burke?"

The New Yorker 

July 29, 2013

Nobody made a greater mistake than he who did nothing because

he could only do a little.

Edmund Burke

Ambition can creep as well as soar.

Edmund Burke (Letters on a Regicide Peace, 1796)

It is not what a lawyer tells me I may do; but what humanity, reason,

and justice tell me I ought to do.

Edmund Burke (Speech on Concillation with the American Colonies, 1775)

We must all obey the great law of change. It is the most

powerful law of nature.

Edmund Burke (Letter to Sir Hercules Langrishe, 1792)

If we command our wealth, we shall be rich and free;

 if our wealth commands us, we are poor indeed.

Edmund Burke (Letters on a Regicide Peace, 1796)

Bad laws are the worst sort of tyranny.

Edmund Burke (Speech to the Electors of Bristol, 1774)

People will not look forward to posterity, who never

look backward to their ancestors.

Edmund Burke (Reflections on the Revolution in France, 1790)

To make us love our country, our country ought to be lovely. 

Edmund Burke (Reflections on the Revolution in France, 1790)

Toleration is good for all, or it is good for none.

Edmund Burke (Speech on the Bill for the Relief of Protestant Dissenters, 1773)

In a democracy, the majority of the citizens is capable of

exercising the most cruel oppressions upon the minority.

Edmund Burke (Reflections on the Revolution in France, 1790)

When any work seems to have required immense force

and labor to effect it, the idea is grand.

Edmund Burke 

(A Philosophical Inquiry into the Origin of Our Ideas of the Sublime and Beautiful, 1757)

To drive men from independence to live on alms, is itself great cruelty.

Edmund Burke (Reflections on the Revolution in France, 1790)

Superstition is the religion of feeble minds.

Edmund Burke (Reflections on the Revolution in France, 1790)

The greater the power, the more dangerous the abuse.

Edmund Burke (Speech on the Middlesex Elections, 1771)

Make the Revolution a parent of settlement, and not a

nursery of future revolutions.

Edmund Burke (Reflections on the Revolution in France, 1790)

One that confounds good and evil is an enemy to good. 

Edmund Burke (Speech on the Impeachment of Warren Hastings, 1788)

It is the nature of all greatness not to be exact. 

Edmund Burke (First Speech on Conciliation with America, 1775)

Gentlemen, the melancholy event of yesterday reads to us an awful

lesson against being too much troubled about any of the objects of

ordinary ambition. The worthy gentleman, who has been snatched

 from us at the moment of the election, and in the middle of contest,

whilst his desires were as warm, and his hopes as eager as ours,

 has feelingly told us, what shadows we are, and what shadows we pursue.

Edmund Burke (Speech at Bristol, 1780)

I venture to say no war can be long carried on against the will of the people.

Edmund Burke (Letters on a Regicide Peace, 1796)

Example is the school of mankind, and they will learn at no other. 

Edmund Burke (Letters on a Regicide Peace, 1796)

Whenever a separation is made between liberty and justice, neither,

 in my opinion, is safe.

Edmund Burke (Letter to Monsieur Dupont, 1789)

By hating vices too much, they come to love men too little.

Edmund Burke (Reflections on the Revolution in France, 1790)

There is a boundary to men's passions when they act from feelings;

but none when they are under the influence of imagination.

Edmund Burke (Appeal From the New to the Old Whigs, 1791)

Poetry is the art of substantiating shadows, and of lending

existence to nothing.

Edmund Burke (Quoted in Correspondence of the Right Honourable Edmund Burke, 1826)

Depend upon it, that the lovers of freedom will be free.

Edmund Burke (Speech at Bristol Previous to the Election, 1780)

The most important of all revolutions, a revolution

 in sentiments, manners and moral opinions.

Edmund Burke (Reflections on the Revolution in France, 1790)

People crushed by laws, have no hope but to evade power. If the laws

 are their enemies, they will be enemies to the law; and those

who have most to hope and nothing to lose will always be dangerous.

Edmund Burke (Letter to Charles James Fox, 1777)

Rudeness is the weak man’s imitation of strength.

Edmund Burke

Custom reconciles us to everything.

Edmund Burke (A Philosophical Inquiry into the Origin of Our Ideas of the Sublime and Beautiful, 1757)

Men are qualified for civil liberty in exact proportion to their

disposition to put moral chains on their own appetites. Society

cannot exist unless a controlling power upon will and appetite be

 placed somewhere, and the less of it there is within, the more

 there is without. It is ordained in the eternal constitution of

things that men of intemperate minds cannot be free. Their passions

forge their fetters.

Edmund Burke (Letter to a Member of the National Assembly, 1791)

It is, generally, in the season of prosperity that men discover their real

temper, principles, and designs.

Edmund Burke (Letters on a Regicide Peace, 1796)

There is, however, a limit at which forbearance ceases

to be a virtue.

Edmund Burke (Observations on a Late Publication on the Present State of the Nation, 1769)

He that struggles with us strengthens our nerves, and sharpens

our skill. Our antagonist is our helper.

Edmund Burke (Reflections on the Revolution in France, 1790)

A great profusion of things, which are splendid or valuable in

themselves, is magnificent. The starry heaven, though it occurs

 so very frequently to our view, never fails to excite an idea of

grandeur. This cannot be owing to the stars themselves,

separately considered. The number is certainly the cause.

Edmund Burke (A Philosophical Inquiry into the Origin of Our Ideas of the Sublime and Beautiful, 1757)

Never despair, but if you do, work on in despair.

Edmund Burke (Quoted Correspondence of Edmund Burke and William Windham, 1910)

Falsehood is a perennial spring.

Edmund Burke (Speech on American Taxation, 1774)

There is no safety for honest men but by believing all possible

evil of evil men.

Edmund Burke (Reflections on the Revolution in France, 1790)

Nothing turns out to be so oppressive and unjust as a feeble government.

Edmund Burke (Reflections on the Revolution in France, 1790)

Beauty in distress is much the most affecting beauty.

Edmund Burke (A Philosophical Inquiry into the Origin of Our Ideas of the Sublime and Beautiful, 1757)

A disposition to preserve, and an ability to improve, taken together,

 would be my standard of a statesman.

Edmund Burke (Reflections on the Revolution in France, 1790)

People never give up their liberties but under some delusion.

Edmund Burke (Speech at County Meeting of Buckinghamshire, 1784)

The use of force alone is but temporary. It may subdue for the moment;

 but it does not remove the necessity of subduing again: and a nation

is not governed, which is perpetually to be conquered.

Edmund Burke (Second Speech on Concillation with America, 1775)

And having looked to Government for bread, on the very first

 scarcity they will turn and bite the hand that fed them.

Edmund Burke (Thoughts and Details on Scarcity, 1795)

The true danger is when liberty is nibbled away, for expedients, and by parts.

Edmund Burke (Letters to the Sherrifs of Bristol, 1777)

Laws, like houses, lean on one another.

Edmund Burke (Tracts Relative to the Laws Against Popery in Ireland, 1766)

But what is liberty without wisdom, and without virtue? It is the greatest

of all possible evils; for it is folly, vice, and madness, without tuition or restraint.

Edmund Burke (Reflections on the Revolution in France, 1790)

The first and simplest emotion which we discover in the human

mind, is curiosity.

Edmund Burke (A Philosophical Inquiry into the Origin of Our Ideas of the Sublime and Beautiful, 1757)

Woman is not made to be the admiration of all, but the happiness of one.

Edmund Burke

If the people are happy, united, wealthy, and powerful, we presume

the rest. We conclude that to be good from whence good is derived. 

Edmund Burke (Reflections on the Revolution in France, 1790)

By gnawing through a dike, even a rat may drown a nation. 

Edmund Burke

If you can be well without health, you may be happy without virtue.

Edmund Burke

There is a boundary to men's passions when they act from feelings;

but none when they are under the influence of imagination.

Edmund Burke (Appeal From the New to the Old Whigs, 1791)

You can never plan the future by the past.

Edmund Burke (Letter to a Member of the National Assembly, 1791)

All that is necessary for the triumph of evil is that good

men do nothing.
Variant: All that's necessary for the forces of evil to win in the world

 is for enough good men to do nothing.

Edmund Burke

Flattery corrupts both the receiver and the giver.

Edmund Burke (Reflections on the Revolution in France, 1790)

Good order is the foundation of all things.

Edmund Burke (Reflections on the Revolution in France, 1790)

The march of the human mind is slow.

Edmund Burke (Second Speech on Concillation with America, 1775)

It is ordained in the eternal constitution of things, that men of intemperate

 minds cannot be free. Their passions forge their fetters.

Edmund Burke (Letter to a Member of the National Assembly, 1791)

Facts are to the mind what food is to the body. 

Edmund Burke

Tyrants seldom want pretexts.

Edmund Burke (Letter to a Member of the National Assembly, 1791)

Under the pressure of the cares and sorrows of our mortal condition,

men have at all times, and in all countries, called in some physical

aid to their moral consolations - wine, beer, opium, brandy, or tobacco.

Edmund Burke (Thoughts and Details on Scarcity, 1795)

No passion so effectually robs the mind of all its powers of acting

and reasoning as fear.

Edmund Burke (A Philosophical Inquiry into the Origin of Our Ideas of the Sublime and Beautiful, 1757)

To read without reflecting is like eating without digesting.

Edmund Burke

Never, no, never did Nature say one thing and Wisdom say another.

Edmund Burke (Letters on a Regicide Peace, 1796)

Our patience will achieve more than our force.

Edmund Burke (Reflections on the Revolution in France, 1790)

* Mayor's Limousine, New York, New York ?

* Anti-Social Darwinism: Detroit

Paul Krugman on Detroit's Bankruptcy

What? Market forces have victims? Of course they do. Afterall, free-market enthusiasts love to quote Joseph Schumpeter about the inevitability of “creative destruction” — but they and their audiences invariably picture themselves as being the creative destroyers, not the creatively destroyed. 

Well, guess what: Someone always ends up being the modern equivalent of a buggy-whip producer, and it might be you. 

(Krugman, NYT Op-Ed  7/22/13)

* The Man----Mr. Charlie, Capt'n Mr. Bossman

The man doesn’t know what he’s doing.

Has it ever occurred to President Obama , who wants us to have a national conversation about the cynicism and pessimism of “our African American boys,” that maybe the boys are right?

Look around .

What would make a young person think that the world is run by people who know what they are doing? The planet is despoiled; politics is corrupt or paralyzed,  public education is under-funded and yanked around my “experts” who change it every ten years; platitudes masquerade as thinking; priesthood has been poisoned by lust; manhood rituals (the Boy Scouts) are manipulated by adult bigotry.

It isn’t just young African American boys who are cynical and pessimistic.

It’s thinking children everywhere.

 Mr. Charlie, Capt’n Mr. Bosssman  (as Walter Lee Younger calls “the Man” who hold power in A Raisin in the Sun) doesn’t know what he’s doing ---       either to our children (and therefore our future)  or to the world.

Or maybe he does---and he doesn’t  care.

Laying it on "the man"  isn't a sexist observation.  If women ran the world competition might be tempered with compassion and things might be different.

 But with few exceptions (Andrea Merkel, Christine Lagarde) the world is run by Capt'n. Charlie, Mr. Bossman.

Still.

* Glorifying gangsta: Obama's "national conversation" topic

Going to the College of the Poor

President Obama's heartfelt talk about race yesterday raised the need for us to have a "national conversation about race" and to consider what "we are doing to African American  boys" in this society.

I refuse to be part of that "we". I have never listened to or purchased anything to do with "gangsta" anything.

The idea that both white and African American youth glorify the abusive macho criminal pose is a sad irony.  .

It is a form of self enslavement.

The motivated kids escape its flypaper snare, recognizing that it is just satire


Oh yeah,  you say, and btw,  the gangsta rappers laugh all the way to the bank while we buy their clothes and wear their bling. 

But what about the unmotivated teenagers who idolize them and their arrogant, contemptuous pose?  Or who imitate their misogyny?

Bill Cosby and Michael Jordan have tried to redress that idol worship: both with an emphasis on youth education.

Their efforts amount to a spit in the ocean.  

And as the drug infested world of cheap heroin invades even idyllic Vermont, New Hampshire, and Maine, I can't say that education is winning out against criminality.

Criminality is  becoming the college of the poor.

Get your B.A. (Bad Ass) degree on the streets.  

It comes with a tat and a nose ring.

* Only on Sunday (at 4 PM) will the Maestro play

http://www.nytimes.com/learning/general/onthisday/bday/1001.html

 The New York Times

OBITUARY

Vladimir Horowitz, Titanof the Piano, Dies

At another time Mr. Horowitz said: "I am a 19th-century Romantic. I am the last. I take terrible risks. Because my playing is very clear, when I make a mistake, you hear it. But the score is not a bible, and I am never afraid to dare. The music is behind those dots. You search for it, and that is what I mean by the grand manner. I play, so to speak, from the other side of the score, looking back."

The Evolution of a Myth

Into Mr. Horowitz's late 70's and early 80's--when he made a heavily publicized and carefully orchestrated comeback in the concert world--he retained the ability to extract colors of either extraordinary brilliance or extraordinary delicacy. In his concert appearances during the 1920's and 30's, Mr. Horowitz's ability to create excitement in whatever he did on stage made him an almost mythical figure--a status only enlarged by his personal eccentricities and flair for attracting public attention.

Even his frequent retirements from performing had a romantic appeal to mass audiences. A man known for the frailty of his nerves, Mr. Horowitz quit playing in public four times--between 1936 and 1938, from 1953 to 1965, from 1968 to 1974 and from 1983 to 1985. This seemed only to sharpen his public's appetite. When Mr. Horowitz did play, he drove a hard bargain: his personal piano from his Manhattan living room accompanied him; concerts were at 4 P.M. and only on Sunday. Advance teams redecorated his hotel rooms to make him feel less estranged from the comfort of home; his own food was cooked to his taste.

Mr. Horowitz's last withdrawal from concert life came after a series of uneven performances in the early 1980's--ones which he subsequently blamed on overmedication. But in the last four years of his life, he became virtually a one-man industry in the concert business--with a much-publicized tour of the Soviet Union, performances in Europe and America, all linked with compact disk recordings, videotapes, television programs and films. His return to Moscow and Leningrad in 1986, after a 61-year absence, became a major media event reported around the world.

* Beauty and the Beast

Outing the Unacknowledged 

Aristocracy of Good Looks 

in American Democracy

It is ironic that this  Los Angeles Times video about the controversy surrounding  The Rolling Stone magzine's  Tsarnaev cover, begins with an advertisement when it is opened on YouTube, an advertisement  for a Hollywood movie called Wolverine.

Apparently the  movie company has no compunctions about associating itself with the controversy.

If the photo of Tsarnaev had been unflattering, or if he himself had been homely, this controversy would not exist.  

What is happening here is that the unacknowledged aristocracy of good looks in our egalitarian society  is being outed by The Rolling Stone article and  its cover.

We want to believe ever so earnestly in the illusion of beauty as character, the mercantile assumption that the packaging is more important than, and actually revelatory of,  the quality of its contents.

At  the left, the alleged
craigslist killer,
   a Boston med student

What The Rolling Stone article and cover confront us with is our own false worship of beauty, whether it be male rock-star beauty or female movie-star beauty.  

We consider attaining the mercantile status of a cover photo on that magazine as analogous to being anointed as a knight or dame by the Queen of England.

We want ever so desperately to reward beauty and ever so subtly to ignore or even punish its absence.

We are idolators.

* Title to Controversial Graves Transferred to Former Mayor of Hamden

The Hon. Craig Henrici, ESQ.