It’s been only three weeks since the nightmare began. As Europeans marked the 80th anniversary of the liberation of the Auschwitz extermination camp on January 27, many of us watched in horror as the USA rapidly descended into fascism under the newly installed tyrant’s barrage of executive orders, imbecilic pronouncements, and the daily assault on our democratic institutions and private records by his henchman, Muskrat, and their illegal gang of cyber-punks.
But is Europe any better off these days than the USA? The idea of Europe as the bastion of progressive attitudes is a myth from the 1980’s that tarnished long ago. Just this morning I watched the news and was struck once more by the images I was seeing and their similarity to the old newsreels from the 1930’s. Europe’s far right parties are currently holding a convention in Madrid, Patriots for Europe, and the parade of pompous, self-righteous leaders, proudly and loudly proclaiming their nationalistic, anti-immigration, anti-multiculturalism agendas, filled the screen. These images were followed by a report showing the latest release of several more emaciated Israeli hostages, forced at gunpoint to read apologies for their masked captors, while Palestinian prisoners, many who had been tortured and held without trial, were loaded on buses and sent back to non-existent homes. Chaos in Africa, a continuing war in Ukraine, and the festive gathering of AI experts and fans at an expo here in Paris to discuss the world’s cyber-future—all added to the day’s news and to my own distress.
One evening last week I was catching up on some of the late night talk shows. I wanted to see how Jon Stewart, Colbert, and Jimmy Kimmel were dealing with the changes in Washington. After a few minutes, I had to turn off the television. It was too, too, much. How are they going to maintain that kind of defense for four years? It’s impossible to even contemplate. I know everyone is saying that the tyrant’s tactic is to overwhelm us. Keep us focused on the quantity of things thrown at us and not allow us to challenge the most important infractions against our freedom. Even if we see that this is the strategy, it’s still difficult to make choices about which battles to fight. It’s scary. Scary times.
We saw the Bob Dylan biopic, A Complete Unknown, last week and have been somewhat comforted since then by immersing ourselves in the poetry and music of Dylan and his colleagues from the folk scene of the early sixties. I really appreciated the film’s detailed depiction of the time and places that Dylan haunted in those heady days. I know it’s not the same as Greenwich Village, but I remember discovering the Positively 4th Street record store in Dinkytown when I arrived in the Twin Cities in 1973 and having Dylan’s apartment and other hang outs pointed out to me. Of course, that was 15 years or so after Dylan was anywhere near those places, before he went to New York, but his ghost was still very present.
I attended Dylan’s concert with The Band on January 3 or 4, 1974, at Chicago Stadium, the first dates of his first tour in eight years—and almost nine years after the scandal that changed music forever. One of the songs he played on that tour was “Visions of Johanna.” I was blown away by the power of the performance, the magnitude of his talent. The song’s relevance still resonates.
In A Complete Unknown, Timothée Chalamet captures Dylan’s arrogant innocence very well, in the first two-thirds of the film, and bravely accomplishes his own singing and guitar and harmonica playing. I especially appreciate his efforts these days as I’m trying to learn to pick out a tune on the piano. I have always regretted not learning to play an instrument and, with the beginner keyboard we received for Christmas, I’m working to rectify that situation. It’s very hard.
After the movie, a friend who saw the film with us commented on how she would rather just sit and listen to Dylan. Yes, of course, but I also feel differently. I thought the music was handled very well and the actor/singers brought the songs alive for me in a new way. No, it’s not Dylan singing his songs, and I know I’m a little strange in that I often prefer cover versions of songs rather than the original version, but the change in perspective allows the music to come alive in a new and contemporary way in this film.
It’s not a perfect film. I lost interest a bit when Dylan began to explore the drug culture and his fame drove him to become even more arrogant and dismissive of the talent and friendship of the other artists around him. The chaos of the 1965 Newport Folk Festival, when “Dylan went electric,” brought those relationships and conflicts back into focus, demonstrating the different ways that artists experience growth and the mastery of their own mystery.
We also recently saw A Room Apart, Pedro Almodóvar’s first English language film. I found the film to be a beautiful meditation on death and dying—a lovely and delicate rendering of friendship and love. Go see it.
As I think about these scary times, I am reminded about NWPL’s project 25 years ago, at the turn of the century, with a group of Polish youth in the northern city of Olsztyn. We called the project, Gildia, or the Guild. And one of our final presentations was a performance entitled Zwy Proch (Living Dust). I found my director’s notes from the program and offer some fragments as a way to organize our battles in the coming days (or years):
Living Dust is a performance structure created by the group itself in response to two very different texts: Juan Rulfo’s surreal Mexican masterpiece, Pedro Paramo, and The Exegesis on the Soul, an ancient description of the soul’s evolution. Mixing the contemporary Polish sensibility with Latin American magic realism, Gnostic dualism, and NWPL’s own search for eco-theatre, not ego-theatre, has guided us along a fascinating route. It began as a kind of Book of the Dead, posing questions about liberation and wakefulness. It began as a ghost story and turned into a mystery play.
The story itself is very simple. A young man is looking for his father. A girl is looking for her bridegroom. They arrive to a place where they meet some other people. Is the father dead or alive? Will the bridegroom come or not? The two meet, separate, and meet again. Along the way they each undergo a series of transformations. In the end, they are together.
Gildia ensemble in Zwy Proch (Living Dust), directed by James Slowiak, 2003.
Like paintings on the walls of caves, images flicker by. Like a dream, time and space behave without rules. What are we witnessing? Why are we here? In times past, there was a dis-ease, a sickness, called “loss of soul.” Now doctors have other terms for this sickness—depression, chronic fatigue disorder—and sociologists might call it—complacency. In young people, it most often takes the form of apathy or boredom. What must we do to “move of our own accord,” with perfect freedom, here and now? To free ourselves from the prison of sensations and emotions? Jungian scholar June Singer states that this is the real meaning of “resurrection.” She says, “It happens in the here and now whenever consciousness is enlightened. The upward journey, the ascent into heaven, is a practice in which we engage, not an end we must seek.”
Craft is one way to approach this consciousness. Craft gives us the tools to journey toward awareness. Like a gardener, working each day to grow their fruits and flowers, it is an on-going process. The Gildia, through its work on Living Dust, invites you to enter our garden and taste the fruit.
Spring is arriving slowly to Paris. The first lonely daffodil bloomed in the park this week and the crocuses formed a small, violet blanket under the birch trees. The cold is lingering here, although the rain has been less constant, more sporadic, in February. I battled a bout of sinusitis, filed our US taxes, and have been learning new songs for the chorus. I’m also trying to get my sleep patterns under control, ween myself of Facebook, and increase my daily exercise and reading. Does that sound like another barrage of executive orders or just my poor list of resolutions for 2025? We have lots of other plans in the coming months—theatre, opera, travel to Portugal and Florida, as well as dear friends and family visiting in March, May, and July. And I turn 70!
I’m looking forward to Paris putting on its fresh, spring face. Much different from the face that Jairo put on this past weekend to help Léo celebrate his eighth birthday, Harry Potter style, with about a dozen of his copains. Vive Lord Voldemort!
Just after this photo was taken, Voldemort was attacked by a gang of eight year old boys, wearing robes and eyeglasses, waving their wands, and screaming “Riddikulus!” at the top of their lungs. As you can see from the photo, I stayed in the background.
I leave you with a haiku by Bashō that has served as a motto for NWPL’s work for many years. Prehaps it can help bring comfort in these scary times.
Thanks Jim. I look forward to your messages. We are living in heartbreaking and terrifying times. Heartbroken for the continuing cruelty perpetrated by humans on their fellow humans and quite terrified about the fate of the American experiment. I cannot fathom that this is ultimately what my parents' generation thought would ultimately be the outcome of their efforts during WWII. ...and so the battle of wills continues... Much love to you. Tammy
Thanks Jim. I look forward to your messages. We are living in heartbreaking and terrifying times. Heartbroken for the continuing cruelty perpetrated by humans on their fellow humans and quite terrified about the fate of the American experiment. I cannot fathom that this is ultimately what my parents' generation thought would ultimately be the outcome of their efforts during WWII. ...and so the battle of wills continues... Much love to you. Tammy