<html><head><style type="text/css"><!-- DIV {margin:0px;} --></style></head><body><div style="font-family:verdana, helvetica, sans-serif;font-size:14pt"><DIV style="FONT-SIZE: 14pt; FONT-FAMILY: verdana, helvetica, sans-serif">Yes, Robert, I want to get you started.</DIV>
<DIV style="FONT-SIZE: 14pt; FONT-FAMILY: verdana, helvetica, sans-serif">I DO want to get you started. </DIV>
<DIV style="FONT-SIZE: 14pt; FONT-FAMILY: verdana, helvetica, sans-serif"> </DIV>
<DIV style="FONT-SIZE: 14pt; FONT-FAMILY: verdana, helvetica, sans-serif">Don't forget that a rebel <EM>must</EM> have a cause. <BR>Otherwise he/she is. .just. . .a . . .rebel. </DIV>
<DIV style="FONT-SIZE: 14pt; FONT-FAMILY: verdana, helvetica, sans-serif">And we know what happened to Johnny Reb. </DIV>
<DIV style="FONT-SIZE: 14pt; FONT-FAMILY: verdana, helvetica, sans-serif"> </DIV>
<DIV style="FONT-SIZE: 14pt; FONT-FAMILY: verdana, helvetica, sans-serif">Yes, the ads, and the dvds, and the cds, and the</DIV>
<DIV style="FONT-SIZE: 14pt; FONT-FAMILY: verdana, helvetica, sans-serif">couch potato culture. . .truly, as T.S. reminded us-</DIV>
<DIV style="FONT-SIZE: 14pt; FONT-FAMILY: verdana, helvetica, sans-serif">The Wasteland. And it is only because we seem to</DIV>
<DIV style="FONT-SIZE: 14pt; FONT-FAMILY: verdana, helvetica, sans-serif">have had 'value-added'- that smirky,slanted eye</DIV>
<DIV style="FONT-SIZE: 14pt; FONT-FAMILY: verdana, helvetica, sans-serif">attitude that those who 'lived' the 60's - that most</DIV>
<DIV style="FONT-SIZE: 14pt; FONT-FAMILY: verdana, helvetica, sans-serif">terrible of generations, had made the world a better place</DIV>
<DIV style="FONT-SIZE: 14pt; FONT-FAMILY: verdana, helvetica, sans-serif">in which to live. But as we can painfully see, that is not </DIV>
<DIV style="FONT-SIZE: 14pt; FONT-FAMILY: verdana, helvetica, sans-serif">the case. </DIV>
<DIV style="FONT-SIZE: 14pt; FONT-FAMILY: verdana, helvetica, sans-serif"> </DIV>
<DIV style="FONT-SIZE: 14pt; FONT-FAMILY: verdana, helvetica, sans-serif">But what is critical here is not to wear this disappointment</DIV>
<DIV style="FONT-SIZE: 14pt; FONT-FAMILY: verdana, helvetica, sans-serif">in the future dripping from your shoulder, telling those</DIV>
<DIV style="FONT-SIZE: 14pt; FONT-FAMILY: verdana, helvetica, sans-serif">younger ones that their butts belong in a theater seat. </DIV>
<DIV style="FONT-SIZE: 14pt; FONT-FAMILY: verdana, helvetica, sans-serif">You're right. It was a habit they never learned-but more so</DIV>
<DIV style="FONT-SIZE: 14pt; FONT-FAMILY: verdana, helvetica, sans-serif">a 'value that was <EM><STRONG>not</STRONG></EM> added. And since habits start young-</DIV>
<DIV style="FONT-SIZE: 14pt; FONT-FAMILY: verdana, helvetica, sans-serif">you know what Aquinas said- 'Give me the child at 7 and I </DIV>
<DIV style="FONT-SIZE: 14pt; FONT-FAMILY: verdana, helvetica, sans-serif">will give you the man.' Now you must give the man AND the</DIV>
<DIV style="FONT-SIZE: 14pt; FONT-FAMILY: verdana, helvetica, sans-serif">woman-full blown, springing from their parent's foreheads </DIV>
<DIV style="FONT-SIZE: 14pt; FONT-FAMILY: verdana, helvetica, sans-serif">only these 'fullblowns' have been blown out of the water. </DIV>
<DIV style="FONT-SIZE: 14pt; FONT-FAMILY: verdana, helvetica, sans-serif">Blown out of the culture, blown from their families, and </DIV>
<DIV style="FONT-SIZE: 14pt; FONT-FAMILY: verdana, helvetica, sans-serif">schools, and nearly a<EM> million</EM> - this month alone, are addicted</DIV>
<DIV style="FONT-SIZE: 14pt; FONT-FAMILY: verdana, helvetica, sans-serif">to prescription drugs.</DIV>
<DIV style="FONT-SIZE: 14pt; FONT-FAMILY: verdana, helvetica, sans-serif"> </DIV>
<DIV style="FONT-SIZE: 14pt; FONT-FAMILY: verdana, helvetica, sans-serif">Did I hear another shooting on the news?</DIV>
<DIV style="FONT-SIZE: 14pt; FONT-FAMILY: verdana, helvetica, sans-serif"> </DIV>
<DIV style="FONT-SIZE: 14pt; FONT-FAMILY: verdana, helvetica, sans-serif">Your invective against the Cleveland Orchestra is also against </DIV>
<DIV style="FONT-SIZE: 14pt; FONT-FAMILY: verdana, helvetica, sans-serif">the Cleveland Play House, and all the 'play' houses because the</DIV>
<DIV style="FONT-SIZE: 14pt; FONT-FAMILY: verdana, helvetica, sans-serif">'image' has pervaded us -that flat, 2-d, sensually, intellectually, psychologically devoid form by which we have become totally obsessive about appearances, what things <EM>appear to be,</EM> and there is no mind left for substance-</DIV>
<DIV style="FONT-SIZE: 14pt; FONT-FAMILY: verdana, helvetica, sans-serif">no mind because it was not made a habit-some of us still call it</DIV>
<DIV style="FONT-SIZE: 14pt; FONT-FAMILY: verdana, helvetica, sans-serif">'critical thinking-forcing upon oneself the discipline that rejects</DIV>
<DIV style="FONT-SIZE: 14pt; FONT-FAMILY: verdana, helvetica, sans-serif">immediate gratification-delaying satisfaction for the sake of the</DIV>
<DIV style="FONT-SIZE: 14pt; FONT-FAMILY: verdana, helvetica, sans-serif">process, full investigation, comprehensive study and analysis-</DIV>
<DIV style="FONT-SIZE: 14pt; FONT-FAMILY: verdana, helvetica, sans-serif">these are fossils as sure as Monarch and Cliff Notes have taken </DIV>
<DIV style="FONT-SIZE: 14pt; FONT-FAMILY: verdana, helvetica, sans-serif">over the ragstands in college bookstores. </DIV>
<DIV style="FONT-SIZE: 14pt; FONT-FAMILY: verdana, helvetica, sans-serif"> <BR>You cannot avoid your elitism-even Ernest Angsley says -'you are</DIV>
<DIV style="FONT-SIZE: 14pt; FONT-FAMILY: verdana, helvetica, sans-serif">SPEshul' - otherwise you cannot add ANY value to the culture. </DIV>
<DIV style="FONT-SIZE: 14pt; FONT-FAMILY: verdana, helvetica, sans-serif">Didn't you say you wanted to leave this place better than you found it??? You have already done that - yes, this page says so. </DIV>
<DIV style="FONT-SIZE: 14pt; FONT-FAMILY: verdana, helvetica, sans-serif"> </DIV>
<DIV style="FONT-SIZE: 14pt; FONT-FAMILY: verdana, helvetica, sans-serif">My father always said that to me - "Don't get me started."</DIV>
<DIV style="FONT-SIZE: 14pt; FONT-FAMILY: verdana, helvetica, sans-serif">See what happened??!!</DIV>
<DIV style="FONT-SIZE: 14pt; FONT-FAMILY: verdana, helvetica, sans-serif"> </DIV>
<DIV style="FONT-SIZE: 14pt; FONT-FAMILY: verdana, helvetica, sans-serif">Martin Cosentino</DIV>
<DIV style="FONT-SIZE: 14pt; FONT-FAMILY: verdana, helvetica, sans-serif"> </DIV>
<DIV style="FONT-SIZE: 14pt; FONT-FAMILY: verdana, helvetica, sans-serif"> </DIV>
<DIV style="FONT-SIZE: 14pt; FONT-FAMILY: verdana, helvetica, sans-serif"> </DIV>
<DIV style="FONT-SIZE: 12pt; FONT-FAMILY: times new roman, new york, times, serif">----- Original Message ----<BR>From: Robert Hawkes <rhhawkes@gmail.com><BR>To: MARC MORITZ <marcmoritz@yahoo.com><BR>Cc: neohiopal@listserve.com<BR>Sent: Tuesday, February 12, 2008 5:28:48 PM<BR>Subject: [NEohioPAL] State of the theatre - State Theatre - Kulchur Notes<BR><BR>It's a big, wide, all-culture issue, as I see it. The live theatre may be in all the trouble so eloquently analyzed here, but so are serious music, serious filmmaking, poetry and other imaginative literature, painting, and any serious art at all.<BR><BR>A. It's partly about a huge shift in central cultural priority that starts with the Romantics and reaches its full flower with (most) rock music and (most) television: the Art of the Common Man comes home to roost, and our most lively and lucrative arts now represent the Best We Can Be, but the Most We Can Make. And the less imagination we
have to use to consume it, the better, until we reach the utter absurdity of "reality TV" - which is about as "realistic" as a Road Runner cartoon, but which demands actual negative imaginative input from its audience. <BR><BR>The audience at Severance Hall and at other "classical" venues is likewise aging and dwindling - and also grousing if anything new or different is presented, not realizing, apparently, that the more an institution such as the Cleveland Orchestra is allowed to be a mere museum for the established repertoire, the more its possibly inevitable death is hastened.<BR><BR>My generation - the rock'n'roll generation - never returned to serious music after a period of rebellion, never took its children regularly to serious concerts, never had that music in the house. (I did, but I'm in a tiny minority by now.) I used to be able to joke, in my classes, that copper, like Leonard Bernstein, was a great conductor. I can't make that joke any
more, not even if I use the name of the current Music Director of the Cleveland Orchestra. 35 years ago, it used to be a real faux pas to schedule Parents' Night on Orchestra Opening Night. Now it couldn't matter a damn.<BR><BR>The same thing has happened to the theatre. "Younger" people don't go to the live theatre, not so much because it's become something of a rich man's toy, I don't think, as because they were just never taught the habit. I know, from inviting friends to come to plays I have been in, that it's incredibly hard to get even otherwise reasonable adults to do something they're not used to doing. It's not the money; it's not the actual inconvenience. It's the doing something they were never taught to do. And what they're used to doing is going down to the State to see <I>Wicked</I> and imagining that that's what theatre is all about. <BR><BR>The serious arts are just not central to our culture any more, so why should we pass them on to
our children? What's central is reality TV and <I>American Idol</I>; canned pop music EVERYWHERE (including my dentist's chair); cineplex cinema films that ALL look the same, celebrating mindless violence, slick effects, and general dehumanization - in short, whatever will numb my intellectual, aesthetic, musical, visual, and spiritual sensibilities and reduce me and everybody around me to the lowest common consumer denominator.<BR><BR>B. Suburban sprawl. Some "younger" - and older - folk who might come to the theatre, or to serious music, don't do it much because it's just "too far" from where they live, and they are content to cocoon at home unless it's something REALLY special - like <I>Wicked</I>.<BR><BR>Don't get me started.<BR><BR>RHH<!-- kill -->
<DIV><BR><BR>-----Inline Attachment Follows-----<BR><BR>______________________________________<BR>Support Neohiopal, learn how here: <A href="http://www.fredsternfeld.com/faqs.htm#support" target=_blank>http://www.fredsternfeld.com/faqs.htm#support</A><BR>______________________________________<BR>NEohioPAL is SELF-SERVE. If you need to unsubscribe, change from digest to one-at-a-time delivery or vice-versa, go on hiatus while out of town, switch from mime to plain text or vice-versa, etc. check out the FAQS at <A href="http://www.fredsternfeld.com/" target=_blank>http://www.fredsternfeld.com</A>.<BR>______________________________________<BR>Disclaimer: The facts and/or opinions expressed in this message are solely those of the person in the 'from' or 'reply-to' header. The fact that this message is posted should in no way be taken as an endorsement by the administrator of this list. Subscribers should perform due diligence for all goods, services and
activities promoted on NEohioPAL.<BR>_____________________________________<BR>NEohioPAL mailing list<BR><A href="http://mailman.listserve.com/listmanager/listinfo/neohiopal" target=_blank>http://mailman.listserve.com/listmanager/listinfo/neohiopal</A><BR></DIV></DIV>
<DIV style="FONT-SIZE: 14pt; FONT-FAMILY: verdana, helvetica, sans-serif"><BR></DIV></div></body></html>