"It matters not how long we live, but how." (Bailey)

....I'm a child of the "Humanities".  In college I took as many courses in the Humanities as were offered: English literature, Shakespeare, Philosophy, Creative Writing and so on.  But there are those who trash the Humanities as wasted tuition dollars, a one-way ticket to unemployment (I taught for 30 years).  Mark Edmonson who teaches English at the University of Virginia said in the Washington Post that we "humanists" prepare students to succeed in the working world just as well as all those practical majors--maybe better.  He goes on to say that we offer tools of thought.  We teach our students to understand and analyze complex ideas.  We help them to develop powers of expression, written and verbal.  At our best we teach them how to reason--and reasoning undergirds every successful project.

 

.....In a recent article in "Business Insider" Bracken Darrell, the chief executive of Logitech tells about how he loves hiring English majors: "The best CEO's are extremely good writers and have this ability to articulate and verbalize what they are thinking."  It seems that there's no problem then.  Do you want success?  Come on in.  But the Humanities are not about success.  Success is multi-faceted, and making a lot of money is not the only way to success.  The Humanities is about questioning success--and every important value.  Sure we humanities students are different not because of our powers of expression or our capacity to frame an argument or our ability to do independent work, but true humanities students are exceptional because they have been, and are, engaged in the activity that Plato commends--seeking to understand ourselves and how we ought to live our lives.  And that, my friends, has been, and is, the primary goal of my life.

"Oh, no man knows through what wild centuries rove back the rose". (De LaMare)

.....Everyone I speak to is enthusiastic about the show.  I now have all the lyrics listed for the WW II songs I'm planning to use.  I don't think that I will be singing anything.  I'll be too busy directing.  I am meeting with the pianist shortly to see if he has the sheet music.  He said he wanted $3000 to play at all rehearsals.  We settled on $2750. Besides the songs, I have some skits for the show, also for people who are not singing.  We are not going to have a choreographer because I'm not planning for any dancing. 

Thursday, August 15, 2013

"Oh, no man knows through what wild centuries rove back the rose". (De LaMare)

.....I'm afraid that the 21st Century is running away from me.  I'm a child of the 20th Century. The other day Rh+ laptop computer froze and we couldn't figure out how to shut it down, so failing everything else, we pulled the plug and after a few minutes plugged it back in again--but same result.  So I told her either to call Comcast or call in a Geek to fix it, but she did nothing about it for a couple of days.  But she was so anxious to read her email that she began frothing at the mouth like a Pit Bull.  So, in desperation she plugged it back in again & a little message superimposed on the frozen web page said that an error had been discovered and that it would be fixed. And so, the laptop went about fixing it all by itself and in about 20 minutes there was her desktop all ready for her use!  Was there a little Geek hiding in that machine, or a robot? Or a Smurf? Or Captain of the Enterprise.


.....21st Century stuff, that episode.  But then there is Facebook and Twitter and Linkup  or something of that nature; and Apps, and iPhones, and iPads and Flash Drives, and HD.  Life is complicated enough with medication and doctors' bills and .09 interest on Savings accounts that do nothing to help you cope with high food costs & mortgages (although I have no mortgage) and $3.99 a gallon for gas.  I was used to paying 5 cents for a hot dog with mustard and a Mission Orange.  When someone young asks what plane I flew in WWII and I say, a B24 Liberator, they get glassy-eyed; when they ask if I won any medals and I mention the DFC, it means as much to them as Sequester means too me. In 1940s we had no such thing as a "sequester".  Kids today never heard of a "record album" or black and white TV.  A skate key is like a dinosaur to them.  And when Orson Welles says "Rosebud" kids today think they smell a flower.

.....It's all too nerve-wracking to me. I'm cancelling my Facebook and Twitter accounts because when I go there, I have no idea what I'm doing and now I don't want anything to do with them.  Anyway, right now I am writing a script for a musical I am showing next March.  I never wrote a musical, though most everything else including a Sestina.  You can try it, but you won't succeed. The Sunday Times crossword puzzle is easier; so is running a marathon or learning to eat broccoli.  Unfortunately, while writing this musical, I must neglect my  blog, although I'll turn to it now and then as a change of pace.  I'm 89 though I can still think, but the 21st Century baffles me as well as it baffles Congress.

"The Moving Finger writes, and having writ moves on..." Omar Kayyam"

 

....Here in Huntington Lakes there has been a show produced by residents every year for 30 years.  Some of the shows were "book" shows, a show once produced on Broadway, and some of the shows were written by residents.  Those shows were not in the same character as the book shows.  I performed in most every one of the shows and was the primary actor in all the book shows.  That was a lot of work, but fun.  It was like a new career.  But this year the Board of Directors rejected a resident's show, and so for the first time in 30 years there was to be no shows.

....I felt that a resident's show had become traditional, and that is something like "history" and thus cannot be ignored.  So I decided to write a show, a task I have never attempted before, and I thought that the residents here would enjoy hearing the songs of WWII in a USO setting.  I brought the idea to the BOD and they approved what I intended to do, a minor miracle.  The show is scheduled for March 28-30.  Rhoda will be my Stage Manager and she's very good at what she does.  Only problem at the moment is having to direct rehearsals in the morning and I am not a "morning person".

.....I'm going to be busy writing a script for the show, and I can't do that before we have auditions.  But still there are things to do which means I probably will not have enough time for writing posts for this blog as often as I am used to--but still I do hope to write them from time to time as long as there is something to write about.  I've been doing this since 2007 and I have published all of this blog in eleven books which no one buys.  Some day they will be best sellers and they will make a movie about me, or a circus.