Martin Luther King Day 2013

So I have tomorrow off for Martin Luther King Day, and perhaps I will see or hear President Obama’s inauguration.  It’s iffy since I don’t have cable TV service and my roof antenna isn’t attached.  But I’m interested to hear what the President will say; who knows what the next four years will bring us?  Meanwhile, there are suicide attacks in Kabul, Afghanistan; the hostage debacle in Algeria, and the continuing turmoil in northern Mali.

I have an old college friend whose husband was supposed to take up a position in Mali last year; I suppose that is indefinitely on hold.  I keep wondering whether my friend has ever read The Sheltering Sky by Paul Bowles.  Though it begins and ends in a place much like Tangiers, Morocco, long sections take place in the Sahara.  The film version was shot, I think, in Mali and Niger.  It’s not the kind of movie that would encourage anyone to go there.

I’ve watched An Englishman in New York, about the later years of Quentin Crisp, for a second time; and I’m planning, tonight or tomorrow, to rewatch a documentary on the same subject, Resident Alien.   Meanwhile, I continue to read Andrew Holleran’s novel Dancer From The Dance, built around the gay party experience on New York’s Fire Island in the 1970s.  At the same time, I continue reading Delicacy, a novel by the French writer David Foenkinos.

They remind me of classical music in the early 1900s.  Holleran’s book is achingly beautiful—so painfully beautiful that it’s painful to read.  It reminds me of Arnold Schoenberg’s Verklaerte Nacht, where Schoenberg had pushed Wagnerian harmonies so far (encouraged no doubt by Richard Strauss and Gustav Mahler) that every phrase practically breaks apart from the intensity.

Whereas, after World War I, composes wanted to throw off that oppressive Wagnerian influence.  People like Erik Satie, who had already revolted against Wagner, wrote straight-forward, enchanting music.  For me, that’s David Foenkinos.  His 250-page novel contains 150 chapters, some only one or two sentences.

But what about Martin Luther King?  And Obama?  Although I sympathize with the “social gospel,” I’m also inclined to mysticism.  I worry about putting too much emphasis on material well-being.  I do think we have to do what we can for the poor and downtrodden; but I hope we won’t forget the spiritual aspect of our natures.  Give us bread—but give us roses too.