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Sometimes a concert is so good that you're glad that the CSO performs each program three or four times and you can go again another night to hear it one more time. Bernard Haitink conducting Mahler's 2nd Symphony, the "Resurrection", at the CSO last week was one such occasion. I went to both the Saturday and the Tuesday performance.

Coincidentally, the first time I ever heard Mahler's 2nd live was nearly twelve years ago with none other than Bernard Haitink conducting the CSO. Ever since that day, this symphony has been very special to me. (Those concerts marked Haitink's only appearances on the CSO podium punctuating a long period of absence that ended only in March 2006, the season before he became the CSO's Principal Conductor.)

Haitink is a model of artistic consistency. Insofar as his interpretations change over the years, it is more the result of a gradual evolution, of finding details that better clarify the overall idea he seeks to convey, rather than a total radical rethinking of a score. So, what one sees over the course of Haitink's artistic development is more a striving for perfection, a constant revisiting of key works - Haitink has previously recorded Mahler's 2nd at least three times - an unwillingness to settle on a comfortable way of doing things. This attitude has kept Haitink's curiosity alive and his performances fresh.

What has changed over the years is the CSO: it is a far more flexible ensemble today than even twelve years ago, able to produce a greater range of color and dynamic gradation and with more fluidity in phrasing. And that was the true glory of last week's Mahler 2 performances: the combination of a conductor at the peak of his powers, constantly searching for better ways to elucidate Mahler's symphonic structures, and an orchestra that continually redefines the edge of the technically possible in orchestral performance.

The most striking aspect to me of Haitink's current approach to Mahler, as evidenced in his performances with the CSO over the past two seasons, is this organic development of a grand symphonic narrative out of an often understated opening. Many conductors hit you in the face with a very edgy take on the opening bars of symphonies like the 2nd, 3rd or 6th that Haitink has conducted here. Haitink instead takes some of that aggression out, but retains a nervous energy that becomes the seed for a subtle, but relentless, drive toward the ultimate culmination of the musical journey. I have rarely ever heard a performance of a Mahler symphony that was so of one piece.

Haitink and the CSO managed to make the seemingly oversized outer two movements fit seamlessly with the middle three. Particularly noteworthy were the second movement Ländler - in which Haitink found just the right combination of nostalgia and naiveté - as well as the spectacularly transparent Scherzo. And then there was that magnificent development of the finale out of that dies irae that, instead of concluding the traditional way, blossoms into the resurrection. In Christianne Stotijn and Miah Persson Haitink found two soloists who did not treat their appearances as selfish displays of vocal virtuosity, but instead fully blended in with the orchestral and choral fabric of the work. Indeed, both performances I witnessed were showcases of exemplary sectional balancing (including the difficult to calibrate offstage brass!), as well as masterful blending of individual (solo clarinet, oboe, flute & trumpet) and collective textures (brass/woodwinds, brass/chorus/soloists).

These then are the most rewarding kinds of performances for the listener: where the musical journey follows an emotionally compelling arc from beginning to end, yet the intellect discovers numerous new details inspiring a complete reacquaintance with a familiar work, and neither happens at the expense of the other.

Addendum re: Rankings

A small addition to my earlier post on orchestral rankings. Russell Platt at the New Yorker takes issue with Gramophone editor James Inverne's characterization of the CSO's sound. Platt credits the CSO's high ranking in the Gramophone survey to:

the new quality of the C.S.O. itself, a phenomenon attributable to Bernard Haitink’s softening and rounding of the increased vitality and cohesion of sound that his predecessor Daniel Barenboim brought to the group.

Gramophone’s editor, James Inverne, rightly notes the legendary strength of the C.S.O.’s brass section, but that only tells half the story. In the Georg Solti years, the brass section was the equivalent of a Bears offense — hard, insistent, Chicago Way, and most of us thought we’d never hear the end of it. Now, that notoriously restive section has allowed itself to become integrated in a larger, shimmering sound of strings, winds, and percussion, and the result is a jewel beyond price.

I couldn't agree more. I was going to write something similar in my earlier post, but figured I had already wasted enough bandwidth. I will just add one anecdote that proves the point (insofar as anecdotes have any evidentiary value): The other day, an acquaintance was raving about "Haitink's BBC performance of Mahler 6" this past September. When I pointed out that the orchestra in those particular Proms performances was the CSO, the acquaintance replied: "Oh my god, that Proms performance was with the CSO? I thought it was an European ensemble! Never knew CSO had strings with that kind of deep, expressive tone, especially in the andante. I must listen to it again..." (h/t to Andrew Patner for pointing out the Platt post.)

Of Rankings and such...

There is a fair amount of not entirely undeserved backpatting and hometown patriotism going around as a result of the news that the UK-based Gramophone magazine has named the Chicago Symphony Orchestra as one of the world's top five orchestras, No.5, to be precise, making it No.1 in the US. Now, on the one hand, this isn't entirely surprising, but nice to see people acknowledging it. On the other - sorry to be a pooper - it's really profoundly meaningless. My erudite Chicago classical blogging colleagues have already chimed in: Marc Geelhoed, has noted some reservations about these sorts of rankings while relishing the added lustre it brings to Chicago, and Bryant Manning wonders what apostates dared to omit the Philadelphia Orchestra from the top 20. But among other classical music aficionados I see a lot of this ranking mania (What is the "best" ever recording of Mahler 1?, etc.), so I feel compelled to add a few words (or a couple of hundred) as well.

These rankings are simply nonsense for a number of reasons. Firstly, you are comparing apples and oranges with respect to musical styles and other artistic choices that cannot be compared one-to-one. For example, critics will wax lyrical about the "Mahler-sound" of this or that orchestra. But just comparing the sound of the three major orchestras that actually worked with Gustav Mahler (Vienna Phil, Concertgebouw, NY Phil) on historic recordings with disciples of Mahler's (Mengelberg, Walter) you can already hear that each ensemble has a very different collective sound from the other. It isn't simply an exercise of playing the right pitches at the right time and at the right volume level, which is something that could be objectively compared. There are different orchestral playing "cultures". Part of this is the result of national schools of music training and to some degree instrument making (e.g. a Viennese oboe simply sounds completely different from any other). But more importantly, some of the older ensembles have developed a style of collective playing that is very much their own and which stays more or less consistent irrespective of the person on the podium. Is the unique sound of the Vienna Philharmonic "better" than that of the Staatskapelle Dresden? How do you decide?

Now, all other parameters being equal, judging one stylistic choice superior to another is per se evidence of bias. But with respect to classical music the bias runs on multiple levels. One particular style of playing may be more suitable to a certain repertoire and may sound horrible in different repertoire. So a bias towards a certain style of playing automatically also indicates a bias for a certain repertoire for which that style is more suitable. The overwhelming dominance of German and central European ensembles on Gramophone's list, for example, suggests a very strong bias towards the core romantic Austro-German repertoire. Sure, the Staatskapelle Dresden, the Vienna Phil or the Leipzig Gewandhaus Orchestra sound gloriously lush in Brahms. But would these ensembles really be your top choice to play Debussy, Bach, Ligeti or Prokofiev? Gramophone editor James Inverne acknowledges a certain bias towards orchestras with an identifiable sound of their own, as opposed to the many orchestras whose sound is very "international", as the critics would say. But query whether that unique identifiable sound isn't perhaps precisely the obstacle that prevents a particular orchestra from sounding comfortable outside its core repertoire?

This issue goes to the root question of what a modern orchestra should be in the 21st century? What is its role in the music world generally, for its community, for its musicians? Should it be a preservation society for one particular perfomance culture and a certain core repertoire, or should it try to play everything? I mean, on a certain level, what is expected of the modern orchestra musician borders on the ridiculous: he or she must train basically from the age at which he/she attains literacy until his/her early twenties non-stop for multiple hours a day, only to find him/herself in a full time job which requires him/her to learn a completely different program EVERY WEEK with only four rehearsals and changing conductors. Under these circumstances, should we be more impressed with an orchestra that can reproduce the exact same unique sound in one narrow repertoire, say, Strauss, unchanged since the era when the composer himself stood on the podium? Or should we be more impressed with an orchestra like the Concertgebouw or the CSO, which can sound completely at home in every kind of music they touch, and which can perform all of this enormous repertoire at the highest technical and artistic level, week-in-week out, while being able to deliver a completely different sound for each conductor?

Exhibit A in this debate over the (un)importance of stylistic consistency is the critical uproar over the changes in the sound of the Berlin Philharmonic, first under Abbado and then under Rattle. The nostalgics feel that the Berliners have lost their lustre and don't sound like themselves anymore in their old core German romantic repertoire. Others (myself included) would argue that the present-day Berlin Phil possesses much greater flexibility, sounds more French in French music, more Finnish in Finnish music and far more transparent and agile in 20th century music than at any time in the Karajan era, without having lost their brilliance in Brahms and Bruckner. And people like me would argue that this is in great part due to higher technical standards (just listen to timpani and trombones in some of those older Karajan recordings and compare to today).

But speaking of Karajan... I can't help but wonder how much the opinions of the critics surveyed by Gramophone are based on recordings only. Whether an orchestra figures in the perception of an international music critic is based on recordings, broadcasts and tours. (Which gets us back to the discussion on the importance of continuing to produce classical recordings.) Now, recordings, even "live" recordings, are heavily engineered, somewhat artificial products that show orchestras from their best side. And tours tend to feature heavily rehearsed pieces which the orchestra will have played multiple times at home before taking them on tour, thus again presenting a better than average picture of the ensemble. What nobody but the regular home critics can really judge is whether a given orchestra is qualitatively consistent during regular subscription concerts, whether their programming is interesting, whether it attracts new audiences, whether it can attract interesting guest conductors and soloists on a regular basis, and whether any of that matters to the local community at all. These survey-based rankings award no points to any of that.

But with respect to recordings, I also wonder how much these judgments were based on the present musical state of these ensembles or on the memory of past glory. The dead giveaway that this list was compiled from opinions of people who mainly listen to old recordings is the presence of the "Leningrad Philharmonic" in spot No.16. Apparently a critical mass of morons voted for this orchestra not realizing that it has been going by the name of St. Petersburg Philharmonic for the past seventeen years! (And I mean, srsly, Leningrad Phil? Interesting, yes. Unique sound, yes. But better than Philly outside of a limited Russian repertoire? Really?) A number of the orchestras on Gramophone's list sound terrific on a few outstanding older recordings, but don't really deliver the goods on a regular basis today.

Finally, these sorts of rankings compare apples and oranges with respect to funding, government support and the resulting ability to operate full seasons, book name conductors and fund a large roster. For example, the Berlin Philharmonic can afford to have one more full-time player for each woodwind and brass instrument than the CSO or other top US orchestras, including two equal caliber principal players (as opposed to the current US practice of having only one principal and one assistant principal, if at all, who is often not on the same musical level). The Berlin Phil has twenty-three full time first violins, including three first concertmasters (plus one regular concertmaster), while the CSO has only sixteen and only one concertmaster (two assistants). That might sound trivial to the uninitiated. But if you have to staff a performance of a Strauss tone poem or a Mahler symphony, which require expanded complements of players for all sections, or even if you just have a star principal player who is out sick or on leave, the question becomes whether you can maintain the same level of musical quality. And not just with respect to music for oversized orchestra is this a relevant question. With respect to everyday staffing, a smaller complement of regulars means that either each player has to play more performances and get less vacation and time off to regenerate and practice, or more substitutes need to be hired, which may dilute quality, or else you have to play fewer concerts per season with less ambitious repertoire.

Other administrative and structural factors also come into play. For example, traditionally, the German radio orchestras (Bavarian RSO, SWR, NDR, WDR, etc.) enjoyed more rehearsal time per concert than other orchestras (which is why they were able to accommodate such obsessive maniacs as Günter Wand and Sergiu Celibidache). Can these be fairly compared to orchestras that make do with three or four rehearsals per program? How do we artistically compare orchestras that are full-time symphonic ensembles (like Concertgebouw, CSO, LSO, Berlin Phil) versus orchestras that are primarily opera pit orchestras and which spend far less time rehearsing and performing symphonic repertoire (such as Vienna Phil, Staatskapelle Dresden, Met Orchestra)? Other famous orchestras have long-standing international festival residencies (such as Vienna Phil at Salzburg) or TV broadcasting contracts (such as the annual Berlin Phil May Day "European Concerts") that immediately increase their reach and prestige (and which therefore figure more prominently in the consciousness of critics), and the absence of which constitutes a deficit for those orchestras not blessed with such lucky arrangements.

I mention these things not to devalue the achievements of the CSO and other American orchestras as reflected in rankings, such as the one just produced by Gramophone. Quite to the contrary. The fact that most American orchestras are competing on uneven ground with heavily state-subsidized continental European institutions which offer better job security, more time off, broadcast contracts with state-run media, etc., I think, shows just how amazing the musical achievement of the top US ensembles has been. But still, these rankings are silly. It's easy to agree that the Concertgebouw, Berlin Phil, Vienna Phil, CSO, Bavarian RSO are superlative ensembles. But to pick which one is No.1 and which is No.2 is ludicrous. It's like deciding between Harvard, Yale, Princeton, and Stanford. One size will not fit all.

Stories from Dresden

The few, but very select, visits by major international orchestras to Symphony Center are an invaluable service to the Chicago arts community. Not only do they expose the Chicago audience to a wide variety of orchestral cultures. The competition from these great ensembles also helps keep our own orchestra at the top of its game. A wonderful contrast to the CSO's style of playing was provided on Sunday by the Staatskapelle Dresden under the direction of its new music director Fabio Luisi. The storied Dresden orchestra is one of only a small handful of ensembles that - despite advances in technique, significant generational personnel turnover and after many changes in leadership - through the decades managed to retain an unmistakable sound of its own while also maintaining the highest level of musicianship (only the Royal Concertgebouw and the Vienna Philharmonic can make similar claims). What a joy it is to hear the Dresdeners' lush, warm string sound, grounded in a sonorous, dark bass line, combined with an especially colorful woodwind blend (oh, what an oboe sound!), peppery trumpets and a particularly mellow horn section (I noted a generally very young brass section). In recent memory, only Daniel Barenboim was able to coax a similar wealth of color out of the CSO.

Granted, the Staatskapelle Dresden can be a bit of a fish out of water in works outside of their core repertoire. The CSO, by contrast, possesses far greater flexibility and plays the 20th century classics with more transparency and precision, for example. But this was hardly an issue on Sunday, with the program featuring Richard Strauss's Don Quixote and Brahms's 4th Symphony, both of which play to the Dresdeners' greatest musical strengths.

The cello soloist in the Strauss was Dresden's former principal cellist, Jan Vogler. I have to admit, I didn't really understand the point of Vogler's CSO debut last season, when he appeared alongside CSO concertmaster Robert Chen in Brahms's Double Concerto. His tone was thin and wiry and he seemed a rather imperfect match for Chen. (Why couldn't John Sharp or Ken Olsen have partnered with Chen for those concerts?) Vogler's playing was significantly better at Sunday's concert with his old employers, displaying a much fuller sound, possibly aided by having switched to a different Montagnana cello in the meantime. Still, I wasn't quite convinced. Vogler played quite beautifully in the more lyrical, dreamy episodes of Don Quixote. But he seemed too concerned with producing a beautiful tone and too reluctant to dig in when the music asked for a more heroic and aggressive attack. As such, his performance paled somewhat next to solo violist Sebastian Herberg's Sancho Panza, who was full of charm and character. Likewise, Luisi's conception had broader sweep than that of his cello soloist. Indeed, this was a wonderful exhibition of orchestral story-telling, with Luisi and the Dresdeners finding just the right pace, balance and color to illustrate Strauss's take on Cervantes' most famous work. What a gloriously lush tutti sound in Var.III! Wonderful playing also by the unidentified euphonium player and the bass clarinetist.

Luisi proved an equally sensitive and careful interpreter in the Brahms 4th Symphony. The outer two movements, in particular, were textbook examples of masterful dramatic structuring, leading organically and seamlessly to their tragic endings. There was certainly no shortage of energico or passionato from Luisi. Luisi and the Staatskapelle repaid the audience's appreciation of their work with a fine encore performance of Weber's Oberon Overture.

Dresden has certainly landed an exceptionally fine pick with Luisi, who seems to have re-energized this venerable orchestra. Luisi not only shows a great passion for the romantic German tradition of the Staatskapelle and is completely at home in the operatic repertoire which is their bread and butter at the Semperoper. He has also shown exceptional curiosity for neglected composers of the Austro-German tradition, such as Karl-Amadeus Hartmann and Franz Schmidt. One hopes that in a future appearance in Chicago, Luisi will bring some of that repertoire for us to hear. I for one am in any case looking forward to Luisi's return next month, when he conducts the CSO in Berlioz's Symphonie fantastique.

Elgar is for Elephants

And in today's news of the bizarre intersections of classical music and animals, the Guardian reports that the Belfast Zoo has discovered that playing Mozart, Elgar, Beethoven and Handel to elephants may reduce abnormal behavior resulting from captivity:

"We tend to see in some situations that elephants don't cope well with captivity just because they have this inherent instinct to roam vast distances," said Dr Deborah Wells at Queen's University in Belfast. "The rationale underlying this study is really to try and improve their welfare and in particular to try to improve these stereotypic patterns of behaviour that elephants are prone to."

Her team recorded the behaviour of four female Asian elephants every minute for four hours a day over three five-day periods. "Every single behaviour the elephants could perform, we recorded," said Wells.

During the first five days the animals were not exposed to any music. In the second five days the researchers placed a speaker in their enclosure playing a CD of classical music by the likes of Mozart, Elgar, Handel and Beethoven. During the final five days the speaker was switched off.

The team report in the journal Animal Welfare that the frequency of abnormal behaviours dropped dramatically while the music was playing whereas normal behaviours, such as feeding, remained unchanged.

"Elephants are incredibly sensitive beasts," said David Field, zoological director of London and Whipsnade zoos."Their appreciation of noise communication is far beyond our hearing range. They communicate in deep infrasonic vibrations ... so it wouldn't surprise me at all if [classical music] has this calming effect."

[...]

Field believes that as intelligent animals elephants may turn out to be quite discerning. "I think they would have very eclectic tastes actually," he said.

Personally, the Tonic Blotter still prefers seeing elephants in the wild, even if that means losing a promising new audience for classical music.

License to Trill

I have been extremely impressed with the work of Ludovic Morlot so far, including especially an outstanding Rosenkavalier Suite he conducted with the CSO last season, in which he found just the right dose of Viennese lilt without getting schmaltzy. One wonders, though, whether the CSO can cope for one more season without the guidance and discipline of a permanent music director. When even a talented, clear and congenial conductor like Morlot cannot get the results he wants, you start to worry. Granted, this week's program was rehearsed only thrice (I'm told) and Wednesday's "Afterwork Masterworks" performance did not include the Glinka. But on Thursday, the Ruslan and Lyudmila Overture that opened the program was stiff, colorless, lacked rhythmic energy and featured one moderate woodwind derailment. Just not the usual CSO caliber. Can we get Muti to start sooner?

The Rachmaninov 3rd Symphony fared better, by contrast, and benefited from Morlot's non-sentimental approach that cut a lot of fat out of Rachmaninov's Technicolor orchestration. But the orchestra sounded best in the Tchaikovsky 1st Piano Concerto that featured the CSO debut of the Macedonian pianist Simon Trpčeski and which made up the second half of the program. Trpčeski is a formidable pianist, possessing a natural sense of phrase, crystal clear sound and a technique that knows no real obstacles. But the availability of all this skill and talent made his playing almost too nonchalant at times. It doesn't help that he looks like he could have just walked off a James Bond set. One would have perhaps wanted just a tad more immersion in the musical narrative. It's hard to fault a performer like Trpčeski, though, who is so well attuned to, and knows how to play to, his audience. Perhaps animated by the presence of his family and members of the Macedonian government, Trpčeski pulled out all the stops and delivered a dazzling display of pianistic virtuosity while always staying in dialogue with the orchestra. With the audience demanding an encore, Trpčeski offered "Prelude and Pajduška" - a sort of Prokofievian modernism meets Balkan folklore virtuoso showpiece - by Macedonian composer Živojin Glišić, which has become a musical calling card for both Trpčeski and his homeland.

America Redeems Itself, Elects Obama; World Breathes Giant Sigh of Relief

Last night, exhausted from being awake since 3am Chicago time and spending over 13 hours at a central Indiana voting precinct for the Obama campaign, as I was driving home along I-65, fishing for a faint NPR signal on my car radio among a sea of Christian wingnut and commercial radio stations, it was starting to finally hit me that this was really happening. That this country was finally on the way to get itself back on track after eight years of disastrous mismanagement. In the end, the electoral college result wasn't that terribly surprising. The numbers were very close to the predictions of FiveThirtyEight.com which the Tonic Blotter has been following maniacally in the last few weeks. But last night could have played out in a myriad different ways.

Instead of nominating Bush Jr. in 2000, the Republicans could have nominated another faceless mediocrity like his father. We could have gone on virtually indefinitely tossing the White House back and forth between interchangeable, uninspiring, middle-of-the-road candidates, who might manage the country semi-competently. Maybe not landing us in the mess we're in today, but also not really preventing the erosion of America's global leadership role, nor leading us toward new horizons on renewable energy, ending global warming or bridging the widening gap between rich and poor. But the Republicans in 1994 embarked on a campaign to sacrifice professional competence and fiscal conservatism for the sake of a narrowly ideological far-right agenda.

And the DLC, freaked out by Democratic losses, twice thwarted the more politically consistent candidate - the one who would have represented a clear contrast to the Republicans - for the sake of a wishy-washy appeal to a presumed conservative center. Pointless culture wars took center stage while action on important issue languished, culminating in the unmitigated disaster that is the George W. Bush presidency. The enormity of the sitting president's failures brought into stark relief the exceptional qualities of Barack Obama: his charisma, genuineness, intelligence, consistency, even- temperedness, and his once-in-a-generation ability to inspire a lethargic people into collective action.

After many years of ridiculous Republican vitriol and one of the ugliest Republican presidential campaigns on record, John McCain ended his bid for the White House yesterday on an exceptionally graceful note. His concession speech showed the conciliatory statesman that McCain can be when he is disciplined and outside of the Rovian sphere of influence. If he had been more like that, his defeat would not have needed to be this devastating, or even a defeat at all. It was possibly McCain's best speech of this election cycle, and he seemed so at ease as to almost appear elated. Gone was the tense and angry John McCain who had shown up at the debates.

But his concession speech also illustrated that it will be very difficult to reintegrate his most fervent supporters into the American political discourse. When you've been painting your opponent as a terrorist and demonizing him to such an extent that your own selected audience boos you when you concede an overwhelming defeat, you know you have a serious problem. These people will have trouble accepting an Obama administration for some time to come. Unfortunately, these reactions, as well as many of the conservative post-mortems now starting to appear in the press, are an indication that the Republican Party is still far away from understanding the implications of the epic loss that they suffered at the polls yesterday.

It is too easy to blame the economy, the media, Bush or even Sarah Palin. It is much harder to confront the fact that finally a critical mass of voters has understood that trickle-down-economics doesn't work and that government exists in order to protect its people not only from military disasters, but also from those of an economic nature; that it needs to be run competently, fairly and in a transparent manner with public oversight, not controlled by corporate interests. Eventually, for the continued health of our democracy, we will again need a functioning, mainstream, popular conservative party again, one that actually conserves rather than wastes. But at the moment, Republicans are too much in denial to seriously reflect on their failures - a mental state that, if left unremedied, is likely to ensure another Democratic victory in the next general election.

We are exceptionally blessed as a nation to have the luck, in these trying times, to have found in our midst not just an exceptionally talented candidate who inspires the best in us, but an exceptionally talented candidate who managed to assemble an incredible campaign team that threw political dogma out the window and managed to overcome old political divisions and redraw the electoral map completely. But perhaps most of all, we owe this election victory to the incredible work of the best, most disciplined political grass-roots ground force ever assembled. I am immensely grateful for the hard work of everyone who hit phone banks for Barack, travelled to swing states to canvas, register voters or monitor voting, and I am deeply humbled and honored to have been a part of that myself.



One thing struck me while I was canvassing in Gary, IN, the weekend before the election. Much has already been said about how far America has come from the racial divisions of the past when it elected its first black president last night. But I think an even greater step towards racial integration was accomplished by the Obama volunteers during the course of this epic battle. Despite the achievements of the civil rights movement, the social gulf between black and white is still massive. Of all minorities in the US African-Americans are still more segregated from the US mainstream than others. Even those whites who harbor no fears or prejudices towards blacks often still have too little interaction with African-Americans and, at best, only a vague idea of how African-American communities really live today. There has generally been a failure of the white community to integrate blacks into their social lives on the same level as Asians, South Asians and Latinos. Likewise, many African-Americans still justifiably distrust whites too much on account of past injustices suffered at their hands.

But in this election, across the nation, an unprecedented number of sheltered white and Asian kids from wealthy cities and suburbs knocked on doors in neighborhoods forgotten by the economy and by Washington. They saw black people who were in the end not any different from them, who care about the same issues and who work hard to give their children better opportunities than they had themselves. And African-Americans found themselves confronted with whites and Asians genuinely excited about a black presidential candidate, doing everything in their power to help ease their way to the polls, from which some of their ancestors had tried so hard to keep them away; to make their votes count despite all legal obstacles that the Republican machine was throwing at them. During this election, racial integration on a political level, the full enfranchisement of of the African-American community, started in earnest. But, more importantly, after so many historic disappointments, black and white saw each other as humans again, as fellow travellers on an epic joint journey that reached its latest culmination in the gloriously diverse celebration in Grant Park last night.

Elsewhere, an army of volunteers descended on traditional Red States, overcame many of the barriers erected by the culture warriors of the past and helped turn, Ohio, Nevada, Colorado and New Mexico blue. Previously irreconcilable latte-sipping, godless liberals stood face to face with those clingy, gun toting religious hicks. Again, two groups, which rarely interact and which were previously deemed irreconcilable, met, saw each other as human beings and were persuaded to pragmatically work together for the common good of undoing the damage of the last eight years.

I hope that the coming Obama administration will find creative ways to keep the fire alive among all of these volunteers and those who were touched by them, so that we may jointly help bring to life a new nationwide system for social action to combat poverty and racism, to bring genuine equality of opportunity and harness the talents and abilities of all Americans and thus raise the country back out of this deep hole the last administration has dug for us. To miss the opportunity to harness this unprecedented level of goodwill would be a tragic failure. We are all still fired up and ready to go!

Vote!

Or else Mr. Miyagi will get you!

Stockhausen Branches Out, Posthumously

From the musical avantgarde to wall-mounted soap dispensers. The name of this particular model suggests that Leopold Stokowski may have been involved in the design as well.