When you start to lose your temper, remember: there’s nothing manly about rage…… It’s courtesy and kindness that define a human being – and a man.
Roman Emperor Marcus Aurelius, Meditations (11.18).
Come back melody!
Yesterday my wife and I went to the Proms at the Albert Hall in London to see a concert performsnce of “West Side Story”. I have seen it three times now and have come to s conclusion: West Side Story is arguably the finest musical work of sheer genius of the 20th Century. Including everything aside from pop music. It encompasses a string of besutiful, moving melodies, sophisticated dissonances, complex Latin rhythms, end even tritones in the melody. And it has a story that parallels that of Romeo and Juliet, with brilliant lyrics by Stephen Sondheim. I had tears in my eyes almost throughout.
Leonard Bernstein was indeed a genius. It made me realise that modern serious music hit the railway buffers somwewhere near the beginning of the 20th Century, and is still languishing there, by and large. It is bare, sparse, repetitive, unimaginative and unemotional, having abandoned melody as old hat (I have a reputation for wild generalisation!) It has been musicals, of which West Side Story, Guys and Dolls and South Pacific are among the most enjoyable, that have seized the public’s imagination and made deep impressions. Music should go to the heart, the emotions, sparking the imagination and leaving you moved and your mind dancing.
Unfortunately, the geniuses left the field, and the musical genre has degenerated. However,I am told that “classical” music composers are gently moving back to melodies, some of which can be hummed. We need music that takes your mind up and away from the tawdry news and culture, the third rate canned music, and modern self-absorbtion, not to mention the ubiquitous cellphone!
China’s economic problem
There is a fact that few non-economists understand or pay attention to. China has a huge problem attracting foreign investment. US investment in China since 1990 has only been about $250 billion dollars. This is because few people trust the Chinese not to steal secrets, profits or both – their legal protections in China are few, and a virtual semi-totalitarian economy, rife with corruption, is not attractive to foreign investors. About 69% of “foreign investment“ into China is actually from Hong Kong and is thought to be laundered money or recycled domestic Chinese money. Further development is being financed out of savings instead of inward investment, which is what typically happens in a developing economy. (The British invested hugely and consistently in the United States during the 19th Century).
Meanwhile, instead of investing more in their own economy, the Chinese are making huge investments in Africa and other countries, with currently low monetary return. It is also investing in US Treasury bonds on which it gets only a 3% return. Overall its other overseas investments yield 22% compared with 33% earned by American multinationals overseas. In fact, Chinese investment overseas yields lower returns than it would were it invested in Chinese industry, and a lot of the outflow of funds is used for property boltholes in places like Vancouver and educating the wealthy Chinese young in foreign countries.
This overseas investment by the Chinese is financed by their huge trade surplus, exporting ever more and buying less food and other imports than one would expect. In short, China has a generally lower standard of living than it should have. It is not the economic powerhouse we typically imagine it is.
I am flagging this up because of the perceived threat of totalitarian China to our way of life and thus to our collective peace of mind.
Snowflake students
“Snowflake” students have become the target of a new conservative crusade. This narrative can now be found in news stories, political speeches and op-ed columns in Britain on a daily basis: that young people simply gang up to howl down views they don’t like, rather than engage in debate.
Rightwingers claim it is a form of censorship, and that the young need to get better at “hearing what you don’t want to hear”. In a decade of economic stagnation, it is a convenient put-down to use against a generation faced with low pay, high house prices and deterioriating mental health, and a system regulated in such a way as to “maximise the security of asset holders, while impoverishing the future of everyone under 40”. (William Davies in The Guardian).
My early years were spent in the middle of a war. A doodlebug hit the house next to us and we were homeless. I wasn’t aware of it but the future must have looked grim. In fact, most people my age have since experienced peace and a steady improvement of life in general. Leaving university, one worried, not about whether one would get a job, but which job. There was a huge housing shortage, but the government was doing something about it. Yes, the treatment of unfamilar West Indian migrants, brought over to boost manpower, was a disgrace, but in general there was political and social consensus, andfew very rich people (most people were poor).
But out of it all we got the National Health Service, among other things. In those days it was unthinkable to shout down speakers in debate (I took part in many). Underlying it all was a sense that both political parties generally had the welfare of the whole country at heart, snd that capitalism was operating for the community (generalisations! Forgive me!). I think the behaviour of some rude, closed-minded young people arises out of one emotion – fear. I don’t blame them in some ways, but it is immature nonetheless to shout down and ban those you disagree with – it will inevitably come back to bite you. Argue! Use your brains!
Ephemera
Colombia has been struggling with a particularly large and unlikely interloper: the hippopotamus. The African animals are multiplying in the area around Doradal, in the northwest of the country.
It’s all the fault of the cocaine trafficker Pablo Escobar. During his heyday as leader of the Medellín Cartel, he imported four hippos for his personal zoo on his palatial estate. When law enforcement officials killed the narco-terrorist in 1993, they seized the property, along with its exotic menagerie, but the hippos escaped and, with no natural predators in the region, have since prospered. There are now thought to be at least 50 of them in the area. In 2013, officials finally decided to do something about it, and provided funds to the environmental management body to sterilise or relocate the beasts. But that’s proving a challenge. “We do not have a manual to handle them,” complains one of those tasked with the job, pointing out the logistical difficulties of getting to grips with alien animals in the wild that can weigh up to three tonnes and reach speeds of up to 18mph. Twenty-five years after his death, Escobar is still causing Colombia problems. (Sally Palamina, El País, Madrid)
Why is this a matter for Epicurus.Today? Well, the general environment is terribly serious, for good reason. We all need a bit of light relief, but in reality there is little to laugh about, so people don’t. I was mentally noting that comedy writing has abruptly stopped. Not that wild hippos wandering around Colombia is particularly funny, but it will have to do.
I was drawn to Ms. Palamino’s article because I specialise in greeting cards featuring hippos, and recently wrote a book of light verse called “The Rueful Hippopotamus”, available on Amazon.com and Amazon.co.uk, and selling best in Germany, where they still laugh I am thus being thoroughly American in taking every possible opportunity for brazen self-promotion, and showing praiseworthy integration. If this is all nonsense, forgive me – the daily news is driving me bonkers.