Ending on a sweet and sour note

The last week of Banff ended in a bittersweet manner.  By week three, the novelty of room service and posh food wears off, and people become grumpy and dissatisfied, or at least, the people I was with were.  In a way, it was somewhat funny-I came back to Banff because I had wanted to study with Roger (when I decided to come to Banff, I hadn't decided whether or not to go back to NEC, so I wasn't sure if I'd ever study with him again.) and I had wanted to work with John Adams.  Both of those events occurred within the first week, so in a way, the rest of the program was a bit of a letdown.  By the time Roger left, we began to see the political manuevers that had taken place, favoring one person in the viola class, and giving him three "special" assignments.  We also all realized that Barry is kinda crazy, and that most of the remaining concerts favored people that had a political connection to him, which is rather unfortunate.  In essence, the basic unfairness of the final assignments really affected the group as a whole, especially those who were less familiar with the political workings of Banff.  The more specific part of the story is that Barry basically picked one person (who was no better in skillset than the rest of us) and put him in a special masterclass, the faculty/student chamber group, and an extra chamber group of the Britten Phantasy Quartet.  The catch in all this is that 6 violists were doing nothing all week-they had no assignments, were in no ensembles, and thus this was totally unfair.  The choices were made in an unfair manner, and really pissed off most of my friends, because this one violist went to McGill (and that group was already a pain in the ass to deal with) and was going to Glenn Gould, and knew Barry.  This person should definitely have had one of the three above opportunities, but to give him everything was unfair to the people who already knew the Britten, or who were really into Baroque performance practice (me!) since he played for Sigiswald Kuijken.  I guess the question we have to pose is, when situations present themselves that are very political, how can we keep motivated in our own self worth?
     For many of my friends, they just stopped caring and starting being pissed off most of the time.  I was definitely upset by the outcome, because it just wasn't fair to the group, and also didn't represent the skills of the whole 10 of us by any means.  I wrote a very blatant evaluation saying that it was outrageous and that I wouldn't be returning next year. (True statement).  But more importantly, I wrote that it was detrimental to the group dynamic, because it affected the way we all got along, and made us feel less worthy in the eyes of the festival.  We already had a challenging time getting along with this one person, since the McGill clique was very exclusive, and not particular social with the rest of the camp, and that only made it worse.  The truth is that there are political situations in most festivals, schools, and even jobs.  I've certainly encountered unpleasant political situations at Eastman, which pleasantly prepared me for this, but many of peers were shocked and upset by the whole thing.  The only thing you can do, in the end, is to believe in yourself, and give freely of your music and your love.  Only then can you truly succeed.  If you're in music to be competitive, and to beat other people, I don't know that you'll ever be happy.  There are few "fair" ways of evaluating performers, and few ways to truly decide who is the best.  Knowing that our art is objective by nature, we must be prepared for occasional injustices, while also knowing that we too may be favored by such a failed system of adjudication and evaluation.  I'm sure that many talented people don't get into NEC every year, and because I had connections, I was guaranteed a returning spot.  Maybe someone else was negatively affected by my advantages, and I have to know that everything is equal in the end.  One negative consequence may lead to a great success later down the line, and vice versa.  Perceived failures can also make us work harder, and rekindle our desire to express the music within us, rather than focus on ourselves and our achievements.  That's at least what I hope.

Listening to: Radiohead!  it's been a while.

Little Children: prejudice and hate in suburbia.

           Last night, I saw a film that was interestingly thought provoking: Little Children, starring Kate Winslet and Patrick Wilson (also in Hard Candy and the Watchmen-I think I'm in love with him.)  Anyway, it started off as one of those normal "families falling apart in suburbia" (think chumscrubber, american beauty, revolutionary road, etc.)  Anyway, the storyline that was in fact the most interesting, at least to me, was that of the child molester who moves back in with his mother in the same neighborhood as everyone in this suburban dwelling.  He is publicly ostricized, is prohibited from being near parks, schools, etc, and the only person who can see past all of this is his mother.  He is not an entirely sympathetic character- it is clear that he has not recovered from his indecent urges, and still suffers.  His mother sets him up on a blind date with someone from a personal ad, who turns out to be a woman recovering from a mental breakdown.  He behaves himself for the whole date, and then, in the car, while they are talking, he exposes himself and begins feverishly masturbating, traumatizing the woman.  It's clear that he has problems, and he knows that he can't escape them.  A former policeman continues to attack him throughout the film, and also attacks his mother, until she has a heart attack and later dies in the hospital.  The former molester ultimately has a breakdown of his own, because his mother's last words were "Be a good boy for me."  He knows that he shouldn't feel or do the things that he does, but he can't stop them, and he loses it.  He is basically an outsider and can't conform to society's norms.  At the end, Kate Winslet finds him in the park, where he is sitting in a swing, crying and moaning.  He confesses that his Mommy has died, the only person who could ever love him.  And she realizes that he is a person, not a monster.  Another character in the film finds him in the park later, and realizes that he has taken a kitchen knife and castrated himself, so that he "can be good."  It's then that I felt so much sympathy for this character, because he wanted to be good, to be normal, to fit in, but he couldn't, for so long.  The movie's main plot is focused on the two marriages that are falling apart, Winslet's and Wilson's, and they have an affair.  However, this is not terribly relevant to my spiel.

     Perhaps this is far-fetched, but for me, I saw Ronnie, the molester, as a symbol for all of the outsiders in society, in this suburbia.  He is a freak, someone deserving of ridiculous punishment, as the women in the park speak of in the beginning of the film.  They talk of how he should be castrated as punishment for his actions in the past.  His plot line in the film reminded me so much of the current war against gay marriage, gay adoption, and even homosexuality in Christianity.  The people of the town see Ronnie as someone having chosen his affliction, who enjoys hurting people, and who has no redeeming qualities.  I often see the same argument for homosexuality, and it troubles me.  How can we be so lacking in compassion that we see people as mere shadows of what they actually are?  Despite Ronnie's major flaws, he loved his mother very much, and clearly, should've been in a psychiatric ward.  Anyone not conforming to the "straight" orientation label doesn't choose  their affliction, nor do they want to hurt people.  (I'm not in any way trying to connect the actions and lifestyle of Ronnie with the actions of non-straight people.  Any such connection is ludicrous.  I'm merely noting that society ostracizes people as harshly for criminal acts and psychological issues as they do for a sexual orientation, and that, is quite tragic.)

      Thanks to jucispeak, I can keep up on women's issues and issues of equality, whether in gendered, orientation, or racially based situations.  Sadly, the battle is far from over.  This clip, taken from jucispeak and feministing, illustrates this issue, and proves that many people still see homosexuality as an illness, a choice, and a lot of other crazy things.  (Ever watch the NOM-Gathering Storm Video?  There are so many responses to it...)  Anyway, let's hope that we can change people's point of view, or at least relax the hate a little bit. 

Currently listening to: The Dodo's "Visiter"  It's *awesome*.