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Pastimes : Don't Ask Rambi -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Janice Shell who wrote (7032)	2/7/1998 11:03:00 AM
From: Rambi	Read Replies (7) \| Respond to of 71178

A TIRADE ABOUT SOMETHING THAT HAS NO GREAT POLITICAL IMPORT AND PROBABLY DIDN"T BOTHER ANYONE BUT ME- Last night we sat down with our pizza to watch the Opening Ceremonies of the XVIII Winter Games in Nagano. These ceremonies are wonderful, concise glimpses into a culture, showing the world a country's most beautiful traditions, its proudest moments, its music, dance, and past and often its vision of the future. I love the parade of nations, the looks on the faces of the young athletes as they enter the stadium, the accompanying personal glimpses into the struggles of some to get there. From the ringing of the Zenkoji Temple bell, the Japanese presented an elegant, traditional ceremony. It was truly, cleanly beautiful. Before it began, CBS talked with the energetic and obviously inspired Seiji Ozawa, who is the longtime conductor of the Boston Symphony and would be conducting an international orchestra and chorus that night in the Fourth Movement of Beethoven's 9th-the famous Ode to Joy movement. Not only would a chorus be singing in Japan, but choruses in Sidney, Capetown, New York, Beijing, and Berlin would be singing along simultaneously with Ozawa, telecast throughout the world. It was a breathtaking concept-not just technologically, but symbolically, the whole world singing together one of the most glorious efforts of one of the world's greatest composers, his valiant expression of the brotherhood of mankind. Musicians from the great orchestras of the world were gathered together for this, the most wonderful solo voices, and do you know what CBS did? Two minutes into the movement, they cut away to a commercial, and then they proceeded to cut away most of the movement; we were treated to a meaningless interview with Michelle Kwan telling us that she was going to the Olympics to "have a good time". We saw around fifteen Ford, IBM, and American Airlines commercials. And all this time across the world, this incredible thing was happening! Finally they returned for the closing few minutes. Did CBS decide that the American people were incapable of sustained attention to a classical work that demands more of us than the three minute pop song, than a Motown musical garbage assault like the Superbowl half-time show? That we couldn't appreciate either the technological achievement-awesome when you consider it-or the moving, global implications of the accomplishment without their chatter and their interruptions? That this was a good time to get all those revenue producing ads in? I thought this was insulting to the Olympics, to Japan and to us. I was incensed. If I had any idea to whom to address this, I'd write to CBS. Do you know what scares me though? What if they're right? The American people have shown they can immerse themselves for weeks in the degrading, decadent, cheap minutiae of a President's penile prowess, shrouding their fascination in an affectation of political import and philosophical issues. Perhaps we have lost the ability for spiritual elevation? The desire to dwell on those things that represent the best of us, challenge us to be something more noble than we are? It is much easier to slide downward than to climb to the heavens. Do we still believe in a life of the spirit? Our own capability for spiritual greatness? Non est astra nollis e terris via There is no easy way from the earth to the stars. (Seneca) I hope they're not right about us.