Wagner Again

[OperaTenor]

Yeah, you better! :p

[dai bread 1]

Originally posted by shostakovich:

Hi Dai. What side of the road do you guys drive on?
Shos

Left hand side, Shos. That's why we have lots of Japanese cars here and very few American ones.

If you want revisionist history, try the Japanese school syllabus covering the years 1930-45. WWII? What's that? Manchuria? Lovely place for a holiday! And as for that Bomb! Oh, those dreadful Americans!

I've had Japanese people sitting goggle-eyed in front of my TV when WW2 footage was shown. They'd never seen anything like it.

On a more frivolous note, Enid Blyton's "Noddy" books were sanitised because the Gollywog was considered to be demeaning to Blacks. I don't know if anyone ever asked the Blacks if they felt demeaned.

As for Richard and the Nazis, I suspect his music appealed to them in much the same way as Speer's architecture. Massive, solid, monumental, and, as someone else said on this board, powerful. And yes, I like the vocals. Particularly the bass ones.

[lliam]

Originally posted by dai bread:
Perhaps time is eliminating the Nazis, or at least sending them off people's radar screens.
So I enjoy my Wagner and never give a thought to the man's obnoxious beliefs.

=======================================

Whether Wagner would have condemned Hitler for the death camps is an interesting question. Wagner did welcome news of a program in Russia where Jews died. There were Germans after the war who practiced denial and there still are some who do today. Some Germans and Austrians thought and think the Jews have been overly loud about the Holocaust. Hitler was a welcome guest of Wagner's family at Bayreuth from the early 1920s, long before he came to power. While Wagner might well have thought Hitler went too far, I think that is still an open question.

That Wagner was one of the greatest composers is beyond doubt.
That he was one of the greatest antisemites is, unfortunately, also beyond doubt.

Lliam.

[BenMurphy6]

that we have to keep the two separate is also beyond doubt.

well, to me, at least.

[PatriciaSelf]

Need to post a correction here:

Wagner did welcome news of a program in Russia where Jews died.

What Russia had were pograms, so different. At a given time, Cossacks would ride out to a village (of Jews) and wreak havoc. Raping, pillaging, etc. Why? Often because the nobility thought it made great sport.

The History Channel starts a multi-night showing tonight of their perspective of Tsarist Russia. It should be interesting ...

As for the Wagner-Hitler obsession, we all know the emotional level of Wagnerian music. The chorus from Tannhauser, Die Meistersinger's overture, etc. How better to show off the majesty of Hitler's evening fetes? Torchlight, high walls with imposing figures on same, flags draped and flaring with every breeze? Theater, people, theater it was!

<small>[ 05-26-2003, 08:10 PM: Message edited by: WillowCreek ]</small>

[shostakovich]

Just an update on Lyle "Wagner" of the Carol Burnett show. I thought his name had 2 "g"s, based on reading credits after the shows. It was either Waggoner or Wagoner, but definitely not Wagner, despite any search results.
Shospicious of internet "facts".

[OperaTenor]

I vote for "Wagner", else my dumb humor would be dumber still...

[haggis]

Donna,

Pete Rose never bet when he was a player. to punish him for something that happened AFTER he quit playing is just dumb. Heck, that is the same as pulling "Joltin' Joe's" nomination because he sold "Mr. Coffee" machines. I can assure you there were purists who were aghast and I can remember one editorial pontificating about the commercialization of the players!!

Beside, damit, Pete DESERVES it, heck, even people who never watched him play think he deserves it.

"About Wagner"......<Haggis pensively pulls at a petulant lip>

"Wagner was....."<Haggis walks outside looks up into the "Smoggy, Smoggy Night," sighs, thinks to himself; "You PROMISED!! No more Wagner shi…..comments!!"......>

"Wagner just…." <"Ah!!! That damn Shos started this thread, he's still mad about the King of Denmark debacle!!!">


et al, <quest here shos. Can you use "et al" without a leading referent?>

I am SO SICK of all the codswallop over the Wagner kerfuffle! - Actually being able to user "kerfuffle and "codwallop" is one sentence has positively brought -"broughten"? - a glow to my cheek.


For the last time - MUHAHHAHAHAHA, right! - Wagner's anti-Semitism was simply a reflection of the prevailing biases and bigotry of the time.

Remember when the nasty Germans did terrible things to the Jews in the Warsaw ghetto in the 1940's??? Ever ask yourself how the Jews came to be living in such a concentration??? Read some Polish history from the 1860's!!!

More importantly to all and diver who actually care. I have FINALLY returned to Dallas (Plano, actually) from my job related sentence of living in Dayton Ohio.

For the record, I spent five months and three winters in Ohio.

"I'm an American by birth, but I'm a Southerner by the grace of God"

[thornhill]

Donna,

Pete Rose never bet when he was a player.

Actually, I *believe* that he did bet when he was a player, but only that his team would win.

[bignaf]

now Wagner was an agressive player. once they were issuing a intentional walk to him so he steps over thge plate and raps a single into opposite field past the stunned infielders. Honus Wagner, that is.
we already have 2 baseball threads here. I dson't need to visit my baseball board anymore! i can do it all here.

[dai bread 1]

Originally posted by WillowCreek:
What Russia had were pograms, so different.....

Oh, I don't know.... A pogrom was a program of serious harrassment, was it not?

[haggis]

Bignaf......THAT post is truly the beginnings of a cleverly cunning classic...."Back off Shos..I haven't seen YOU alliterate!!"

I think you should spend a few hours working on it and refine it to a routine worthy of a Shostikovich put down.

Thorn...
Nope. There is NO EVIDENCE Pete ever bet when he played...notice I said "no evidence."

Maybe he did....but then...maybe they ALL did. Bottom line pal?

You can't disprove a negative. i.e. "We can't prove Walt Disney was a pinko, commie, faggotty girly boy"

Big, i REALLY want you to expand that thought!!!

I'm usually flip and comedic and - dare I say it - incredibly witty and oh so sophisticated and observant, but.
<Takes a deep breath, lets it out a little, holds it, squeeeezzze the trigger>

Richard Wagner, 1813-83

He was an arrogant, vile, suspicious, nasty, intolerant white supremacist who mistrust Jews, and blacks, and poor people, and Eastern Europeans, and Orientals, and he PROBABLY read and believed the "Dialogues in Hell Between Machiavelli and Montesquieu", published by the non-Jewish French satirist Maurice Joly in 1864, which was the precursor of the virulent anti-Semitic “"Protocols of the Elders of Zion."

He despised anyone who he felt was his intellectual or genetic inferior. He reviled and frequently railed against almost any group that wasn’t white, protestant, upper class, etc.

So, this terrible man was……typical of ALL 19th century elitist groups of intellectuals, writers, composers, poets, politicians, and……

Typical of any group of anybody in Europe and the U.S. who was white, lower, middle or upper class, actually, typical of, well, ANYONE in Europe AND the U.S. who WASN’T Jewish.

<Weapon fires, recoils, surprising the shooter, who exhales>


Guys, gals and dear hearts, SO WHAT?!?! I like Don Ho's “Tiny Bubbles…” early Madonna music, Dixie Chicks, and <sigh> it’s no secret here, I even professed an admiration for early “Milli Vanilli” <softly cries to himself, “Why did they doooo it??? sobs, sniff> cleans himself up.

Now, I feel I can get to the main point of my point.

I like Wagner. I have always liked Wagner. My wife - red headed, NASTY tempered Yankee nurse - likes Wagner, My sons like Wagner!

I can remember my mother-in-law, struck dumbfounded when my 9-year-old sons sat, spell bound, watching and listening to the entire “Ring” on PBS for two night.

Watching it IN German WITH all the fat Germans…I got hemorrhoids trying to keep up with them. I was in PAIN and couldn’t stand it and they never stopped watching.

I asked them what did they liked, the music, the <snigger> singing, the <snigger, squared> fat Germans, or <Snig~et al Cubed> the 1950’s stage setting?

They said – they were nine – they said “Daddy, it made me feel good” (see note below)


Wagnerian music makes me FEEL GOOD. I can’t help it. I like it. I want to to put on a helmet with horns on it and terrorize Ireland, my ancestral home, with one of those big hammers; and guess what????

I LOVE Bug Bunny's “What’s Opera Doc”

“Oh Brunhilda you’re so lovely”, “Yes I know it I can’t help it”

Am I a racist, bigoted, intellectual snob? NO! – well O.K. I’ll concede the “snob” allegation.

I - just - like - the - music.

Its uplifting and, under the right circumstances, when I look at the Milky Way when I listen to Wagner, I get tears in my eyes.

On Dec 23, 1992, I was in a town us vulgar G.I.s called "Kiss-my-Ass" but was actually Kismayu, Somalia, about 400 feet North of the Equator. No ground light, no distractions – i.e. no one was shooting at me at the time – and I had Wagner on my Walkman and could see the Milky Way AND the Southern Cross…and.....It was an epiphany.

The man might have been a despicable human by 20th / 21st century standards, but guess what? Most of them, including most of YOUR ancestors, were too.

But, Oh lord, for me, he wrote stirring and beautiful, beautiful music.

If you hate horns and pomposity and Fat Germans, and Norse legends and all that Uber crap……fine - note please I never once said "Krauts" oops, oh crap!!!

If you don't like it, fine, don't like it, that's your right. But don't not like it for the wrong reasons.

It's great music........


WOW!!! I feel like a -err "an" - editor!!!

<small>[ 05-27-2003, 01:57 AM: Message edited by: Haggis ]</small>

[BenMurphy6]

i never thought i'd see the bbb sink to the level of pro baseball...

[lliam]

Quote by Haggis.
================
He was an arrogant, vile, suspicious, nasty, intolerant white supremacist who mistrust Jews
================================================
Yet, he enjoyed close friendships with colleagues of Jewish origin.
:confused: :confused:

[Gaby]

And the Kraut sayeth:

Thank Goodness that Wagner and Hitler never met each other. His "friendship" with crazy King Ludwig was enough! I can just imagine what stories Adolf's and Richard's "harmonizing" would have brought about!

[dkm32]

Originally posted by Haggis:
Donna,

Pete Rose never bet when he was a player. to punish him for something that happened AFTER he quit playing is just dumb.

Beside, damit, Pete DESERVES it, heck, even people who never watched him play think he deserves it.

Pete DID gamble/bet when he was playing. Not all was baseball, but some of it was. He also hung around with shady characters. That didn't help!

I agree that Pete's playing abilities make him deserving. But, baseball is so concious of the Black Socks Scandle and what it did to the game, that they may never let him in. It a doubt shame because I'd bet money that lots of other player gambled on games!

For the record, I spent five months and three winters in Ohio.

Me too! However, it only took one Calendar month!

Now, back to Richard Wagner...Please!!

<small>[ 05-27-2003, 11:54 AM: Message edited by: dkm32 ]</small>

[haggis]

Sigh, so many windmills so little time…

Gabbers,

Lately, there's been some credible revisionist history strongly suggesting Ludwig wasn't really insane.

The ministers in his Bavarian government wanted to join Bavaria with the newly emerging and unified Germany and Ludwig (and most Bavarians!) were skeptical of the proposed arrangement. To make their case more compelling his ministers started a rumor that he was bankrupting Bavaria building his castles. In fact, he built the castle out of his own money and never touched the country's treasury.

In another story when the Nazi’s invaded Bavaria he wore a yellow star and….oops sorry, Wrong country wrong King – Shos will make me pay for that one!!!


Undoubtedly he was odd and had a few chilly drafts blowing through his attic, but he was a self-taught architectural engineer and some of his castles have some amazingly “modern” adaptations he designed.

I visited Neuschwanstein as a kid and as an adult – it’s a monster of a hike up to that rock pile - I was last there in 1997 and they were planning then to begin some choral and musical programs in the Throne room (?) and the tickets were going to be free. They would have to be if they expected anyone to WALK there! I would love to hear a Wagner piece in that room. THAT setting was, literally, made for Wagner. I get goose bumps thinking about it.

Anyway, “crazy” Ludwig’s castles are now a major tourist draw and they fit so perfectly into the countryside.

[EJA]

Haggis, is it just me, or are you re-using content? I don't mind; I'm just trying to figure out if I'm really going crazy (See I lost my car keys in my bedroom yesterday and couldn't find them for 4 hours — turned out I was almost faint with hunger and after I ate something I found them, but there's still that nagging suspicion that I'm losing it . . . I think I'll go listen to some more Wagner . . . )

[thornhill]

i never thought i'd see the bbb sink to the level of pro baseball...

Ben,

I think the analogy holds - Pete Rose not be honored for his talent in baseball because of what he did off the field (yes he bet on baseball games, but only that his team would win; a far cry from throwing games to win bets).

[audiogirl]

Waggoner is correct. (Pulls at earlobe as she types.)

Pete should not be let in, IMO.

If you take racial slurs out of To Kill A Mockingbird, then it makes the villains in the novel seem less evil and ignorant, which only works against the message of the book. If you can't figure out the underlying themes of books like Mockingbird and Huck Finn, then don't read them.

Gregory Peck has a grandkid named Harper. (Just a smidgen of trivia.)

Wagner: Not-nice man. Okay music. Listen if you like.