Tuesday, February 26, 2008
New Symphony World
Polistra believes the NY Philharmonic concert in Pyongyang is the most important event of this year. Perhaps historians will consider this the 'inflection point' for the overall opening of NK, which will be seen as the most positive achievement of the Bush administration.
We've discussed the commercial and charitable opening of NK before; this concert represents a unique cultural opening.
Most importantly, it's an opening to the best of the West, because the NY Phil chose to play Gershwin and Dvorak rather than modernistic shit like Schönberg or Stockhausen. If we're going to send a cultural message by music, Gershwin and Dvorak send American culture and American values at their peak, thus giving NK a more valid place to start from and emulate.
There is no American music, and very little American culture, after Gershwin.
= = = = =
Sidenote: I guess it's not overly surprising that our diplomatic approach to NK is working ... Condy Rice was a hard-line Sovietologist for most of her career, and NK is the last piece of pure absolute Sovietism. If she's applying the Reagan / Thatcher methods to puncture and collapse the dictatorship, they should work in this case. Unfortunately, those methods aren't working on Arabia. ¶ 8:23 PM
Polistra believes the NY Philharmonic concert in Pyongyang is the most important event of this year. Perhaps historians will consider this the 'inflection point' for the overall opening of NK, which will be seen as the most positive achievement of the Bush administration.
We've discussed the commercial and charitable opening of NK before; this concert represents a unique cultural opening.
Most importantly, it's an opening to the best of the West, because the NY Phil chose to play Gershwin and Dvorak rather than modernistic shit like Schönberg or Stockhausen. If we're going to send a cultural message by music, Gershwin and Dvorak send American culture and American values at their peak, thus giving NK a more valid place to start from and emulate.
There is no American music, and very little American culture, after Gershwin.
= = = = =
Sidenote: I guess it's not overly surprising that our diplomatic approach to NK is working ... Condy Rice was a hard-line Sovietologist for most of her career, and NK is the last piece of pure absolute Sovietism. If she's applying the Reagan / Thatcher methods to puncture and collapse the dictatorship, they should work in this case. Unfortunately, those methods aren't working on Arabia. ¶ 8:23 PM
