Daily Archives: September 21, 2019

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When the world is in a state of complete disarray and chaos, the impulse to say Dont worry, things will get better, can come off as naive or privileged or foolish or just downright incorrect. Call it cynicism, call it rationalism, call it being just plain realistic. Seeking hope in a hopeless world just doesnt seem as possible these days.

Not impossible, mind you. Just less possible. Theres a difference.

Moving on, though: lets talk about historical fiction.

The creation and presentation of a work that reflects on a previous historical event has many intentional and unintentional purposes. It works as document of that event, especially if it is from a lesser-known historical perspective. It also works as a means of creating engagement with a history that otherwise might not have been: we are naturally drawn toward narrative and conflict. Finding a means to further inject these values into a piece of history only increases our engagement with the events.

But the unintendedor perhaps secretly intendedrepercussions of a historical drama can be to show how Not Good/Very Bad things used to be while highlighting Just How Far Weve Come since the event in question. Something like the movie Green Book, a recent example of how 1960s racism was a Much Worse Racism and shouldnt we be happy that things are So Much Better Now? I mean, things are better now, right?

Oslo, J.T. Rogers Tony Award-winning play about the backchannel negotiations of the Oslo Accords in 1993, isnt that naive. It is true that, in recounting the gripping events of how Norwegian diplomats Mona Juul (a superb Bri Sudia) and Terje Rd-Larsen (a charming Scott Parkinson) brought together representatives from the Israeli government and the Palestine Liberation Organization to begin peace discussions, you get the sense this is indeed going to be a play about a monumental event that shaped history and made everything Good, Again. But by the end of its almost three-hour running time, the play (and especially director Nick Bowlings production) is fully aware that, no, things are Not So Much Better Now. There is still a major Israeli-Palestinian conflict. There are still governments acting maliciously and innocent people being murdered and a conflict between two peoples being weaponized by external forces for political gain. And there is seemingly no end in sight to it all.

Again, seemingly. Not impossible. Just less possible.

The play, produced by TimeLine Theatre Company and Broadway In Chicago, arrives in Chicago in a practically seamless production, navigating a thirteen-actor ensemble through a cavalcade of scenes: mostly people talking in rooms or talking over the phone or talking outside in the snow. Theres a lot of talking. But the good kind! The kind that reminds you Yes, this is a play, and plays are about people talking, and the talking is engaging and good. Oslo navigates within the confines of what we have traditionally been told is a plays function to exceedingly excellent results. What it lacks in boundary-breaking format, it makes up for in detailed performances, sharp writing and expert craftsmanship.

Jeffrey Kmiecs barebones sey, combined with Mike Tutajs subtle projections, does a great job of transporting us to multiple locations. Christine Pascuals costumes are as dignified or as frumpy as the character wearing them warrants. Andre Pluess music is gripping and provides plenty of forward momentum. Jesse Klugs lights are specific and clear. Its a well-packaged clean production about an inherently messy topic. The dissonance is not lost.

Oslo stands as a beacon of possibility in a world where that is not always a guarantee. Its final momentscemented by Sudias reticence to accept a happy endingmay just bring you close to tears. This desire for hope within hopelessness is just one piece of the puzzle of our world. To see Oslo is certainly not an invitation to start and finish ones engagement in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict then and there. Your work is never done, as well it shouldnt be. But it begs you to consider, in the smallest way, that peace is possible. That hope is possible.

We were not there in 1993. We are not there now.But the possibility. The possibility is there. Somewhere. Do you see it? (Ben Kaye)

TimeLine Theatre Company and Broadway In Chicago at Broadway Playhouse at Water Tower Place, 175 East Chestnut, broadwayinchicago.com, $35-$95. Through October 20.

The rest is here:

How Far to Hope: A Review of Oslo at TimeLine Theatre Company and Broadway In Chicago - Newcity Stage

Has the mass murder of Europes Jews eclipsed the other significant horrors of Hitlers Germany? Does it matter? And is it possible to address this without being accused by the thought police of belittling the Holocaust? Let me try.

These questions are raised in the greatest film released in the past year, Never Look Away. Made by the aristocrat Florian von Donnersmarck, the director who created the masterpiece The Lives of Others, it has yet to attract the cult following rightly achieved by his first major work. I think it ought to.It is beautiful, immensely powerful, and packed with thoughts about goodness, the temptations of power and evil, and the nature of art.The films depictions of the morally complicated yet triumphant birth of a baby amid misery and ruin, and of the cynical use of abortion in a fathers evil attempt to end his daughters love affair, are firmly on the side of humanity, and should be treasured in their own right.

At the heart of the story is a Dickensian mystery of unrevealed guilt, quite unbelievable but based upon a true story. The original evil act destroys a beautiful young woman, suffering from some unknown mental illness, who is caught by Hitlers eugenics program. Even if you think you know about this sordid corner of National Socialism, which begins with steely pseudo-rationalism and ends in rank murder, the relatively gentle portrayal of this crime and the others happening alongside it will greatly shock and distress you.But it, and other elements of this film, ought also to waken the consciences of many on the self-described progressive left.

For these progressives, the Nazi era has been both a sort of moral scripture and a source of certainties.With increasing force since the 1970s, the left has managed to associate the Hitler period with the political and moral right. Here, they insist, is every aspect of conservatism in full power. Behold, they say, the evils which follow from conservative thought, from love of country and martial strength. See here how the ideas behind immigration controls or sexual conservatism also lead inescapably to the Yellow Star and the Pink Triangle, the death camp, the gas chamber, and the crematorium.

Above all, when it studies the mass murder of Europes Jews it can assert with relief that nothing of this kind stains our hygienic and enlightened society, which put an end to everything of this sort nearly eighty years ago. Indeed, we all can assert thiswhich is interesting given that many conservative European societies, whatever their faults, never engaged in racial mass murder and in many cases bravely resisted and frustrated it when it was imposed on them by occupying invaders.

This fact complicates the simple logic which has permitted so many liberals, for so long, to cry Fascist! at conservatives, and so silence and marginalize them. It might cause the more intelligent progressives to consider, with a little more care, what National Socialism actually was. If it was what they say it was, why was it so hostile to the Christian church, a body which modern liberals tend to see as a force for conservatism?And why did Nazis and Communists cooperate, most spectacularly in that great ignored spasm of cynicism, the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact of August 1939the most astonishing political event of the twentieth century and the least known?

We are told that Stalin did it out of bitter necessity, to buy time, and that there was no true friendship or alliance in it.The awkward truth is that it was far warmer than that. There was a joint Nazi-Soviet victory parade in Brest Litovsk. Everyone in the pictures of this event looks happy (the unhappy people had already been shot or locked up). And the Soviet NKVD secret police, the essence of Communism, the sword and shield of the Communist Party,then staged a prisoner exchange with Hitlers Gestapo, likewise the very core of National Socialist fervor. If you admit these things, then you are in historical trouble, and it is trouble which the film Never Look Away helps to foment.

For some background it is worth turning to Julia Boyds fascinating Travellers in the Third Reich. This work is unusual in that it discusses just how similar Communism and National Socialism were, in some respects.She quotes Denis de Rougemont, a Christian Swiss writer and cultural theorist.De Rougemont began by thinkingthat Hitlers state was a regime of the right. But during a lengthy stay in Frankfurt as a visiting professor, he found himself involuntarily questioning this. What unsettled him, writes Boyd, was the fact that those who stood most naturally on the rightlawyers, doctors, industrialists and so onwere the very ones who most bitterly denounced National Socialism. Far from being a bulwark against Communism, they complained,it was itself communism in disguise [my emphasis].

De Rougemont recounted: They pointed out that only workers and peasants benefited from Nazi reforms, while their own values were being systematically destroyed by devious methods. They were taxed disproportionately, their family life had been irreparably harmed, parental authority sapped, religion stripped and education eliminated.

A lawyers wife complained to him, Every evening my two children are taken over by the Party. This experience was not all that different from what was happening at the same time to the children of Soviet parents.The Nazis, being utopian fanatics more concerned with the future than the present, were prepared to pay quite a high price for taking over the minds of the young. As Thomas Manns daughter Erika pointed out in her excoriating book on the subject, School for Barbarians, the quality of education was gravely damaged under the Hitler regime, which (as left-wing regimes also often do) promoted or protected bad but politically acceptable teachers, and polluted the teaching of all arts and historical subjects. It believed it was more urgent to teach the young what to think than to show them how to think.

Hitler himself taunted his opponents for their powerlessness against him. They might rage at him as much as they liked, but When an opponent declares I will not come over to your side I say calmly Your child belongs to us already . . . What are you? You will pass on. Your descendants, however, now stand in the new camp. In a short time they will know nothing but this new community. He was so nearly right.

As for the defeated left, a startling number of them came over to the new camp almost immediately. De Rougemont spoke to a renegade Communist who had switched sides and joined the Hitlerites, who said,

National Socialism was egalitarian and horribly modern. It sided with children against parents and (often) teachers. It built super-highways, gigantic holiday camps, space rockets, and jet engines. It planned to create mass car ownershipthough tanks, in the end, came first.In military matters it was open to the newest ideas and encouraged innovation and initiative. It poured resources into the movie industry, developed television, and sponsored a type of Godless modern architecture which can still be seen in the Berlin Olympic Stadium and the remnants of the Nuremberg parade grounds.Its leaders embraced sexual freedom.

And then there were Hitlers eugenics schemes, portrayed so heartbreakingly in Never Look Away. These were conducted in public at the beginning, and even endorsed by noisy propaganda campaigns in the media. And they were far from unique: Nazi Germany, in this case, was following the democracies.Hitlers eugenics squads began in ways that the rest of the world (at the time) could not easily object to. Compulsory sterilization of the supposedly mentally unfit was introduced in Germany a few months after National Socialism came to power. But several free and enlightened countriesincluding Canada, Sweden, Switzerland, and the U.S.had also permitted it in various forms, and would in some cases carry on doing so into our own era.

It was a progressive cause, embraced at the time by the progressives progressive, H. G. Wells. Marie Stopes, the great apostle of contraception in interwar Britain, was alsolike many among the progressives of the timea keen eugenicist.In 1935, she attended a Congress for Population Science in Nazi Berlin. In August 1939, she even sent Hitler a volume of her dreadful poems, accompanied by a treacly epistle about love. Yet all this has been forgotten amid continuing progressive admiration for Marie Stopess embrace ofwhat are nowadays known as reproductive rights. Marie Stopes International, a powerful and flourishing modern organization, still bears her name as it campaigns for and defends those reproductive rights.

Am I saying (someone will accuse me of this) that modern abortion and contraception campaigners are Nazis, or inheritors of Nazis?Certainly not. I regard any such claim as ridiculous rubbishas ridiculous as the claim that modern patriotic conservatives, skeptical about mass immigration, are Nazis or inheritors of Nazis.

My point is wholly different.It is that all ideas must be argued on their merits, and that all attempts to establish guilt by association should be regarded with suspicion. And that those who wish to use the Hitler era as a way of depriving others of legitimacy should understand that this period, precisely because it cast aside therestraints of Christian morality and duty, liberated many ideas from ancient, sometimes despised limits which turned out, in the end,to be wise and kind.

Peter Hitchensis a columnist for theMail on Sunday.

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Hitler the Progressive | Peter Hitchens - First Things

Jewish parents: be ready for your kids calling you from campus.

It might not be about please transfer money into my account.

It might be about something that you might not have expected.

On college campuses, there is a growing sense that the mood is turning not only anti-Israel, but anti-Jewish and anti-Judaism.

Earlier this year, that consortium hosted a conference on Gaza. One of the presenters at this high-profile conference was the Palestinian rapper Tamer Nafar. He told the audience that he wanted to sing them a song, but that he needed their help singing it, because I cannot be anti-Semitic alone.

According to Bari Weiss (How To Fight Anti-Semitism) this is becoming the new normal on college campuses. Jewish students find that their core beliefs and very existence is under threat that the word Zionist itself has become a casual slur. Read her new book,

Because, in a world of uber-sensitivity and trigger warnings, there is one group that apparently does not deserve such sensitivity.

You got it.

Its the Jews.

I cannot say that this is new.

I encountered it myself, more than forty years ago, when I was a student on the college campus. The casual and vitriolic anti-Israelism, from both students and professors (and this, in the wake of the Yom Kippur War) was searing.

I do not often get nostalgic about my college days, but let me tell you this story.

One of my classmates actually told me something unbelievable.

She told me that Theodor Herzl had secret meetings with Adolph Hitler which proved that the Zionists had been in cahoots with the Nazis.

Which is interesting because when Herzl died in 1904, Hitler was fifteen years old.

Since the day that I graduated from college, many fads have come and gone.

Remember disco? Gone.

Remember leisure suits? Gone thank God.

Lava lamps? Gone.

There is one fad that is still around.

Anti-Israelism.

And I think anti-religion.

Even with the plethora and veritable explosion of Jewish studies programs on campus, I have a sneaking suspicion that in many academic settings, religion and faith claims should, well, know their place.

As well they should, perhaps. In places that value rationalism and evidence-based claims, we can understand why religious claims would not be entirely admissible. These are the fruits of the Enlightenment, now close to three hundred years old and it would be useless and unhelpful to try to reverse that history.

But, outright hostility?

Re-visit the experience of the young woman at Hofstra University who told her professor that she would be absent due to the coming Days of Awe.

Her professor told her that she should re-evaluate her religious beliefs.

What did he mean by that?

Did he mean that she should re-evaluate her religious beliefs as a Jew?

Or, did he mean that she should re-evaluate her religious beliefs because they were, in fact, religious beliefs?

Again, a moment from my own college days.

I will never forget something that happened during my first week in college in 1972.

It was in a psychology class. The professor had asked us to prepare statements on how our ideas had changed over the years in many different areas politics, culture, religion, etc.

In my statement, I said that I had evolved and changed in many ways but that if there was one thing that had remained strong, resolute, and even growing it was my religious faith as a Jew.

The professor asked me to meet him in his office.

This is what he said to me.

Jeff, I wanted to meet with you, because I am very worried about you.

What worries me about you is your absolute lack of rebellion against your religion.

By the way the professor was Jewish.

So, its not only about Israel, or Zionism.

It might be about having a particular, specific identity that is most often (erroneously) identified with being white and privileged.

It might be that identity politics on campus and in certain leftist circles are only valid if those identities are of the dis-empowered (forgetting, for the moment, all of Jewish history).

And, it might also be that having a religious identity or, at least, certain kinds of religious identities is simply, well

Not. Cool. For. School.

I am thinking about the book burnings on the grounds of Humboldt University in Berlin, in 1933.

This past July, my son and I visited the sobering memorial to those destroyed volumes.

Please remember: who gathered the books into massive bonfires?

The students themselves.

The only question I have: will our Jewish students be able to stand up for, and stand up against, and stand out?

Read more from the original source:

Academic antisemitism returns - Religion News Service

In Spain, a multitude of unique buildings of great architectural value have met the same tragic end: demolition. This has variously been due to land speculation, political motives, or because the building in question was conceived as a temporary structure; but whatever the reason for razing them, these architectural landmarks now no more than a memory in the popular imagination demand that their story be told and their legacy appreciated.

Antoni Rovira i Trias original building was just a small wooden structure that sold refreshments, coffee and water. Built in 1877, it was located on the upper stretch of the Rambla avenue, near the fountain of Canaletas, and it was part of a series of projects entrusted to the head of Barcelonas Buildings and Ornamentation Department to boost the development of the urban landscape and bring it in line with other European cities.

The kiosks first owner was Felix Pons, who had a refreshment stand near the Boquera market, further down the Rambla. But in 1901 it was taken over by Esteve Sala I Canyadell, who had a bar near the Barcelona FC soccer grounds. The kiosk prospered from 1901 to 1916 after Esteve noticed that soccer fans walking out after a game often gathered at the Canaletas section of the Rambla to discuss the match. To take advantage of this, he established communication with the bar to learn how Bara had played, and prepare his kiosk with extra food and drinks according to the mood.

Structurally, Esteve arranged for a series of extensions and redesigns to cater to his growing clientele. These included a project by architect Antonio Utrillo, who added a modernist twist that turned the kiosk into a city icon. Esteve began organizing debates at his kiosk and eventually his links with Bara were such that he became the clubs manager between 1931 and 1936.

The kiosk was torn down in 1951 on the orders of Mayor Antonio Mara Serrano. Some point to Esteves strong ties with Bara, and thus with Catalan nationalism, as the reasons behind the move, although the official line was that the authorities wanted to make the Rambla more attractive to pedestrians.

The 35th Eucharistic Congress was celebrated in Barcelona in the spring of 1952. It was the first to be held after the Second World War the previous one had been in 1938 in Budapest amidst rising pre-war tensions. The 1952 congress was Francos first international event and it was publicized with the slogan The Eucharist and Peace.

The altar was designed by Josep Maria Soteras in collaboration with fellow architects Vilaseca and Riudor and set up on Diagonal avenue then known as Generalsimo avenue. It was meant to be a temporary structure, but due to its unique design, it became something of an icon that should have been preserved.

The construction addressed two needs: one spiritual and the other practical regarding the distribution of facilities and space. The solution was a huge circle representing the sacrament of the Eucharist, with a canopy 25 meters in diameter held up by three supports: a 35-meter high cross and two braces representing faith, hope and charity in a bid to accentuate its spirituality.

These features used a pentagonal base rising five meters above street level, which could be entered from the back under the cross located in the last apex of the pentagon. The entrance led into the vestry as well as the area reserved for radio broadcasting, toilets, telephone booths, a storage room and an area for security forces and firefighters, all of which was hidden below the shadow of the canopy. The canopy, which resembled a vault, had a circular window that let natural light through during the day and artificial light by night.

This project was sponsored by the businessman Manuel Porres and designed by the young architect Francisco Javier Goerlich, 28, and rapidly made headlines due to its grand pretensions. Large enough to fit 1,500 people, it was built in a record seven months and inaugurated in 1914 on Pi y Margall street, which has since been renamed Paseo de Ruzafa.

Goerlich wanted the construction to be modernist in style and he decorated the faade with various sculptures. Within, the architect Luis Benlliure designed a hall in the style of Louis XIV with an imposing central staircase that led to the orchestra section and two side staircases going up to the first floor.

It was originally conceived as an auditorium offering plays and concerts, but some years later, due to financial difficulties, it was renamed Lrico Theater and used exclusively as a movie theater, making it the first Spanish cinema on that scale. It closed, however, in 1948 and there was no legislation in place to prevent it from being torn down.

This project was the brainchild of a stationery salesman who had become aware of the profits to be made from making writing materials. It was 1934 and, with the help of a group of partners who all lived in Ferrol, in the northwestern region of Galicia, he set up a pencil factory that he called Hispania S.L. using existing infrastructure within the city. Due to the companys success, however, a bespoke factory was built in 1938, which was designed by Nemesio Lpez Rodrguez using simple straight lines in the style of industrial rationalism, popular at the time. It also included touches of art dco, a style that had previously been used in Spain.

The factory started out with pencils and fountain pens but it also produced colored pencils, wax crayons and felt tip pens. During the 1950s, it was producing 50 million units a year and employing a staff of more than 400. But in the 1960s, the Spanish economy was in a critical situation following a prolonged period of autarchy, during which Franco had sought economic self-sufficiency. The regime adopted a number of austerity measures combined with some liberalizing policies that dealt a blow to certain industries, which now found themselves unable to compete on the international market.

After accepting that it could not win back the market share lost to China, Taiwan and Czechoslovakia, the company made a plan to wind up its business when its staff retired, with a date set for October 30, 1986. The factory was sold and the building was left empty, with a view to using the land for property development, despite a strong lobby arguing for it to be turned over to public use. It was eventually torn down in 2012.

This building should have been preserved at all costs, not just because of its appearance but also because of its purpose, which reflected a more leisurely age. Designed by the architect Jos de Azpiroz y Azpiroz in 1930, it featured rationalist lines that were softened at the buildings corners while the horizontal nature of its structure, which occupied almost an entire block, was emphasized by a thin white cornice that split the entrance.

The fact that it was low and gave onto two streets Espronceda and Fernndez de la Hoz allowed the sidewalks to be bathed in plenty of natural light, but it is the buildings use, rather than its design, that triggers nostalgia. Here, cars were pampered in a building so spacious that it housed a workshop, an administration area, a salesroom selling both new and second-hand vehicles, a gas station and a vast waiting area complete with a bar.

The gas station was located in the chamfer, which was decorated with a winged pilaster the company logo. Unfortunately, such a rambling structure was inevitably going to fall prey to speculators in a neighborhood like Chamber, where space is at a premium.

Olavide Market is possibly the starkest example of the loss of national architectural gems. Turning the area into a public square might have been a good option if it had somehow considered how this could work alongside architect Javier Ferrero Llusas design, which was one of the finest examples of rationalist architecture in Madrid. In fact, its demolition in 1974 was highly controversial.

The market had its origins in the second half of the 19th century, when a growing number of street stalls began to set up in the square. In 1934, Ferrero received the assignment from the government of the Second Republic as part of a wider urban-planning program, which aimed to solve the lack of infrastructure at the time.

Furnished with a supply area and ramp for vehicles, its octagonal shape conformed perfectly with the shape of the square itself the octagons went up in stages toward the center until reaching the central patio, which ventilated the whole.

The buildings demolition took place amid tension between city authorities, who considered the structure obsolete, and the local residents, entrepreneurs and architects who recognized its value.

In the Madrid district of Alameda de Osuna, there are still residents who remember this area as the Motocine. This recreational space was designed by the architect Fernando Chueca Goitia in collaboration with the engineer Bello Lasierra in 1959, an imitation of the successful US model of drive-in movie theaters. The US link was the reason for erecting the building close to the US military base in Torrejn de Ardoz.

It was the biggest drive-in cinema in Spain and the second biggest in Europe, managing to accommodate 700 vehicles which were expected to line up in front of the vast cement screen. There was also a protected seating area for bikers.

It was a simple building with modern touches evident in the entrance halls and in the efficiency of the facilities. But the project was either too ambitious or too nave, and it failed to match the success of such establishments on the other side of the pond. Even the US military personnel from the Torrejn de Ardoz base did not use it as often as projected, and it closed after just a few years.

Built between 1960 and 1962, the Monky Coffee Factory was demolished without warning by its new owners in 1991 a victim of property speculation. It was designed by Genaro Alas and Pedro Casariego and its transparent, expressionist features also doubled as a giant advertising campaign, as showing off the machinery within became part of its commercial strategy. It was a simple but effective tactic, which efficiently addressed industrial requirements and the aesthetics of its corporate image.

The building was designed to be seen from the road or, more specifically, from the N-II motorway connecting the capital with the airport. The main structure consisted of steel and glass, reflecting the basic principles of the Mies van der Rohe style of architecture, and seemed very modern for its day. It was this that allowed the 20-meter high stainless steel atomizer to be seen from the outside the main piece of machinery used for producing the instant coffee.

Another lower structure with the same features housed the extractors while other buildings of exposed brick were used as offices and storehouses, harmoniously completing the complex.

Despite its name, this building was not actually a laboratory but rather the headquarters of Standard Electrics Center for Research and Development. Built between 1966 and 1970, it was awarded the National Prize for Architecture in 1972.

Also located on Madrids route to the airport, on Avenida de Amrica, its high profile was due to its location on the side of the motorway and its double-armed shape, which anticipated future expansion.

Using traditional Spanish materials and designed to allow for plenty of natural light, the structure consisted of exposed brick and huge windows framed by iron latticework, in the Neo-Mudejar or Moorish revival style. Meanwhile, the turrets were obscured by a simpler lattice design.

However, changes in urban-planning legislation prompted the owners to demolish the building after just 30 years, to make way for a more land-efficient design with no consideration for its architectural value.

English version by Heather Galloway.

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The lost architectural gems of Spains recent history - EL PAIS