Jyms of Wyzdom for April 5, 2019

A fairly good crowd of us opera fans sat through all 5 hours and 10 minutes of Die Walkure last Saturday. I still admire this production with its giant “machine” that sets the scene and becomes the background for Robert LePage’s amazing projections. I still ardently believe that Wagner needed to have a music editor, because his works are just way too long!

Money may be the husk of many things but not the kernel. It brings you food, but not appetite; medicine, but not health; acquaintances, but not friends; servants, but not loyalty; days of joy, but not peace or happiness. [Henrik Ibsen, playwright - 1828-1906] (Thanks to Dave Ornick)

The Spring OLLI term is about to launch, so I hope everyone has registered for all the classes they want. Film Forum begins today with “Mr. Smith Goes to Washington,” a blatantly political story about idealism butting heads with power groups and machine politics. One of Jimmy Stewart’s best roles to start our series on “1939: The Best Year Ever.”

Can I talk about RACISM for a few paragraphs? I am reading through Dr. Michael Dyson’s recent book, Tears We Cannot Stop, written as a set of sermons to white folk and how whiteness has been at the heart of the struggle of black people to be accepted as equal by white people. In 1967, I went to work for five years as a social worker. My second posting in Los Angeles was to the South Central office in Compton, on the edge of Watts, that had been badly burned and savaged in the 1965 riots. As a 23-year-old white kid, it was a much-needed, life-changing experience to work with a nearly all-black caseload for a year or so. Among other lessons, I found that all the people in my area, blacks, Hispanics, and Asians and some whites, had to have someone to look down on, so there was plenty of racism to go around. On the other hand, 95% of the people I worked with in my caseload of about 80 were admirable, wonderful, soulful people that had wound up on welfare because of a myriad of problems that had so much to do with our society’s systemic problems.

Dr. Dyson talks about how we whites may not think we are racist in any way, but if we are honest—really, deeply honest—we can lift our rock and see what’s down there in the dark place where we stuff unpleasantnesses. In my case, I had no bias against any people of color, but I had to admit, I was afraid of them. Why? Because I didn’t know them as friends, I didn’t seek out some of them to just sit and talk to, and I found it disquieting to go into any big room at school and find the black people sitting over there, the Asians there, and the Hispanics over in the corner. All over, in-between, were the whites acting like they owned the place. Sitting daily with people in my caseload forced me to really listen and absorb real problems and try to either find solutions or offer counsel. My greatest frustration was systemic: the County DPPS had few magic bullets lying around that would provide real, tangible help to people. Eventually, that red tape got to me and I left to become a Court Administrator!

My Wyzdom for you? There are any number of films coming out these days, from “Moonlight” to “Black Panther,” “BlackKlansman” and “Green Book” that will surely give you some insights. This book by Dr. Dyson is a revelation, so I highly recommend it to you. Lose your fear and just talk to people of color and find out that their human concerns are identical to yours.

Judging Actors: Every so often, I am asked about how one can tell if an actor is good or not. There’s a simple test, provided by Lee Strassberg, the father of the Method in the USA. I hate his brutish teaching style, but the following words of Wyzdom from Lee as priceless:

Lee Strasberg: The basic thing in acting is what William Gillette calls the illusion of the first time. It must seem that this has never taken place before, that no one has seen it before, that this actress has never done this before, and that, in fact, she’s not an actress.

With that, I will sign off for this time and wish everyone a happy spring!

Jim