This Sunday, Oct. 21 at 3 PM the Columbia Museum of Art presents the opening concert of the season for the Baker and Baker Series. "Opus Two," the duo comprised of USC violin professor William Terwilliger and Andrew Cooperstock, chair of the piano department at the University of Colorado, will give a recital in the Museum's Lorick Auditorium. I don't know what's on the program, but given that the duo has recently released a CD on Azica of some of Paul Schoenfield's exhilarating music, there's a good chance they might be doing something of his. They've been tremendously busy recently with performances in Asia as well as the recording project, so this is a great chance to hear them in Terwilliger's home base.

It's been building to this for awhile, but under the stewardship of director Karen Brosius (herself a pianist), the Museum of Art has quietly established itself as the other major presenter of concert music in the Midlands besides the University of South Carolina. (I don't count Koger Center, as they don't do classical programming. Do the SC Phil and USC Symphony rent Koger? I think they do, but someone can correct me if that's incorrect).

Besides the Baker and Baker series, the really major series at the CMA is Charles Wadsworth's chamber series. Their opening concert takes place just four days after Opus Two's concert, on Thursday night Oct. 25, and includes a stellar roster of players such as cellist Edward Arron, pianist Gilles Vonsattel, violist Toby Appel, and clarinetist Todd Palmer, the last a particular Spoleto fave for some time now.

On top of these concert series, the CMA has been presenting a really intriguing "American Music Series." The night after Wadsworth holds court in the CMA lobby, DJ Spooky takes over for a night, Oct. 26. He's got to be the only person who can count all the following among his collaborators:Steve Reich, Pierre Boulez, Wu-Tang Clan, and Sonic Youth.

Three cheers to the Columbia Museum of Art for giving Midlands concertgoers three excellent events in one week...and there's more to come. Go to their website on my "links" section to find out what's ahead this year.

The CD Helen Callus and I recorded last March in Frankfurt was released this month on the British recording label ASV. Among other outlets, it is available from Amazon and also as individual tracks or the entire album downloadable from Amazon's MP3 outlet store, and I-Tunes as well.

I think we both feel very happy with how it came out, and hope you do too. Helen's playing is remarkable, passionate, gutsy, tender. She's a first-class virtuoso violist. Her husband Michael Lieberman did a really fine transcription of the Chopin E Major Etude (here transposed to E-flat) which may become a new staple for violists. The Prokofieff Romeo and Juliet suite in the Borrisovsky transcription also works really effectively, I think...very meaty stuff for the pianist there as well. Our producer Markus Heiland was a delight to work with, as were Helen and Michael, and we all had a marvelous time on the project. [below: the view from my motel room, taken with my cellphone camera, Frankfurt, Germany, March 2007...looks a little low-rent but this is actually the lodging of choice for many musicians who are working at the studios of the Hessischer Rundfunk a few blocks away...simple but clean and comfy.]

This Friday night, Oct. 12, the Nickelodeon Theatre will host a 10:30 PM screening, one show only, of Joel and Ethan Coen's brilliant 1998 comedy, "The Big Lebowski.". Since I first saw it on its release, "Lebowski" has been my very favorite movie; it just gets to me in some very deep place every single time, and I've seen this movie at least a dozen times. A wire-bound copy of the screenplay, bought on the street in New York City for a few bucks, sits on my bookshelf, though I don't really need to look at it---by now I've seen the movie so many times that I can recite large stretches of dialogue by memory.

A few months ago, the noted critic Terry Teachout posted on his very fine blog, "About Last Night," a rather disparaging essay on this particular Coen Brothers' effort. Though I enjoy reading much of Teachout's commentaries on film, theatre, visual art, and music, I found his take on "Lebowski" to be way off the mark, and e-mailed him a response to his criticisms. He did not choose to post any of that response on his blog at the time, so I thought this upcoming Nickelodeon showing of "Lebowski" would be a perfect opportunity to quote some of his views on the film, followed by my response. [SPOILER ALERT: my response to Terry Teachout gives away some elements of the plot, so don't read it if you don't want to know what happens in the film...though the actual plot of "The Big Lebowski" is probably the least important of its charms, which is why people love to watch it over and over again even when they know what will happen.]

First, quoted from Terry Teachout's essay, which you can read in its entirety here:

I sometimes find myself temporarily disarmed by a movie that is smart on the surface; less often, a film may simulate smartness so effectively that I go home thinking it was good, and only later realize that I've been hornswoggled. Joel and Ethan Coen fall between these two stools. I've seen most all of the Coen brothers' movies, and in nearly every case I had the same sequence of mixed feelings, not after the fact but on the spot. First came a rush of something like relief, usually within the first minute or two: whatever else Blood Simple, The Hudsucker Proxy, and Fargo were, they weren't stupid. Thus reassured, I relaxed and started to enjoy myself--but then second thoughts started to creep in, not about how smart the Coens were, but about the ends to which their smartness was being put.

The movie that finally caused me to make up my mind about the Coen brothers was The Big Lebowski, in which they explicitly satirized the film noir conventions with which they played in Blood Simple and Miller's Crossing. In case you've forgotten, The Big Lebowski is the story of Jeff "The Dude" Lebowski, a former SDS member who spent his undergraduate days occupying administration buildings and smoking dope by the kilo (his sole achievement in life is to have helped write "the original Port Huron Statement--not the compromised second draft"), has renounced his dreams of revolution and retired to Los Angeles, the paradise of sloth and disillusion, where he draws unemployment, slurps down White Russians more or less continuously and hangs out at the neighborhood bowling alley with his foul-mouthed friends. But someone has been telling lies about the Dude, for one fine day a pair of hired thugs, mistaking him for a self-made millionaire of the same name, smash up his apartment and urinate on his rug. He thereupon seeks out "the big Lebowski" for a chat and promptly finds himself swept up in a kidnapping.

What follows is straight out of Raymond Chandler--the wheelchair-bound client, the blonde trophy wife, the sex-crazed daughter, the rich pornographer, the impossibly complex plot whose various elements never quite mesh--except that Philip Marlowe, the sardonic knight errant of The Big Sleep, has been replaced by the Dude, an unfailingly amiable slacker who reacts to the chaos swirling around him with a combination of befuddlement and good humor, pushing his remaining brain cells to the limit as he endeavors to puzzle out who did what to whom.

Like all of the Coens' movies, The Big Lebowski crackles with disdain for the irredeemable banality of American mass culture. Even Fargo, the first of their films to appeal to a popular audience--and the only one to suggest a certain grudging respect for the traditional values it portrays--took a decidedly dim view of life in small-town Minnesota. It's surely no coincidence that the Dude, who is alienated to the point of paralysis, is also the only person in The Big Lebowski for whom we are meant to feel anything more than amused scorn. Far more representative of the Coens' now-familiar stock company of blithering idiots is Walter Sobchak, the Dude's bowling partner, a pistol-packing Vietnam vet whose impenetrable stupidity is matched only by his unshakable conviction that he knows the one best way to do everything. Leave it to the Coens to make a joke out of post-traumatic stress disorder.

Scorn is the gunpowder of satire, and The Big Lebowski is so keenly observed that it's tempting to treat it as a serious critique of the moral emptiness of American life. It helps that there's so much to satirize in the apathetic lifestyles of such hapless members of the contemporary lumpenproletariat as Walter and the Dude, not to mention the latter-day cult of noir: both phenomena, after all, are expressions of the homegrown quasi-nihilism that is fully as intrinsic to the American national character as the Puritan work ethic which is its inversion.

But noir, for all its tiresome affectations, really does pose a challenging ethical question: how can a man conduct himself with honor in a radically corrupted society? This, needless to say, is the whole point of Chandler's novels, The Big Sleep very much included. Philip Marlowe may talk in wisecracks, but there is nothing frivolous about the way he struggles to preserve his integrity in the face of temptation. Nor are the unhappy children of the Sixties who inhabit The Big Lebowski wholly deserving of our contempt. Though they made desperate messes of their lives, their foolishness arose from genuine idealism, however misbegotten, and if they failed to appreciate the values of the society they proposed to dismantle in the name of peace, love, and understanding, it was in no small part because their parents, worn down by the Great Depression and World War II, proved unwilling to defend those values when push came once again to shove.

As for Joel and Ethan Coen, it turns out that they, too, are nihilists, albeit in the postmodern manner: believing in nothing, they find everything funny. This is why their movies so rarely engage the emotions, and thus lack the dangerous edge of real satire. Satire occurs when scorn is ignited by passion, a commodity rarely found in the work of the Coens, who prefer Gen-X cool to baby-boom angst. The last thing they'd want is to be caught feeling something intensely.

"He's a nihilist," Maude Lebowski says of one of the heavies in The Big Lebowski, to which the Dude cheerfully replies, "Oh, that must be exhausting." Indeed it is, and the Coens, like the Dude, are too tired to do anything but poke clever but ultimately pointless fun at the morally null world in which they live. True postmodernists, they look into the abyss and laugh.


Though Teachout's right that the Coens are true postmodernists, they are by no means as "nihilistic" or as determined to avoid passionate commitment to any sets of values as Teachout seems to think they are. Many aspects of the film that affect me greatly seem to have not made any impact on Teachout at all, and I wrote the following to tell him so:

I enjoy your blog very much, and found much of your analysis of "The Big Lebowski" to be quite astute, especially regarding its parody of film noir style. However, I really think that in some basic way you have missed the mark on this film. I know your piece was written some time ago; interestingly, "Lebowski," which at the time of its release seemed like a lightweight break for the Coens from some of their previous films, has steadily grown in general public esteem ever since. I actually believe it's their finest film.

May I respectfully take issue with a couple of your assertions regarding the film? I strongly disagree with your statement that "the Dude...is also the only person in The Big Lebowski for whom we are meant to feel anything more than amused scorn." Not at all..."Lebowski," while a parody of noir, is also very much a representative of the classic "buddy" movie. I've seen the movie over a dozen times, and I never fail to tear up when the Dude and Sobchak hug after the latter's inept but well-meant eulogy for their dead friend Donnie. Through it all, these two still love each other and more importantly, are the only "family" each other has. Despite the arguments, at the end of the day, the "family" stays together and muddles onward ("Fuck it, dude, let's go bowling.") So, in the end, "family values" are in some sense at the heart of this film. Don't forget, the Dude has a child on the way by the end of the film. (That's revealed to us by this film's "Greek Chorus," the deadpan cowboy character played by Sam Elliott, who goes on to say that he supposes "that's how the whole durned human comedy keeps perpetuatin' itself, down through the ages...") No, it's not "family values" as preached by the Christian Coalition, but perhaps that in itself is part of the message Ethan and Joel Coen wish to convey. Family can mean many different things to different people. This is far from nihilism, Mr. Teachout!

The Coens clearly want us to like Walter and Donnie as well as the Dude. The comedy of Walter's character is not so much his "stupidity" as his over-enthusiasm. He overdoes everything, does things in a "big" way to mirror his "big bear" physique, whether it's his swooning praise for the Iron-Lung-bound writer of the "Branded" episodes, or his comical assertion of free speech rights at the diner when asked by the waitress to keep his voice down. Speaking of the diner, remember that there it is Walter who ridicules the Dude for freaking out at the sight of the severed toe ("You want a toe? I can get you a toe by three o'clock..."). In the end, of course, Walter (of the "impenetrable stupidity" according to you) is the one who is actually right about the toe, and the fact that the whole kidnapping was fake.

You add "The Big Lebowski is so keenly observed that it's tempting to treat it as a serious critique of the moral emptiness of American life." The problem is, I think your article succumbs to that temptation too readily, treating the film as TOO serious a critique, and missing out on the fact that at heart, it is still a comedy. Yes, the best comedy addresses some painful realities of contemporary existence, but if it gets too "heavy" or preachy, then it usually fails to be funny. Preston Sturges is a classic example of a director who made great comedies that managed to simultaneously gently lampoon aspects of popular culture while somehow expressing affection for those same elements. I believe "Lebowski" falls into this same category, and fifty years hence will be as well-regarded as the best Sturges films. All those films plus "Lebowski" are brimming with positivism, an adoration for "the whole durned human comedy."

"Mostly Music in the Midlands" is two years old today...its age fitting nicely between our dog Ruby who turns 3 next month and our son Spencer who is 15 weeks old today. This is the 188th post on the blog, which means I've managed to keep to a fairly consistent pace of about one post every four days...hopefully that makes me a responsible blogger but not an obsessive one!

As MMM turns 2 this week, music-lovers in the Midlands find themselves in the midst of a pretty good fortnight of riches...a week ago Southern Exposure presented the Amernet String Quartet, which brought to that series a dose of modernism that it had not really previously experienced...in this case the Carter 5th quartet, brilliantly played and a great choice for introducing the audience to that style. It seemed the listeners were right there every step of the way.

One of the greatest joys of having settled here in Columbia has been to discover the poetic soul of the pianist Charles Fugo, the longest-serving member of the USC piano faculty if I'm not mistaken. Fugo played one of the little half-hour lunchtime recitals last Wednesday at Trinity Episcopal Cathedral. The program was short but the memories of it will be long. His set of four Scarlatti sonatas was a gem...not for him the secco style of most who try to transfer to the piano what they believe to be Baroque practice, but a frank embrace of the sonic possibilities of the modern piano, albeit in a subtle and understated coloristic manner. Whether it was conscious or not, Fugo's Scarlatti was linked directly across the span of a century to the small character-studies of Robert Schumann. Rounding out the program were a couple of Moscheles delights, the kind of out-of-fashion repertoire that Fugo often likes to dig up and to which he brings an element of devilish glee while avoiding any kind of tongue-in-cheek condescension towards these miniatures.

The mini-piano-fest continues tomorrow night, Tuesday the 9th, with a recital at the USC School of Music by Marina Lomazov, who always dazzles in any repertoire and who has the gift of commanding attention just by walking onstage. Her recital tomorrow is particularly eclectic, including the Moments Musicaux by Schubert and Beethoven's "Tempest" Sonata, along with a sprinkling of big-time Romantic virtuoso etudes by Liszt, Scriabin, Chopin, and Rachmaninoff, plus works by Rodion Shchedrin, to whose music Lomazov has been introducing us across the span of several recitals, as she works towards (I believe) eventual completion of a recording project.

Thinking about the elements of the sea and water in tomorrow night's program...the name "Marina," and the "Tempest" Sonata...I couldn't resist sharing with you this photo of Shchedrin from some years ago, fishing:


Then after this double whammy of piano recitals, we have the SC Philharmonic coming up again next Saturday night with Morohiko Nakahara conducting, the second candidate for the Music Director vacancy. More on that later in the week. [photo: Rodion Shchedrin Foundation]

My Sierra Club e-newsletter linked today to a fun site: WalkScore, where you can input your address and get a "walkability" score from 0-100 that rates how easily (or not) you can get by on foot for many of your needs and interests. Of course you know without being told how many places you can get to on foot from your home, but it's still fun to get a score and compare to other locations. I could see this site being especially useful if you are considering buying a home and want to take these factors into consideration in this era of increasing fuel costs and environmental impact of our dependence on oil.

90 to 100 means you can get by without a car. My last address in New York, on Atlantic Avenue in Brooklyn, scored 91 out of 100, which is good but not as impressive as my address before that, 77th and Columbus Avenue in Manhattan, a whopping 98. I moved in 2000 to Ann Arbor, Michigan, and somehow relished the idea of living in one of those suburban apartment complexes. But you needed a car for virtually everything. That address scores only 28. My mother's home in Charlotte is not much better, at 31...what does an older person do when they cannot drive much anymore?

Our home in Columbia gets a 77. We love having several restaurants, stores, a branch of the library, and all of Five Points within walking distance. We could shop at EarthFare and carry some stuff on foot, and I suppose if we had a larger grocery nearby our score would be higher...but that was one thing I don't miss about NYC...schlepping one of those grocery carts several blocks and then lugging bags of groceries up the stairs (that and carrying laundry to the laundromat...ugh).

Speaking of Five Points, the lengthy reconstruction-beautification projects are supposedly "finished" so there is a celebration this Friday.  Of course a lot of change is still to come in the neighborhood which will inevitably mean that the bulldozers are not really gone for good.