R.I.P. J.B.
James Brown, the undisputed Godfather of Soul, the self-proclaimed “hardest working man in show business”, has taken his final rest at age 73, after battling a bout of pneumonia. James Brown named as his home town Augusta, Georgia, a town with more than its share of people who have always been reticent to acknowledge the musical contributions made by Mr. Brown, preferring to point out his many personal problems, as if the bad in some way negates the good. R.I.P., J.B.
National News Hits Close to Home
Just this morning I found out that Kelly James, the climber found on Mt. Hood in Oregon, was the brother-in-law of one of our customers at PowerServe. Had I known earlier, I think I would have taken more interest in the details. I feel like I need to apologize to Caroyln Custis James, our customer and one of my online friends, for neither realizing nor taking the time to find out. I know it’s probably a factor of how we’re wired that we lack interest in events that we don’t think affect us personally, whether it’s climbers lost on some distant snowy mountain or reports of genocide in Darfur or mass starvation in North Korea. And yet, as John Donne wrote so many years ago in what is probably the only quotation anyone remembers by him, “…any man’s death diminishes me, because I am involved in mankind…”.
Carolyn, our prayers are with you and your family. Hold your husband closely.
So long, Joe: 1911-2006
Joseph Barbera, one-half of the genius creative team Hannah-Barbera, died today at age 95. Surely no one alive has escaped his influence, having created more than 300 series during his six-decade partnership with William Hannah, including Tom & Jerry, the Flintstones, the Jetsons, Yogi Bear, Scooby-Doo, Huckleberry Hound, Quick Draw McGraw, and Jonny Quest.
Misunderstood is an Understatement
I think Job must be one of the most misunderstood books in the Bible. I’ve sat through several studies of it and undertaken several more on my own. I’ve been constantly amazed at the range of opinions and declarations about what it “teaches”. I suppose that’s true of much of the Bible, but Job seems to be one book that you can use to support whatever preconceived notions you’d like to assign to it.
A couple of examples:
- Suzanne and I were sitting in a restaurant in Savannah, waiting, as it were, for our daughter to show up. While waiting, we were working on Job. An elderly man kept glancing our way and, upon leaving, stopped by to see what we were doing. We explained that we were writing an opera based on the story of Job in the bible. With that brief explanation, he pronounced, “Job was punished because he was proud of having so much money!” ummm… excuse me? I don’t know how in the world he managed to come away with that summary after even a scant reading of the story, but he did. Or perhaps he got it from a pulpiteer who had an axe to grind?
- I was channel surfing in my living room one morning while putting my shoes on, when I happened to hear something about ”the book of Job” from one of the religious channels. So, naturally, I went back to hear what he had to say. According to THIS guy, “Job was a righteous man, but his children were evil sinners who partied all the time. THAT’s why God killed them.” Oh, Please. I suppose if you really want to, you can perform some creative deduction to come to that conclusion, especially if it supports your agenda. But if you want to be honest about it, you should really inform your listeners that you are speculating… engaging in creative conjecture.
I think there is much to learn from Job, but performing circus calesthenics with heuristic reasoning is not the way to do it. Maybe an open mind is too much to ask from some people?
Job – Beginnings pt.2
I suppose I should mention that my wife Suzanne, whom I approached about writing music for my lyrics, has a Master’s degree in music. She is an excellent musician and songwriter; she teaches piano, flute, and voice as well. She and I have written many songs together and even entire original music programs. We have never undertaken anything like the production of Job, as I envision it, though.
I don’t really know what arrogance (chutzpah?) caused me to think I could even DO what we’re trying to accomplish. But here we are. The lyric is complete and we’ve got about half of the music done… enough to be able to present it as a “preview” of the full opera. We still have to have it orchestrated, have the percussion designed, design choreography for all the players and singers, lighting design, stage design, etc., etc., etc; AND, as if all that is not enough, there is a digital media aspect of the production that also needs to be done. Thankfully, I don’t HAVE to DO it ALL. We have garnered the interest of many talented and creative people who, by God’s provision, will help us bring this vision to fruition.
We are looking for singers and musicians who want to be part of this project. Please let us know if you are interested.
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The Story of Job – Beginnings
In 1986, I started working on the lyrics for what has become Job: a Postmodern Opera. What spurred me to begin the project was a simple reading of the book. It struck me that “Job” was a magnificent work of epic poetry. I began to see that with some rearranging and rephrasing of the lines in the story, it could very well work as a musical or operatic piece put to modern music.
The opening lines of Job:
1 In the land of Uz there lived a man whose name was Job. This man was blameless and upright; he feared God and shunned evil. 2 He had seven sons and three daughters, 3 and he owned seven thousand sheep, three thousand camels, five hundred yoke of oxen and five hundred donkeys, and had a large number of servants. He was the greatest man among all the people of the East.
became:
A long time ago in the land of Uz
lived a man named Job and righteous he was.
He feared God Jehovah and shunned evil ways.
He was healthy and wealthy for most of his days.
He had ten sons and daughters and seven thousand sheep,
Camels and oxen and donkeys in his keep;
A great many servants to serve at his feasts,
Yes, Job was the greatest man in all of the east.
Yes, it does have a somewhat Dr. Suess-ian quality, but in spite of that… or maybe because of it… I thought it was rather catchy. That encouraged me to see if I could get the whole story into some kind of workable form that someone (I had no idea at the time WHO that would be) could then put music to.
In the course of a few weeks I had a fairly significant portion done, having progressed to the point where Job and his three friends enter into debate about everything from God and the universe, the state of the world and man’s place in it to why Job in particular was suffering the way he was.
Then I think life happened and “the Job project” was put into hiding… or maybe it was germinating? I don’t know. At any rate, I pulled it back out early in 2005 and started working on it again; I’m still working on it. At least now, though, I have others who are working on it with me. After I completed what I thought was a reasonable amount of the lyric… it had a beginning, middle, and end… I approached my wife, Suzanne, and said “I’ve written an opera… but it needs music”.