Recitative: Michelle for President!

Lay your fist upon me! O, Michelle
Obama! Be Shiva and make waste these last eight years,
these swindlings at the free market, the dis-
tractions, the failure, betrayal and disaster.
Verdantly, tell us how the American Dream sprouts, entrenches it roots
and nearly, neatly nourishes itself and thrives.
Take me on a twenty-minute journey over the majesties and waves.
I wish you were a Black Militant.
Revere-on!

If you're a fan of anime, you know a scene
from Miyazaki's Spirited Away:
Chihiro having lost her parents—
well, they've been turned into pigs—
is thusly forced into slavery,
basically the worst night ever.
The following morning she is taken to a pen, a cell,
by her (maybe) new friend Haku
who shows her her pig-parents
and she does see a difference from the others.
Afterwards she is taken to a pastel-colored garden
and given a  couple of rice cakes,
breaking a probably sixteen-hour fast.
And tears well, the way they do in anime,
and torrent and it is heartbreaking.
Truly, her fate is Dickensian: orphaned (kind of)
and extorted into slave labor;

but this is not why she cries.
She cries because this is the first time she's ever had to be grateful
because before she was a spoiled Japanese girl
(but not in any kind of mean or nasty way
just a bourgeois and middle-class childish way).
So they are actually tears of joy, if a very downtrodden joy.
It is not a scene of desperation,
it is about introspection
and, yes, Hope.

Like many in that Denver audience,
I became misty-eyed; I had to wipe twice.
I had never been really proud of Michelle until now.
I wanted Elizabeth Edwards to be my First Lady
(let's not go there)
But I see you are just as talented, capable and admirable.
You show, you know: we all have inside of us a piece of good news.
That we don't know how great we can be!
What we can accomplish!
How much we can love!
What our potential is!
I want you to be a Black Militant.
You are a graft where I once was flayed:
a thread that connects us all.

I watch the ripples change their size
but never leave the stream of warm impermanence
and so the days float through my eyes
but still the days they seem the same.
And these children that you spit on
as they try of change their worlds
are immune to your consultation
they're quite aware of what they're going through.


[enter and sing, concurrently]
Gospel Chorus: We the People
In order to form a more perfect Union,
establish Justice, insure Domestic tranquility,
Provide for the Common Defense
promote the General Welfare
and secure the Blessings of Liberty
to ourselves and our posterity
do ordain and establish this Constitution
for the United States of America.

You will always be beautiful
in every conceivable way, even in caricature.
I thought we needed anger after they left us up to our necks in it
I thought we needed to go to Florida and Michigan
with passions screaming.
We just need to take back the White House,
we just need Truth: there is nothing more awesome
or powerful.
Truth needs no passion behind it
while it can make us rile and pass our bile.
Explain! Ex-Spleen!
I take a journey, you take a journey, we take a journey together.
Until I no longer have to afford gas,
until we aren't just surviving.
We will always be building a world
until we stop doubting and fearing.
Until Elijah takes his seat again:
I need your dap,
I need you to be a Black Militant.
[does this] I extend a hand and furl my fingers.

MoQ 2: Rent (musical)

Rent is bourgeois because it exploits White Guilt which turns ordinarily rational, emotionally stable people (of any gender, racial or ideological idiom) into hysterical teenage girls (as not to insult any teenage girl, I mean specifically this:).

Actually I think "White Guilt" is too narrow a concept to describe what is occurring and a more appropriate term would be Privileged Guilt.  And what a plethora of minorities to project that guilt onto (everyone across the gender, racial and ideological spectra)!

GVSU brings a hypnotist to the Fieldhouse every year; he puts a group of college students under and a show basically manifests itself.  One year, one trick (best word I think to use) was to have the participants believe they were listening to their favorite music.  One young lady was "listening" to the Rent (movie) soundtrack.  To give you an idea of her let me just say that this is in Dutch Calvinist country so everyone is blond and Conservative, so (not to assume but) she was probably not the person to have feelings (please watch the embedded video) about things until she saw Rent.  I have to add, her singing was unprompted.

(Anyone who cites Billy Joel as an influence has bad taste in music (dot com).)

In addition to these offenses, it has become a touchstone for plenty of bad theatre.  Speaking of: when did fanfiction become legitimate theatre?

There are at least eleven Americas

The thing about what John Edwards did is it's less tawdry than most politicians do just being politicians.