Keen to Cross the Pond

When the riots broke out over the performance of Stravinsky’s first production of Le Sacre du Printemps it became a subconsciously pivotal moment in world history.

Why?

Was it a statement on the instability of social class after the Industrial Revolution? A tumultuous issue that lingers into the 21st Century?

Was it about the decay of Western Civilization? The fall of stabilizing empires? The fall of Christianity from spheres of influence?

Was it about…meaninglessness versus meaning?

I tend to think it was the last.

A pagan dance that felt instinctual still on a human level. Still! How dare Stravinsky remind us that no matter how far civilization had genuinely progressed that at our core we were (and are) still the same species who danced to death to bring on a change of seasons necessary to grow food sources. We knew/know so much but were/are still so primitive at our core.

Primitive. Not sophisticated in a way that elevates us by our own devices out of death and literal crap. Dumb. Unscientific. Unscrupulous. Weak. Ugly. Pathetic.

How profoundly demoralizing.

…Well…weak, ugly and pathetic as compared to God. God Himself.

Some…likely who saw the tenderness of our souls and the beauty of being humble children in God’s eyes…loved it? Some who saw the necessity of grief. The danger of evil. The best sort of people, as Hemingway would have described them. But, people… Loved it.

Just think about the setting: Théâtre des Champs-Élysées at its start.

It was a brilliant audience too. Brilliant in every way…

It was before World War II. It was before World War I. It was before the fall of the Russian Empire. …Before the 1920’s too, of course… It was merely 1913.

But even so, it was a little less than a year until the (official) start of it all…

And so they stood as our ancestors on the precipice of one of the bloodiest, most technologically sophisticated periods in all of human history. Technologically sophisticated… But still, they felt moved by the paganism of the very distant past.

Some felt understood, perhaps. Some felt painfully, not just or only narcissistically, belittled, perhaps. They felt shook. Could both factions have also spiritually sensed impending doom? Was like it an alarm going off indeed?

Yes. I’d bet yes!

It was a beautifully real and truthful insight into the bigger human picture and it stands objectively outside of itself. A reason to see all the dystopian, narcissistic, inaccurate, inhumane postmodern nonsense that came from the mouths of crying children in the future as exactly what it was and is: Crying. Wailing. Actually, it predicted it. Children sacrificed for spring to arrive (Vietnam). Crying, damaged, confused children of a species that couldn’t get out of their hole. Who without God were like the pagans. Technologically advanced but potentially abhorrent idiots. It’s an attack and critique on the 20th Century…but also the (at least start) of 21st.

Maybe modernism was one of the best philosophies we’ve come up with. Maybe No. 5 is- *shrug* And yet, it’s all not enough for eternity. We still long for transcendence, spring without death and perfection. Whether we admit or not. It’s not that there’s a lack of meaning or of course meaningful love…but rather it’s just that we’re just not all that great. A species still both innocently and disgustingly moved to dance primitively in varying measures. Both beautiful and vile in varying measures.

Did you know that Mlle. Coco Chanel was supposedly at the infamous opening performance of Le Sacre du Printemps in 1913? At Théâtre des Champs-Élysées. Isn’t that something?

…You know, along with maps of the world I’ll be checking out the fictional account of Stravinsky and Chanel’s affair that was turned into a film. Of course I’ll read it with a grain of salt.

Tonight I looked-up maps of the old Russian Empire. …It was totally demoralizing. The media in the US really have botched it. Even if Putin’s speech was manipulative, it wasn’t necessarily as historically inaccurate as they made it out to be at all. Which, unfortunately, is what I worried about. Because I have vague memories of learning about the start of the USSR in a European history class and…his speech didn’t sound that in error. Trying to rally the support of a nationalists (nationalism was huge in the early 20th Century) in Ukraine, a region that hadn’t been able to be totally free from Russian rule for seemingly well over a 100 years, in order to secure control of the region was a likely patronizing and opportunistic choice at the time. It wasn’t a gesture of true liberation from Russian rule. They became a part of the USSR… And it was because of the collapse of the USSR that Ukraine was given actual independence. But, again, that was in light of the collapse of the Soviet Union which was dominated by Russia. So…essentially Russians were forced at one of their lowest moments in history by the US (and allies) to concede Ukrainian sovereignty.

…

The Budapest Memorandum of 1994 is what Putin is most in violation of by invading Ukraine. That’s the agreement that is most…illuminating to any argument one wants to make that casts Putin as an evil tyrant. At least, in my opinion. Ukraine made such a good faith gesture there. And it has been upheld to at least some degree for almost 30 years.

…

The horrible thing is, if you take a look at this map:

it’s clear that…Putin could easily be very tempted to invade land that was sacrificed for communist rule. Because Russia was an important world power that created a certain balance to things worldwide prior to the collapse of the Soviet Union. For hundreds of years. If it wasn’t for their help in WWII…Great Britain would have been in grave trouble. That’s not insignificant.

…

…I think Putin is highly suspicious of the US. Probably also of NATO. But I’d guess the US more so. Remember Edward Snowden? He escaped to Russia…

I think Putin feels morally justified destroying at least the sovereignty of any country (Ukraine) that is enabled to sovereignty primarily by a hypocritical country (the US) that would abandon a country (Afghanistan), letting babies be literally ripped apart as their mothers throw them desperately to safety. …As in, the US in Afghanistan last summer… Why should Putin worry about following a pact his forbears agreed to in weakness, defeat, despair and humiliation that was created primarily by a country that’s in such moral decline worldwide? So without meaning? Who barely takes itself seriously? What impetus does he really have these days? Remember that insurrection? You know Putin watched that happen too of course.

US power isn’t what it used to be kiddos. And it will just keep getting worse if we don’t get wise in my country. They’ll be more harkenings back to the 1800’s… Not just in terms of social class. Not just in terms of supply capabilities. Not just in terms of pandemics. Not just in terms of genuinely old wars being at least flirted with. …1800’s farming practices in the next 30 years??? *shrug* Think creatively, I guess. Steam-powered engines? Travel massively slowing down for over a hundred years? Shorter days and longer nights. Candlelit dinners by necessity? Fireplaces to keep warm? Fewer people…?

Thankfully God isn’t American, even though He loves us. Thankfully the world existed with some semblance of order before we became “important.“

We valued democracy in the US. In our hearts we still have it. That’s not insignificant as long as we can learn to stop destroying what’s good. Manifest Destiny was…foolish and vain, even if understandable. But democracy is good. Or at least, it’s the closest we have to good. Good. Good. Good! Because things matter. They matter. It all matters.

I’ll be writing more about Stravinsky…particularly The Rite of Spring. …If my memory serves me correctly I danced around my living room listening to this in high school. The irony didn’t entirely escape me in the moment which probably is why I still recall it… I wonder, if I recall it correctly, if Spring Khorovod is what moved me to dance?