Thoughts about deliverance

I've been thinking about deliverance a lot lately. It's a concept that's central to Christianity as I know it. Perhaps it is one of the main contributions of the Judeo in Judeo-Christian.

Christians study deliverance from sinfulness, deliverance from tyranny, deliverance from uncertainty and doubt, deliverance from temptation, deliverance from bondage, deliverance from pain and suffering, deliverance from eternal damnation. It brings to my mind passage through trials.

That's what I suspect those who first sang "Didn't It Rain" were picturing when they first were hearing about the Bible and Jesus. But not, as Massa might have assumed as he listened from the porch of the Big House, the end to Noah's tribulations during the Great Flood and the believer's eternal reward for being "good and faithful servants."

No, they sang about the end to "40 days and 40 nights" of the toil and terror of chattel slavery. But even after Emancipation, and when the words and notes of the great "Negro Spiritual" were set on paper in 1919, the song's full meaning was intact. And I feel it retains its meaning to this day.

"Well, it rained forty days, forty nights without stoppin'
Noah was glad, when the water stopped droppin'
When I get to heaven, sit right down
Askin' Jesus for my starry crown."

While it most certainly intones assurance of heavenly reward, it also says to me, with clarity, the present world will be set aright for it is wicked.

This rousing, jubilant rendition is by Hugh Laurie, known to most who know him as Dr. Gregory House from the television series House. Laurie, as was demonstrated on the program, is an accomplished musician who has great affection for the American songbook. Jean McLain is the featured vocalist.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A7MZtyV_X6o

Chernobyl

I've tried NOT to watch Craig Mazin's astonishing TV series Chernobyl -- the nearly hour-by-hour recounting of the 1986 Soviet nuclear reactor disaster -- through the prism of our own national catastrophe. It's really tough when a parade of craven apparatchiks snap to, salute, toady, bleat and lie as millions are poisoned by bureaucratic bungling and incompetence and motions toward truth-telling are silenced by threats of bullets or defenestration.

With apologies to Stephen Stills, "I think it's time we stop, children. What's that sound. Everybody look what's coming down.   

The final episode is wonderfully written and this scene (link below) is particularly powerful, as the two men leading the clean up after the meltdown reflect on human frailty, the tyrannical Central Committee of the U.S.S.R. and the men and women who were forced to do its bidding. Both Stellan Skarsgard and Jared Harris are stellar throughout but especially here. 

I reflect on this scene now, in the midst of a health care and economic catastrophe, the severity of which might have been averted if wisdom had trumped pride, and wonder if its too late for "one good man" to help us. 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gvod3T945ds&fbclid=IwAR3rYCjJBA_M0kJ3AX48R1AbiVRGTlyWl68P6H6Fv6rZVLCm-fhX_fQUrbA

"https://www.imdb.com/title/tt7366338/" (9.7/10) Do you know anything about this town, Chernobyl? Not really, no. It was mostly Jews and Poles. The Jews were...

The Crowd (1928)

Occasionally my mind wanders back to a silent film I watched when I bought my first video cassette player (it didn't record). King Vidor's The Crowd (1928) dates back to the movie era right before sound but is a classic because its story of lucklessness is pretty freaking universal. The young couple at the center of the picture are nice as they can be even though John is a big talker (well, you know what I mean) and Mary has big hopes for them and is not real good at hiding her disappointment -- especially when his successful buddy is around. The marriage doesn't seem to be working when Mary gets pregnant. John commits to sticking with it and doing better, but he's a faceless drone in an insurance company, another suit in a New York office, and can't seem to make his mark -- until, a detergent company buys his contest-winning slogan for 500 smackers. Now he and Mary and their kids will be on Easy Street! Except, when the happy parents call their kids from their apartment window to come see the presents Daddy has bought with his winnings, the littlest one gets hit by a truck while crossing the street. Yes, it's a festival of unhappiness (albeit with a fairly bright ending) that puts all of the news of pandemic pain and misery in a new light.

Little Richard

Crystal Closet Queen (1971)

To say Little Richard was conflicted is certainly to understate the case. Out/In, Gay/Straight/Omnisexual, his story shifted over the years. It seemed like he couldn't square his sexual nature with Jesus. He ultimately denounced LGBTQ as contrary to God's plan.

Leon Russell may have taken some liberties when he wrote this tune about Little Richard, swapping gender references and titling it what he did. But, to me, it is an affectionate tribute to a man whose style of rock 'n' roll was all through Russell's own high-powered, piano-pounding, scream-and-shout revivalism.

"There's a rainbow around my beautiful face and I'm living in a pot of gold."

Normal People

Streamers who enjoy highly emotive drama with credible characters who you love even when, or perhaps because, they behave badly will love Hulu's sweetly endearing Normal People. We meet two Irish teens in the last year before going off to university. The brainy Marianne (Daisy Edgar-Jones) is icy and angry, and we discover why when we meet her mother and brother. The quietly bookish jock Connell (Paul Mescal) is eaten up with unaccountable insecurities that seem to lighten when he's with the irascible Marianne, who fancies him. His mother works for Marianne's and through that arrangement boy and girl become lovers in some of the most wonderfully tender scenes of intimacy I've seen on screen. But they're a secret, to avoid the "awkwardness" of his mates' ribbing. One can anticipate the inevitable clash, and the crisis is pure devastation, especially for Connell, who doesn't know how to own his feelings. The series, which covers a number of years of romantic entanglements for the pair, features brief episodes filled with insight and candor.