The Tehran Symphony Orchestra has been wending its way around Europe performing a piece nauseatingly entitled “Peace and Friendship Symphony,” by Majid Entezami, and described - in a brilliant piece by Michael Kimmelman - as “a four-movement jeremiad of martial bombast and almost unfathomable incompetence and silliness.” As Kimmelman points out, protests did greet the orchestra in certain cities, but I’m not aware of Naomi Klein, Brian Eno, John Pilger or any other minor radical celebrity urging a boycott.
Here’s our good friend and occasional Z Word contributor David Adler with a charming version of a mellow Christmas tune that sounds just perfect in the twilight of New Year’s Day. In addition to writing about politics, David is a respected jazz critic. He is also, as I know from having met with him, the sort of person with whom debate and even disagreement is instructive and animating, not painful and irritating. And watching his performance below is a pleasing reminder of why a range of interests makes for a happy life. Happy New Year.
This is a guest post by David Adler. A leading writer on jazz, you can visit David’s other site here for essays, reviews and criticism.
Can you imagine a journalist for a liberal newspaper referring in neutral, even vaguely congratulatory terms to an artist’s “provocatively anti-gay rhetoric,” or “provocatively anti-black rhetoric,” or “provocatively anti-Arab rhetoric”?
Fintan O’Toole is a a prominent Irish writer, journalist and theater critic. Writing in the Irish Times, he lays into Israel, accusing it of all of manner lies and obfuscations to disguise the reality of its actions. There are references to other conflicts sprinkled throughout the text but the central intention is clear: strip away the rotten cladding of untruth and show the Israelis to be the blood-soaked monsters that they are.
I have to confess a personal interest in this one. Depeche Mode headlined the first gig I ever went to, back in 1982 at London’s Hammersmith Odeon. At the time, no-one would have predicted that, one quarter of a century later, they would be among the world’s supergroups, but that is what happened. And they will be kicking off their 2009 world tour in Israel.
