Only the strong survive... through arts

This past week has been such a challenge for me to retain what sanity I have left. Between bureaucratic ineptitude, racist ignorance, outright bad-taste in Halloween costumes and dramatized history, it's truly astonishing that I have not gone clear-the-eff-off!

When one is homeless the Dept. of Public Welfare will use it's office address to fill in that particular blank line in their paperwork so, when your benefits are about to end they send out your notification of pending termination to themselves. I found this out when I went to pick-up prescription refills. So naturally, I make a follow-up phone call (and it doesn't help that this occurs doing the gov't. shutdown) for clarification. When I finally get a human on the line I'm told that I have to re-apply for benefits all over again. In the meantime, I'm running out of meds that I take everyday for diabetes, blood pressure, menopause symptoms, antidepressants, cholesterol, allergies, migraines... so I jump through a bunch of hoops get statements from my shrink and therapist to underscore the urgency for me to get my meds and to please expedite my paperwork, I'm told that I have to wait...up to 30 days. *sigh* 

Boo? Your ass!

While this is going on I kept seeing repeated incidents of white people in blackface ("Crazy Eyes" from Orange is the New Black) or wearing indian costumes as the owner of the Washington DC NFL franchise insists that tradition allows his team to keep it's "redskins" name. Then there are other folks wearing dead Trayvon Martin outfits (hoodie, bloody "bullet" hole, skittles, Arizona tea - with blackface). And this is what a "post-racial America" looks like? GTFOHWTS - immediately. Boo? Your ass!

12 Years a Slave

I decided to escape the madness with some quality mental stimulation. Having already listened to the audiobook version of 12 Years a Slave narrated by Louis Gossett, Jr., I figured I was ready for the film adaptation of Solomon Northrop's memoir. This unflinching look at "the peculiar institution" of slavery made Roots look like a tea party (unintended irony). Image that you are a free black who was kidnapped in 1841 and sold into slavery. I never understand the gravity of the brutality our ancestors endured just to survive; I doubt that any of us living today truly do. I know I wasn't trying to hear about when I was coming of age in the dawn of the Black Power Movement borne in direct opposition of the non-violent Civil Rights movement. And what I learned about slavery in public school was sanitized and humiliating to my pre-adolescent sensibilities.

Venus

Switching gears (or not) I put on my critics hat to review a production of Venus, Suzan-Lori Parks' play, inspired by the macabre recounting of the life of the Hottentot Venus during the early 1800s, an voluptuous African woman who, like Northrop, was tricked and transplanted from her home into a life of exploitation. However, instead of being a slave, her physique becomes the top draw of a sideshow where she is the main attraction and depicted as a freak, an oddity, wild beast and savage. For a price, patrons have the opportunity to grope and touch her buttocks, genitalia and breasts. The actress in the title role manages to convey the humanity and grace of a soul who is continually used and degraded. 

Blue/Orange

The latest production for me to review is called Blue/Orange a socio-psychodrama of a chess match about two determined psychiatrists advocating polar opposite approaches to treating a border-line schizophrenic (aka as the more politically correct multiple personality disorder) who claims to be the son of Idi Amin. Explorations of culturally-competent treatments, contexts of normalcy and preconceptions and prejudices abound with lots of questionable ethics abound from all involved parties. Seating surrounds the stage like a boxing ring as each player jab and spar for position, pride, salvation and vindication; yet the audience is the ultimately the judge of the final outcome. Yeah, participatory observation is regarded to truly appreciated the script.

Lots of fiber to digest indeed, but fortunately the 43rd Pitt Jazz Seminar and Concert was just the needed respite my exhausted and weary spirit required. A soaring and swinging evening was precisely what was needed to get back to where I needed to be... this was musical therapy.