CITIZENS Barbara's
Column The Salem Evening News The Speaker decrees: By Barbara Anderson Must we have Bach? His music just seems to go on and
on, without punctuation; like jazz, it gives me a headache. I can enjoy some of the classical composers,
especially if their music became a movie soundtrack. But my favorite composer is Ennio
Morricone, who scored the spaghetti westerns that also gave me my favorite actor, Clint
Eastwood. If only the government had given my parents a culture
basket when I was born, with instructions on how to raise me right. Then I could have
passed a love of Bach and Beethoven on to my son. Instead, he had to listen to show tunes
and the Jefferson Airplane. Alas, he's 34 years old; it's too late. Oh regret, oh
guilt. I called him, cross-country, to apologize. He's
accustomed to the conversations that come from out of nowhere. "Do you like Bach?" I asked him, expecting
him to reply, as a result of his barren childhood, "Who is Bach?" "He's OK," Lance said, "but his church
music doesn't have the passion of Beethoven, or of course the wildness. Beethoven's 'Ninth
Symphony' is my favorite piece of music ever." "When", I asked, stunned, "were you
exposed to the 'Ninth Symphony?'" "It's the soundtrack of 'A Clockwork Orange.' I
saw it 12 times." "A Clockwork Orange." For those of you who
spent your youth at the symphony, this was a Stanley Kubrick film, based on a 1963 novel
by Anthony Burgess. Ugly, violent, and bloody, it told the story of Alex, a savage young
rapist and murderer. Alex loved classical music, especially Beethoven's
"Ninth Symphony" (including the popular "Ode to Joy"). He played it on
his stereo at night as he relived that day's rapes, robberies and beatings: "The
lovely blissful tune all about Joy being a glorious spark like of heaven, and then I felt
the old tigers leap in me and then I leapt on these two young (girls)..." and you can
imagine the rest, which ended with "I dropped off to sleep, still with the old 'Joy,
Joy, Joy, Joy' crashing and howling away." To stop his life of crime, Alex was brainwashed by a
well-meaning government which intended to make him sick at the sight of violence. The
technique worked, but he lost his love for Beethoven at the same time he lost his free
will. The film is now considered a classic. Maybe we could
put a copy of it in the baby basket too. So the moral of the story is: Beethoven ain't
necessarily the solution, Mr. Speaker. But back to my phone conversations with my son, who
was reconsidering his statement about Bach. "Actually", he admitted, "I do like
his 'Toccata' and 'Fugue in D Minor.'" He heard it first in Emerson, Lake and
Palmer's "Brain Salad Surgery". He learned to like jazz because Frank Zappa used
top jazz musicians on his rock albums, and he became acquainted with Beethoven's
"Fifth Symphony" from Peanuts' Schroeder. Before hanging up, Lance mused that while he likes
most music, he can't stand the show tunes he heard during his childhood. "The
Jefferson Airplane was OK, though", he said. Well, his parents did better in the book category,
reading our favorite classics to him aloud until he could read them himself: "Tom
Sawyer," "To Kill a Mockingbird," "Moby Dick." Lance is presently
enjoying his way through the Russian and French novelists; he credits me and his father
with his love of books. The Beethoven he owes to Stanley Kubrick. Stan and I
raised him somehow without the help of Tom Finneran and a government-inspired culture
basket. As for his over-exposure to the evil Alex (where was
I when he was watching this video 12 times!?), he utilizes his interest in teen-age
pathology in his career as a juvenile probation officer, though brainwashing is not one of
the methods he uses to help kids. Incidentally, when I told my son why I was asking
about Bach, he suggested that if I write about this, I should recommend that taxes be cut
so parents can buy their own babies the books and music of their own choice. Boy, whoever taught him politics and tax policy
certainly did a good job! Barbara Anderson is executive
director of Citizens for Limited Taxation. She writes regularly for the Viewpoint page.
Her biweekly column also appears in other publications. |