Good Bye and Good Night

Yesterday, Katherine and I saw the new movie - Good Bye and Good Night - about Edward R. Murrow during the McCarthy era. This is an amazingly good movie, well cast, well acted, and well written. For most it is probably a history lesson. For those of us who can remember being glued to the TV set watching the McCarthy hearings it all came back.

This movie was filmed in glorious black and white and the photography is outstanding. It is reassuring to see that there are still movie photographers who know how to do that. Sometimes (and this is one) black and white delivers the message better than color.

Nancy and Annie

I have been taking a course in black and white photography at UC Berkeley. I am by far the oldest in the class but far from the most talented. Recently, one of our assignments was to take a roll of photos of one person and to show the best four to the class for criticism. My daughter, Nancy Moule Rowe, agreed to be the model. Here she is with her Golden Retriever "Annie".

When I put up this photo for criticism I could tell that everyone was being polite but sensed that nobody liked it. Too ordinary. Everybody else was trying to produce "cutting edge" photos that would be at home on the wall of an avant-garde gallery. Nobody else exhibited a photo of anyone smiling. That would be too corny.

As I thought about this, I realized that not only was I older than anyone in the class but that Nancy was also-including the instructor.

The Kirov

The Kirov Ballet of St. Petersburg was in Berkeley this weekend for four performances of Sleeping Beauty. They brought their orchestra as well. Some children's parts were performed by a students of a local ballet school.

The the San Francisco Russian community was out in force and the Russian language was heard from all sides during intermission. The audience was peppered with young girls dressed in frilly white gowns attended by doting mothers or grandparents.

We were entranced. This was a 1950 era production that fit the stage of Zellerbach Hall better than their current production. I think we were blessed by that. The corps de ballet and the female dancers were en point most of the time. (No "modern dance".) The orchestra was wonderful. The orchestral soloists were sublime. Tchaikovky's familiar score sounded fresh, with nuances not noticed before. It is hard to imagine that any company other than the Kirov or the Bolshoi could pull this off.

Life does not get any better than this.

Nuclear Weapons

As most of you know, I spent my entire career in the defense industry. For all intents and purposes, I am a charter member of the military industrial complex that Eisenhower warned about. Most of that time was spent on the leading edge, trying to envision threats to the United States and doing research on and development of defenses against them.

After about ten years, I came to the conclusion that the most serious threat against the United States was accidental or unintentional nuclear war with the Soviet Union. I focused the remainder of my career on means to reduce the chance of that. After the Soviet Union ended, I was relieved to see that one of the highest priority programs in the Department of Defense was helping the Russians upgrade the control of their nuclear weapons and weapons technology.

With the economic collapse of the Soviet Union and considering the tens of thousands of weapons in their inventory there is good reason to be concerned about one or more weapons being stolen by or sold to terrorists or to rogue nations. I personally think this is our greatest threat.

Recently I have been reading that, under the present administration, assisting the Russians in controlling and protecting their nuclear weapons has lost priority and is languishing. Nothing the government is doing or not doing could concern me more.

Rosie

John Moule has a great picture of his wife Rosie on his blog.

Doctor Atomic

Yesterday evening we went to Doctor Atomic, a new opera by John Cage presented by the San Francisco Opera. The subject is the making of the atomic bomb and the opera ends with the first test in New Mexico.

The musical score was beautiful. The plot was interesting and engrossing. The staging was simple, elegant, and very effective. (That was one big, ugly, mother of a bomb.) One thing seemed to be missing. The singers recited lines but they did not sing melodic songs or arias. If this is the wave of the future, I'm not sure I like it.

I suppose that like all new things this takes a while to get used to.

Mahler's 5th Symphony

The San Francisco Symphony Orchestra performed Mahler's 5th yesterday, Michael Tilson Thomas conducting. The orchestra started a Mahler cycle in 2001 and has previously performed and recorded seven of the other Mahler symphonies.

I am not a Mahler expert, but I can not imagine how this could have been better. The orchestra performed with exceptional clarity and transparency. The brass section was outstanding. Even Joshua Koshman, the critic for the Chronicle, raved over this production. We are lucky to be living in San Francisco in what will probably be regarded later as a golden age for the symphony.

The day ended with a small plate dinner with our friends the Reids at Chez Nous on Fillmore St. Fish soup, heirloom tomato salad, and tuna tatare. Washed down with a couple of bottles of Vernaccia di San Giminignano. Simple but elegant.