Tomorrow we die
Mar. 25th, 2009 02:23 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
pallas_athenaFound via MetaFilter, the unfortunate tale of Tsutomu Yamaguchi:
Opinion is divided over whether the 93-year-old Yamaguchi is the luckiest or unluckiest man alive.
A week or so ago,![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
rosenkavalier and I had the excitement of seeing John Adams's new opera Doctor Atomic, a beautiful, terrifying work. Afterwards, we spent some time recalling the part no one remembers when they get all nostalgic about the 1970s and 80s: the constant vein-chilling nearness of nuclear war. Remember? Remember the acid-etched nihilism as Reagan and Thatcher went about routinely making the world a more revolting place? Remember the Soviet Union, Andropov, Chernenko and the proxy wars waged in Afghanistan, Nicaragua and other places? Remember Chernobyl?
As a kid, I was a regular reader of Herblock's editorial cartoons in the Post, which traumatised me all to hell. Well, what would you do if, over your morning coffee, you opened the paper to the editorial page and saw this? Or this? Or this? Growing up in 1980s DC, one became accustomed to the certain, everyday knowledge that if anyone ever pressed the button, we were all dead.
These days, 80s nostalgia seems to focus mostly on synth-pop and bad fashion. OK, sure, we looked ridiculous (on a good day), but we were only free to do so because we were dancing on the edge of the grave.
Doctor Atomic itself is an amazing piece, and ENO's production was beautifully sung, well performed and fantastically designed. The action takes place the day before the 1945 Trinity test, though the plot-- like the music-- is anything but linear. Towards the end, though, both stage-story and music speed with terrible inexorability towards the final explosion. I loved it.
Mr. Yamaguchi was in Hiroshima on a business trip on Aug. 6, 1945, when a U.S. B-29 dropped an atomic bomb on the city. He suffered serious burns to his upper body and spent the night in the city. He then returned to his hometown of Nagasaki just in time for the second attack.
Opinion is divided over whether the 93-year-old Yamaguchi is the luckiest or unluckiest man alive.
A week or so ago,
rosenkavalier and I had the excitement of seeing John Adams's new opera Doctor Atomic, a beautiful, terrifying work. Afterwards, we spent some time recalling the part no one remembers when they get all nostalgic about the 1970s and 80s: the constant vein-chilling nearness of nuclear war. Remember? Remember the acid-etched nihilism as Reagan and Thatcher went about routinely making the world a more revolting place? Remember the Soviet Union, Andropov, Chernenko and the proxy wars waged in Afghanistan, Nicaragua and other places? Remember Chernobyl?
As a kid, I was a regular reader of Herblock's editorial cartoons in the Post, which traumatised me all to hell. Well, what would you do if, over your morning coffee, you opened the paper to the editorial page and saw this? Or this? Or this? Growing up in 1980s DC, one became accustomed to the certain, everyday knowledge that if anyone ever pressed the button, we were all dead.
These days, 80s nostalgia seems to focus mostly on synth-pop and bad fashion. OK, sure, we looked ridiculous (on a good day), but we were only free to do so because we were dancing on the edge of the grave.
Doctor Atomic itself is an amazing piece, and ENO's production was beautifully sung, well performed and fantastically designed. The action takes place the day before the 1945 Trinity test, though the plot-- like the music-- is anything but linear. Towards the end, though, both stage-story and music speed with terrible inexorability towards the final explosion. I loved it.