collisionwork | Jul. 4th, 2007

Happy Independence Day, everyone.

And, not to be disrespectful, but here's the British political cartoon from January, 1776 that gives this post part of its title:

(thanks to Bill in Portland, ME of Daily Kos for the image and link)

And here's some good reading matter for the day (thanks lucaskrech for the link that sent me to these -- I had planned to post these and you made it easier):

The Declaration of Independence
The Constitution of The United States of America
The Bill of Rights

And not necessarily as important for this day in general, but important documents from a later time that I believe define a great deal of the U.S.A. that we live in today, as opposed to the one founded in the earlier documents:

The Gettysburg Address
Abraham Lincoln's Second Inaugural Address

Today, I'll also do something I do almost every July 4 -- watch the movie of one of my favorite musicals, 1776. It swings wildly from being extremely historically accurate to way, way off, but it is, after all, a musical comedy -- though it has been noted, usually as a criticism that I don't agree with, that both the music and comedy vanish almost entirely from Act II; it's true that this happens, I just disagree that it's a bad thing.

It is indeed a musical comedy, but at the same time it is sharp, smart, witty, cutting, and topical -- it was created during the Vietnam War, and was very definitely making a point about that which, unfortunately, also works in today's U.S.A. And the score is great fun. I saw the lackluster version at the Roundabout a few years back (pretty good cast, terrible staging) and it was nice to see it on stage, but what a cast is in the film -- William Daniels, Howard Da Silva, Ken Howard, Blythe Danner (even if her part and song drives me nuts), John Cullum, Virginia Vestoff (who died way too young), and a couple dozen great and familiar-looking character actors.

If you don't have a copy of the movie (and if it's not playing on TV at some point today, which I doubt), um, you can download the (out-of-print) soundtrack from THIS SITE.

I wish I had remembered about watching this film earlier - I would have tried to grab some friends and have a big screening on the big screen at The Brick (one of the other Brick People is also a huge fan of this film - hiya, Hope!).

In any case the film always gives me hope - in making it clear that fallible men created a fallible country of beautiful ideals as a revolutionary, violent act, based in blood and by no means innocent of evil itself, aware that more fallible people would come after them who might screw it up worse or possibly make it better -- but the ideals had been set down, and the possibility is always there, no matter how screwed up this country gets, of fighting to try and get it closer to those beautiful, unattainable ideals, because the fight is worthwhile, more so than just turning away in apathy or disgust from the horror of what has been done wrong.

And then, at the same time, I have to finish transcribing the script for one of my August shows from off the old video. Later, later. Right now, a brief moment to consider this day, in the midst of this horrible time.

Oh, which reminds me - this has been going around, both on video and in transcript, but in case you haven't spent the ten minutes watching it, it's worth it, Keith Olbermann's "special comment" from last night on MSNBC -- if you only read Olbermann's comments, I don't think you get the full effect; his delivery (and the realization, the relief that someone, ANYONE, is actually saying this on television) is a great deal of what sells this: