Wednesday, December 28, 2005

Beauty, Seen Clearly, Has The Answer To Racism

Come hear famous songs, ballads, Broadway hits, and more on Sunday, February 12 at 2:30pm. This is a gala cultural and ethical event! The Aesthetic Realism Theatre Company is presenting a repeat performance by popular demand of THE GREAT FIGHT OF EGO vs. TRUTH - Songs about Love, Justice, & Everybody's Feelings!


*UPDATE: BECAUSE OF LAST WEEKEND'S BLIZZARD THIS MATINEE WILL TAKE PLACE ON SUNDAY, FEBRUARY 19 AT 2:30 PM*

We (I'm proud to be one of the singers taking part) will show how every good song has in its technique the ethics that every person and every nation needs --the oneness of opposites such as freedom and justice, sameness and difference, pride and humility. And this is literally the answer to every injustice of man, from racism to homelessness. See for yourself: 2:30 pm, Sunday February 12, 141 Greene Street in SoHo, New York. I recommend that you call for reservations ahead of time -- 212 777 4490.

To read the flyer, click on the link above.
More about Aesthetic Realism:
Ellen Reiss, in addition to teaching the Aesthetic Realism Explanation of Poetry Class, teaches classes attended by Aesthetic Realism consultants and associates, including myself. I have seen and marveled at her unfailing desire to understand every person and every situation. FOr instance, look at the class in which she discussed a newspaper article about what is known as ADHD
(Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder). She said, "The question is whether this trouble of a child—trouble keeping his attention on a thing, which may be joined by a desire to race around—comes from a way of seeing the whole world. Is there a fight about the world in this child? Whether you're seventy-nine or a boy of four, you have an attitude to the whole world." There was such respect for the mind of a child, as Barbara McClung and Lauren Phillips describe in their account of the class. Read more here.
Ellen Reiss has also been commenting on, through the principles of Aesthetic Realism, the upsurge of racism in these years. To see more about this, read the article by Alice Bernstein. Also, in Racism Can End Ellen Reiss writes about about how a way of seeing the world affects a person's way of seeing someone whose culture or ethnic background is different from one's own. What could be more important for people to understand in today's world?
Some of my favourite links are the following: Read Ellen Reiss's critical observations about the poetry of Robert Burns (one of my favourite poets). She shows how relevant what Burns was writing about 200 years ago is to what is going on today. His poetry has the terrifically just way of seeing people that is needed by government leaders and every one of us.
Aesthetic Realism explains that in order to really respect any person, whether someone of another culture or your own husband or wife, is to see that person as representing nothing less than the world itself. How can we see a person that way? Look at Eli Siegel's Is Beauty the Making One of Opposites? Ask yourself, does this person have opposites? Do they have every one of these fifteen pairs? (And more besides?) Is he/she trying to make sense of how they have these opposites?
Injustice can be based on race, but it can also be based simply on seeing another person's way of meeting the world as different from one's own, and therefore less valuable. And about this, a person can be monumentally wrong. A classic instance of this in literary history is taken up by Ellen Reiss in relation to the great poet John Keats. She also shows the immediate relevance of this mis-seeing to our own lives and time.
One of my favourite links is to columnist and civil rights advocate Alice Bernstein. Her writing against racism has Aesthetic Realism as its basis. To see what Aesthetic Realism is--and what it is not--see the website devoted to accuracy, honesty, justice--the plain truth!: Countering the Lies.

The Aesthetic Realism Online Library has poems, lectures, reviews, essays, and selections from other major works by Eli Siegel. There are also articles in the press and media about the founder of Aesthetic Realism.
Aesthetic Realism: A New Perspective for Anthropology & Sociology is the website of celebrated cultural anthropologist and novelist Arnold Perey, PhD.
At Aesthetic Realism Resources there are articles on many subjects that concern people today such as love, self-expression, current events, economics, the arts, racism and much, much more.
The Right of Aesthetic Realism to Be Known is the international periodical read by everyone who wants to understand what is going on in America today. Edited by Ellen Reiss, The Right Of serialises lectures by Eli Siegel and shows how they comment on current events such as the unprecedented growth of personal debt as well as our own questions and hopes as individuals.
See photographs with moving commentary and technical insight at Len Bernstein: Photographic Education Based on the Aesthetic Realism of Eli Siegel
Important writings on economics, history, the questions of women, art, literature and more can be seen at Lynette Abel: Aesthetic Realism and Life
The website of Aesthetic Realism Consultant Miriam Mondlin is here: Aesthetic Realism Encourages Self-Expression
For teachers especially, we suggest you get to know the work of noted educators Rosemary Plumstead and Donita Ellison. They are two of the finest teachers we've ever known.
To find out what is true about the kind, intellectually-rigorous philosophy that is Aesthetic Realism go to this website which sets the record straight and has, for the public record, the assessment of dozens of noted critics, poets, cultural icons, social scientists, civil rights leaders, artists, teachers, and more, and more: Friends of Aesthetic Realism--Countering the Lies
Find our more about Eli Siegel, the founder of Aesthetic Realism.
See the website of myself and Ann Richards: Aesthetic Realism & Our Lives

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