This coming Sunday, August 23 at 2:30 PM, at the Aesthetic Realism Foundation in New York City there will be a matinee of songs -- Gilbert and Sullivan, doo-wop, spirituals, Broadway show tunes, and more -- that will move us and teach us about the most important fight going on now in America and under our own skins -- between ego, lying about the world to please ourselves, and truth.
Every person, of every ethnic or national background, religion, sex, has this battle, and it's raging in America, with lies about the British and Canadian health care systems and President Obama's proposals all over the media. The comments to the songs in this matinee explain what is going on.
The fight between ego and truth is constant, both nationally and personally, including in love. One of the songs in this matinee is about just that subject, as a young woman tells us defiantly and complacently, "Don't Say Nothin' Bad about My Baby!" Then there are songs that are about real love; about how, through caring more for one person, the whole world can look good to us. How the battle of ego vs. truth goes in us will determine how love fares in our lives.
I've learned that every beautiful song puts together opposites -- heaviness and lightness, for and against, pleasure and pain -- in a way that we need to in our daily lives, at work, with friends, with our family, in our thoughts to ourselves. In every good song a composer was doing justice to the aesthetic structure of the world -- the oneness of opposites. "The world, art, and self explain each other:" Eli Siegel stated, "each is the aesthetic oneness of opposites." Learning and studying this has been one of the most rewarding experiences of my life. Music can really help us be the people we want to be; proud, at ease, happy!
Here is the announcement:
The Great Fight of EGO vs. TRUTH!
