Happy Bastille Day!
I scoured YouTube for a truly good performance of Hector Berlioz’ setting of La Marseillaise. The version above is poorly recorded and somewhat slimmed down, but it was the best I could find. Done properly, the piece requires a huge and excellent orchestra and a vast chorus with a separate men’s chorus, women’s chorus, and children’s chorus. In the above, we must settle for a single chorus, though it’s large and well trained.
I can easily imagine constructing an unserious but entertaining theory that the reason we Americans have such a factured political culture is that we don’t have a proper national anthem. If the day ever comes when we can actually fix the American Constitution to repair our democracy and take it back from the oligarchy, Christianists, and authoritarians, we also need a new national anthem to go with the new Constitution.
Slough again
A friend emailed me yesterday with more about Slough and how the English town of Slough punches above its weight, culturally. I have never watched “The Office,” and thus I don’t know what kind of treatment Slough got. I should add, though, to my mention of “Slow Horses” (Apple TV+) and the Slough House series of novels by Mick Herron that in “Slow Horses” and Slough House the reference to Slough is insulting. Slough House is a place where MI5 sends its failed agents, and this Slough House is said to be so far from MI5 headquarters that “it might as well be Slough.”
My friend’s email also included a link to this video, which is a kind of hymn to Slough — quite touching — by the main character of “The Office.”
Extra credit: From the New York Times, 2008: What’s So Bad About Slough?
You will have to visit Slough when you are next over David 🙂
Hi Chenda: I was saying to Ken in email just this morning that I need to visit Slough at some point. I won’t be able to in September because I’m flying into Edinburgh rather than London …