Old Glory & Never, Neverland

Something occurred to me last night as I sat immobile in my reclining chair curiously watching the HD, 3-D, digitized celebrations of the 4th. There seemed to be a kind of emptiness in this year’s festivities and I couldn’t help but wonder why. With a rather non-descript Jimmy Smits as host the show began with an anorexic Barry Manilow sporting a new toupee and belting out show tones. This was followed by the morbidly obese Aretha coughing out songs of past glory which then lead to the Jersey Boys? And what was that with the Muppets of Sesame Street being cuddled in the blossoms of Natasha Bedingfield. Of course there was the ubiquitous Erich Kunsel leading the National Symphony Orchestra, the Choral Arts Society of Washington and so on – but even they seemed sadly flat this year. The headlines of Michael, Fara, Ed, and Billy seemed to out shine our nation’s birthday.

Is this all that we could muster to welcome in a new year of triumph and victory? Where were the icons of the day and the energy of the past decades? Maybe we are all a little tired after the two year battle that has lead us to our newly anointed society. Or could it be that this new world with all its turmoil and passion is just resting for a moment and savoring a brief victory before putting on its new day robes and readying for the next conquest? I really hope so because now is not the time to stand still. There is too much yet to do. As Gore Vidal once said “our steadily proliferating species will either end in time or, with luck, become something else, since change is the nature of time and its hope” …