Open Letter to the Mann Music Center
The face of shame
Dear Mann Music Center President Catherine Cahill:
Congratulations on this year’s upcoming concert series! Like many Philadelphians, I relish the summer season, when my family and I can enjoy a few evenings of classical music under the stars at Fairmount Park. I’m especially looking forward to opening night, featuring Beethoven’s Symphony No. 9 and Tchaikovsky’s Piano Concerto No. 1. My young son is spending the summer with me this year, and we look forward to introducing him to the Philadelphia Orchestra.
However, there’s one night we will NOT be attending the Mann: July 27, 2010. That’s the night that you’ve invited noted war criminal, torture-enabler, and footwear enthusiast Condoleezza Rice to perform the middle movement of Mozart’s Piano Concerto in D minor.
Like millions of other Americans and hundreds of thousands of Philadelphians, I am disgusted by Rice’s role in lying the nation into war, approving the torture of POWs and suspected terrorists, and leaving the city of New Orleans to drown while she shopped for shoes (her boss was eating yummy cake with Senator McCain: leadership at its finest). Frankly, I’m wondering why you made such a choice to begin with: Rice’s reputation as a liar, killer, torturer, and warmonger far outstrips her reputation as a pianist, much as Charles Manson’s talent for songwriting is dwarfed by his role in the Sharon Tate butchery (perhaps you can get Charlie to sing a duet with Condie?).
But since the choice has been made, I’d like to make a few suggestions to make the night one to remember.
Is there any way you can change the selection from Mozart’s Piano Concerto in D minor to a requiem or funeral mass of some sort? That would seem to be a much better fit for a woman whose lies have led to the deaths of millions of Iraqis and thousands of American soldiers, and whose negligence during Hurricane Katrina is the stuff of legend. Another appropriate choice might be Wagner’s Ride of the Valkyries, which I understand is quite popular with the young men and women consigned to die in the desert by Ms. Rice and her colleagues in the Bush administration. Or perhaps a bit of light pop, such as Don Ho’s “Tiny Bubbles”, in commemoration of the poor people abandoned to the flood in New Orleans’ 9th Ward.
I also suggest you partner with the Mutter Museum for the July 27 set: I am sure they have a fine collection of human skulls which the Mann could use to set the atmosphere for Dr. Rice’s performance. I guess dropping them at the end of the performance like balloons at a political convention might be a little dangerous for the performers, but certainly no more dangerous than the bombs we’ve dropped on families and children in Iraq, a country that never attacked the United States, and had nothing to do with September 11. Is there any way they can be hung like the tiki lights you see at a luau? Or if that’s too expensive, maybe you can place one on the piano, as a macabre candelabra. I understand white phosphorous, which we’ve used in carrying out the Iraq Adventure Condie helped embroil us in, has an alarming tendency to melt people’s skin: maybe you can use a rendered Iraqi to fashion the candle.
Will there be a live waterboarding demonstration on the stage? I think there should be: Philadelphia is a city with a growing immigrant population, and it shouldn’t be that difficult to find a brown skinned person to drown repeatedly. Dr. Rice could perform the musical accompaniment, or perhaps do the waterboarding herself, to the strains of the Schubert’s Auf der Danau.
I further suggest you set up some kind of plexiglass shield between Dr. Rice and the audience, since I am sure there will be some people who will applaud her appearance with a hail of rotten tomatoes, bags of feces, dead cats, and other detritus. Not that I’m suggesting anyone do that, but in a city that’s thrown D-cell batteries at baseball teams, applauded the neck injury of a Dallas Cowboy, and hurled snowballs at Santa, you never know what could happen. Heck, that Pukemon guy could storm the stage and vomit on Dr. Mengele Rice: I can attest that it turns my guts to know that the murderous warmongering Dr. Rice is being honored with an appearance at the Mann, and I have an iron stomach.
Finally, I suggest that you pick up a dictionary and find the word “shame”. Then look in the mirror, because that word applies to you and whoever else at the Mann thought inviting an internationally despised war criminal to defile the stage of Philadelphia’s pre-eminent outdoor theatre was a good idea. It’s pretty obvious you don’t know what the word means.
Yours,
Brendan Skwire
Philadelphia, PA
PS: In all seriousness, I hope the entire city boycotts this performance. I hope the Mann loses gobs of money on July 27, and that Rice plays to an empty house. That would be my first choice, but considering the odds of no one showing up at all are fairly low, I hope Dr. Rice is treated with the disrespect and disdain she deserves, and that the Mann’s custodial crew has to work overtime to clean up the mess left by outraged concertgoers.
