I got here late but I needed to commune: I got my MFA from The Shakespeare Theatre, DC, so I was tangentially connected to the center.
But more over, I think about the Young Arts program I did in High school.
I can’t believe this— but I’m starting to cry. The Kennedy Center made me feel like the arts mattered to the country, that I could be an artist, and respected for it. That my artistic expression mattered, that I, a teenage girl, mattered. The center always has such great activities and shows for kids and young people. It fucking breaks my heart to think of the kids missing out on these priceless moments— because a bloated psychopath says so.
Luckily, artists are resilient—we WILL take it back.
I lived, worked, and went to college in DC from 1971 to 1976, beginning within a month of the Kennedy Center's opening in September 1971. So spectacular in its newness. As I recall, I saw only one performance there (events were generally too expensive for my low wages and student budget): Edward Albee's "Seascape," with a cast including a young Frank Langella, in December 1974. A great and memorable experience. "Seascape" went on to Broadway and to win a Pulitzer Prize.
One of the great things about the Center was its openness, and my soon-to-be wife and I often enjoyed roaming its expanses. So tragic and indefensible what Trump has done to it.
So typical Trump. He takes something that doesn't belong to him, but to the people of the United States, and tries to make it about himself. When there's negative reaction, the says "If I can't have it, no one can" and takes away yet another thing from the American people (just like he's taken a stable global trading system, environmental protections, jobs from civil servants and access to health care, etc.) While he takes for himself (Qatari jets, Swiss gold bars and Rolexes, crypto cash from a UAE sheikh while provided export-controlled chips and selling out national security -- the list goes on).
So like a spoiled kid in a schoolyard, he decides to take his ball and go home. Only The Kennedy Center is not his ball. It's ours. It's not dilapidated, it just had $275 million of improvements recently He wants to rebuild it -- with what money? How much? Is Congress going to appropriate the funds? Time for Congress to grow a pair and transfer the Kennedy Center to a public trust Trump can't touch. Want the acts to come back? Dump Trump!
I'm a west coast person- so " delighted DMV-area children" confused me at first... but then I figured it out, I think - Delaware/Maryland/Virginia I assume? not Dept of Motor Vehicles?
I had assumed it was a reference to children who had been brought to the Dept. of motor vehicles by their parents and had been left behind while the parents languished in plastic chairs, waiting for their number to be called! I too am a west coast resident.
Donald Trump has recently added his name to the Kennedy Center. This action makes one believe that he has a strong sense of the arts and, likely, has an appreciation for John F. Kennedy; otherwise, he would have deleted Kennedy’s name. Given that, and being the very stable genius that he claimed to be, he must have known that Robert Frost spoke at Kennedy’s inauguration and read one of his poems. Oddly, he wasn’t paying attention to Frost’s work and missed this poem:
So what happens now to the resident orchestra of the Kennedy Center, which was loyally hanging on even when the Opera left? Do they have an alternative venue in which to play? Are they being abandoned and likely to disappear from the N.Y. cultural scene?
The late, great, Hannibal Lector, and Arnold Palmer's genitalia are what won Trump the election. Throw in the Gopher from Caddyshack dance, we were helpless to resist such charisma!
I saw the Alvin Ailey Dance troupe at the Kennedy Center twice, in the 1970s. I saw my nephew dance there, twice, before he died, as a student with the Washington Ballet School, under the direction of Septime Weber. I was photographed and featured in a Kennedy Center program brochure while I was in high school. I will NEVER go to the Kennedy Center while it bears the current POTUS' name, because his hubris and overreach, his disrespect for iconic monuments is disgraceful, and a smear on the memory of John fitzgerald Kennedy and JFK's stellar service to our country, and to his family's dedication to the arts.
If the Kennedy Center "renovations" resemble those done to the Oval (Offal) Office, then I can't imagine how anyone will be able to watch any shows or plays without having to don very dark glasses to protect their eyes from the glare off all the fake gold doo dads plastered everywhere. Add in the marble arm rests and the inside of that once fine art space is going to figuratively scream "Whaah! Daddy never loved me!"
I went back to read the Kennedy Center piece again. It's terrific, even though it feels like a eulogy — which I guess it really is. I only went to the Kennedy Center a few times, but those are good memories, and I'm so sad to see the place abused this way. My favorite line from the article: "There is no reason that Issa Rae and Jeff Foxworthy and the National Symphony Orchestra and Hamilton and Les Miz and George Strait and Philip Glass and whoever else cannot exist under the same roof." Amen.
I got here late but I needed to commune: I got my MFA from The Shakespeare Theatre, DC, so I was tangentially connected to the center.
But more over, I think about the Young Arts program I did in High school.
I can’t believe this— but I’m starting to cry. The Kennedy Center made me feel like the arts mattered to the country, that I could be an artist, and respected for it. That my artistic expression mattered, that I, a teenage girl, mattered. The center always has such great activities and shows for kids and young people. It fucking breaks my heart to think of the kids missing out on these priceless moments— because a bloated psychopath says so.
Luckily, artists are resilient—we WILL take it back.
I lived, worked, and went to college in DC from 1971 to 1976, beginning within a month of the Kennedy Center's opening in September 1971. So spectacular in its newness. As I recall, I saw only one performance there (events were generally too expensive for my low wages and student budget): Edward Albee's "Seascape," with a cast including a young Frank Langella, in December 1974. A great and memorable experience. "Seascape" went on to Broadway and to win a Pulitzer Prize.
One of the great things about the Center was its openness, and my soon-to-be wife and I often enjoyed roaming its expanses. So tragic and indefensible what Trump has done to it.
So typical Trump. He takes something that doesn't belong to him, but to the people of the United States, and tries to make it about himself. When there's negative reaction, the says "If I can't have it, no one can" and takes away yet another thing from the American people (just like he's taken a stable global trading system, environmental protections, jobs from civil servants and access to health care, etc.) While he takes for himself (Qatari jets, Swiss gold bars and Rolexes, crypto cash from a UAE sheikh while provided export-controlled chips and selling out national security -- the list goes on).
So like a spoiled kid in a schoolyard, he decides to take his ball and go home. Only The Kennedy Center is not his ball. It's ours. It's not dilapidated, it just had $275 million of improvements recently He wants to rebuild it -- with what money? How much? Is Congress going to appropriate the funds? Time for Congress to grow a pair and transfer the Kennedy Center to a public trust Trump can't touch. Want the acts to come back? Dump Trump!
I'm a west coast person- so " delighted DMV-area children" confused me at first... but then I figured it out, I think - Delaware/Maryland/Virginia I assume? not Dept of Motor Vehicles?
I had assumed it was a reference to children who had been brought to the Dept. of motor vehicles by their parents and had been left behind while the parents languished in plastic chairs, waiting for their number to be called! I too am a west coast resident.
Haha yes sorry lapsing into my old east coast ways.
TRUMP KENNEDY CENTER
Donald Trump has recently added his name to the Kennedy Center. This action makes one believe that he has a strong sense of the arts and, likely, has an appreciation for John F. Kennedy; otherwise, he would have deleted Kennedy’s name. Given that, and being the very stable genius that he claimed to be, he must have known that Robert Frost spoke at Kennedy’s inauguration and read one of his poems. Oddly, he wasn’t paying attention to Frost’s work and missed this poem:
Nothing Gold Can Stay
Nature’s first green is gold,
Her hardest hue to hold.
Her early leaf’s a flower;
But only so an hour.
Then leaf subsides to leaf.
So Eden sank to grief,
So dawn goes down to day.
Nothing gold can stay.
Published in The Yale Review, October 1923
(kda61346.substack.com)
So very sad that Trump had to ruin the Kennedy Center. He really does ruin everything.
So what happens now to the resident orchestra of the Kennedy Center, which was loyally hanging on even when the Opera left? Do they have an alternative venue in which to play? Are they being abandoned and likely to disappear from the N.Y. cultural scene?
My understanding is that the National Symphony staff and players will be paid as they look for a new home. The opera company does have a new venue.
The late, great, Hannibal Lector, and Arnold Palmer's genitalia are what won Trump the election. Throw in the Gopher from Caddyshack dance, we were helpless to resist such charisma!
I saw the Alvin Ailey Dance troupe at the Kennedy Center twice, in the 1970s. I saw my nephew dance there, twice, before he died, as a student with the Washington Ballet School, under the direction of Septime Weber. I was photographed and featured in a Kennedy Center program brochure while I was in high school. I will NEVER go to the Kennedy Center while it bears the current POTUS' name, because his hubris and overreach, his disrespect for iconic monuments is disgraceful, and a smear on the memory of John fitzgerald Kennedy and JFK's stellar service to our country, and to his family's dedication to the arts.
If the Kennedy Center "renovations" resemble those done to the Oval (Offal) Office, then I can't imagine how anyone will be able to watch any shows or plays without having to don very dark glasses to protect their eyes from the glare off all the fake gold doo dads plastered everywhere. Add in the marble arm rests and the inside of that once fine art space is going to figuratively scream "Whaah! Daddy never loved me!"
what were you expecting from the champion of beautiful clean coal, not to mention the trump & epstein files
I went back to read the Kennedy Center piece again. It's terrific, even though it feels like a eulogy — which I guess it really is. I only went to the Kennedy Center a few times, but those are good memories, and I'm so sad to see the place abused this way. My favorite line from the article: "There is no reason that Issa Rae and Jeff Foxworthy and the National Symphony Orchestra and Hamilton and Les Miz and George Strait and Philip Glass and whoever else cannot exist under the same roof." Amen.