THE QUALITY OF MERCY

2025-04-172025-04-17 by David Hughes

Dread Rhyme: Womb, Tomb

Many years ago my friend and mentor Milania Austin Henley shared with me a poem written by her friend Claudette Drennan Kane upon the death of her son in 1993. Last year, in this season—liturgical, historical—I was drawn to it again. At that time I contacted Claudette’s husband Robert Hilary Kane, without a reply. I recently learned that three weeks later he had died. (My attempt to reach their surviving son has failed. I of course will remove this post upon request.)

Every mother’s faith is pummelled by the death of a child, and this moment in time, like too many others, causes us consciousness. As Claudette writes, we witnesses die too.

2025-04-132025-04-17 by David Hughes

Hey Judas

With some liturgical precision, YouTube pushed my way the following video featuring musician Murray Head, hosted by David Frost on November 15, 1969.¹ Head had taken the role of Judas Iscariot on the concept album of Jesus Christ Superstar, written by Andrew Lloyd Webber and Tim Rice, who already had gotten their pop cantata-turned-musical Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat under their belt. On Frost’s show Head saunters in sporting a svelte swimmer’s physique not quite concealed beneath a sheer chiffon chemise. There’s an unsettling tension between surface and substance in this presentation: muted tones in living color, crosses replaced by jagged Y’s forming an ebony crown of thorns.

In Superstar, Judas famously takes lead billing over Jesus (in order of appearance) in a retelling of the Passion, casting Christ as man and superman. In the opera Judas begins and ends—here, beyond the grave—as the conscience of the incautious up-and-comer Jesus.

2025-01-192025-04-17 by David Hughes

Heavy Inauguration Rotation

A few days ago, while cleaning up dead links on this blog, I ran across something included in my 2019 post Vaneigem and Bubblegum, which discusses matters musical, political, and spiritual. “Art on 45” is the lead track on a 1982 vinyl 12” EP called Art • Dream • Dominion by The Royal Family and the Poor. It appears to take its name from Stars on 45, a Dutch act that legitimized what had been a bootleg: a stringing together of popular songs to a disco beat.

2025-01-172025-03-03 by David Hughes

Sor Juana: Inquisitional minds want to know

I have Octavio Paz’s acclaimed biography of Sor Juana Inés de la Cruz on my shelves, but I never read it. I saw the 1990 film adaptation—if one can compress a 547-page tome into a 105-minute film.² The IMDB précis is precise:

A 17th-century Mexican nun defies expectations, becoming a renowned intellectual and writer during the Spanish Inquisition. Her progressive ideas attract unwanted attention, forcing her to seek protection from an influential ally.

2025-01-072025-01-07 by David Hughes

Claustbrophobic

I came to this late. A wonder of sound + vision.

2024-09-252024-09-26 by David Hughes

The Wind and the Fury

Danish Language Lobby Poster for Wild Is the Wind

A look at Wild Is the Wind, the film and its theme song.

2024-05-272024-12-28 by David Hughes

Obscure Exposures

Reminiscences regarding reissues by Brian Eno and Robert Fripp.

2024-05-042024-05-05 by David Hughes

Exhuming Joe Hill

By now viewers of MSNBC surely are familiar with reporter Adam Klasfeld who currently is attending the Manhattan trial of Donald Trump. You may not know that Klasfeld holds a B.A. in Theatre Arts from Rutgers and studied in London with Richard Digby Day (who “is credited with discovering actors Ralph Fiennes and Hugh Grant”³). Klasfeld is the author of a number of plays as well as artistic director of the theater company One Armed Man.⁴

2023-11-142023-11-14 by David Hughes

You Say Constitution, I Say Country

Here I parse the meaning of the lengthy first line of Section 3 of the 14th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution.

2023-10-132023-10-13 by David Hughes

Elijah

Elisha Raising the Son of the Shunamite by Frederick Leighton

The prophet Elijah is mentioned in Hebrew, Christian, and Islamic scriptures. In Luke, Jesus famously used the example of Elijah to stress his own rejection.