Word: blessings
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...must be free" orthodoxy leads to things like B-1B bombers and ROTC to crush communism, fascism and other systems resembling the Soviet Union, all of which curtail freedom. It's a pretty good argument, really, because it lends itself to expression in pop songs like "God Bless the U.S.A...
...first act on Saturday, entering the hall to sustained applause and standing at attention in the presidential box as the national anthem was played by the 45-member Nelson Riddle orchestra. The gala's tone of red-blooded glitz was set by Country Singer Mac Davis' show opener, God Bless the U.S.A., complete with marching band and back-up vocals. At the request of ! Nancy Reagan, organizers added a touch of highbrow to the program by scheduling Mezzo Soprano Frederica Von Stade, who sang an aria from Meyerbeer's Les Huguenots...
...Five years ago, the nation watched a crop of elegiac Viet Nam movies such as Coming Home and The Deer Hunter. At the end of The Deer Hunter, when the hero has returned home, the crowd in a dingy bar in a Pennsylvania steel town sings God Bless America, but sings it so thinly and tentatively that the hymn becomes not an affirmation of the nation but a wistful dirge, the memory of something that the war destroyed. Today, the tones of patriotism in entertainment are loud and clear and sometimes tinny with the sound of jingo...
INDIVIDUAL PERFORMERS and specific numbers do stand out rather readily, almost too readily-- a pointed indication that the group dynamic simply isn't there. Frettra Miller as Jesus leads a stirring "Save the People," while Ann Henry adds power and fullness to a vibrant "Bless the Lord." Ty Warren is notable among the singers, as is freshman Steve Lyne whose lead in "We Beseech Thee," where the cast finally does come together, makes the song one of the strongest numbers in the show. Nick Weir, Margery Trumble, and senior David Schanzer (appearing in his first Harvard production) deserve kudos...
...architect Alvar Aalto, bless him, was always slightly out of it. He never lingered at the hothouse of Germany's Bauhaus; instead he spent the '20s in provincial Finland, designing for towns. His buildings are modern all right, sleek and sensible and just a bit Martian, but Aalto never took the final vows of modernism. Strict symmetry and monoliths left him cold. Rather, an Aalto building is apt to swell or zigzag confoundingly, to have lines and textures that seem more botanical and geological than geometrical. Ahead of his time, he declined to enforce the brittlest dogmas...