This is not ok.

I haven’t seen any of the John Adams miniseries, dramatically and morbidly titled “Join or Die,” and the most extensive review I have heard from a peer historian is “it’s alright.” However, folks have put up little clips online, and some fellow Hamilton lovers pick and chose those that feature the dashing Treasurer in the series so far.

But there is a major problem. Their Hamilton sucks. Really hard. Blows monkey balls sucks. Why, you ask? Well, first let’s start with the ridiculous wig. Although I grant, Hamilton was more likely to don the aristocratic hair style than say Jefferson, I actually do not know of any major portrait of him where he is wearing a wig. Secondly, who the fuck came up with the clever idea of making it jet black? That I know there is no portrait of. It makes him look like some disastrous eighteenth century goth. Hamilton, in fact, had beautiful light, somewhat strawberry blonde hair (before it turned a charming light white and grey, that is.) It probably wasn’t much different than Jefferson’s.

The horrible wig, however, could perhaps be forgiven if it were not for the larger of two sins. Hamilton’s demeanor – and I must be totally clear about this here – is completely off. This actor must have picked up some book written by Julian Boyd and swallowed the classic Hamilton caricature – serious, conservative and prudish financial monster. In fact, Hamilton was incredibly charismatic; he was the center of jubilance at a social gathering because he was charming, clever, jovial and a whole lot of fun. He joked, he danced, and indeed he even sang – especially when giving toasts – and charmed the socks off of ladies and gents alike. This Hamilton doesn’t even crack a smile, but rather sits there as if merely wishing he could adjust the rather large stick up his ass.

So anyway, here is a clip, watch it with pain: Horrible Hamilton

*sigh* so disappointing. It just goes to show; while the character of Adams may be more realistically understood in the public mind, and whereas everyone understands the humanity of Jefferson as far as boinking his slaves go, we obviously have a long way to go before the public at large has any concept of what a dashing man Hamilton was. I have tried to think, what character, what personality most closely approximates him? And actually, the closest I can come up with is Lestat in Interview with the Vampire, minus the fact that he is evil. Because Hamilton was most definitely not evil, although you wouldn’t know it from the John Adams film. But as for the swagger, the mild homoeroticism, the taste for everything aristocratic, the boiling emotions and frustrations that rest just under the surface, and the impatience with those he deems less intelligent than him; that’s about right.

So strangely, I can sort of watch this and just pretend it’s Hamilton; much better.

Also, their Jefferson is off as well. Partially, I am just resentful that the actor is better looking than Hamilton – Jefferson was handsome too, mind you, but really, they don’t even compete here. But more than that, he’s awfully smug and confident here; the real Jefferson, rather, was soft-spoken and quite shy. He would not even read his speeches aloud in Congress, but rather had a colleague do it for him. Quite endearing, really. All you get here is Jefferson-who-is-so-satisifed-with-his-smug-liberty-loving dumbshit.

Oh my. I’m getting a little carried away. I should stop before it gets any worse.

P.S. As the movie is about him, at least they seemed to have gotten Adams more or less. In this scene, at least, he is sitting around looking rather uncomfortable and insecure; that’s about right.

The central claim of music.

The central claim of music is meaning. Events exist in isolation; your activities day in and day out do not equal anything, do not proceed from any single source of direction. Human frailty and fickleness confirm this: one can break every principle they ever deeply held, and relationships once secure can disintegrate before our eyes.

And in every person there is a multiplicity of being – there is the radiant energy of a smile, yet suddenly replaced by a consistent down trodden frown, a mourning that the smile merely interrupted, rather than overtook. There are the soft edges and the rough ones, the quiet complaisant moments and the sudden tempests of loathing. Everything is a distorted Picasso; nothing lifts up from the general collection of unrelated and inconsistent moments to provide that which some hearts search ever most earnestly for: a narrative.

But one cannot really listen to music – cannot feel music – without temporarily suspending all disbelief, all reason, and believing in narrative; believing in meaning. Notes construct an emotion that tells some story that defies words – that lifts the image of the passing moments above the mere banality they seem to represent, and rather speaks to the depths of all collected moments. When we feel the high, the low, the rush of music, it is to admit a lingering faith. A faith that ultimately, there is some beautiful, transcendent meaning. But it is never something that can be read, nor depicted, for both images and words can be ruthlessly torn asunder, taken apart and analyzed individually. Only music exists as a whole; tunes repeat endlessly in the mind with all the notes present, each dependent upon the other. Only through music can we feel ourselves in the combined intensity of all our moments.

Such power can lead us into folly; how many ill-advised letters or behaviors have taken place under the influence of music? In the morning we wake up and admonish ourselves, feel an agonizing, rippling cringe at our naiveté the night before. But by the end of the day, we will give in again; we will risk embarrassment and vulnerability and disappointment all for the sake of a few moments of faith. Of meaning. Of the idea we have a story that has some expression that can be communicated; in the idea that we are entities which press into the space around us, that someone is secretly watching, and loving. And we hear all this in the music. Indeed, it is only through the music which we are assured that such fantasies are not only in our heads alone, but exist through us and past us, connecting us, to every lonely person who finds his reality in music.

By listening to music, we seek to confirm that we exist.