Video of Jeff Rense
The video of Rense is very interesting in some ways. Here is my impression.
What I see is a person in his late 40's/early 50's with the demeanor of somebody who *knows* he is special and in a station of life over and above others. It calls my attention because I've known other persons displaying this attitude. For example: a MEP, a judge, opera singers. People in lofty positions, often ruling over others. It is the demeanor of people who move in a milieu of powerful people. It comes across at once as artificial and "i've solved my existential problems by doing what I've been told long enough". Borrowed power, power bought thru submission. To say that the person in the clip is gay may be a bit forward, but the hunch is there.
Interesting what he said about Mario Lanza: "... it is as if there were two, three, persons inside him ..." Check out the very weird pic of Mario Lanza displayed towards the end of the clip. Look at the eyes.
Opera. I live in a place where Opera is very present in everyday's life. I absolutely *hate* opera, but here I am not alone. Opera leaves nobody indifferent: you either love it or hate it.
Opera mostly appeals to powerful people or to people who crave power. It was born as a form of art because the powerful liked it, it has survived to this day because powerful people like it. At any given performance of Opera, you'll see advocates, judges, politicians, prosecutors, high military and police officers, very rich people, persons with strange occupations, law students and music students in attendance (and tourists lest we forget). The occupational profile of Opera fans and of those who like other classic music differs. At an evening with the symphonic orchestra chances are that there are far more 'normal' people in attendance, even taking into account the "look and be seen" factor of such social ocassions.
Opera texts are mostly about the trifles and conflicts of the powerful, about abducting some woman or stealing some treasure or taking vengeance for a suffered slight. The figures in Opera texts are not interested in 'justice' but in (re-)asserting power. When Opera texts are not about the relations between powerful characters, they are about sensual joys: sex and food and music in raw quantities. Opera texts are awfully simple and black-white in their outlook. Any retarded person could understand the story. Still, most people need a printout of the text in order to understand the performance, which leads to the next part ...
Singing Opera. Opera singers do so in a way that most people dont understand what they say. They sing in German, French, Italian, Spanish (zarzuela) and even in English, but not even the native speakers of these languages understand them most of times. But that is not important because opera is neither about music nor about the silly and primitive stories. Opera is all about hypnotism. It is about "opening up the senses", about culturally justifying and reinforcing a taste for "too much" of anything, or also, it is about soothing the hot cravings of the inner beasts of those in attendance. It is Veblen's conspicuous consumption turned into art for the sake of conspicuous consumption. Opera singers school their voices for many years and they must train daily. They learn techniques to elicit different emotions among their attendance. Similar techniques are used by professional orators, like politicians or advocates, to sway their listeners.
The overcharged decorations on set, the exaggerated mascara and mimics, the overdrawn figures, the decadently plump actors, their voices, trained to resemble either the grunts and squeals of people copulating or the groans of of those under torture, are but 'civilized' abstractions of the events taking place in the squalid holes where many of the attendants would otherwise be, quote, "up to their knees in spunk and blood". It is no coincidence that the houses of many too rich and powerful resemble opera sets.
