The Dallas Bach Society tends to do very good concerts, and last night was probably no exception -- not one of their masterpieces, but very good nonetheless. But oh my! seeing Handel's _Samson_ after the last month of crazy acts and crazy rhetoric is freaky enough that it's hard to come away with as strong an impression of the music as of the content. A suicide attack against a prestigious building filled with people of a rival civilization, check..
Mahoah (i.e. Dad): Come, come! No time for lamentation now, no cause for grief; Samson like Samson fell, both life and death heroic. To his foes ruin is left; to him eternal fame.
Brr.
It's enough to make you think, you'd think. Although if I understood correctly the remarks of the VIP (artistic director? I dunno) between acts -- something about last month's events being an attack on the values of our civilization, and after some attendance problems at other public events he was grateful to us for upholding our civilization's values like early music -- I'm reminded that it doesn't necessarily makes you think deeply, at least not in the first month. (Not that I have had a shortage of reminders..)
Oh well, to knee jerk is human. (And as of this writing David Friedman quotes a noteworthy remark on the subject here.)