Pregnant Music

When I was young and stupid, (as opposed to now when I am middle-aged and stupid,) I was singing some enormous choral work in some enormous concert - the Berlioz Requiem perhaps?- some Mass, no matter.

Whatever it was, I, and all the silly girls around me, thought what a bad job the poor incompetent composer had done -- ya call that a finale?
That weak, quiet, unassuming little thing? What kind of way is THAT to end a performance piece?

We, of course, had no notion of the liturgical purpose of the various movements of a Mass.

Essentially, we believed music should be buttoned.

Watching a recording of a liturgy taped some time ago off EWTN, a "big" Mass.
And it's not badly done, the music not badly chosen or sung or played, it is not utterly inappropriate, the problems are not "style, " per se -- but I realize what so many movements of the Ordinary, (a work I actually like,) are missing:

They are not pregnant.
Whatever they were intended to deliver, is already out there.
They are finished.
Instead of quickening, they are dead.
They sound final.
They do not lead to something more, in fact to something more important, they do not promise something greater to come.

And far too much church music is the same way -- how often would a stranger to Catholic worship think the collection must be the high point of our services?

The music says so!

I am very aware just now of the movement through time of music and words, as the play I am rehearsing comes together.
Ah, we need to slow this down, we need to make this more matter of fact, we need to highlight this, we need this to build, we need this to whet the appetite to what follows...

There is a craft to constructing theatrical music. There is a craft to constructing performance music.

And its methods should NOT be applied unthinkingly to the programming and playing of liturgical music.

Because then the Mass ends up being a series of finales, of ta-dahs!

No, liturgical music must be pregnant.

Would non-Catholics, non-Christians, Atheists -- would they be better off without the Catholic Church?

Even some who express profound difficulties with Her would say not:

"For all the difficulties Jews have with the churches --- and they are profound and possibly insoluble ---- if Christianity were to disappear from Britain and Europe, the basis of western civilisation would crumble, and our precious liberties and toleration would vanish with it.

Indeed, they are already diminishing under the current onslaught upon Christianity from illiberal and intolerant secular fanatics."

Picking Up the Threads of Our Past

First off, I want to affirm that I'm still firmly in the Reform of the Reform camp, though growing more comfortable in my still rare forays into Extraordinary land.

That said, I am finding myself more, rather than less, interested in the EF even as the conduct of the OF is improving, (however incrementally.)

The reactions to the Solemn Pontifical Mass at the nationla Basilica from the haters is more vitirolic and more desperate than I would have expected.
(Why do they care so very much?)
But even more interesting are the positive reactions from non-devotees of the EF, even from non-Catholic.

I know little to nothing about Inside the Vatican's Robert Moynihan, but would venture to guess that he, (as a member of the Roman Catholic establishment of the United States of whom I have not heard specifically that he is part of the traditionalist community,) that he's an O.F. guy.

[I]n addition to the sacred mystery of the Mass itself ... something else was occurring on April 24 in Washington of considerable importance -- of importance for the future of the Church, and so also of importance for the future of the West.

...in the West, in the United States, and precisely in Washington DC, the capital of the US, despite a generation or more of "post-Christian" cultural pressure, there remains a desire, a hunger, to be connected with the Christian past, and to hand on to posterity what was handed down over the centuries, often in the face of much suffering.

In short, the celebration of this Mass, after 40 years, and in the midst of an admittedly profound crisis in the Church, suggests that American Catholics, like their counterparts in Europe and around the world, may yet turn to the riches and treasures of their tradition to find a way forward.

And this will not be pure archaism. It will not reflect a flight from present reality. Nor will it be a rejection tout court of everything that came with the Second Vatican Council.

Rather, it will be an attempt to pick up the threads of our past, and see if they may still be woven into the fabric of our present, in order to create the tapestry of our future. It is our future that it looks toward -- not just our past.

Having just been in Rome, having been present three weeks ago at the papal liturgies during Holy Week, having talked recently with a number of Vatican officials about liturgical matters, and about the Second Vatican Council and its legacy, for me this liturgy reflected what Pope Benedict is trying ceaselessly to teach: that the Catholic tradition has not been lost, that it remains to be discovered, and lived...

In this context, we must recall the words "lex orandi, lex credendi." That is, literally, "the law of praying is the law of believing."

To put it less literally: the way one prays, the way the Church prays, shapes and determines and establishes what a person, what the Church, believes. Praying "becomes" believing. And this is the fundamental reason that liturgy matters. [emphasis supplied] Some readers may feel the liturgy is a superficial matter, that time spent discussing or arguing or debating about the liturgy is wasted time, time that could be better spent in study, or prayer, or works of mercy and charity.

But the liturgy is not a superficial matter. It is a fundamental matter. It is fundamental because it determines and establishes the faith itself: lex orandi, lex credendi. And this means that, for those who wish to change faith, or alter it, or destroy it, changing the liturgy is the first, essential step. Likewise, for those who wish to keep the faith, and hand it on, and preserve it, preserving the liturgy is the first and fundamental aim of all their efforts.

Pope Benedict has written: "The Church stands and falls with the Liturgy. When the adoration of the divine Trinity declines, when the faith no longer appears in its fullness in the Liturgy of the Church, when man’s words, his thoughts, his intentions are suffocating him, then faith will have lost the place where it is expressed and where it dwells. For that reason, the true celebration of the Sacred Liturgy is the center of any renewal of the Church whatsoever.”

And so Pope Benedict has been a Pope of liturgical reform, or of liturgical preservation, because he believes that only through the liturgy, through the prayer of the Church, can the Church's faith, that depositum fidei which was entrusted to him, be protected and handed on to his successor.

Lex orandi, lex credendi. In the Early Church there were about 70 years of liturgical tradition before there was any creed -- any formulated statement of what the Church believed -- and about 350 years before there was an accepted biblical canon. The Church's prayer, her liturgy, provided the basis for establishing the other bases of the faith, the creeds and the canon.

The Catechism of the Catholic Church states: "When the Church celebrates the sacraments, she confesses the faith received from the apostles -- whence the ancient saying: lex orandi, lex credendi." ...

And so the liturgy is of central importance to Benedict, and to the Vatican, today. He and his inner circle see the liturgy as critical to the future of Roman Catholicism. But not only to Roman Catholicism. There is another reason for Benedict's focus on the liturgy.

The Orthodox Connection

It is well known that the Orthodox, in a profound way, share Benedict's conviction that the liturgy is fundamental for faith, and so also for practice of the faith.

For example, Eastern Orthodoxy's Patriarch Bartholomew I of Constantinople quoted the phrase "lex orandi, lex credendi" in Latin on the occasion of the visit of Pope Benedict XVI to Istanbul in 2006, drawing from the phrase the lesson that, "in liturgy, we are reminded of the need to reach unity in faith as well as in prayer."

I believe that Pope Benedict's approval, a few months after that November 2006 visit, on July 7, 2007, of wider use of the old Latin Mass in the Latin rite, was intended to help prepare the reunion of the two great divided branches of Christianity, Catholicism and Orthodoxy.

The path toward this reunion must pass, in some essential way, through the liturgy. Through a shared liturgy.

The liturgies of the two Churches must express the same faith if the Churches are ever to be once again in unity -- something Christ willed for his disciples in his prayer on the final night with them before his crucifixion.

Save the Liturgy, Save the World

And I thought MY PARISH had trouble maintaining the integrity of the liturgy in funeral planning....

I admit that I'm a little confused about the tenses of the verbs in this account of a celebrity funeral at the Cathedral in L.A.

Thousands law enforcement officers from across the region gathered in downtown LA to pay final respects Tuesday to former Los Angeles police Chief Daryl Gates.

The funeral will be at the Cathedral of Our Lady of the Angels. Gates' casket was escorted from police headquarters to the cathedral a few blocks away, and a private funeral was conducted at 9 a.m.

The funeral music included Frank Sinatra's "My Way."

"Daryl was the Los Angeles Police Department, and the Los Angeles Police Department was Daryl," said LAPD Chief Charlie Beck.

I would have thought...

... that on this, of all weekends, amidst the specifi--- sorry, I meant to say, general intercessions for various small segments of the population and for ecological responsibility, we could have spared a fraction of a petition, a word at least, for the anniversary of the Holy Father's inauguration.

Wouldn't you?

As a rule, the series of intentions is to be

1. For the needs of the Church;
2. For public authorities and the salvation of the whole world;
3. For those burdened by any kind of difficulty;
4. For the local community.

I'm trying to think when I last heard a petition for even our own salvation, much less that of the whole world, at Sunday Mass. In fact, I can't remember hearing our need for salvation expressed. (Always excepting at the Reform2 "flagship.")

And no, I don't come to share our story, and I myself am not the Bread of Life, and the Kingdom, despite our efforts at singing it into being, hasn't arrived.

If you haven't an umbrella, DO wear a hat...

I have been helping out at the parish that is my former place of employment in a variety of musical ways (volunteer, mostly...)
After one liturgy, my replacement and I were talking about the coming new translation, how to prepare, when to prepare, WHO to prepare,etc...
My dear, dear pastor approached and we let him in on the topic under discussion.
"New translation? I got the answer, just do it in Latin...."

Now, no doubt this strikes you as an unremarkable conversation.
BUT....

Six years ago this same priest accosted me after a Mass at which the Sanctus had been sung in Latin, the simple Gregorian one, Jubilate Deo, Missa Primitiva, Pro defunctis... however you choose to name it.

What was that, the people don't know Latin!
Don't worry, we're only going to do it at choir Masses, so that they'll have a lot of support, until they know it.
But the people don't know Latin!
Well, they'll pick it up with repetition.
But the people don't know Latin!
Well, they can't know it unless they learn it, and they can't learn it unless they hear it.
But the people don't know Latin!
Well, they can't know it if they don't hear it and do it. Don't you WANT them to know it?
(LOOOOOOOOOOOOONG, uncomfortable pause)
No.

Make of this what you will. (But yeah, I feel a little like Moses, looking at the Promised Land he would never reach, even though he was the one who dragged the Chosen people, kicking and screaming, to its threshold.)

Ewww, it was so slow, so solemn -- as if something IMPORTANT were going on!

I forgot this was going to be on -- I'll have to try to catch some of the rerun tonight, though i did see a moment or two.
Did they show the children's schola of the New Ephrem?
I saw a number of priests I know, and think I may have spotted another few.
The commentators, what little I heard , were excellent, unusually informative without being intrusive.
I think one of them may have been the priest who appropriated my motto - Save the Liturgy, Save the World. (Is "appropriated" the right word? I mean nothing pejorative by it, he is most welcome to it.)
Many happy returns of this day, Holy Father!

Penance is good for the soul... of someon else, apparently

Is the Catholic world rediscovering penance?

In a statement to be read at all parishes April 24-25, the bishops [of England and Wales] ... said, it is "time for deep prayer and reparation for atonement" of the sins of priests and other Catholics who have abused children.

"We invite Catholics in England and Wales to make the four Fridays in May 2010 special days of prayer," the bishops said in their statement, released April 22.

They recommended visiting the Blessed Sacrament to pray for victims, their abusers and for church leaders who mishandled cases.

Really?
Well, some might recommend that each one of their excellencies kneel in his cathedral in sack-cloth and ashes for the entire day each Friday in May.

What a different tone would have been struck, had they instead asked for the prayers and support of their flock while THEY engaged in "deep prayer and reparation for atonement and visiting the Blessed Sacrament to pray for victims, their abusers and for church leaders who mishandled cases."

Cultural Illiteracy?

Don't know whether the news organization or the police are responsible, but I just saw a news item that asked the public's help in identifying a dismembered body that has been found.

It bears two tattoos of "the Joker", one laughing, one weeping, which they showed onscreen.

You know, kinda like this:

So now the investigators will proceed on the assumption that the deceased is a Batman fan?

Another Voice Raised Against the Abomination that is Lawns!

This fellow has his head screwed on right.

Lawns are an artificial construct, and deeply destructive ecologically.

Period.

I've been in the processing of returning our property to prairie the entire time we've lived here.

Yeah!

Credit Cards, and Fairness

Since my financial and arithmetical acumen is such that I have trouble with questions such as whether it is better to have a dime or a dollar, I shall have to take this on faith, but it seems right to me:

[Credit and debit cards are] convenient and compact and often come with small cash-back incentives.

But what almost no one realizes is that those benefits are far outweighed by an implicit transaction fee, set by credit card companies and their issuing banks, that costs consumers more than $48 billion a year. ..

Card companies generate ... returns by charging an “interchange fee” for every credit or debit transaction they run — when a merchant accepts your card for a $100 item, it gets approximately $98 in payment. These costs are passed on to all consumers — even those who pay by cash — in the form of higher retail prices.

... many countries have instituted consumer protections against such hidden taxes, while the United States, which has some of the developed world’s highest interchange fees, has left them completely unregulated.

... Washington should take two straightforward steps.

First, Congress should recognize the obvious: debit cards, whose use and fees are growing at a rapid rate, are actually no more than plastic checks. Congress and the Federal Reserve do not allow banks to charge their customers a percentage of each check, and it should put the same restriction on debit cards.

Second, Congress should authorize the Federal Reserve to limit credit card interchange fees to their actual cost, fairly determined, plus a reasonable profit. The annual savings to merchants would be in the tens of billions of dollars. Since retailing is highly competitive, most of these savings would be passed on to consumers in lower prices or in the form of improved services by retailers that could afford to hire more people....

If the United States were to reduce the interchange rate from 2.0 percent to 0.5 percent, the savings would be $36 billion per year, less some relatively small offsets.

Not only would such savings make our retail payment system more fair, but it would represent a significant economic stimulus at a time when consumers are just starting to spend again. And best of all, it wouldn’t cost Washington a thing.

It seems to me that would do almost as much to make small business more viable as health insurance reform.

First new setting of plainsong Mass for fifty years?

Uh, what?

Uh, hardly.

But good.

“The work is being produced in two versions,... one of which is simplified for use in Catholic parishes, so it is sure to have a big take-up around the country. It is also very much in line with the desires of Pope Benedict XVI for the future of liturgical celebration, as it receives its inspiration from Gregorian chant – a central part of musical liturgical history.

"[The composer's] last Mass setting, the Westminster Mass, was and continues to be an international success,... so a very wide appeal is anticipated for the Schola Missa de Angelis.”

Potential Earworm

Note: the title of this blog is NOT a judgement on any particular ordinary, nor on the one featured in this article. (whihc I have not yet heard.)
It is just an acknowledgment that the settings that get pushed by the publishers, the big organizations, and Os of W tend to possess WAAAAAAAAAAY too much affect; they get played to death; they do not wear well.

In anticipation of the new translation of the Roman Missal, OCP has chosen five new and four revised Mass settings for initial publication. Misa Santa Cecilia/Mass of St. Cecilia, a new bilingual setting by Estela Garcia-Lopez and Rodolfo Lopez, is among those selected. While Masses in Spanish only are not affected by the new translation of the Roman Missal, bilingual settings must be prepared for communities worshiping in both languages.

"When you write bilingual music it's always a challenge to make both languages feel natural and flow with the music," said Garcia-Lopez. "We tried to find a good balance between the two languages. The other challenge was presenting the music in a user-friendly way, giving musicians the versatility to switch languages as necessary given the parish's needs. We wanted it to be fully bilingual, meaning one could learn it all in Spanish or English or bilingually."

This parish-tested setting will be included in an Order of Mass supplement, which will be made available to OCP customers using resources affected by the new translation.

OCP, the 900 pound gorilla of Catholic church songs, (Himself would say "the Texas Board of Education," rather than the gorilla references,) has a website on all this.

It is not just that he needs our prayers, but that he deserves them...

An opinion piece by Vincent Twomey (Fr.? Mr?) well worth reading, even if only to remind ourselves that the haters of the media world don't speak for everyone.

A Study in Contrasts, and a Glimpse of the Future?

Very interesting article in US Catholic about the next generation of priests, and how they, with their better (my word, not the article's) formation might be getting along with their predecessors and (current but aging) bosses.

I will refrain from tagging the post "40 Years in the Desert" although it is way tempting...

(Incidentally, Father Bart? there are indeed circumstances when the amice is required. But I can't lame you for not knowing that, and I certainly can't blame you for not wanting to wear it or the alb in the Tucson heat. But I do fault you for not doing so.)

The author of the article, by the way, thinks she's reporting but can't help editorializing, whether from ignorance or agenda, I do not know: Before he began presiding with his back to the parishioners...

My Husband is Very Understanding

Yes, Himself indulges me even in my crushes on other men --

Happy Birthday, Papa!

Why My House Will Never Be Sold

I will never get the clutter under control so that a realtor can show the dang thing.
I am constantly being way-laid in my packing efforts by books which I haven't seen in a while, and even sometimes of which I was completely unaware.

From its presence on a shelf with cookbooks (a recipe for a barley-based dessert still eludes me...) I think I know the used book emporium whence this came -- the Catholic Choirmasters Course, Third Quarter, (theory of chant, and chironomy how-to,) what seems to be a correspondence course published by GIA when they still knew what their first initial stood for.

The original owner of the book was doing his lessons in 1951.

The editor is one Clifford Bennett, and the Lessons are by Rev. Ethelbert Thibeault -- wonder if they left any other legacy I can find online. (O joy! another timesuck!)

Suddenly , in the middle of one lesson we read:

Gregorian Chant is a Prayer

Before proceeding with the technical theory of this lesson, the author feels that there is a certain value in repeating once again that Gregorian melodies were conceived to pour forth a common prayer, the prayer of the solemn liturgy of all the Christian people. Our liturgy is in fact the very center of Christianity.... Religious music has one purpose: the musical clothing of the words of the liturgy.

Can one imagine the leader of the Music Group saying something similar as he launches into teaching his ensemble "Awesome God"?

Addendum - Bennet was the founder, in '41. of the Gregorian Institute of America

Offering It Up, and Television

I had kinda forgotten, and am only now recollecting some thoughts during my own personal Passiontide.
My Mom is old school enough that I've heard her say many times, albeit wryly, offer it up.

And usually real pain makes that impossible from me, I just can't even think the concept much less embrace it.
But because I was with her during a small period of her convalescence from a relapse of the results of terrible accident last year, I was able, I think for the first time, to observe at close range for an extended period of time someone I love deeply in enormous physical pain at a time when I was in absolutely none.
And so I was able to genuinely pray, (with none of the "this is safe to offer because it won't really happen" thought in the back of my mind,) Me. Take me. Give this pain to me.

But of course, God doesn't work that way. (She's fine now, by the way, thanks for asking.)

I'm not a saint, I'm not going to acquire stigmata, (although it sometimes looks as if I have.)

I'm not a suffering soul who is going to literally take on another's suffering thereby reliving it.

But since that time I am actually able, even when in real pain, to reflect on the sufferings of Christ, reflect on how puny in comparison mine are, actually be glad that they help me focus in some ways, and finally... to offer them up.

Admittedly, this may be easier for me than for some, (then why couldn't you do it sooner, Scelata, huh?) because I am so mercifully free from hypochondria that it never occurs to me that any pain, injury or symptom, no matter how dire, is not self-limiting, or will lead to any permanent damage.

I stayed quiet and dumb, spoke neither evil nor good, but my pain was renewed. My heart grew hot within me, and fire blazed in my... gut.

So even though I had no idea what that was, (and still haven't,) while Himself tried to hustle me into the car and head to the ER for five days running, I was content for those five, and the several obviously-not-so-dire-as-to-require-professional-attention days after, to lie on the couch, moan and groan at the top of my lungs whenever he was away at the theater, (quite and dumb when he was within earshot,) and stare at the television.

And there was much to watch, liturgies from the Vatican and news, but also, quite fortutitously, a "freeview" from Showtime, essentially as bait for the current, new and final season of something called "The Tudors."

We have something called "On Demand" which allows one to view certain movies and series whenever, and also to fast-forward through any scenes which don't appeal to one.

Since the last mainstream entertainment set generally in the same epoch as this was the pretyy much anti-Catholic "Elizabeth" movies, the tone of this was quite a shock.

When I was up and about again, I constantly found myself on the verge, or even in the midst of, recommending it to our priests, our director of liturgy, various musician friends... until I recollected that besides its dramatic (if fact-phobic,) historicity, its sympathetic portrayal of the Church, and some absolutely first-rate performances, it was also filthy.

It had more, and more graphic, and nastier sex than any NC-17 film I've seen. And some of the violence, although not graphically enacted, was stomach-churning.

But it was easy to forget that as I would jump around, fast forward, etc. -- I didn't watch all of it, ( there were more than 20 hours, up to that point, broadcast, I believe,) and didn't watch it in order, and viewed some of it when I couldn't concentrate on much of anything other than my own belly.

I was particularly interested in St Thomas More, (and Jeremy Northam's was avery interesting performance, there was a believable saintliness without sanctimony, ) and Catherine, a marvelous characterization, one of the most warmly attractive I've ever seen, by an Irish actress whose name I can't recall.

But what is coming back to me now is Bosco Hogan's masterful depiction of St. Cardinal John Fisher, and the masterful writing, direction, and filming for him, especially the reenactment of his martyrdom, (the script played fast and loose enough with history, that I don't know if the words were authentic.)

It was truly stirring, moving, and his admission to the crowd of his fear and need for their prayers shocked me to tears and left me drained.

And because I was already thinking of pain and its purpose, and of what I would be willing to endure, (which is not much, I am an appalling coward,) it has really stayed with me, and will, I think.

(I could not be a martyr. Threaten me with, oh, I dunno, scratchy sheets on my bed and I'd deny my own name and give up the family hiding in the attic.

I understand St Peter at the fire in the courtyard more than I understand St Peter upside-down on the cross.)

There were other things about The Tudors that struck me, and are also garbled, in my mind, with Holy Week, and such, and slowly coming back to me...

But meanwhile, back to packing, and I shall be on the lookout for PBS serials and whatnot, with Mr Hogan, (whom I'm beginning to think I may have seen onstage? in Ireland? and is an American ex-pat?)

A Sleepless Night

I pretty much had one, last night.

Yeah, between an email I was unable to open telling me that my e-filed federal income tax return had been rejected;
wondering how in the world I was ever going to be able to just get rid of, much less pack, sort, and move, the contents of our house, (does any individual, or rather two individuals really need one hundred eighty plus linear feet of shelving's-worth of books? that's not even counting the music, and ignoring the fact that many of the shelves are tow deep...);
and fretting over the show, (it saddens me deeply to learn how often this truly wonderful story has been dramatized in someway or other, and the explicitly Christian message*, not even subtext! has been obfuscated at best, but most often removed entirely...)

But in the clear light of day, the aging Packard Bell having thought it over and decided it would grant me access to my email, I learn that the only problem with the taxes was that my return did not agree with the Guv'mint's recollection as to our having received a stimulus package payment.

Did we?

If they say so, I suppose we did.

Perhaps direct deposited, and so lost, or at least unnoticed in the vastness of our personal wealth?

Yeah, right...

(Oh, and the other two vexations yielded, at least in part, to a single solution: why should the stage set for a magnificent garden not contain a lovely-but-too-old-and-too-large-to-be-worth-transporting-halfway-across-a-continent-artificial-evergreen-formerly-employed-as-residential-Christmas-tree? Hung about with every artificial flower and bit of greenery tucked into the dusty corners of my house...)

*Suddenly he rubbed his eyes in wonder, and looked and looked. It
certainly was a marvellous sight. In the farthest corner of the
garden was a tree quite covered with lovely white blossoms. Its
branches were all golden, and silver fruit hung down from them, and
underneath it stood the little boy he had loved.

Downstairs ran the Giant in great joy, and out into the garden. He
hastened across the grass, and came near to the child. And when he
came quite close his face grew red with anger, and he said, "Who
hath dared to wound thee?" For on the palms of the child's hands
were the prints of two nails, and the prints of two nails were on
the little feet.

"Who hath dared to wound thee?" cried the Giant; "tell me, that I
may take my big sword and slay him."

"Nay!" answered the child; "but these are the wounds of Love."

"Who art thou?" said the Giant, and a strange awe fell on him, and
he knelt before the little child.

How Offensive Can You Be?

And I ask this as someone who has zero faith in, affection for, or admiration of the tenets of the religion being mocked.

And as a devout follower of a second "faith", theatre, (although a secret one for fear of the liturgical musicians,) it pains me to say wish for this, but I hope the show fails hugely, colossally, famously, such that epics are written and ballads sung, with great loss of money and reputation.

I stopped packing (Lord, Lord, Lord, help me! I don't ever want to move again!) too late to catch my usual news program and turned on another channel and did not turn the station quickly enough when the foul excrescence that is The Family Guy appeared on the screen. The blasphemy is beyond belief.

What has happened to us as a people, that mainstream entertainment has no hesitancy at all in mocking what other people hold most dear and in heaping contempt on those other people?

I know this kind of thing has always existed, but at least this kind obscenity, incivility, blasphemy and crudeness was not paraded in full view.

I say bring back hypocrisy, and put this stuff in brown paper wrappers, and behind closed doors, and in dimly lit clubs about which you'd be ashamed for your family to know..