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Happy Bastille Day

Something French would seem to be called for today.

Also, I happen to have a thing about Broadway musicals.

Okay, so should I riff on Les Mis?

No, I think I'll go further back than that. In 1973, a production of Candide trod the boards. This of course was a work of satirical prose fiction by Voltaire, adapted for Broadway by Hugh Wheeler, with music by Leonard Bernstein and lyrics by Richard Wilbur and Stephen Sondheim.

I will quote some of those lyrics today, I trust within the limits of whatever counts as "fair use" of a 44 year old play.  I don't know how the whole notion of "intellectual property" is going to survive the case of the monkey selfie, though....

Anyway, the below is from what is known as the "Lesson Song." The character of Pangloss is introduced as the house intellectual of a patron's castle. When we first see him, he is giving a lesson on his Leibnizian theodicy.

PANGLOSS.
PRAY, CLASSIFY PIGEONS AND CAMELS.

PUPILS.
PIGEONS CAN FLY. 
CAMELS ARE MAMMALS.

PANGLOSS.
THERE IS A REASON
FOR EV’RYTHING UNDER THE SUN.

PUPILS.
THERE IS A REASON
FOR EV’RYTHING UNDER THE SUN.

MAXIMILIAN.
OBJECTION!
WHAT ABOUT SNAKES?

PANGLOSS.
SNAKES.
‘TWAS SNARE THAT TEMPTED MOTHER EVE. 
BECAUSE OF SNAKE WE NOW BELIEVE
THAT ‘THO’ DEPRAVED,
WE CAN BE SAVED
FROM HELL-FIRE AND DAMNATION.

PUPILS. 
BECAUSE OF SNAKE’S TEMPTATION.

PANGLOSS.
IF SNAKE HAD NOT SEDUCED OUR LOT,
AND PRIMED US FOR SALVATION,
JEHOVAH COULD NOT PARDON ALL
THE SINS THAT WE CALL CARDINAL,
INVOLVING BED AND BOTTLE
NOW ON TO ARISTOTLE.
MANKIND IS ONE.
ALL MEN ARE BROTHERS.

PUPILS.
AS YOU’D HAVE DONE,
DO UNTO OTHERS.

PANGLOSS.
IT’S UNDERSTOOD IN
THIS BEST OF ALL POSSIBLE WORLDS.
PUPILS.
ALL IS FOR THE GOOD IN
THIS BEST OF ALL POSSIBLE WORLDS.
----------------------------------------------------------

For the uninitiated, the musical (true to the Voltairean source) is ridiculing Pangloss. Voltaire's own message was that the world is often thoroughly lousy, and that Panglossian rationalization is an impediment to efforts to make it somewhat less lousy.

Happy Bastille Day.
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