I wrote this on Bastille Day a couple of years ago for another blog, and am just lazy enough to post it here since it hasn't been seen here, I figured why not? It's a few days after the holiday, but (as theatre lovers know) that's because Monday is typically the only night of the week that theaters are "dark." We were all (presumably) attending live shows over the weekend. :-)
The French Revolution, which began with such noble ideals, degenerated into horrific, bloody tyranny that was in some ways worse than the
ancien régime it replaced; and it took France nearly a century — and a couple of further revolutions — to recover her balance and attain any real measure of political stability. We here in the USA have been more fortunate — and, arguably,
less.
Our own revolution, conducted without the excesses which plagued the conflict in France, has perhaps as a result left us with a certain complacency and downright smugness that is, today, biting us painfully in the posterior. So convinced are we of our moral superiority as a nation that we are loath to face the deep and very real adjustments our system so badly needs in this 21st century.
But — with apologies to the Bard — there are more kinds of revolution, Horatio, than are dreamt of in your philosophy.
"Little Edie" Beale and her mother, Edith Bouvier Beale, were the subjects of the classic cult-favorite 1974 documentary Grey Gardens. On this Bastille Day I submit, for your enjoyment and edification, this song from the 2006 musical adaptation of that film.
The obvious connections with France — the name "Bouvier" and the focus on fashion — may be slight, and I may be stretching things all out of shape; but I think there is a lesson here for us as individuals, a reminder of that oft-repeated dictum, "to thine own self be true."
Non-Christians will forgive me, I hope, if I assert that this quote is relevant:
Ye are the salt of the earth: but if the salt have lost his savour, wherewith shall it be salted?
- Matthew 5:13
Each of us is in a unique position to change the world we see around us; each of us possesses a valuable, necessary ingredient to add to the mix. As Little Edie, so full of savour herself, puts it,
To make a statement you need not be
In Boston Harbor upending tea
And that's a Revolution to me.
Any revolution worth its salt begins on the ground and builds upward. Along with "faith, hope and charity" and "peace on earth," I believe it begins with me. And you. Begins with all of us, each in her own way. And so, on this day that sparked a revolution, I offer this as encouragement to fight on against those "armies of conformity" that are hell-bent on destroying our beautiful, precious diversity.
Here are the full lyrics, for those of us who don't always catch all the words. :-)
(Speaking)
Oh, hi. Thank heaven you're here. You look absolutely terrific, honestly. Mother wanted me to come out in a kimono so we had quite a fight...
The best kind of clothes for a protest pose
Is this ensemble of pantyhose
Pulled over the shorts, worn under the skirt
That doubles as a cape.
To reveal you in capri pants
You fashion out of ski pants
In a jersey knit designed to fit
The contour of your shape
Then cinch it with a cord from the drape.
And that's the revolutionary costume for today
To show the polo riders in khakis and topsiders
Just what a revolutionary costume has to say
It can't be ordered from L.L. Bean
There's more to living than kelly green
And that's the revolution I mean.
Da da da da dum...
(Speaking)
Just listen to this. The Hamptons Bee, July, 1972:
"The elderly bed-ridden aunt of former First Lady Jacqueline Kennedy,
Mrs. Edith Bouvier Beale —"
My very own mother, can you imagine?
"— and her adult daughter, Miss Edie Beale,
a former debutante once known as Body Beautiful Beale —"
They called me Body Beautiul Beale, it's true. That was my whaddyacallit, my uh ... sobriquet.
"— are living on Long Island in a garbage-ridden, filthy 28-room house with 52 cats,
fleas, cobwebs, and virtually no plumbing.
After vociferous complaints from neighbors,
the Board of Health took legal action against the reclusive pair."
Why, it's the most disgusting, atrocious thing ever to happen in America.
You fight City Hall with a Persian shawl
That used to hang on the bedroom wall
Pinned under the chin, adorned with a pin
And pulled into a twist.
Reinvent the objet trouvé
Make a poncho from a duvet,
Then you can be with cousin Lee
On Mr. Blackwell's list
The full-length velvet glove hides the fist.
And that's the revolutionary costume for today
Subvert the CrisCraft boaters, those Nixon-Agnew voters
Armies of conformity are headed right your way
To make a statement you need not be
In Boston Harbor upending tea
And that's a Revolution to me.
Staunch!
There's nothin' worse, I tell ya
Staunch!
S-T-A-U-N-C-H.
Staunch women, we just don't weaken.
A little known fact to the fascist pack
Who comes here for antiquin'.
Da da da da dum...
(Speaking)
Honestly, they can get you in East Hampton for wearing red shoes on a Thursday — and all that sort of thing. I don't know whether you know that — I mean, do you know that? They can get you for almost anything. It's a mean, nasty, Republican town.
The best kind of shoes to express bold views
Are strapless mules in assertive hues
Like fuschia or peach, except on the beach
In which case you wear flats.
When I stood before the nation
At Jack's inauguration
In a high-heeled pump I got the jump
on Jackie's pillbox hat
Just watch it where you step with the cat!
And that's the revolutionary costume pour le jour.
You mix 'n' match and Presto!
A fashion manifesto
That's why a revolutionary costume's de rigeur
The rhododendrons are hiding spies
The pussy willows have beady eyes
Binoculars through the privet hedge
They peek at you through the window ledge with guile!
We're in a Revolution!
So win the Revolution with style!
Da da da da dum.