Philip Glass At Occupy Lincoln Center, Reciting The Bhagavad Gita (VIDEO)

Yesterday, we reported composer Philip Glass was set to speak at an Occupy Wall Street protest outside the Met in Lincoln Center, where Glass' "Satyagraha" just ended its November run. Now we have footage of Glass' appearance, filmed by New Yorker music critic Alex Ross. Here's how Ross described the scene:

When the Satyagraha listeners emerged from the Met, police directed them to leave via side exits, but protesters began encouraging them to disregard the police, walk down the steps, and listen to Glass speak. Hesitantly at first, then in a wave, they did so. The composer proceeded to recite the closing lines of Satyagraha, which come from the Bhagavad-Gita (after 3:00 in the video above): "When righteousness withers away and evil rules the land, we come into being, age after age, and take visible shape, and move, a man among men, for the protection of good, thrusting back evil and setting virtue on her seat again." True to form, he said it several times, with the "human microphone" repeating after him. Lou Reed and Laurie Anderson were in attendance, and at one point Reed helped someone crawl over the barricade that had been set up along the sidewalk.

Glass' "Satyagraha," written in 1979, links Gandhian non-violence to the civil disobedience of Martin Luther King, both trenchant movements in light of the growing antagonism between OWS protests and police forces. You can read a post Glass wrote for us on the timeliness of his opera's message here, and watch footage of the Lincoln Center gathering below (as Ross wrote, Glass' speech starts 3 minutes in).

WATCH:

[via NPR, kottke.org)

 

Comments

[GeorgeSM]

02:05 PM on 12/06/2011

They should focus on voter registration and turnout..an elegant yet simple response to the problems that be.

[GaiasChild]

02:03 PM on 12/06/2011

truth force, o wonderful, of course in gandhi's satyagraha, disciples are celibate and vegetarian, which is also taught in yoga psychology though not sure it is taught in the gita or the mahabharata . . . someone correct me if it is . . .

[Candide33]

07:17 AM on 12/06/2011

I LOVE his music! I am listening to Glassworks right now.

The virtuous must be ever on guard, the fight for good is never won, it is an ongoing struggle.

[professor]

09:17 PM on 12/05/2011

I love the sweet little totally ingenuous posters on here who still actually believe that hard work is rewarded with success. How incredibly sheltered a life they must have led heretofore.

Do not h8 them. Pity them. Is there anything more po-the-tic, more naive, more sad, than the spectacle of them beating their metaphorical chests with the absolute certainty of pure ungrounded faith?

"To intelligent men and women, the world is an infinite mystery; dumb people got an answer for everything."

[rdk70816]

09:04 PM on 12/04/2011

Just read them their rights and slap cuffs on them.

[GaiasChild]

02:04 PM on 12/06/2011

usually the protesters who elect to be arrested get little plastic ties to hold their hands together, in back.

[rdk70816]

03:17 PM on 12/06/2011

The plastic ties are better. They are effective and easy to use and much cheaper to purchase in large quantities.

[Ralph Owen Muir]

11:15 AM on 12/04/2011

Bravo Mr. Glass!

[sherlockhemlock]

05:47 AM on 12/04/2011

Both Philip Glass and OWS ROCK!

[Dale Birmingham]

06:44 PM on 12/03/2011

What's weird is this is not about civil rights. it's all about money. Creepy isn't it? OWS is weird and all the above.

[laidbackdude679]

04:58 PM on 12/03/2011

lol OWS are such a bunch of losers

take a bath a get a job

you will not change anything

[Joeyjackal]

07:04 PM on 12/03/2011

Dude, you can be laid back & be exploited if you wish. However, I believe you are wrong and sickening in your complacency regarding the actions of the courageous individuals who have heard the clarion call of justice that resonates from this movement regarding the 3 decades of unjust inequality unlike anything since the Great Depression that has been presided over by the false policies of "trickle-down" by the Republicans, multinational corporations, Grover Norquist, through the Bush tax cuts and finally the Citizens United ruling by the Supreme Court.

[laidbackdude679]

07:15 PM on 12/03/2011

lol courageous. i guess living on the streets with other dirty hippies could be considered courageous

lol exploited? i work. i get paid. i pay bills. i own a gun. i say what i want.
AND I DON"T ASK FOR GOVERNMENT HANDOUTS.

only the weak get exploited

[sherlockhemlock]

05:51 AM on 12/04/2011

Fail.

[Shesme]

10:12 AM on 12/03/2011

Take visible shape and move across the land. Occupy!

[bentz]

08:53 AM on 12/03/2011

Great publicity stunt. I might very fall for it. Love PG and haven't gone to the opera in a while.

[bentz]

09:15 AM on 12/03/2011

It ended of course :-/

[Playlist]

12:14 AM on 12/03/2011

Beautiful! Power to the people Baby!

[KellyUSA]

11:38 PM on 12/02/2011

If OWS protesters behaved decently and peacefully, the police would not have to confront them. But I just wanted to mention that really do not get the connection between OWS and the content of the opera that Mr. Glass is trying to make in his post referred to in this article. The opera is about Ghandi defending the civil rights of indian workers in South Africa who could not vote, did not have any basic civil liberties and were truly oppressed. What relevance is there to the OWS movement? Who is exactly oppressed and what civil rights they do not have?... I'll tell you what they do not have: it is the entrepreneurial spirit, perseverance and sense of responsibilities - that is, unfortunately, is not guaranteed by our constitution. Oh, but they definitely have a big sense of entitlement and envy for the rich who actually accomplished something in their lives. SHAME...

[stringnsonic]

11:29 AM on 12/03/2011

It's about social justice. Naomi Wolf asked the same question: "What exactly does the OWS movement want??" Her answer:

That is, until I found out what it was that OWS actually wanted.
The mainstream media was declaring continually "OWS has no message". Frustrated, I simply asked them. I began soliciting online "What is it you want?" answers from Occupy. In the first 15 minutes, I received 100 answers. These were truly eye-opening.
The No 1 agenda item: get the money out of politics. Most often cited was legislation to blunt the effect of the Citizens United ruling, which lets boundless sums enter the campaign process. No 2: reform the banking system to prevent fraud and manipulation, with the most frequent item being to restore the Glass-Steagall Act – the Depression-era law, done away with by President Clinton, that separates investment banks from commercial banks. This law would correct the conditions for the recent crisis, as investment banks could not take risks for profit that create fake derivatives out of thin air, and wipe out the commercial and savings banks.
No 3 was the most clarifying: draft laws against the little-known loophole that currently allows members of Congress to pass legislation affecting Delaware-based corporations in which they themselves are investors.
When I saw this list – and especially the last agenda item – the scales fell from my eyes. Of course, these unarmed people would be having the shit kicked out of them.

[KellyUSA]

12:30 PM on 12/03/2011

Well, this is the most sensible reply I've ever encountered on this thread. Thanks for that. The MSM does not mention any of these items you described and the messages I could get from the coverage of the OWS, from the interviews with them and their own posters at the protests were of socialistic and anarchistic nature which, I am sorry to say, do not appeal to me at all. I would agree with all the points listed by you, only not sure about the 3rd one and would appreciate clarification - what is the loophole and which Delaware corporations the members of Congress are investors in (or did I not get that point right?). Thanks a lot for that post, again.

[sherlockhemlock]

05:46 AM on 12/04/2011

If you behaved decently and peacefully, you'd be joining OWS.

[Exec]

09:49 PM on 12/02/2011

What an encouraging scene! It's a hopeful sign: the seeds sown by this movement will not be suppressed.

[TheKeepers--WWIII]

08:19 PM on 12/02/2011

We're taking visible shape...Time to restore virtue to her seat...