The Ethics Insisting Now

This dramatic presentation of the philosophy of Aesthetic Realism, founded by poet and critic Eli Siegel in 1941, features his landmark lecture "Poetry, Money, & Good Will." In this lecture, with examples from Wordsworth, Shelley and Anna Hempstead Branch, he said: "The definition of money is stored labor. A million dollars has in it the hours, the lies, of ever so many people, mostly now known by us. Money should be attended by good will."

Also in this event is musicologist Martha Baird's talk "The Quartet from Fidelio; or, What Is Music About?" She says: "This quartet is about the opposites in reality—sameness and difference, separation and junction. How many times are people together in a room each with thoughts the others do not know? Beethoven tells us that perhaps event the separate thoughts of people, if heard, might make a canon, like to the one fashioned for Fidelio."