high-bar baking

The first time I made Sarah’s Blueberry Muffin recipe, I left out the sugar. I didn’t this time. They were better, but they don’t displace the Jordan Marsh recipe. 

But that’s not what we’re here to talk about tonight.

The Reynolds Pamphlet was published in 1797. I didn’t realize it until tonight, because there’s no mention of dates in the libretto. But Miranda places the cast in a very particular way during the dance number for the piece. 

George Washington died in 1799. 

He was alive. He had to watch. He watched Hamilton, his protégé, throw it all away. He wasn’t spared. And Hamilton had to have known he let him down. The man who gave him his shot. 

I binged all the Nolan Batmans last weekend. The DVD for The Dark Knight Rises includes an eight minute mini-documentary about the character arc of Bruce Wayne, with commentary from the Nolans and Bale and other writers. It’s not a subtle theme even without the assistance, but they all remarked on how the third movie centers around the consequences of everything that came before. Wayne’s body refusing to go on, Gotham’s overreach of legality in pursuing the mob, the decades of corruption bursting through the seams until chaos overruns the city. It all traces back to the choices the characters make in previous movies. They looked like the right ones at the time; some of them even were. Disasters ensue nonetheless. 

And everyone he loves has to watch. 

I don’t have a point to this; just trying to tease out some things on my end. Actions have consequences. (Groundbreaking stuff, I know). And the people who love you have to watch. Hamilton was so blinded by… what, righteousness? That he didn’t even give a thought to his wife’s reaction, let alone Washington’s. I suppose that isn’t fair to say. It’s more likely that he did give a thought to all of it, and decided in the balance that the pamphlet was worth it anyway. That sounds more like him. He probably did think of Washington, until the choice was made and he didn’t anymore.

But I think of Washington. We stand on the shoulders of giants. And Hamilton didn’t give him the good grace to die before unleashing that disappointment on the world. 

Everyone else probably got the moral from watching Hamilton wreck his relationship with Eliza. No man is an island. Your actions affect not just you, but everyone you love. Well, I got the message from Washington tonight. 

And Bruce Wayne. 

The flip side of that coin, a quote from Fr. Chase: “The things that will hurt you most in your life are not your own mistakes, but the mistakes and the suffering of the ones you care about.”