The Family Is Where Culture Lives

Below are a few videos from a short series featuring families of folk dancers. They illustrate how tradition is perpetuated in and through the family. Indeed, it is the family that perpetuates culture; it is the place where culture is alive, where its fire burns its everyday, slow flame.

The daily habits of cleaning and washing,...

Mother
by József Attila

Source: Hagyomány Háló

For a week now, again and again,
Thoughts of my mother have racked my brain.
Gripping a basket of washing fast,
On, and up to the attic she passed.

And I was frank and released my feeling
In stamps and yells to bring down the ceiling.
Let someone else have the bulging jackets,
Let her take me with her up to the attic.

She just, giving me no look or thrashing,
Went on, and in silence spread out the washing,
And the kneaded clothes, rustling brightly,
Were twisting and billowing up lightly.

I should not have cried but it's too late for this.
Now I can see what a giant she is.
Across the sky her grey hair flickers through;
In the sky's waters she is dissolving blue.

(1934) Translated by Vernon Watkins

... and the Sunday dinner with its courses, its mainstays and desserts; the rhythm of the days, which shapes the child's world. Saturday is Saturday, Sunday is Sunday. Cleaning happens when? The songs we hear, the ones we sing; the prayers we say; the vacations we take; the values we value. The world has an order, time has a structure, the up is up, the down is down - and this order is beauty.

30th National DanceHouse Festival & Fair (April 2011, Budapest)

Father and daughter, dancing.

Mother, father, and their two small boys.

Mother, father and daughter.

Three generations.

[BRIEF] I Hear Voices: Operalia 2011

Operalia is the voice competition founded in 1993 by Placido Domingo, which is organized every year in a different city. The 2011 competition was held in Moscow. In a public space in which singing competitions have become very popular, in almost all the countries of the world with a functioning TV market, from Albania to the US, it is refreshing to watch a competition where voice does indeed matter most. Most, but not completely - we are human beings, and Domingo's or Juan Diego Florez' or  Rolando Villazon's relative good looks certainly contributed to their star status - and we have not even begun talking about the many "divas" of the world of opera. However, it is a relief to see - or, rather, hear - a competition where the sheer quality of the voice and of technique matter most.    

What is it about singing competitions that catches our attention? One of the things is the music: we want to hear good music, to be entertained. Second, it is the competition as such - just like in sports, once you start getting acquainted with an athlete or a team, usually by virtue of the fact that they represent your local or national colors, you also become invested in the competition. From this point of view, the pop music competitions take the cake: they are superb at creating mini-background stories, which are truly barebones and aim the lowest common denominator (underdog stories, hardship stories), but also give a certain depth to the profile of the contestant, creating a person with whom we can associate emotionally, and for whom we can start rooting. This is why the initial selection phase is so crucial in these shows: besides being entertaining, through the sprinkling in of auditions disasters and of weird characters, this part of the show also establishes that essential initial relationship between viewer and competitor(s). This happens in shows such as X-Factor, Idol, or The Voice - shows created in specific countries (Netherlands, UK), but that have spread around the world. It also happens in the yearly Eurovision contests, but there the mechanism is that of national allegiance, since each competitor represents a country, and the public of each country gets to know them during the national phase of the selection.

In the video below one can see how the initial story and the initial emotional bond are created, during the auditions stage (of the X-Factor):

Of the contests listed above, The Voice gets closest - as the name indicates - to a focus on vocal quality as such, while American Idol is mostly a popularity contest, especially towards the later stages of the competition (and frustratingly so). In fact, The Voice (US version) is also refreshing because the very atmosphere of the show is much more amicable, and thus much more appealing, than the often abrasive Idol or X-Factor.

There is no use debating the fact that all these shows deal in pop music, which means that the voices sought and presented are the ones appropriate for that specific genre of music. Furthermore, even The Voice, where the initial selection is through a blind audition (a nice twist!), so that the judges (who are themselves pop artists) do not get to see the singers until they actually choose them, based on hearing - even this competition, then, is not and can not be entirely about "the voice." Or, more accurately, the pop genre itself is not about "voice" - as in, "a cultivated, fully developed voice," but about character and expressiveness within the expectations, conventions and the sonorous universe of the specific subgenre. We are talking about natural differences between various genres of music.

Take, for example, the difference between Andrea Bocelli and a true opera singer. Bocelli has a very pleasant voice, especially for traditional popular Italian music (like the canzoni napoletani) or for certain arias; but he is not an opera singer, which becomes evident in live performances with peers from the world of opera. He could be considered a cross-over artist, along the lines of what Josh Groban does so well. (The very talented Josh Groban, who possesses a very pleasant voice that he has cultivated with attention and through hard work.) But yes, each genre requires a different type of voice, and nobody would expect the beautifully crafted voice of an opera singer to fit in a genre that requires the cracked, world-weary sound of a bluesman (although unfortunate experiments in this sense have been made at the Pavarotti & Friends concerts, to give one example). Usually none of the singers comes out well from such experiments, unless a cross-over (bridge) is found where they can both be accommodated.

Different voices, different genres - not all equal...

Let us look, for example, at the winner of The Voice, Javier Colon; he has a truly exquisite, masterfully controlled voice, which is clearly at the top of his genre. A pleasure to listen:

The second-placed contestant in The Voice 2011, Dia Frampton, did not stand out with her vocal abilities as such. Yet she is a (multilaterally) talented young woman: composer, arranger etc., and the possessor of a voice with plenty of individuality. Here is, as an example, her very creative and quite unexpected adaptation of an otherwise banal rap song:

The next video, featuring Groban and Domingo, is not an example of an unfortunate pairing. The genre is cross-over, and the voices are top quality, each in their own field. Yet one can certainly notice the difference between these voices - of quality, depth, amplitude, control etc.

But we started by talking about Operalia, a competition with and about exquisite voices, with and about singing brought to the very highest levels of quality. Of course, this all happens within a genre that demands that quality, and a certain type of voice. Here is a video featuring one of the most impressive singers from Operalia 2011, Jaesig Lee, in a performance filmed two years earlier. (Before any accusations of "cheating" are brought up, regarding the choice of an aria, let me just say that this is one of the very few videos of him available on the Internet... as yet.)

I warmly recommend watching the entire final (concert) of Operalia 2011, available (for free viewing) here at medici.tv. You will not regret this time spent in the company of beauty.  (One more note: Jaesig Lee's outstanding, emotion-filled performance is at 00:53:13.)

Good audition!

GK Chesterton

A good article by Jay Parini about Chesterton in... The Chronicle of Higher Education. This mainstream attention to GKC might be due to the publication of a new major biography, by Ian Ker, followed by featured articles in the Times Literary Supplement and, I suppose, other outlets of the literary world. This is all good news. Chesterton is a delight to read, especially when he is at his best, which I would consider to be in Heretics and in  Orthodoxy (both are available online, for free - if you follow these links). But it would be mightily unfair to reduce the mighty Chesterton to only these two gems, and not mention his brilliant book on Thomas Aquinas, about which the eminent Tomist scholar Etienne Gilson said decades later,

I consider it as being without possible comparison the best book ever written on St. Thomas. Nothing short of genius can account for such an achievement. Everybody will no doubt admit that it is a "clever" book, but the few readers who have spent twenty or thirty years in studying St. Thomas Aquinas, and who, perhaps, have themselves published two or three volumes on the subject, cannot fail to perceive that the so-called "wit" of Chesterton has put their scholarship to shame. [source]

A typical anecdote about GKC is that he never actually read the Summa from cover to cover, but only browsed through it; but that was enough, because he understood it, in the deeper meaning of the word; he understood it, because his mind worked like Aquinas' - it understood the whole of existence, and how all things fit within it.

And let us not ignore the superb detective stories featuring Father Brown - stories that are both entertaining and philosophical (a common-sense philosophy, accessible to any and all, by virtue of existing).  Or my favorite novel from him, The Flying Inn; or the famous and avant-la-lettre surrealist The Man Who Was Thursday.

Returning to the Chronicle piece, what is interesting about it is that it reveals, inadvertently, some of the academic biases of the moment; the author has to couch his praises in terms that we could consider, with a bit of effort and exaggeration, Marxist or postmodernist. Thus, he needs to underline that GKS stood up for the poor - against the rich, certainly; that he "questioned facts and reality" - how Postmodern! This, in order to assuage the readers' possible, automaton-like reactions to the perceived "conservatism" of Chesterton.

It is sad, sad indeed, that readers and writers can not think outside these ideological boxes dominating our times - and certainly the world of letters, and the academia. Terms that have little meaning, of course, and that fail to account for reality. Terms that are bound by space and time - the understanding of these terms in America is not the same as their meaning in Europe, let alone Africa or Asia; these terms are all part of a tiny little stretch of time in history, namely the post- industrial revolution age, and would make little sense outside of it (was Aristotle a conservative? a liberal? but how about Augustine? ... how silly).

The good news is that Chesterton is not reducible to these puny terms (of derision, I would say). Not even politically per se. As Parini mentions, even politically Chesterton stood for something else that the two twin embodiments of modern materialism, namely socialism and capitalism. He is, after all, one of the "founding fathers" of Distributism, which is a view of society and economy that is rooted in the recognition of the dignity and freedom of the individual, and of the intrinsic value of community and of localism. But by now I am starting (???) to sound dry and empty, so I will leave it at that, about politics.        

What is more important is that Chesterton is not the author of, but the expression of, something greater - a view of the universe and of the human being inhabiting it that is comprehensive, common-sense and, briefly put, true. A view that is realistic and idealistic at the same time - but a healthy idealism, the realistic idealism of fairy tales, not that of dreams and nightmares (as exemplified in Marxism, Fascism, and all the other ideologies). Fairy tales teach us essential truths about the human condition  (there is much death and suffering in them; the hero fights evil, in fairy tales), are optimistic, and, most of all, are filled with wonder - just like existence! Existence is filled with wonder, and this child-like (and not childish!) wonder is the deep root of Chesterton's optimistic, yet at the same time thoroughly realistic, view of human existence.

A joy to read, an even greater joy to discover GK Chesterton.

...

Finally, here is a good list of GKC works available on the web (yes, gratis).

[BRIEF] ...And the Best Last Lines from (Mostly English Language) Novels

Eugène Delacroix: George Sand (1838)

Courtesy of my friend MP, apropos the previous post about "the best 50 opening sentences in English-language fiction," here come the "100 best last lines from novels," by way of American Book Review. Lists can be very entertaining - and lists about and from literature are so rare, that I do hope you will thoroughly enjoy these.

Notwithstanding the slightly annoying limitation to (mostly) English and American authors, which brings to mind the famous accusation of provincialism that stirred the waters a few years back. Truth is (or is it?) that the literary "world" of each nation (or, to put it differently, each cultural-linguistic space) suffers genetically from selective vision. It is a known fact, for example, that the German literary space is much more open to Central and Eastern European authors than any other similarly significant literature. This is why it is through the German channel that many of these authors become major names in the English-speaking world. Just take the case of Sándor Márai, whose first major British-American hit, Embers, was translated not from the  Hungarian original, but from the German translation.        

So, please find below a short selection from this list; but do go and read the whole thing here. All the nominations received in the process of compiling this list can be found here (also worth reading).

Jean-Baptiste Carpeaux: 
Alexande Dumas Fils (1873)

2. Who knows but that, on the lower frequencies, I speak for you? –Ralph Ellison,
Invisible Man (1952)
3. So we beat on, boats against the current, borne back ceaselessly into the past.
–F. Scott Fitzgerald, The Great Gatsby (1925)
4. …I was a Flower of the mountain yes when I put the rose in my hair like the
Andalusian girls used or shall I wear a red yes and how he kissed me under the
Moorish wall and I thought well as well him as another and then I asked him with
my eyes to ask again yes and then he asked me would I yes to say yes my mountain
flower and first I put my arms around him yes and drew him down to me so he could
feel my breasts all perfume yes and his heart was going like mad and yes I said yes
I will Yes. –James Joyce, Ulysses (1922)
5. But I reckon I got to light out for the Territory ahead of the rest, because Aunt
Sally she’s going to adopt me and sivilize me and I can’t stand it. I been there
before. –Mark Twain, The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn (1885)
6. “Yes,” I said. “Isn’t it pretty to think so?” –Ernest Hemingway, The Sun Also
Rises (1926)
7. He loved Big Brother. –George Orwell, 1984 (1949)
8. ‘It is a far, far better thing that I do, than I have ever done; it is a far, far better
rest that I go to than I have ever known.’ –Charles Dickens, A Tale of Two Cities
(1859)
9. The offing was barred by a black bank of clouds, and the tranquil waterway
leading to the uttermost ends of the earth flowed sombre under an overcast sky—
seemed to lead into the heart of an immense darkness. –Joseph Conrad, Heart of
Darkness (1902)
10. Yes, she thought, laying down her brush in extreme fatigue, I have had my
vision. –Virginia Woolf, To the Lighthouse (1927)
11. His soul swooned slowly as he heard the snow falling faintly through the
universe and faintly falling, like the descent of their last end, upon all the living and
the dead. –James Joyce, “The Dead” in Dubliners (1914)

[BRIEF] The Best Opening Sentences in English Language Fiction, from MercatorNet

Here is a great little article from MercatorNet, containing "the best 50 opening sentences in English-language fiction." Well, I probably would not say that these are "the best 50" (how do you measure that? from all English literature?), but it is a very neat exercise that you will surely enjoy. You can find below the first part of their list - for the rest, please visit the article itself, if you so desire.

1719, Daniel Defoe, Robinson Crusoe
I was born in the Year 1632, in the City of York, of a good Family, tho' not of that Country, my Father being a Foreigner of Bremen, who settled first at Hull; He got a good Estate by Merchandise, and leaving off his Trade, lived afterward at York, from whence he had married my Mother, whose Relations were named Robinson, a very good Family in that Country, and from whom I was called Robinson Kreutznaer; but by the usual Corruption of Words in England, we are now called, nay we call our selves, and write our Name Crusoe, and so my Companions always call'd me.

Rafaello Sanzio,
 Portrait of Tommaso Inghirami (1510-14)

1759, Samuel Johnson, The History of Rasselas, Prince of Abissinia
Ye who listen with credulity to the whispers of fancy, and pursue with eagerness the phantoms of hope; who expect that age will perform the promises of youth, and that the deficiencies of the present day will be supplied by the morrow; attend to the history of Rasselas, prince of Abissinia.

1813, Jane Austen, Pride and Prejudice
It is a truth universally acknowledged that a single man in possession of a good fortune must be in want of a wife.

1830, Edward George Bulwer-Lytton, Paul Clifford
It was a dark and stormy night; the rain fell in torrents--except at occasional intervals, when it was checked by a violent gust of wind which swept up the streets (for it is in London that our scene lies), rattling along the housetops, and fiercely agitating the scanty flame of the lamps that struggled against the darkness.

1843, Charles Dickens, A Christmas Carol
Marley was dead, to begin with. There is no doubt whatever about that.

1850, Charles Dickens, David Copperfield
Whether I shall turn out to be the hero of my own life, or whether that station will be held by anybody else, these pages must show.

1850, Herman Melville, Moby Dick
Call me Ishmael.

1854, Charles Dickens, Hard Times
Now what I want is, Facts.

1859, Charles Dickens, A Tale of Two Cities
It was the best of times, it was the worst of times, it was the age of wisdom, it was the age of foolishness, it was the epoch of belief, it was the epoch of incredulity, it was the season of Light, it was the season of Darkness, it was the spring of hope, it was the winter of despair, we had everything before us, we had nothing before us, we were all going direct to Heaven, we were all going direct the other way – in short, the period was so far like the present period, that some of its noisiest authorities insisted on its being received, for good or for evil, in the superlative degree of comparison only.

Gabriel Metsu, Man Writing a Letter (1662-65)

1865, Lewis Carroll, Alice's Adventures in Wonderland
Alice was beginning to get very tired of sitting by her sister on the riverbank, and of having nothing to do: once or twice she had peeped into the book her sister was reading, but it had no pictures or conversations in it, 'and what is the use of a book', thought Alice, 'without pictures or conversation?'

1890, Arthur Conan Doyle, The Sign of the Four
Sherlock Holmes took his bottle from the corner of the mantelpiece and his hypodermic syringe from its neat morocco case.

1894, Rudyard Kipling, The Jungle Book
It was seven o'clock of a very warm evening in the Seeonee hills when Father Wolf woke up from his day's rest, scratched himself, yawned, and spread out his paws one after the other to get rid of the sleepy feeling in their tips.

1898, H.G. Wells, War of the World
No one would have believed in the last years of the nineteenth century that this world was being watched keenly and closely by intelligences greater than man's and yet as mortal as his own; that as men busied themselves about their various concerns they were scrutinised and studied, perhaps almost as narrowly as a man with a microscope might scrutinise the transient creatures that swarm and multiply in a drop of water.

1900, Frank Baum, The Wonderful Wizard of Oz
Dorothy lived in the midst of the great Kansas prairies, with Uncle Henry, who was a farmer, and Aunt Em, who was the farmer's wife.

1903, Joseph Furphy, Such is Life
Unemployed at last!

1908, Kenneth Graham, The Wind in the Willows
The Mole had been working very hard all morning, spring-cleaning his little home.

1911, James Barrie, Peter Pan
All children, except one, grow up.

1913, Willa Cather, O Pioneers!
One January day, thirty years ago, the little town of Hanover, anchored on a windy Nebraska tableland, was trying not to be blown away.

The City (2)

I am always mesmerized by those shots, usually at the beginning of movies, in which the camera floats over some body of water towards a cityscape, and the lights of a city.

The video below is something  similar, as it illustrates, in a way, some of the beauty and fascination of the city (on which I touched in a previous post). Indeed, I do not find the lights of the city estranging; to the contrary, and especially when they are produced by human movement.

There is a sense of distance and otherness, indeed - and maybe artificiality would be the word; but there is also warmth, light - the pulsating life of the city. Because the life of the city is made of human movement.

Take a look, then, at this wondrous video produced by Dominic Boudreault of time lapse images from metropolises in the North America. A suggestion - watch it full screen and in HD. Or just go to Dominic's website and watch it there.

Timelapse - The City Limits from Dominic on Vimeo.

Fred & Ludovika: Scenes From the Life Of

"I will buy two cockatoos,
I will call them
Nifty and Thrifty,"
- said Fred.

Dada - and Others

Others. This one I like.

White on White, by Kazimir Malevich

(Russian, born Ukraine. 1878-1935. Suprematist Composition.)

And another:

4'33", by John Cage

Nice try, this 4'33" - but it lacks somehow the freshness and youthfulness of Dada, wouldn't you say? Too pretentious, demonstrative, self-referential, and too rational. Dada is anything but - it's instinctive, it is immediate. The immediacy and thoughtlessness of youth.

(And the applause at the end is jarring.)

The Radio (An Ode or Elegy)

Was it evenings, or was it early mornings? It was during the evenings that, in a small village in Central Europe, my grandfather used to tune in, probably on long waves (marked LW on the radio's dial), with the antenna extended, searchingly inclined toward the angle where the signal was stronger, to BBC's foreign service programming. The song I used to hear, during such evenings, in-between the programs and amidst heavy static, was It's a Long Way to Tipperary, interpreted by an army choir (or something that sounded like that).

Early mornings, around 5.30 am, in a city in Central Europe - it is the early 1980s. I sneaked into my grandparents' room (my other grandparents) the night before, to sleep there, and now I am awoken by the sound of the radio. The receiver is tuned in to Kossuth Radio, and I hear, every morning, while dawn is breaking outside, crisp and clear, a stylized fragment of that Kossuth song that is the station's signature.

It is noon, or early afternoon, and my mother and grandmother are baking, cooking, doing things in the kitchen. I am there with them, and we are all listening, amidst doings and goings, and playing, to the radio: the program where the man talks and plays with kindergarten children; the one where listeners call in with comments, opinions, their questions; the classical music quiz, around noon, in which the guest has to guess the piece from which he just heard a small part; the hourly news reports; then the music - always sad, charming, melodious, already old. The soundtrack of the kitchen was provided by the radio - the soundtrack of our days, weekdays and Sundays (when I would look forward to that program with the quirky news from around the globe... always listening to it during dinner, or immediately after).

The sound of early mornings, of the dawn, for me, is that of the radio. The sound of distant places - of an unattainable, noble, civilized UK, for example, or of any place that still holds the promise, because it is unattainable, far and remote, and noble-sounding. The sound of afternoons spent cooking, of the warmth of the home, comes from the radio.

[image source: http://www.qsl.net/ve3sre/rehabstuff.html)

Which "radio," though? What do you mean? Any signal transmitted through waves long, short and medium (medium waves that still feel warmer than FM)? No! The empty, commercials-and-Top40s blasting, pre-programmed stations, with no face, no personality, no human presence? No. 

Instead, radio as the medium of sociality. Where life is, where my society lives, where I hear its pulse, its everyday beating - nothing special, is always special. Where I meet it and learn about it and keep in touch with it; where I live in the society of which I am a part, about which I care, and which has to care about me. We are a part of it, it is with us - and the radio is its voice, and thus our common voice. The medium that creates community, inasmuch as it broadcasts it everyday. There is a we also because we share in an awareness of the we, through the medium of the radio. A medium that is human, that is intelligent, cultivated, whose music makes sense and moves the intimate recesses of the heart (even if you don't know it); that can be common and everyday, just like us; that can be silly, or laugh-out-loud funny, or childish - when talking to children. That is like us, because it is we who are mediated - by intelligent, cultivated, professional people, whose careers are the radio, whose lives are in and with the radio, whose vocations are to be this radio, this voice of ours - a part of who we are.

Addendum: Perhaps not the most fitting, but the most famous. And it is about this future we live in today.    

  

A Virtual Walk Through Museums: Google's Art Project

Google's motto used to be "do no harm." However patchy its record of living up to that noble goal, Google does actually do some good, too. A good thing coming out of their creative labs is the Art Project.

In short, this is a tool "powered by Google" which allows the user - you - to explore some of the great museums of the world, and to look at some great artworks in detail. In amazing detail, for some of them, as the high definition pictures go as deep as the painter's brushstrokes - as in the case of In the Conservatory by Edouard Manet, from the Alte Nationalgalerie in Berlin. In other cases, such as the painting of Sir Thomas More by Hans Holbein the Younger, from The Frick Collection, you can still go in-depth in your examination of the painting, even if not to the same degree.

Besides examining very closely some of the paintings from Tate, MOMA, the National Gallery in DC, Hermitage in St Petersburg, and many more, the "visitor" can also browse through the hallways of these museums, looking at all the objects exhibited; it is Google's street view technology, applied to the interior of some magnificent houses of art.

What can I say other than that there is art to be encountered through Google's Art Project.

You can also take a look at this short, useful video about how to use this new and enjoyable tool.

Why the TLS?

Why the Times Literary Supplement?

I "discovered" the TLS following a friend's recommendation, at a time when I did not have any specific literary/ cultural magazines that I would regularly read; the closest to something that fit my expectations was Der Zeit's literary supplement - Zeit Literatur. Right now, the TLS is the only such magazine to which I subscribe: why?

Its texts are not characterized by ideological deformations, which is a problem ubicuitous among American magazines, making them virtually unreadable. Instead, its texts cover culture - or Culture. "They," or "the texts," because the authors vary with each issue, and there is thus no overburdening, overwhelming "it" of a program or message, blaring from inside the magazine's covers. Compare this with the line struck by the very ideological and most programmatic (and thus, useless, for my interests and purposes) New York Review of Books.

"Culture," because reading it is an act in intellectual enrichment: it is like visiting a library (or giant modern bookstore), perambulating through its sections, indulging in a bit of philosophy, a bit of geography - and how about the history of pearls? Delightful. If your interests and needs are Renaissance-like (and why do we use the word Renaissance to express this most natural curiosity of a thinking human being? perhaps because our times make human beings narrower than that, narrowing them down in the race for subsistence, or success) - if you have that curiosity, then this will fit your tastes.

The language it employs is another delight. The overwhelming majority of its authors write in a beautiful, literary English. From a purely literary perspective, therefore, reading it will be very pleasant. Its literary qualities set it apart from the lack of qualities of the simplified, bare-bones language used in most North-American magazines. I think that for the latter we can speak of a case of contamination with the academic style; most American academics have perfected a simple, clear, direct mode of expression - the research paper style. Mind you, I do think that this simple and clear style is a great gain, especially when employed in the social or exact sciences; in fact, I am quite convinced that the American sphere has produced the best political science and history books, and also the best investigative journalism (when it is at its best). These are genres which greatly profit, and can only profit, from such a style. Just read Robert Caro's Lyndon Johnson trilogy - I have still to encounter a more remarkable work of political science (and history, and journalism). But most of the writing in the transatlantic magazines of culture & current events is simply drab and boring. Reading the TLS is, more often than not, a dessert on the daily table.

These are three reasons; I am sure you can find more.

PS: I warmly suggest getting and reading the print version; you would enjoy walking through a library or a bookstore more than browsing through Amazon's titles and its cover snapshots. But you can also find the link to TLS's website on the top-left of this page.

Vassily Kandinsky, Arab City

Vassily Kandinsky, Arab City (1905) [source: Centre Pompidou]

Using this occasion, let me also suggest that you bookmark the website of Centre Pompidou - Musée national d'art moderne (which has this painting), whose collection containing over 60,000 modern works is available online.

I do hope that the quality of the photos presented in the online gallery is uneven, though, since I am not the happiest with the level of detail for the one above; let me then also direct your attention to the Lessing Photo Archive, where you can find, among others, this high quality photo of Kandinsky's Arab City.    

The City

In the middle of looking for and frustratingly not finding this week's issue of The Times Literary Supplement, at the local outlet of that big name bookstore, I stumbled upon another small miracle: Lapham's Quarterly, of which I never heard, and its current issue titled, "The City."

The urban environment is my native space; the distant sound of the city in the middle of the night; the yellow leaves on the trees in the park; the people walking busily, to and from their business, midmorning; the smell and cheerfulness of squares filled by the yearly Christmas market, with people lingering midday over mulled wine, home-made sweets or dried fish.

What makes a city? What does a city need? In which of its elements does it really subsist? Minneapolis is not a city, Baltimore is not a city (or large parts of it are not) - not anymore. Philadelphia is suffering; its downtown gave me the painful sensation of something wasted, something missed, something that was beautiful but is now unsafe, impersonal; a lost opportunity. (Its two-way boulevard leading from downtown to the Museum of Art was built for carriages and couples talking walks on autumn evenings; now its sidewalks are neglected by human beings, while the roads are lonely with automobiles.)

It is space, and it is the people. The beauty of the buildings and of their setting in Chicago; the Danube passing through the heart of Budapest, with pretty bridges adorning it; the neoclassical, tree-lined boulevards of Milano; the squares and the tram-lined streets of Strasbourg... but none could actually be imagined without the people walking along Michigan Ave., or the teeming life on the banks of the Danube, spilling unto the bridges in various forms (bike, car, pedestrian); and so on.

One could make a reference to Aristotle, who says that having a group of people live in the same place, under the same laws, does not yet a society make; a society requires constant, everyday, physical meetings between its members. The city is nothing without its people. Banal-sounding, perhaps, but it also means that the true form of the city is given by its members in constant interaction (or, by the constant interaction of its members?). This is why I could feel instantly comfortable, the moment I came out from the subway and unto the streets of lower Manhattan; because I  instinctively and immediately recognized the atmosphere, because I  knew right away how to behave on a street busy with people pursuing their own business - stepping into a deli for a sandwich, waiting for the light to change etc.; it was Novi Sad, it was Rome, it was Karlsruhe (just taller).

I think this is what makes the city my environment, my space. This lived space, of people interacting (verbally,  physically; sharing a space, sharing in each other's life) and inhabiting a place that was built not just for functionality, but for beauty, too (yet drab exteriors do become beautiful, their bricks and iron railings aged by the people living with them, for years, decades, entire lives).

Man is inherently social, and if your being has been defined... - well, if you came to know yourself through knowing the others whom you met every day - on the street, in the shop, on the tram, or just by playing outside; then it becomes very hard, almost an amputation of the self, to live without that.

This current issue of Lapham's Quarterly, then, titled The City, is a small miracle. It contains texts from writers ranging from Plutarch to Bulgakov, from Marco Polo to Iréne Nemirovski, from Rabelais to F. Scott Fitzgerald - about a given city, about the city.    

Culture, television, and the nation-state (apropos a surprising new TV series)

Now this looks very enticing! In fact, this is one of the more surprising things to come out of the world of commercial television. Quite unexpected, and this is one of those very rare times when I would actually want to "get TV" (cable or air) in my house. Fortunately, it will surely come out on DVD fairly soon.

Trailer

Usually, to encounter high culture on TV, in Amerika, you have to watch PBS - the much maligned Public Broadcasting System, the closest equivalent to a national (as in, "state") TV station Amerika has. However, in many other parts of the world, and especially in Europe, the national ("state") TV stations are the guardians of high culture, and thus have a civilizing role - or impact.

A case in point is the world of television in Central and Eastern Europe, and the impact of commercial television after the 1990s. They have invaded the market, have become very successful, but true quality television remained with the "national," i.e. state-owned stations.

These states came about as a result of the pursuit of the idea of the "nation-state," that every nation (defined ethnically and culturally, i.e. ethno-culturally) needs to have its own state(hood). In consequence, the very raison d'être of the resulting states became, and is, the protection of the interests of these "nations," defined ethnoculturally: around a "common" language, culture, history (real or constructed? shared or inculcated? - usually both). (This is the German model.) What is a state, however? It is a set of institutions. This is then what the state institutions are meant to do: to protect the interests of a culturally defined nation, which means the protection and promotion of the given culture, as defined by the state. (This is the French model, although the French nation was not defined ethnically, but politically and culturally.)

There are many downsides to such an understanding of nation and state; for example, the existence of a quasi-sacred canon of national culture, whose questioning is almost a blasphemy - and  whose epitome are the "national poets" - usually romantic poets who wrote during and about the struggle for the definition of the nation, in the nineteenth century, intertwining in their work the definition of the language, history, and the struggle for independence.. There are, however, important upsides, namely this self-understanding of some of these institutions of the state, as being the guardians of cultural heritage - not necessarily limited to the past, especially in the case of national TV stations.

Of course, this might also have to do with the fact that, in many countries, when television arrived, it was through state-owned stations, and not through the market. As a consequence, the approach to this new medium has been shaped not by commercial interest, but by the idea of public service (information, news - just like in the case of the first radio stations there), and might also have meant that the input of educated people, with sophisticated cultural backgrounds, was decisive - and they applied their understanding of other branches of culture, to deciding about the very purpose and direction of the programs of this new medium.

Now, I am quite unfamiliar with the history of television, but these seem to be fair enough suppositions, since I have experienced them first hand, growing up in Europe, nourished (in part) exactly by these institutions (sometimes to my delight, sometimes to indigestion).

The everyday of beauty

By way of an article by Roger Scruton, about The High Cost of Ignoring Beauty, some thoughts that are in syntony with his own (or the other way around). One feels quite disarmed when one has to explain here, in North America, the use of public aesthetics. Yet, driving down the long "pikes" of this continent, you will pass endless rows of so-called strip-malls: one-story buildings, drab, nondescript, lined around an asphalt wasteland of a parking lot. One-story buildings whose architecture is not meant to say anything, because its only meaning is to provide a (cheap) space to be rented out. And you drive on, and on, and you pass the same buildings and places. If you enter in some of the businesses that have rented out these spaces, sometimes you will be surprised by what you find inside; sometimes you will find a delightful Indonesian restaurant, with atmosphere, taste, and good food.

(As a side-note, it is quite sickening that most of these businesses renting out these infinite-like strip-malls are restaurants; sickening not qua restaurants, but because, instead of being places of long hours of lazy delight spent in the company of friends, they are utilitarian places serving about the same function as a retail clothing store, or a doctor's office - you go in, you do what you have to do (in this case, eat), and when you're done, you move on. Why would anyone spend hours there? Unless you bring your laptop, to "do some work." This piece here,  Bringing the Buzz Back to the Café, talks about this.)

Thus, you drive on - not walk, by the way, because you need to get somewhere - and isn't this an unnecessary clarification, in fact, the fact that "you need to get somewhere?" Of course you do, otherwise why would you be on your way? But why should you "get somewhere?" Yes, I ask: why? But what else would you do on the street, if not go somewhere? Well, perhaps just walk. Without purpose? Well, is breathing without a purpose? Does joy need a purpose? (Notice that I am not using the word "fun," which usually has a purpose, and thus is time-enclosed and task-like; "I want to have fun." Well, perhaps just walk, and look around, and watch the other people. Live, breathe the others' presence, and imbibe the music of the buildings, of the architecture that surrounds you.

Or drive, past others, just like others drive past you,, while passing by miles and miles of strip malls. Nobody is on the streets, walking; and the "music" of the buildings hurts your mind.

The problem, of course, is not that these strip-malls are shopping places, sometimes with good restaurants (as mentioned above). The problem is that, just like the bridge over the Mississippi in the heart of Minneapolis, they were built with the sole purpose of serving a (very drab) function. And yet, just like the air we breathe, or the water we drink, or the books we read, the order and cleanliness of our home, the architecture that surrounds us is a very important part of our own selves. These are the elements of the language of our souls, and our souls are shaped by them. What is around us can not be separated by what is inside us - not radically.

We are intrinsically open beings. It is not only that what is inside is influenced by what is outside. Inside and outside are misleading expressions. We are open beings, and what surrounds us, is us - whether it generates defensive reactions from the depth of our selves, or a general sensation of - what is the expression we use? - well-being. (A wonderful depiction of the nature of human beings, intrinsically open, and shaped by the relationships we have with all that surrounds us, is to be found in the very poetic Book of Genesis, as read in    these meditations on the "Original Unity of Man and Woman.")

Thus, rather than being only a matter of function (which it is not), architecture is the very aesthetics of the world that surrounds us. As such, just like music, literature, images, it is an essential part of our actually being human. Thus, it matters. It is not the same if we are aiming at being truly human, or towards being like the animals; as we all know, both alternatives are sadly possible; the difference is what we call civilization.

Hedgehog in the fog

A short and beautiful animated film by Yuri Norstein.

The way true fairy tales - or folk tales - are, the way they really are... There is more dramatic tension in this 10 minutes-long animated film, than in a big movie. Not to mention the poetry of the story-telling, and of the visual expression. The rhythm and the direct simplicity of the hedgehog's thoughts - just like a child's. A child's inner life, as you might remember from your own, is not simplistic, or of overbearing, saccharine-like sweetness. But it can become like that, if the stories and images we give him to think with, to think about, are clichéd, sentimentalized, dumbed down (because simple does not mean simplistic!). But fairy tales - the real ones, the old, original ones, and even some of those written by a Perrault or Collodi - are realistic, yet their imagination is uncontrollable; simple, yet also complicated, in their story turns, and in the feelings they induce; they never end, that way.

Modern ways to empty life: more on civilization and its discontents

Speaking of civilization - which, if you ask me, is not a product of man, but a part of him, as no man exists as a lonely atom, but only within relationships of I-Thou and I-It, of which he is an integral part; which explains why isolation is used as punishment or torture, or is a symptom of mental illness - speaking of civilization, then, looking back I feel a certain barrenness to this past 20th century. Yes, just look back, with the eyes of your mind, towards the past couple of centuries, and the twentieth will seem barren, or more barren than the 19th, which seems more barren than the 18th... An illustration of this barrenness I perceive is the work of Le Corbusier about which there is this interesting article (less interesting the last two paragraphs).

I grew up in a neighborhood in Central Europe populated, well actually made of, square apartment buildings of reinforced concrete; yet my general sentiment about that neighborhood of my childhood is never one of barrenness. The buildings, the place, were very much alive - teeming, in fact, at times, with kids running around, playing soccer on the street, people spending time in front of them, walking around in pursuit of their business (the main means of transportation being the feet); in that sense, a much, much warmer place than the American suburb I inhabit now, where people walking on the street is a rare sight. Suburbs are machines to live in, while malls are machines to shop in, while downtown districts are machines to work in (look at their appearance), while restaurants are machines to eat in. It is interesting that - and I am not saying things that have never been uttered before - a society essentially shaped by the pursuit of money and the spending of that money one earned (which is one sort of capitalism; there are others, perhaps), is just as barren as one shaped by other phenomena of modernity, as were the totalitarian ideologies.

They have little in common. What they do have in common is the preeminence given to one aspect of human existence (the mechanisms of the economy, the significance of class etc.) over all others; furthermore, it is the violent imposition of that one factor over everything else, which drains and desiccates society of its essence: its very humaneness.

A few years ago we agreed with an American friend that life in Europe is somehow more "humane" - and, in that specific context, the discussion was about eating and drinking - as a way, I think, to point to something broader. But the judgment expressed then is incomplete, and less than truthful, for anyone who has been to Chicago, New York, San Francisco, or even Toronto. Generalizations that start with "Europe is..." or "America is..." are mostly wrong. Their mistake is similar to that committed by the demons of modernity mentioned above: they neglect (and oppress, and brutally simplify, and thus stifle) reality: the floral unpredictableness and multifariousness of human life.

The highest expression of which we can call civilization.

Civilisation

"I am standing on the Pont des arts in Paris. On one side of the Seine is the harmonious, reasonable facade of the Institute de France, built as a college in about 1670. On the other bank is the Louvre, built continuously from the Middles Ages to the nineteenth century: classical architecture at its most splendid and assured. Just visible upstream is the Cathedral of Notre Dame - not perhaps the most lovable of cathedrals, but the most rigorously intellectual facade in the whole of Gothic art. The houses that line the banks of the river are also a humane and reasonable solution of what town architecture should be, and in front of them, under the trees, are the open bookstalls where generations of students have found intellectual nourishment and generations of amateurs have indulged in the civilised pastime of book collecting. Across this bridge, for the last one hundred and fifty years, students from the art schools of Paris have hurried to the Louvre to study the works of art that it contains, and then back to their studios to talk and dream of doing something worthy of the great tradition. (...) What is civilization? I don't know. I can't define it in abstract terms - yet. But I think I can recognise it when I see it; and I am looking at it now." [Kenneth Clark, Civilisation, p.1]

Lovely.

KARAWANE

Karawane,

the sound poem by Hugo Ball, one of the Zürich Dadaists.*

And a masterful interpretation of the poem:

A great interpretation; others, such as this one by Trio Exvoco of Switzerland are, by comparison, downright depressing. Among other things, they lack an important - and maybe the essential - dimension of Dada, and of the avant-garde in general: its youth. Youth, both in the sense of young persons, and also, and most importantly, as that age in a person's life that we call youth. The stirring and moving of young age itself... as it "clashes" with society, with the drab, meaningless decorations it puts on its buildings, with the absurd that is intertwined with the everyday life in that society etc.** And youth responds organically, irrationally, and, needless to say, emotionally - by defacing the statues, overturning the garbage bins, and dancing in the fountains on the main square, after leaving the café at 2 am (you can't go mad while hungry; not if you're sane and healthy).***

The above-posted video, however, is quite excellent, and I could note a few aspects of why I think it is so well-done. First, it follows intelligently and almost "puristically" the phonetic value of the words in the poem - in this sound (or phonetic) poem. Furthermore, being set to a tribal drumbeat, it is very much in tone with the (quite important) primitivist dimension of Dada. Third, it was made using technology (Adobe Flash, I guess), and mechanized algorithms for the movement of the visual appearance of the words; thus removing itself, to a significant degree, from the subjective, personal, human dimension, very much in tone with Dada's emphasis on accident, the mass-produced, collage, and modern technology (see Schwitter's Merz, or Duchamp's Fountain). And, finally, it certainly has the inventiveness and randomness and freshness of a movement of the youth. After all, the author is 24 years old.

I do not know if this author, loris10mi (according to his Youtube name), is necessarily aware of all these dimensions - and he does not have to be, of course, given what was discussed above; but he might be, as this seems to have been part of an academic project. In any case, as noted, this might be one of the best interpretations of a Dada poem I have encountered yet.

...

* Dada? You can listen to Richard Huelsenbeck and Tristan Tzara talking about its beginnings - after the fact, of course, and after having been caught (the two of them) in ersatz visions of the world and of art, i.e. ideologies.

** It is not by chance that Dada appeared within the context of World War I, which, like all wars, was a celebration and joyful manifestation of the absurd; WWI perhaps even more so than the rest, given its utter pointlessness and unnecessary quality.

*** The scene with Anita Ekberg and Marcello Mastroianni, at the Fontana di Trevi, in La Dolce Vita, is not all too far removed from this youthful rebellion; but it is much "later" compared to youth itself, and thus, much sadder. As evidence of the similarity, see the very entertaining reaction of this youth from 60's Hungary (which was then under the (imposed) burden of a Communist regime), when watching the same scene from The Sweet Life; this funny and intelligent depiction is from Csinibaba, by Péter Timár, a movie made in the '90s.

Leonard Cohen, in concert

(at the Merriweather Post Pavilion , in Columbia, MD)
His features are sharper now, than the face to which we've grown accustomed. Yet his voice is - surprisingly - full, confident, and strong enough, and he uses it beautifully, even after a year of touring. He hasn't been on the road in about eight years; in fact, not many people expected to see him touring again; but this could very well be his last tour. He traveled the world, last year and this one, and finally got here, to the US. "Democracy is coming, to the USA."

I was late: traffic. The most striking thing, and the first thing that grabbed my attention, was that what was going on was something different from the concerts we know, from what we usually expect. It was the sudden awareness and remembering of the fact that he is a poet, first and foremost. Thus he addressed us - talked to us, recited, told, caressed us; his meaning, the meaning of him being there, on the stage, was to talk to us. As he himself affirmed, many times, Leonard Cohen is, first and foremost, a poet; then, a composer; then, a singer - in descending order of adeptness and comfort. I would add that his poetry is made for, and in, music; that he is a wonderful composer; that his poetic mode of expression, although based on words, is through music. He is, thus, a troubadour, in mind, in spirit, and in voice; this is the type of poetry he writes, this is the type of music he writes; as he writes on love, on things above and below, on loneliness, on encounters. And he doth travel the world. Therefore the night was one of a troubadour, who addressed us, who talked to us, sang to and with us.

As the night progressed, however, and as (some in) the public wanted to react in the familiar ways - the ways of the "show," so did his reactions change, too - slightly, in response. The learned ways of the show, of the concerts we know and usually attend, are that the stage is a self-enclosed world, and what happens in that world serves the functions of the spectacular, of virtuosity, even if containing some conversations between the members of the band; the aim is to generate entertainment that was paid for, by the public; the vague hope is that the reactions from the public might go as far as joining in, in feeling, in presence. But the two sides remain hopelessly apart, one expecting what it paid for - spectacular, entertainment, the other going its learned ways to produce that glimmer and show.

Or, if the concert is a classical one, we have a complex address that is put out there and hangs in the air somewhere between the orchestra and the public; and the hope is that the public will see it, admire it, and, in extra-ordinary occasions, partake of it, in this third object, in-between the orchestra and the public; an object so beautiful, so worked-out, so passionate, even. Yet the communication - it is never direct, between musician and public; in the end, the genre is not of such a nature, that it could actually constitute direct communication; the piece is already written, and it originates from someone else. The musicians execute it, participate in it, live it, even; then deliver it before us, and each of us - we might look at it, some might participate - and beautiful things do happen, that way; but it is a different genre, different from poetry.

But the poet, like Mr Cohen, must speak to you, otherwise he isn't there for the right aim, otherwise he is not, that evening, what he truly is. And so it is, that he is a troubadour. Thus, by virtue of this ongoing conversation, because of the music he made with us and for us, in conversation, his behavior did change slightly, accordingly; as some in the public descended towards the learned ways of the show, at times he (and they, on the stage) became more self-enclosed (yet only passingly); or, instead, he manifested a bit of cabotinage (no such word in English, unfortunately; clownery? second-rate, provincial theater?), of "show," yet even that, ironic, self-mocking, unserious. (The unspoken conversation that went on beneath the words and the songs; the need for show, albeit unspoken, was expressed, and was responded, with show.) But the clown is himself a troubadour; or, rather, the troubadour must be a clown, too, at times, as he sings about love, heartbreak, drunkenness, and laughter - even shrill.

And the band, just like Mr. Cohen, was (composed) of adults. So rare, nowadays, to have music (but it applies to contemporary art in general) that is by grown-ups, for grown-ups (which is not a function of biological age). Mr Cohen's poetry and songs age with him; one has only to listen through the recordings, over the years; and it is a beautiful thing. Years, they are what constitute him - not the moment.

And this was the second thing that I remarked, with gladness and relief: I saw the narrative. The concert had this soothing, healing character, therefore, because it had an underlying narrative. Not stories in songs, since they may be disjointed poetry; not a superimposed theme; but the narrative that was in him, and in some of the members of the band, in the poetry that is made in time, through time, and of time. It had a narrative, because it had time - age. No desperate quest for eternal youth, which is achieved through momentary (and thus despairing) grasps for the spectacular, or the hormonal. Thus the concert was soothing of the fragmentariness of this here American existence.

And what does this age, or narrative, mean, actually? It means something very un-postmodern: a continuity of feeling, an awareness of "the democracy of the dead and of the living" (to use G.K. Chesterton's words), a perspective on the moment that understands it with all that preceded it, and all that follows it. Healing attributes, then, of the ugly, insidious fragmentariness of the strip-mall, virtual, suburban, car-driven existence. The existence of public squares, and of cafés, to which one does not drive, but walks.

It was also a joy to see that he had a true, full band, to accompany him (really accompany him). The old Spanish Gypsy gentleman playing the "bandurria, laud, archilaud and 12 string guitar," with obvious relish and virtuosity, as if in the main square of a village in Spain, drenched in sun and drought (Javier Mas). Sharon Robinson, the aged (wine-like) lady in the backing vocals section , co-composer of some of Cohen's best songs, and duet partner on many other songs. A band surprisingly complete - I expected a trimmed-down, utility-oriented one; but no, they were individual persons, friends and long-time companions, musicians and singers; playing instruments ranging from the laud to the wind synthesizer, from real wind instruments to the Hammond.

An evening of poetry and music, with Leonard Cohen's troupe of wandering clowns, trapeze artists, old beauties and race horses.

[May 11, 2009]

P.S. I just learned that, "Due To Overwhelming Demand Leonard Cohen's Acclaimed 2009 World Tour Returns to North America," this fall, with a few concerts stretching the distance between New York and San Jose.