The Death of the Poet

At the 2018 Eurovision Song Contest, one of the most surprising, fresh entries was that of the Hungarian band AWS, with their “metalcore” song, Viszlát Nyár (Goodbye, Summer). What caught one’s attention, besides the attractiveness of the piece (within the confines of the genre), was the raw emotion and energy of the song and of the performance. Fittingly so, since the lyrics, written by the band’s front man, Örs Siklósi, had autobiographical connotations, speaking (in metaphorical terms) about the recent passing of his father:

Goodbye summer, you’re too late now;
because you lied to me that you’d be mine,
but you never came!

Bittersweet, poetic, raw, angry, sincere – all these sentiments and states expressed through the fitting musical language of the “metalcore” style.

While I must confess that this isn't a musical style with which I am very familiar, or that I commonly listen to, I really liked the band and the song – which led me to look into their other works, as well. And thus I listened to their two most recent albums, Kint a Vízből (Out of the Water, 2016, YouTube, Spotify) and Fekete Részem (My Dark Dimension, 2018, YouTube, Spotify).

And what I discovered upon listening to these albums was - to my delight – a band that truly tries to “make art” (again, within what one could call the rather narrow confines of the genre). This is especially true in what concerns the lyrics of their songs (and you can find their English translation here), lyrics that, in a manner quite seldom encountered nowadays in popular music, are quite lyrical (and intentionally so). And this is precisely one of the things that is most sorely lacking from contemporary pop music - the lyrical quality; and also one of the reasons why current popular music seems so pedestrian, empty, meaning-less and forgettable - because of a lyrical poverty reflected in their minuscule vocabulary, a the lack of a mastery of the language, and in a vulgarity that often verges on the pornographic.

Yet the high model of popular music should be (must be!) something along the lines of the works of a Leonard Cohen, a Simon & Garfunkel, a Bob Dylan, a Van Morrison, or even the Beatles – all of whom, at their best, created sung poetry. And a song that is not poetic is just… banal, passable, forgettable. And thus the landscape of current popular music is quite unlivable – which is why actually encountering an artistic, poetic endeavor, in such a barren landscape, feels like stumbling upon fresh water in the Sahara.

Yes, this is why it was so refreshing and enlivening to find (even within a fairly constricted musical genre) a true attempt to make art  - and to do it consciously, intentionally, in an intelligent and literate way, and daring to speak about the important things. Of course, one could find a number of youthful faults in these two albums, as well: a bit of emotional immaturity, of hormonal revolt, maybe some self-serving sentimentalism - all of these fully understandable, given the band members' young age. But what stands out from their music are not these minor lacunae – but what transcends what could be expected from a band of this type, and of their age range. For example: yes, one finds in their songs the genre-typical tone of social critique - yet here it is a critique that does not simply parrot some vacuous "anti-system" clichés, but almost always points further, at a deeper, personal pursuit of the (existential) truth – ultimately pointing toward the core question of, “how should I live?” (And that is a sign of maturity, an intellectual-poetic maturity dearly missing from popular culture today.)

It also helps that the words often have a metaphysical dimension, or ramification, as well – proving again that they come from a personal search for the truth, and for authentic existence; and not from a mindless repetition of clichés.

And the author of most of the lyrics - and thus the one whose personal existential quest seems to be reflected in these songs - is none other than the band's front man and singer, Siklósi Örs [in Hungarian the family name comes first]. And the biographical snippets that we have about Örs seem to confirm the personal and artistic depth reflected in these lyrics. And thus it was quite moving and joy-giving for me to discover a young artist – a new young poet - who is in the process of keeping the flame of poetry (and the pursuit of art) alive, in the mostly arid field of contemporary popular music - and also to see them endow a relatively shallow musical genre with unexpected poetic-existential depth.

In my mind, therefore, Siklósi Örs appeared as a worthy successor – of course, at a much reduced scale, and within a more modest artistic context - of the young rebel poets of the late nineteenth century (Rimbaud, Baudelaire etc). 

And then, many months later, I learned – and it was truly a shock to learn – of the passing of Siklósi Örs, aged only 29, as a consequence of leukemia. “Viszlát, nyár!” And it did hurt to learn this, as much as it hurts to hear of the passing of any real poet, of any true (if only budding) artist – of anyone who tries keeps the flame of what matters alive, and thus inevitably becomes a carrier of this light within the world. I am thinking of people like Leonard Cohen, Norm MacDonald… whose deaths hit unusually hard because they were true artists, true... poets. And so it was in the case of Örs, as well.   

I leave you with another outstanding piece from the band – perhaps their most poetic piece, and musically perhaps my favorite. In the lyrics to this song Örs uses the familiar images and sensations of an early morning city bus ride (or metro ride), to reflect and to inquire into his own existential state - and the state of the others. 

 

Bric-à-brac for November '12

1. 500 Years from the Unveiling of the Sistine Chapel's Ceiling

The Delphic Sibyl (Cappella Sistina, Vatican)

On October 31st, the Eve of All Saints, the world celebrated 500 years from the finishing & first public showing of the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel. It is as much a work of art as one of theology, a worthy emblem of the Renaissance but also a deep immersion in the history of salvation, a Biblical trip into history. The rest of the chapel is itself a celebration of beauty and faith, with walls covered in paintings by Perugino, Botticelli,  Ghirlandaio; when one visits it, the beauty of it all becomes apparent, even if it is the ceiling, and especially the creation scene there, as well the Last Judgment on the western wall, that are known by most.

You are invited therefore to make a virtual visit and delight in a panoramic view of the chapel (use the + and - buttons on the bottom left for the zoom function). To learn more about the paintings and the Sistine Chapel, you can visit this attractively slick multimedia guide, or go even more in depth with a dedicated page on the Web Gallery of Art (one of our favorite resources). And I should not forget to recommend the wonderfully balanced and realistic movie, The Agony and the Ecstasy (based on Irving Stone's homonymous book), which deals quite admirably with the relationship between art, history and faith.

2. Metropolitan Museum Catalogs  - Available for Free Download

Wonderful news from the Met, as they are offering their excellent art catalogs for online viewing or free download (in .pdf format). If you have been collecting them at second-hand shops or by rummaging through book sales, or if you have been purchasing new ones online, here is now a wonderful tool, which intends to gradually cover all their out of print materials. Browse and choose to your liking, from the MetPublications website. [notified by I Require Art]







3. Hibaku no Maria

One of the lesser-known facts about the bombing of Nagasaki is that it managed to destroy, in one coup, the largest Christian community - 22,000 strong - of Japan. What centuries of persecution and, in fact, of extermination policies did not manage to accomplish, the Allies did, in one strike. A powerful memento of this is the Hibaku no Maria (the "bombed" Mary), which is the remaining, scarred head of a sculpture of the Madonna from the destroyed Nagasaki cathedral. Learn more about the story of the statue, the history of Catholics in Nagasaki and in Japan, or just look at some additional images of the Hibaku no Maria, which has since become a powerful symbol of the senselessness of war and a message/messenger of peace (as the current Archbishop of Nagasaki explains in this video). [signaled by St. Peter's List]

Image: St. Peter's List

4. Dresch Quartet

Dresch Mihály, the saxophone- (and assorted reed instruments-) player & his quartet, with one of their typical, Eastern European folk- infused jazz pieces. Green and red lines on a canvas with folk motives.  

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] ...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)

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.    

  

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.

Rilke Projekt: Du musst das Leben nicht...

This is a very simple, and peaceful video, like the garden of the H. family, where the pictures were taken by the author (padefeo is his YouTube name). Simple, peaceful, yet hopeful, like Hannelore Elsner's recitation of Rilke's poem. Which poem is itself simple, short, child-like.

The music and words are taken from the very successful, and quite beautiful, Rilke Project, about which there shall be another note.

Du musst das Leben nicht verstehen,
dann wird es werden wie ein Fest.
Und lass dir jeden Tag geschehen
so wie ein Kind im Weitergehen von jedem Wehen
sich viele Blüten schenken lässt.

Sie aufzusammeln und zu sparen,
das kommt dem Kind nicht in den Sinn.
Es löst sie leise aus den Haaren,
drin sie so gern gefangen waren,
und hält den lieben jungen Jahren
nach neuen seine Hände hin.

(Rainer Maria Rilke, 8.1.1898, Berlin-Wilmersdorf)

Iván Fischer conducting Bartók and Dvořák with the National Symphony Orchestra, Washington, DC

First he conducted Bartók's Concerto for Orchestra - the top of the skull blown into pieces and movements of varied colors and sizes? Then, Dvořák's Symphony No. 7 in D minor. The word that kept running through my mind was "alive;" that's what makes his concerts special. The passion he injects comes from the fact that the music he tries to convey, for those who participate in that moment, is passion, life - but life clarified: recognizing, (re)discovering, what you already knew - the fascinating, the immense, the delicate, the sublime, the sad and tragic, the joyous, playful.

The After Words, the Q&A session after the concert, felt somehow like sitting down with a friend.

Although this might have been his last performance for the year at the Kennedy Center, he will be the principal conductor of the NSO next season , too, which means he will probably conduct another 6-7 concerts in DC. And he has his own orchestra in Budapest - the Budapest Festival Orchestra - go see if you're around.

Watch his short interviews about his art, about what he does, here.

[Thursday, February 5, 2009]

From "Andrei Rublev," by Andrei Tarkovsky