Unnecessary Partisanship

Our leaders are expected to leave partisanship at the door, and come to the table to solve our problems. Senator Obama and his allies in Congress infused an unnecessary partisanship into the process. Now is not the time to fix the blame; it's time to fix the problem. I would hope that all our leaders, all of them, can put aside their short-term political goals and do what's in the best interests of the American people.

- John McCain, in a Sept. 29 statement on the failure of the $700 billion bailout bill

I don't think that even George W. Bush has contradicted himself so thoroughly in such a short space. Unbelievable.

As for the bill's defeat, it clearly makes no sense to blame it on the Democrats:

Democrats
Yea: 140 Nay: 95
Republicans
Yea: 65 Nay: 133 Abstention: 1

If it is true that twelve or so Republicans voted against the bill as they were offended by "partisanship," then they have done a selfish and worse than silly thing. The bill may not have been perfect, but certainly it should not have been voted against on shallow grounds, seeing as its failure to pass has predictably caused the Dow Jones to plummet a record sum (over 700 points), followed by stock markets around the world (over 12% in Ireland, I heard).

I know little about economics, but it appears to me that the bill, permitting oversight and providing the money in increments and giving the taxpayers stock in the bailed-out companies as it did, was good enough. Psychologically, it would have been a quick and effective measure to restore confidence. Instead the stocks are left to languish and dwindle while the members of Congress go off on holiday until Wednesday. Utterly nonsensical.

Saturday Diarizing

Today I might as well do a diary-esque blog. I woke up before 3:30 p.m., which I count as an achievement considering that the presidential debate ended after 4 a.m. and that writing my blog about it took a long time, too, so that it was after 6 a.m. when I finally went to bed.

After waking up and checking up on the news websites, I wandered into the corner room and recapitulated the highlights (and lowlights) of the debate for the benefit of the assembled company, breakfasted, and then watched the Daily Show with Jon Stewart: Global Edition. This week's show was delightful; the first segment was on the financial crisis, and the correspondent John Oliver was asked to give an opinion on the legacy of Bush, and said (more or less), "Well, if he tries really, really hard, he could still manage to be . . . " Stewart suggests, "The worst president?" – "The last president," Oliver finishes with foreboding emphasis. Then there was an interview with Bill Clinton. It is such a relief to hear him deliver thoughtful and painstaking opinions, though he rather spoils it, I think, by constantly reaching out through his words to undecided and even Republican voters. If he were permitted to run for president again, I'm sure he'd win; but he's had his time and it's Barack Obama's turn, and I suspect that Clinton still has a ways to go before he comes to terms with that fact. There is small doubt that he wants the Democratic Party to win, but accepting Obama personally appears to be difficult. In yesterday's debate I thought that McCain evinced a certain jealousy, too.

Anyway, then I played the piano, ran through the first three or so articles in the latest New York Review of Books , and watched more television (a German crime show and news and later a rerun of last night's presidential debate). Then I looked at slideshows of the latest fashion shows in Milan; I liked the Dolce&Gabbana, Dsquared, and Maurizio Pecoraro shows, thought that the Fendi and Luisa Beccaria shows were oddities, and disliked the Versace and MaxMara shows. The Luise Beccaria show was precisely what might have happened if the Sound of Music had transpired in an upscale country bed & breakfast, and Julie Andrews had refashioned the drapes and bedlinen into dresses whose floral patterns and pastel shades and tulle-ishness suggested a procession of potpourri sachets. Dsquared was a refreshing admixture of sharp Bond girl outfits and midwestern American fare, which had little novelty to offer but was solidly classic. Dolce&Gabbana's runway, to me, embodied the costly city nightlife, and its dresses were flashy and busy with colour but full of flair, and if the silhouettes were wholly absurd and the silk pyjamas trend a trifle impractical, they were also striking and stylish and, I thought, fun. They are fit clothing for women who possess not only wealth, but also confidence and humour. As far as black models went, there was only Jourdan Dunn and one other, except on the colourful Dsquared catwalk; models of Slavic origin were prevalent. I don't think that it's silly to keep track of this, because it has been clearly proven that black models are kept out of shows on the basis of their skin colour, and even if there are many other injustices in the fashion world, one may as well begin by rectifying this one.

We have a visitor in our house in the shape of J.'s school penpal from Barcelona, an unfailingly and endearingly well-mannered little fellow whose principal pastimes appear to be computer games and MSN. While he is with us, he is also absorbing such cornerstones of German cinematic culture as Licence to Kill and Star Wars. It does seem funny how boys can be such civilized persons and still like watching violent films. But I'm still worried about being a bad influence, so when I imbibe my daily tiny liqueur glass of port wine or crème de cassis or cointreau, I've been carefully doing it out of sight. Our heathenish sleeping hours do not, however, appear to faze him at all. Besides the fun and excitement of having a visitor, the advantage of this Spanish-German exchange is the amusing stories that J. has told us; for instance, at the end of the chaotic flight back from Barcelona, the stewardess, simultaneously opening the door and keeping at bay his impatient classmates, indicated that she felt like taking a leap out of the plane.

In the meantime, I've also been cogitating on the ways and means of moving to New York. Yesterday I applied for my passport, which will arrive in one month, and explored the classifieds in the New York Times for a first time; the next step is to find out about immigration or procuring work permits. Normally I hate doing bureaucratic stuff, so it is a useful test of the seriousness of my purpose. In this case I know that my energy will not run out, so the only circumstance that could prevent me from going is an incontrovertible argument against it, or an unforeseen development in between now and January. Anyway, I have to go. I can't picture a future for myself here, though it's pleasant enough, or in Victoria or Vancouver. I am so tired of being in the wrong surroundings (school), or in surroundings that are neither wrong nor right but a species of limbo (university and the present), and now I need to find the right surroundings. I am also tired of quietly enduring these wrong or limbo-ish surroundings without any hope of ever getting out of them. It's not home that I am trying to get away from, but the absence of influences and surroundings that help me to become the person whom I am best fitted to be, and help me to do the things that I am best fitted to do. One might argue that only in the rarest cases does a person's life neatly fulfill its promise, but I will certainly not give up without making a pretty darn good effort first. In the meantime, there are so many things (not material things, but, to use a pretentious quotation, those essential things that are invisible to the eyes) for which I am pathetically desperate, and have been for years; from what I've read and heard, I know I can find some of them in New York.

A Debate in Oxford (Mississippi)

I've stayed up way past my bedtime and watched the first presidential debates between John McCain and Barack Obama, in a live webcast on CBS's website. Before I go to sleep, here are my impressions:

It was a fairly good debate, where salient criticisms were politely and effectively exchanged, and where the two of them did actually listen to each other and address each other's points understandingly, which is much more, I'd say, than has happened in any debate where Bush was involved. So the evolutionary trend of America's presidents will apparently be shifting not further toward homo habilis (or, as the comedian Lewis Black suggested, plants) but up toward homo sapiens again.

But I was disappointed in Obama, because he mostly spoke in a halting manner, so that it was quite evident that he had memorized sentences beforehand and was trying to remember them; I wish that he had spoken in his own extempore words from the beginning. It would have been far better if he had prepared for the debates by holding practice discussions with, let's say, campaign members, and tested in that manner whether he knew the important facts and figures and could counter the crucial criticisms. On the other hand, he delivered the prepared lines with conviction, which is more than Sarah Palin did in her interview with Katie Couric. Besides, by the end he was more spontaneous.

Then, of course, he made statements I disagreed with, especially that Russia should leave South Ossetia and Abkhazia. Those regions have, after all, been autonomous since 1992, and while I admit that the Russian government has been doing its best to bring them under its sphere of influence, I do not think that its presence runs counter to the wishes of the majority of the population, though at the same time the safety of the Georgian citizens should certainly be safeguarded. Besides, the question of national identity there is certainly complex and unresolved, and should not be imposed from the outside (by governments, for instance, who assign those regions exclusively and irrevocably to Georgia) but left to be resolved by plebiscite or some other form of regional decision-making. An enormous shortcoming of the present US foreign policy is, I think, its utter inability to be neutral in any situation abroad. Bill Clinton wanted humanitarian crises to be brought to a generally acceptable resolution; George W. Bush wants humanitarian crises to be brought to a resolution if, and only if, that resolution is wholly favourable to the side that is in the pocket of the US military/CIA. This policy is clearly at the expense of every person (not only on the "opposing" but also the "allied" side, I would argue) who is truly affected by the crises, and I do not want Barack Obama to continue on that course.

Then there was the wince-inducing exchange where McCain talked about receiving the bracelet of a dead soldier from a mother who said that she didn't want her son to have died in vain (= the war in Iraq should be brought to a "victorious" conclusion) and then Obama countered with his own tale of receiving a bracelet. Simply awful, and embarrassing.

Obama's pronouncements on Afghanistan, Pakistan, Iran, etc., and even on supporting missile defense (by which I think he does mean this idea that missiles can strike each other out of the air, never mind that 2 out of 3 trials of such manoeuvres have failed) are a whole new kettle of fish that I don't want to get into here. At least, I guess, he stressed that he would try to raise America's standing in the world by living up to its ideals, and even sincerely acknowledged McCain for his work against torture. And when he said (in a long argument about meeting with Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, etc.) that he would sit down and talk, without preconditions, with anyone if this would improve the security of America, his position was reasonable and, I thought, unassailable.

But John McCain deeply irritated me. His condescending folksy phraseology, which is really getting shopworn after the decades he has used it, and his air of deprecatory and disappointed conscious rectitude — of being the tired, unfairly martyred, noble leader of a principled forlorn hope — really, really set my teeth on edge. I can't bear the thought of having to listen to him and Palin for the next four years. Besides, he does not seem in the best physical form, and seemed to me to be swaying back and forth a little at the podium. There can be ninety-year-olds who are much sharper and even fitter than me, so I think that criticizing him for his age in itself is shallow and pointless, but, regardless of his age, he does seem neither sharp nor fit, and I have long thought that he is exhausted by the whole affair of running for president, so I don't see how he will be able to get to the end of the four-year term. He invoked Reagan (the oldest president in American history, I think) in an obvious way, but I hope no one will fall for the parallel, and besides I was totally baffled, not to mention angry, when he said that Reagan's SDI (or "Star Wars") brought an end to the Cold War. On the plus side, he did speak out strongly against torture and, in passing, Guantánamo Bay.

What I liked very much about Obama is that he smiled genuinely (often at the moderator, in the touchingly confiding, unselfconscious way that a child who knows that another child is talking nonsense, but patiently and quietly listens because he doesn't want to be rude, might smile at an onlooking parent) when McCain was querulously countering his arguments or making a remark that did not quite make sense or scoring a hit. His air was often charmingly respectful and attentive, and he was in control of the situation more than McCain, who tended to come across as peevish and unamiable, and I liked the way that he warmed up to the debate and even apparently enjoyed it — not pedantically, either.

Lastly, I will mention that I was happy with Jim Lehrer, the moderator. He was self-effacing and generous in letting the candidates talk freely, and evidently interested in what they had to say. Altogether I like him anyway, as he is incredibly free of conceit, and is one of those interviewers who seem to have an endearingly naïve trust in the good and admirable qualities all the public figures with whom they come into contact, no matter how vile and small-souled those people really are and how ineffably stupid their ideas.

In the end, despite all the shortcomings, I was left with a feeling of Hope.

P.S.: I do not like the new Pakistani president. I'm sorry that this statement is not more profound, but I really don't. He is in the typical cast of slimy, self-satisfied politicians, free of any inconvenient moral convictions whatsoever, who have proliferated in countries from Antigua and Barbuda to Zimbabwe since the dawn of time; and the thought of him as the ambassador of democracy and "western ideals" to Pakistan causes me to shudder for all of us. His hobbing and nobbing in New York right after the bombing of the Marriott Hotel, or his discomfiting remarks that Sarah Palin is "gorgeous" and something about hugging her (at which point she was, to my pleased surprise, decent enough not to look fatuously flattered, but ill at ease), are only the tip of the iceberg.

New York?

Papa and Mama have had to hear a good many hare-brained schemes about going to Australia, and taking solitary walking tours across Germany and around England, and of course the one about going to the midwestern US and working on a horse ranch. But! I have a new scheme, and this one I intend to pull through, and that is to move to New York, for at least six months, in January.

I will find an apartment, or a sublet room or two, which will cost about $1000 per month. Then I need to get my paperwork in order; before finding the apartment I will already apply for my passport (I only have an ID card, or Personalausweis, now), and after finding it I will apply for a visa to enter the US. Besides, I need to find work. It appears that the majority of magazine and newspaper internships are unpaid, but I would try to find one, and then do unskilled work, for instance flipping burgers, in order to earn the necessary money. The other route would be to find work as a live-in nanny in a well-to-do household, but I haven't much experience in looking after children and think I would be a bore, besides which I want to be as independent as possible. For at least the first six months I could live off my savings account, but I have no intention of doing so, especially as I will (as I do here) only permit myself to go to institutions like the Metropolitan Museum and Ellis Island once I have an actual income. As far as the internet goes, internet cafés or libraries will have to supply that, but I should definitely procure a cell phone, so that my employers can contact me. Whether a landline telephone is necessary, too, remains to be seen.

Anyway, I have been fascinated by New York for a long time, in its phases from Fifth Avenue to Harlem. My grandparents and great-aunt used to order the Metropolitan Museum gift catalogues, so I know its famous possessions fairly well, at least in Christmas tree ornament form. (c: I like the architecture, too, from the distinctive skyscrapers through the smaller brick apartment buildings to the brownstones. Then there are dozens of films set in New York that I've seen, not only The Devil Wears Prada and an Olsen twins film that I did not finish watching, but also Honey and other well-meaning films about rising from a poor crime-riddled background through (hip-hop) culture or sports and making something out of one's self, and North by Northwest and Sabrina. And, besides, I've either grown up with or discovered for myself New York productions like the New Yorker, the New York Times, and the New York Review of Books, talk-shows like Late Night with David Letterman and The View, and The Daily Show with Jon Stewart and The Colbert Report.

Besides, I also very much want to go back to North America. There were many things about Europe that were a great relief to me when I came here, but also many things that were a great disappointment. I don't want to be unfair, and I should note that there are many exceptions to all of my characterizations, but here are my observations:

Above all, Europe is much more classist than I had expected, certainly much more classist than Canada. In Canada the middle class really rules. If you are poor, you are at a disadvantage, evidently, but you are not intrinsically inferior to anyone else. Education, especially, really doesn't matter so much. Students and people in their senior years of high school tend to ostentatiously use long words, but the customary language is fairly straightforward, and it doesn't matter if a professor or a panhandler is speaking, they sound pretty much the same. Everyone wears similar clothing, too, unless they are trying to make a statement. And no one really cares if you can discourse knowledgeably on Ricardo's theories on economics or the poetic works of Tennyson, because what does it really matter in day-to-day existence? If you are well-educated and well-dressed and speak elegantly, good for you, but if you put on airs or are mean to other people, you will be despised for being arrogant and not knowing your place. Here, I get the impression that people categorize you according to dress, speech, and education – and, I will add, national origin (/race) – into superior, equal, or inferior. And, if you are inferior, you are ignorant and low-minded, shabby, and aesthetically unpleasing.

What I do not like about the Canadian mindset is that I really do care about education; to me it is much more than knowing that the capital of Bulgaria is Sofia or having written a dissertation, but expanding your interests, thinking about and coming to a better understanding of the world and your self, filling your mind and discovering things that will enrich your existence, and being able to talk to people about things that are more important than your personal life. People can have this education without going to an Ivy League university, or any university at all, but it requires a considerable effort, and in Canada you are rarely encouraged in it. Secondly, the problem of the middle class mindset is that it is much more assimilating than diverse; to give a concrete example, as everyone dresses pretty much alike, you are often branded as a "weirdo" if you wear something different, and especially in school I was unhappy because of that.

But I think that the problems of the European mindset are greater. Everyone is inexorably compartmentalized, and this compartmentalization does very little for an open and free society. Besides, I have heard obnoxious xenophobia here, from people who would never admit that they are xenophobic, in the good old colonialist tradition of generalizing about national character. This is also rife in North America, but people are unable to overcome the pea-brained conception that just because someone is from another continent, and possibly observes another religion, he or she is as peculiar and different as if they had come from another planet.

Aside from that, in Europe I was also looking for a world that either does not exist now or never did exist anyway, where the architecture and art are tasteful, the quality of food and clothing are excellent, and, above all, the people are high-minded – fair and considerate to everyone, good at understanding themselves and at restraining themselves from saying and doing petty things, and unselfabsorbedly interested in the world at large. At home I was raised according to a noblesse-oblige-y mindset – that you behave reasonably to other people either because you are a reasonable individual, or because you'd feel ashamed if you behaved otherwise, and that you learn to be knowledgeable in many fields as well as you can, both because you are interested in them and because you want (and are expected) to be able to talk intelligently with people in those fields – and apparently that is very rare here, too. As a side note on the architecture, I should say that a lot of that was destroyed in World War II; there has been lots of good architecture since then, but, because of financial constraints or other causes, the majority of the building has been poorly adapted to its surroundings, second-rate, and depressingly bland.

Anyway, what I'm hoping for in New York is a lively city, where there is such a diversity of people that it's impossible not to find people with whom one gets along really well, where there are plenty of things to observe and learn, and where the majority of my neighbours will be quick-witted and open-minded and fascinatingly individual.

An Early Harvest

Over the past days it's been raining, and I've largely holed myself up in the apartment. When I did go out for a brisk running of errands, though, the temperatures were that splendid medium between hot and cold where one can go for a walk in fresh, cool air, and come home perfectly free of perspiration and feeling as snug, to use the vernacular, as a bug in a rug. Duly inspired, I wrote a poem about autumn mornings last night, setting myself back into our garden in Canada, and I am extremely fond of the verse, though it could no doubt do with much polishing and it is quite long.

What bothers me about my poetry is that I haven't a "voice" of my own yet. When I was little I was adept at picking up on archetypes (abandoned tower on a moor, etc.) even with minimal exposure to poems, and I have a reasonably good ear, but on the whole too much of the resultant verse is unoriginal. It turns out that when I'm writing a poem about a proxy subject, it tends to be the most compelling; for instance, my best (though uneven) poem is probably still "Tale of the Donkey," which is nominally about the dreary fate of a beast of burden in an indeterminate European town, but which indirectly expresses my own misery (when I was in school). Usually, however, I like merely to describe things as vividly as possible for their own sake, though it might not be very pointful. Anyway, my favourite verse form so far is reasonably long lines, in condensed language, that have a vague rhythm, more like a beat. But, of course, the form can vary wildly according to the subject and how I want to handle it.

Here is a poem (written on Dec. 27th, 2007) in which I describe a winter painting by Bruegel the Elder. I've often wanted to post it, and will do so now à propos of my versifying efforts. This may sound peculiar, but while writing the poem I felt as if I were really plunging into the scene, and as if Brueghel had almost painted the wind and the sounds and the smells of the landscape.

Rimmed with snow that cloaks the roofs
the brick houses hold the warmth of the hearth
as their inhabitants gather behind it
to stoke a fire of branches that steams away in the freezing air
and melts the sullied snow around it.
The flames shine clearly, the ash-flakes rise quickly,
and the sap in the branches crackles lightly.
The women bend over in their dark black dresses
and warm their light blue aprons as they prod the sticks.

Around and above them the leafless trees
stand as sentinels, thinly lined with the remaining snow,
as birds perch on the branches and twitter companionably,
then, bracing for the spring,
launch themselves into a swooping flight into the chill breeze.

Three hunters plod by the women unseeingly,
in boots, grey leggings and cloaks, and black hats.
Silent, distant from each other,
they balance long poles on their shoulder,
and ignore the unruly brown hounds that are frolicking along behind.

Below them the snow-clad slope runs deep into the valley;
the river is frozen in a clear grey,
encasing the piers of a rude stone bridge
that unites a huddle of homes.

Townsmen wander down the watercourse,
bowed over with the cold,
and they congregate on the vast icy lakes
to meet and play and shout.

They are out in the open.
Though behind them their earth-tinted homes and church are scattered
and the gentle smoke of their fires rises and mingles with the air,
the landscape swallows all.
Everywhere crests of gloomy trees run in irregular quadrangles,
the snowy fields spread near and far,
jagged peaks of rock pierce through the placid soil
and with their height put all other prominences into small perspective;
and the river winds on to infinity
as the winter sky, menacing and dark, broods upon the scene.

(An image of the painting is available here.)

Anyway, the other work in the past week of which I am considerably proud is a round mat to put under hot pots and pans. It was constructed out of corn husks (left over from dinner), and I toiled for many hours and broke three needles. A pair of pliers was often needed to pull the needle through the fibres, and the mat looked ludicrously pitiful at first, but now it is a neat little oval of spiralled braid, neatly stitched up in a dull blue thread that suits the pale green-gold of the corn husks beautifully. Ever since I started reading the Laura Ingalls Wilder books when I was seven or eight, I've had self-sufficiency, making a living off the land, etc., on the brain; but the resultant experiments were generally useless and messy, so it is especially satisfactory to have made something with my own two hands that consists of natural materials, looks reasonably presentable, and is actually useful.

Then there is a mediocre story set in England during the Wars of the Roses, which is tentatively entitled "Castle Besieged." I began writing it in January, and started adding to it again three or four days ago. Now it is 12 1/2 pages long. It is immensely fun to write, not only because of all the action, but also because of the way it is riddled with the hoary conventions of the genre, especially the sad travesty of the medieval idiom. Here is a scene:

[Lord Orthrington] looked again over the battlements and the grass rolling away into the forest, then started and fixed his eye more intently. In the shade of a magnificent oak at the edge of the forest, a soldier was carefully advancing, and a patch of white indicated a flag of truce. In the man's wake came a cloaked, tall and portly figure in which he recognized the Earl of Denby, the foe whose army had been besieging his castle.

An archer on the corner tower caught sight of the pair, too. He glanced over to his master, and made a gesture as if to reach for his bow. The lord shook his head slightly and put his hand out and downwards to signify that the bow should be left where it was. Marian made a movement to leave, but he quietly said, “Draw back a little from the edge, but stay,” without turning his glance from the Earl. He stood, then, wordlessly, waiting for his opponent to begin the parley.

The Earl came to a stop on the other side of the moat. He wheezed and coughed somewhat, but then straightened and met the Lord’s glance squarely and shrewdly. “What ho, milord!” he shouted in stentorian tones.

Lord Orthrington inclined his head. “What brings you to my castle walls?” he asked with a species of grim politeness.

The Earl relieved himself of a roar of laughter and returned, “Y'are a cool host, by'r Lady! But pray let us desist from the preliminaries. After the events of four days since, I am willing to parley with Your Lordship on the matter of our dispute. ‘Tis a dull man knows not when he is beaten.”

“Shall we meet in the plain on the morrow, then?”

“On the plain, you say? To be frank, milord” (the Earl laid an ironic stress on this word, clearly reminding his foe of his inferior rank) “provisions are something scarce in my camp, and as you are eminently well stocked for a far longer siege than we have delivered, I humbly suggest that it be used instead to approvision a joint dinner in these halls. – Only with my head men, of course, for I should not demand that my retinue in its entirety be lodged here. – Your word of honour for our safe conduct is sufficient for any man.”

The Lord drummed his fingers on the stones, frowning in thought, and at last answered, “Your self and ten men, then, shall I bid welcome in my halls. I must remind you that many of my men are friends or kin to those who have been lost, and I will not and cannot answer for the surety of any more.”

“Very well, very well, milord,” returned the Earl. His glance shifted to Marian and he scrutinized her sharply for a moment, then he fleetingly took in the archer on the tower. Almost instantly, however, he turned about without taking care to keep behind the truce flag as he had done before, and then slowly made his way back into the castle, followed by the soldier. One of his virtues was stoicism, and no one could have guessed that an arrow had pierced his foot twelve hours earlier, and that this injury was much inflamed by the chafing of his boot.

A Swim Out of My Musical Depth

This morning J. left for Barcelona (or Barça; this, as Uncle Pu informed us during his visit yesterday, is the popular shortcut) to potter about that sunny city for a week, in the company of his class and of a Spanish class with whom they have been corresponding. T. accompanied him to Tegel Airport, whilst his other sister slept heavily after being imprudent again (went to sleep after 6-ish), though I did have the decency to mumble something inarticulate to J. when he bade me goodbye. It was sunny today for a while, though still cold, so it was a good day to go travelling. One reason why J. was happy to go to Spain is that he expects the weather to be considerably warmer there. Therefore my sadness at perceiving the void in the apartment which is usually filled by him, gazing at his computer or ambling cheerfully into the kitchen at odd times or perambulating zombie-esquely about the halls in his nocturnal attire, earnestly "discussing" (i.e. dignifiedly squabbling about) stupid and unimportant questions with Ge. or sitting on the red sofa in the corner room surrounded by his homework, is intensified by jealousy! In all seriousness, we do miss him. )c:

* * *

In the meantime I've been working on a blog post, roaming over the internet (my first, unremarkable comment has appeared on Gawker), and playing the piano. One present project is Bach's French Suite No. 5, which presents a difficulty insofar as I tend to play it on autopilot, and haven't found an original interpretation yet. But I could go worse than trying to imitate Glenn Gould's rendition, which is really charming and lighthearted (uncharacteristically of Bach, but, if stereotypes are to be trusted, characteristically of the French). Then there were Mozart variations; I play themes and variations here and there, and consistently play through the Variations on a Menuett by Duport (KV 573). I like these especially after listening to them so often in Canada, as recorded by Clara Haskil, but similarly like the variations (KV 352) on a march in A.E.M. Grétry's Les mariages samnites. After that I attempted the piano part of Beethoven's "Archduke" Piano Trio (B flat major, Op. 97), and made my way through all of the Andante cantabile ma però moto, quite frankly very well. At the same time it should be said that the 32nd notes were pathetically slow, though I tried to play them regularly at least, and my sightreading was not so prodigious if one considers that I heard this trio frequently during my first year at university.

It is probably quite terrible and presuming, but I am often awfully critical of Beethoven's composing. Evidently he had immense genius, but not much of the taste (or common sense?) that could have restrained and guided him most beneficially. That he loves repeating a phrase three times when twice would do, is a tiny manifestation of a greater problem. When he goes for beautiful simplicity in his later piano sonatas, the melodies are often trite, boring and generic, second-rate folk melodies, whose sweetness verges on the saccharine (I'm thinking of the sonatina especially here). At times he has a great and promising melody, too. But the repetitions, transpositions into the minor key, etc. of these melodies, tend to be dispersed uneventfully over the piece, as the music on the whole tends to peter out into endless scales and finger exercises. The great pianists tend to play these scales and finger exercises so quickly that they are a blur, which brings out their meaning in the greater context or at least displays the performer's virtuosity, but to me it's cheating and not endearing and I don't see the point.

Anyway, what I liked in the Archduke trio was that it felt as if there is a genuine development, and so much depth and variety. When playing a piece, what I greatly enjoy is if there is a strange new motif that emerges out of nowhere, a few pages in, but that happily integrates itself into the rest of the music. It's like hiking a long time through a forest, to be unexpectedly rewarded by reaching a hilltop that offers a completely fresh view of the landscape, or by spotting an impressive castle on a nearby crag (to be very clichéd), or a picturesque village. I don't know the notes well enough to quote an example in it, off-hand, but it definitely does occur in the trio. One example in another work is when the chords emerge after the arpeggiated flow of the first pages of the Waldstein Sonata, Mvt. III. There is a recording by Rudolf Serkin, evidently excerpted from a Japanese documentary, which begins where he plays these chords, and in me the passage inspires both awe and anticipation. It is an unusually fine example of development, varying and building up the tension excellently.

So, when all is said and done, I am merely an amateur who could not accurately write a chromatic scale if asked, and whose composing has thus far limited itself to rare and brief efforts reminiscent of Mozart in his infancy. But these are opinions that have been pondered over for many hours and for many years, under the soothing (vide hypnotic) influence of the abovementioned endless scales and finger exercises, so I'm not being as rashly or frivolously iconoclastic here as it may seem.

Sarah Palin's Record

Today has been a quietly happy day. I woke up far later than I should, wonderfully well rested, thanks to the warm blanket and the scarf around my throat. (The scarf's purpose, I should add, being more prophylactic than otherwise; there is no cold yet, only the stirrings of it.) Then I nudged everyone to watch the opening sketch of the American TV series Saturday Night Live, which I tend to find tasteless and unfunny, but which hit the nail on the head this week in its portrayal of a press conference with Sarah Palin and Hillary Clinton.

Through the customary channel of Gawker, I also found a long investigative article on Sarah Palin's political career in the New York Times (I visit the Times site often anyway, but not so much on the weekend, when, to employ the vernacular, the pickings are slim), which is only incomplete insofar as it does not address concerns that are already in the public domain, so to speak, aside from the book banning incident. It is awkward having two Palin-related posts in a row, but it's merely a coincidence, and not because I want to pile on the criticism.

So, for the benefit of those who are interested in current American politics and have a long attention span:

* * *

The article has a splendid opening salvo:

WASILLA, Alaska — Gov. Sarah Palin lives by the maxim that all politics is local, not to mention personal.

So when there was a vacancy at the top of the State Division of Agriculture, she appointed a high school classmate, Franci Havemeister, to the $95,000-a-year directorship. A former real estate agent, Ms. Havemeister cited her childhood love of cows as a qualification for running the roughly $2 million agency.

Of course the question is whether Sarah Palin's record of appointments is any more doubtful than that of any other senator, governor, and big-city mayor in the country. But, as anecdotes go, this is still a pretty good one.

After this we are taken back to the origins of the Governor, and there is a poetic but disturbing word-painting of her hometown of Wasilla:

In the past three decades, socially conservative Oklahomans and Texans have flocked north to the oil fields of Alaska. They filled evangelical churches around Wasilla and revived the Republican Party. Many of these working-class residents formed the electoral backbone for Ms. Palin, who ran for mayor on a platform of gun rights, opposition to abortion and the ouster of the “complacent” old guard.

Anyway, summarizing what the article says up to and around this point, it appears that, as mayor and governor, Mrs. Palin has vigorously endeavoured to introduce fresh policy measures (e.g. lower taxes) and decrease corruption, and, as governor, she has an 80% approval rating. But she has a cavalier attitude toward firing and employing people, and her decisions are based far more on connections, and on personal likes and dislikes, than on qualifications or just cause.

Then there is the question of the consistency of her anti-corruption measures. On the one hand, when she was chairperson of the Alaska Oil and Gas Conservation Commission,

Ms. Palin discovered that the state Republican leader, Randy Ruedrich, a commission member, was conducting party business on state time and favoring regulated companies. When Mr. Murkowski failed to act on her complaints, she quit and went public.

On the other hand, when she was running for the governorship in 2006,

In the middle of the primary, a conservative columnist in the state, Paul Jenkins, unearthed e-mail messages showing that Ms. Palin had conducted campaign business from the mayor’s office. [. . .]

“I told her it looks like she did the same thing that Randy Ruedrich did,” Mr. Jenkins recalled. “And she said, ‘Yeah, what I did was wrong.’ ”

Also, she evidently has another trait in common with Bush, in that she has been on holiday for much of her gubernatorial term:

Since taking office in 2007, Ms. Palin has spent 312 nights at her Wasilla home, some 600 miles to the north of the governor’s mansion in Juneau, records show.

Many politicians say they typically learn of her initiatives — and vetoes — from news releases.

So my opinion of her personally is not worsened by the article, but it is clear to me that she has no proper sense of responsibility, or she would be more conscientious about her appointments and her presence in Juneau. Besides, I had the impression that she had been Governor for more than two years, because two years in an office that (as I understand it) can be as ceremonial as you choose to make it, really isn't that much experience.

From "Once Elected, Palin Hired Friends and Lashed Foes," New York Times (Sept. 13, 2008)

Addendum

As Mama pointed out, my phrasing in the last post is rather ambiguous where Tskhinvali is concerned. What I meant is that the early reports coming out of South Ossetia, even if ultimately proven to be untrue (the claim of 98% damage was made by a European official who was cited in the Süddeutsche Zeitung; the figure of 2000 civilian deaths that was much quoted by the press did, it has turned out, come from the Russian military, so I don't know what the true toll is), were troubling enough that a strong reaction was to be expected and, in my personal opinion, warranted as long as the targets are not civilian.

Her World View

Normally I don't post much about politics because I tend not to be deeply informed, and because I only manage to be neutral and objective for all of thirty seconds, before becoming fiercely drawn in on one side or another. I think it is right to feel strongly, because politics do have such a large influence on everyone's existence, and any idiocy or lack of sympathy or incompetence is magnified a hundredfold in its effects. I can't think of political arguments as a game, either, when, for instance, the Iraq War has cost hundreds of thousands of lives. My opinion may have no effect on anything, but I do not want to take lightly, or to discuss as a theoretical exercise, events and policies that cause so much suffering to others. Still, I do modify my views as I learn more, so what I write is neither written in stone, nor as forceful as it may sound, and I believe it is only just to take the following with a pinch of salt:


Yesterday I watched a portion of vice presidential candidate Sarah Palin's interview with Charlie Gibson on ABC, and today I read a transcript of other parts of the interview. Taken as an indication of how Mrs. Palin would be as vice president, it was deeply disturbing, but taken as an example of how an interviewer can make his subject display her inadequacy simply by asking reasonable questions and then letting her talk freely, it was one of the funniest things I've seen.

On Russia and Georgia:

PALIN: [. . .] For Russia to have exerted such pressure in terms of invading a smaller democratic country, unprovoked, is unacceptable and we have to keep...

GIBSON: You believe unprovoked.

PALIN: I do believe unprovoked and we have got to keep our eyes on Russia, under the leadership there. I think it was unfortunate. That manifestation that we saw with that invasion of Georgia shows us some steps backwards that Russia has recently taken away from the race toward a more democratic nation with democratic ideals.That's why we have to keep an eye on Russia.

And, Charlie, you're in Alaska. We have that very narrow maritime border between the United States, and the 49th state, Alaska, and Russia. They are our next door neighbors. We need to have a good relationship with them. They're very, very important to us and they are our next door neighbor.

GIBSON: What insight into Russian actions, particularly in the last couple of weeks, does the proximity of the state give you?

PALIN: They're our next door neighbors and you can actually see Russia from land here in Alaska, from an island in Alaska.

GIBSON: What insight does that give you into what they're doing in Georgia?

PALIN: Well, I'm giving you that perspective of how small our world is and how important it is that we work with our allies to keep good relation with all of these countries, especially Russia. We will not repeat a Cold War. We must have good relationship with our allies, pressuring, also, helping us to remind Russia that it's in their benefit, also, a mutually beneficial relationship for us all to be getting along.

Source: "Excerpts: Charlie Gibson Interviews Sarah Palin," Sept. 11, 2008, abcnews.go.com

Altogether it is painfully evident that she knows next to nothing about foreign affairs. There is her failure to note that Mikhail Saakashvili did actually provoke Russia with his offensive on the South Ossetian capital of Tskhinvali, which by one estimate that I heard was 98% destroyed, and the reported deaths of hundreds of Russian citizens. Every interpretation of current events that she brings forth in the interview is clearly parroted from her coaches, and she is simply repeating phrases without having synthesized them in her own mind sufficiently to reconcile their contradictions. As for the claim that Russia's closeness to Alaska provides her with a unique insight, it is astoundingly stupid, though the "small world" emendation is a fairly good save.

It becomes worse when she is asked about Iran, nuclear weapons and their threat to Israel, and she says that, "I believe that under the leadership of Ahmadinejad, nuclear weapons in the hands of his government are extremely dangerous to everyone on this globe, yes." Never mind that most countries of the world would be out of range if the Iranian government did develop nuclear weapons. This fantasy that terrorists could lug, let's say, 50-tonne atomic bombs along in their suitcase, and drift from one country to another until they find a good target, while airport security and border control wave them happily through, is childish and embarrassing.

What I particularly enjoyed, though, is when she was asked about the Bush Doctrine, i.e. the policy of conducting preemptive military strikes, and had no idea what it was. Quite honestly, I'd forgotten what the Doctrine was about myself, and thought it referred to the "you're either with us or against us" idea. Besides, it is not a novel idea; take as an example the preemptive Israeli military strikes in the Six Days' War. But, still, I think Sarah Palin should have known it, and while she covered up her utter ignorance reasonably well, this ability to cover up ignorance is no qualification for her intended vice presidential role, and is indeed a disqualification. The Republican Party leadership clearly hasn't learned yet that political offices require more than good public relations. Here is the first part of the exchange:

GIBSON: Do you agree with the Bush doctrine?

PALIN: In what respect, Charlie?

GIBSON: The Bush -- well, what do you -- what do you interpret it to be?

PALIN: His world view.

Altogether there are striking similarities between Sarah Palin and George W. Bush. They both owe their popularity to their "(wo)man of the people" persona and their ordinariness; they are both fairly young; they both worked as TV broadcasters; they are both not the brightest bulbs; they are or were both governors who (according to what I've heard) could not do their job without someone else briefing them, breaking down and explaining the matters at hand; they both have a poor understanding of character and psychology, and the most simplistic grasp of foreign affairs; and they are both terribly underqualified, in terms of knowledge and skills and experience, for their positions. I think of Barack Obama going to meet foreign leaders as a representative of the US, and I feel proud at the thought, because he has more integrity than, and quite as much capacity as, most other present heads of state; I think of John McCain and Joseph Biden, and then I feel ambivalent though I'm sure they have enough experience to do it competently; but when I think of Sarah Palin going to meet foreign leaders (she has never met a foreign head of state before), the thought is painful.

It is peculiar again how shamelessly the Republican Party contradicts itself. A big deal is made of the inexperience of Barack Obama, and I admittedly find this a problem, too. But the Party itself puts people in office who are not only unqualified now for their position, but who, due to their intellectual and other shortcomings, will never be qualified for their position.

I think that I would have liked to have Sarah Palin as a teacher, as she is confident, extroverted, good at speaking, and evidently fond of telling people what to do, but perhaps not even at a high school level, as I think she is a more practical type and I doubt that she would devote herself to a specific field for its own sake. But, to be frank, after my initial pleased surprise that she is a much, much better speaker than George W. Bush – or indeed most politicians – as far as accessibility and delivery are concerned, has faded, I am beginning to dislike her. At any rate I feel sorry for the US and the world if she and John McCain are elected, and if McCain does die in office, the prospect of her presidency is dreadful.

Penury, Philosophy, and Monkeys

This morning I woke up before 9 a.m., which would be an enormous achievement were it not for the fact that I went to sleep before 10 p.m. yesterday, being dog-tired after being imprudent (or "unvernünftig," as Mama puts it) by staying up far too late the night before that. Quite honestly I was not happy to wake up even then, and I felt tired and had weird thoughts, and my piano session did not go too well. The day is even more peculiar because Mama has gone off to Kevelaer for three days, and Papa will be back home very late because the measurements at the laboratory where he works will go deep into the night or even early morning.

One of my dreams was that I was in a grocery store, and that I needed to buy food or I would starve, but I had barely any money. I looked in my wallet, and there were two or three 50 cent coins and a 20 cent coin or two. Then I looked at the store shelves, and tried to decide what was absolutely necessary and what would be most nourishing. There were water bottles, so I got one of those, and then I decided to get a bag of assorted buns, as the poppy seeds and other things on top might provide extra nutrients. When I went to pay, a 10 and a 5 Euro bill magically appeared in my wallet, so I paid with the 10 Euro bill; but there was still little change left, as the water bottle was overpriced, and I kept aside the 5 Euro bill for future needs.

Anyway, this banal dream did leave me depressed; it reminded me of real internal debates when I was travelling two weeks ago. Besides the travelling, I now only spend money on food (no candy, except for Christmas and Easter and birthdays), toiletries, and transit tickets (though I tend to walk instead). As long as I have a nice place to live and sleep, food that is not off-putting, and the internet, there is nothing more I need; and I could get along with the same clothes for at least another five years. Still, when I was travelling I did learn what it was to have to buy small quantities of food that have to go as far, nutrition-wise, as possible — I chose water, peanuts, figs, and hazelnuts, kumquats for the vitamins, and chocolate for its beneficent psychological effect — and what it was to worry that I was not getting enough of the right kind of nourishment. Two years ago it was impossible for me to buy only the essential groceries, though the tooth of financial care has not been unknown to me since I bought the family groceries at the tender age of eleven, but now I am grimly reductionist. But there is a balance, and I hope I am generous in buying plentiful amounts of the good and most appealing varieties of cheap food; I think that food cravings (when we first moved here, I often wanted Waldmeister Götterspeise; the kind we get resembles melted green plastic, but there you have it) should be respected, too, and only whims should be suppressed. To paraphrase a certain mathematician (in a manner that hopefully does not constitute lèse-majesté), the stomach has a reason that reason cannot know.

But I have been quite cheerful in between, as befits one who has no true sorrows. I'm attempting to read Henry David Thoreau's Walden for my Lighthouse at Alexandria blog. Whenever I feel intellectually overtasked (or bored (c: ), I immerse myself in a far less intellectually tasking online novel (I am presently reading through a delightful row of Victorian girls' books, of a most morally improving type). I wonder if it is not rather artificial to read books purposely for my blog; on the other hand I don't read books I'm not truly interested in. Besides, it's pretty obvious that I'm not otherwise in the habit of reading an entire book every day (except Friday and Saturday), in a fixed order of genres, so there is no deception.

Walden fits in well with my earlier subject of food, because Thoreau devotes much of his chapter "Economy" to the question, "What are the essential needs of humans?" First of all, however, he addresses the plight of the farmers in New England. He believes that it is a tragic, unnecessary waste of the soul and the mind to commit one's self to a lifetime of hard physical labour, unless this is really what one wants to do. "The mass of men," he famously observes, "lead lives of quiet desperation. What is called resignation is confirmed desperation." He criticizes the practice of unthinkingly following the traditions, and unthinkingly doing as one's elders advise, and believes that it is wrong to think that farmers' children do not have great potential. (Later on he asks, "Is it possible to combine the hardiness of these savages [i.e. "New Hollanders"] with the intellectualness of the civilised man?", so his touching faith in human nature evidently has its limits.)

All that is reasonable enough, but he does not state it in a wholly congenial way. For instance, I was considerably offended by his remarks that old people never give any worthwhile advice. That passage is a tour de force of foot-in-mouth:

What old people say you cannot do you try and find that you can. Old deeds for old people, and new deeds for new. Old people did not know enough once, perchance, to fetch fuel to keep the fire a-going; new people put a little dry wood under a pot, and are whirled round the globe with the speed of birds, in a way to kill old people, as the phrase is. Age is no better, hardly so well, qualified for an instructor as youth, for it has not profited so much as it has lost.

And so on and so forth, for six more inflammatory sentences. Perhaps this is a Wildean attempt to sap the foundation of society with much skill and care, lay a rhetorical explosive, and then watch the thing detonate, for the twofold satisfaction of seeing moth-eaten traditions blow to smithereens and of seeing people run around like chickens with their heads cut off; but in Thoreau I can't detect any such humour and mischief, either because I am obtuse or because they aren't there. Besides, I think that Wilde prefers to daintily drop a cylinder of dynamite here and there, instead of bundling them up for one big bang in which the individual merits of the component cylinders tend to be lost to view — wasted, as it were.

Then Thoreau writes that men can only become true philosophers if they cast away the excess trappings of life. Why the beggared classes of the cities and countryside of America have failed to bring forth a spate of Socrateses, Confuciuses and St. Augustines of Hippo, if such is the case, he fails to explain. I would argue that there have been so few great philosophers, that it is unfair to berate the America of Thoreau's time for not churning them out. (Also, I think that posterity is contented with the Transcendentalists.) It would be equally unreasonable to huff and puff in indignation at the sad state of a society that does not produce a musical genius on the level of Mozart.

After that, Thoreau discusses the four material necessities of life: Food, Shelter, Clothing, and Fuel. Which reminds me a good deal of school, as I or my siblings discussed these necessities, in class, using exactly those terms. He then theorizes about the "vital heat" of man, and how we must keep it using clothing and fuel, whereas "None of the brute creation requires more than Food and Shelter." — I certainly hope that he thought of animals as something better than temperature-sensitive eating machines. — Then, with surprising picturesqueness given the topic, he rambles on his early jobs and their unremunerated nature. A touch of self-dramatization emerges to lightly empurple the prose.

I have watered the red huckleberry, the sand cherry and the nettle tree, the red pine and the black ash, the white grape and the yellow violet, which might have withered else in dry seasons.

In other words, he appears to have been employed as a gardener. Upon mature deliberation, he would thusly characterize the pursuit of these and other employments:

I went on thus for a long time, I may say it without boasting, faithfully minding my business, till it became more and more evident that my townsmen would not after all admit me into the list of town officers, nor make my place a sinecure with a moderate allowance. My accounts, which I can swear to have kept faithfully, I have, indeed, never got audited, still less accepted, still less paid and settled. However, I have not set my heart on that.

So he went to Walden Pond, built his house, and the rest, as they say, is history. But he does not write of that in detail. Instead he indulges in a quite amusing discussion of Clothing. It's an old idea, but the thought that clothing confers status, and that if everyone were naked the class system would most likely implode, is an entertaining one. Besides, I am immature enough that I internally tittered whenever I saw the word "pantaloons," just because it sounds funny. At any rate, he writes, reasonably enough, that clothing conforms itself to our personalities a little the longer we wear it, and that it does not make much sense always to change our habits. He also writes that we should not buy new clothing if we are not ourselves in some way new, so that our exterior will suit (pun not intended) our interior. I agree with this wholeheartedly.

Sidenote: And I extend this mentality to manner, too. I've been criticized for putting my head down too much and not making enough eye contact in company with other people. But I need to do this to shut out my surroundings and regain my tranquillity, and if I were to act out a self-assurance I don't yet have, it would fit me as badly as, let's say, a flaming red "power suit." I figure that any sensible person will see that I am simply shy and not take offence where none is intended — I am quite willing to listen to them, for instance.

At any rate, then Thoreau drips disdain on fashion. It interferes with his love of anachronistic clothing, for whenever he asks for it, his seamstress replies, "They do not make them so now." The effect these profound words has is to make him parse and ponder them, focusing especially on that enigmatic, tyrannical "they." — I suppose these cogitations are intended to be whimsically humorous; instead, they make me suspect that one quality that Thoreau may have had in common with Socrates is the obnoxiousness that must question and nitpick on everything that people say. — Then, rising from specifics to generalities, he observes that the way of fashion is that, "The head monkey at Paris puts on a traveller's cap, and all the monkeys in America do the same." As (somewhat) true (though wholly snobby) today as it was when it was written, I suppose, though America has acquired its own thriving menagerie of head monkeys in the meantime.

Deploying metaphors with the lurid imagination and crude medical conceptualization of a medieval jailer, he then lets the hot convection currents of his sartorial resentment drive the magma of his subconscious aggression up through the oceanic crust of his ratio [Geology reference], in a disquieting proposal. To rid men of their silly preoccupations (e.g. fashion), here is his suggestion:

They would have to be passed through a powerful press first, to squeeze their old notions out of them, so that they would not soon get upon their legs again, and then there would be some one in the company with a maggot in his head, hatched from an egg deposited there nobody knows when, for not even fire kills these things, and you would have lost your labour.

He continues, comfortingly (I think), "Nevertheless, we will not forget that some Egyptian wheat was handed down to us by a mummy." Anyway, he gives his imagination a rest then, and wisely remarks that fashions always appear ridiculous after they are out of date. He ends by registering dismay that the aim of clothing factories is "not that mankind may be well and honestly clad, but, unquestionably, that the corporations may be enriched." I am most grievously disillusioned. Now he intends to enlighten me upon the subject of Shelter.

Quotations from:
Walden, by Henry David Thoreau (Everyman's Library, 1992)

P.S.: I apologize most deeply for the length of this post.

Spring 2009 Fashions: The Return of the 60s and 80s

Even given my mature years, I am fond of the quadrennial, biennial, annual, etc., international events that come around at pleasingly reliable intervals to throw the press in a frenzy for a week or so, and absorb the public in a meaningless but amusing cycle of entertainment. The Olympics are the obvious example. I watched part of the Opening Ceremony, and I liked it very much though I'm not usually a fan of mass spectacles. Putting aside the endless sanctimonious and hypocritical criticism of China for one moment, it must be admitted that it was well-thought-out, refined and impressive. But otherwise I barely followed the Games. Now, however, it's New York Fashion Week, so I'm presently absorbed in the Spring 2009 ready-to-wear runway shows. What I do is that I go to Style.com and look at the slideshows, which give an excellent overview.

Today I started out with Tracy Reese's runway show, where I liked the delicate colours and the elegant but relaxed tropical sensibility. I only thought that the thin scarves, which remind me of eel spines, and which are very unlikely to keep anyone warm, look silly. The models (who all looked tired; hopefully not because of starvation but because of a wild weekend) were permitted to be themselves; their hair was simply pulled back and they were not styled out of recognition. It was a stark contrast to the Hervé Léger by Max Azria show. There the models were dressed in sheaths of dress, which always appeared to be missing a few inches above the knee (a Spring 2009 trend, apparently), in abstract patterns that suggested modernist lampshades and chairs and futons – not clothing, or fantasies in glossy, whipped ribbon. The individuality of the wearer was effaced, and the models were all required to be "sexy" in a generic way. Their hair (wig!) was invariably long, sleek, and straight, and they walked with the purposeful stride that is intended to indicate independence and strength, but does no such thing. By the end, in a procession of bikinis composed of wrapped bandages that put me in mind of sadomasochism and did not appeal to me at all, even the models' eyes were blotted out by huge black sunglasses, and they were reduced to just bodies.

The GAP runway did not impress me much either. It was a nonchalantly layered jumble of the outfits that one finds on the street anyway. What I did enjoy was the cheerful colours. This was the one striking element that it had in common with the DKNY line, which was evidently much inspired by the eighties in terms of the fluorescent colours and black. A year ago I liked Donna Karan's collection very much; it was elegant, in lovely hues (dark gold, grey-blue, mahogany, etc.), and classic, though I suspect that it would have been even more refined in the hands of a Parisian designer. This week's show was immensely different. After a smattering of conservative outfits in the beginning, there came a lively procession of informal street clothes, bright and loose and screaming something that was not exactly taste but at least a humorous nonchalance. It was not at all what I'd wear, and I thought that the footwear was abysmal (worse than abysmal, but the words fail me), but it was fun. For instance, I enjoyed the second outfit: baggy black drawstring pants paired with a long swathe of black and yellow fabric that passed as a strapless top. The colours may suggest traffic signs, and it's not a highbrow ensemble, but it was a relief to see what was, I suspect, a vibrant riff on the "Palestinian scarf" that has been in fashion for so long.

Sidenote: I have considerably tired of the "Palestinian scarf" as a fashion fad. As the fad was in its earliest stages, the "Sartorialist" photographed a woman who had carelessly draped a generous, large one around her throat, and it had a pleasantly novel effect. Even a scarf with the same pattern in dark blue – or, let's say, a nice long fringe – would be a welcome change. But for a long time I've only seen teenagers all wearing cheap little copies – which incidentally remind me of babies' bibs – of the black-and-white original in the same tedious way. Besides, I do not at all like the idea of wearing clothing that carries so much meaning for some people as a mindless accessory.

At any rate, my favourite show of the day was Diane von Furstenberg's show. I disliked the ghoulishly strong 60s makeup (loads of black eyeliner, which offers a nightmarish contrast to the eyewhite, and nude lipstick), the strings of feathers in the models' hair, and whatever odd accessory it was that looked like blood dribbling down the side of one model's head. I feel offended whenever I see aesthetically cheap imitations of Native American art, and there were unfortunately specimens of it in this show, too. As for the handbags, they were "loose, baggy monsters"; one was essentially a Rastafarian wool hat rendered in what looked like silver beading lined with flesh-coloured silk.

On the positive side, the show was exuberant and carefree in its surprisingly tasteful florals and strong colours and the unchecked flow of the fabric. I doubt that the woman (or drag queen (c: ) exists who would not feel happy and comfortable in at least one of the dresses, and at the same time the clothing did breathe the spirit of its designer. I don't like vanity collections very much, where a designer moulds a whole line of clothing in the image of his personal style (I'm thinking here of Karl Lagerfeld, and his tendency of trotting out his models exclusively in black and white and grey, with snippets of leather here and there – never mind that his customers might, and rightly so, have different tastes), but in this case it was fine. The fabric prints often had a nice palette that at times reminded me of Gauguin or Matisse, but that was mostly a happy hippie spectrum; and a curvy, black, strapless minidress, near the end of the show, looked like a fiesta in vivid drip-painting. Only one question vexed my soul, and that is what the designer's famous "wrap dress" looks like.

P.S.: Today was, of course, my birthday. There were congratulatory telephone calls, and Gi. and J. went shopping and came back with chocolate and cake for all. Altogether I've come to the sensible realization that, despite impending health insurance payments and the like, having a birthday is nice. (c:
P.P.S.: I think it is a little silly how the fashions constantly reach back to previous decades. It reminds me of the math problem with the squirrel and the ladder.