In the early afternoon J. and I returned to the hospital, checked in at the "Erstkontaktstelle" and the "Anmeldestelle" again, waited for ca. 1 hour in a full waiting room across the hallway from the "Erstkontaktstelle." Then a doctor asked J. "Does your arm hurt?" and "Can you move your thumb without pain?" and "Does your cast fit?", and a couple of other questions, and then we were free to go again. Interestingly he said that J. should receive a proper cast in one week, whereas the previous doctor mentioned two weeks. Anyway, even though we were bored half out of our minds by the end of our stint in the waiting room, it was an antidote to yesterday; I emerged quite cheerful and no longer worried about J. at all.
*
As for the evening, T. and I went "clubbing," in a very limited sense of the term, for the first time in our uneventful lives. A classmate in her seminar group had invited her and a companion to a cocktail bar a stone's throw away from Nollendorfplatz; out of curiosity and out of a sense of sisterly camaraderie I went along. After the first impulse of curiosity was gone I dreaded the thing, fearing that I would be a drag on the proceedings and that everyone else would intimidate me by being much more mature and self-assured than I am (which people my age have a tendency of being here in Europe). Besides I don't like running any danger of being chatted up. It has always bothered me the rare times when it does occur, because it feels so degrading to be asked out for a drink or whatever only based on one's appearance and/or one's age and/or one's lack of a Y chromosome. Fortunately it was not a problem this time.
At ca. 7 pm we met outside, ca. 15 information technology students and law students and then I, the anomaly; everyone was evidently younger than me, but not so much as to make me feel conspicuously ancient. They reminded me of my classmates in high school, in a very nice way.
We ascended the steps up from the restaurant to the bar, to find a spacious high-ceilinged room painted in cerulean and crimson, decorated here and there with whimsical and therefore inaccurate representations of ships and sea serpents, as sconces softly illumined the scene. A series of beige leather-covered banquettes runs around the wall, and little square tables, wooden-topped and metal-legged, were arranged with little square seats covered in the same beige leather. The furnishings were hardy, and evidently designed to withstand the depredations of the boozing scholar. The barkeep led us to the rear of the room, which is hidden from sight around a corner, and brought ashtrays and tealights and menus. T. settled for a gin fizz whereas I ordered ginger ale. Of course it is in grave contravention of the spirit of the place not to order alcohol at a cocktail bar, but I had a slight headache as well as no intention of forfeiting the least fraction of my clarity of mind. The gin fizz is concocted of gin, sugar syrup, lemon juice, lime slices, and ice, and T. sipped away at it slowly. As for the others, they ran riot with caipirinhas, "Molotov cocktails," fruit punches, etc., though after they had two or three drinks most of them had enough.
It was amusing that the infotech students did converse of "geeky" things, planning a Star Trek movie marathon, avidly discussing "BSG" (= Battlestar Galactica), and claiming that the density of a CD is less than that of water, etc. One of them earnestly stated that Italian films were "the best" — listing directors like Fellini, Antonioni, and Rossellini — and declared his preference of subtitles over dubbing, because the old dubbing tends to be slipshod, whereas the new subtitling tends to be precise. I felt (patronizingly) elderly and wise at this point, because of course "the best" is a subjective and rashly general designation, and the older and more knowledgeable one becomes, the more one recognizes that the excellence in one school of artistry does not blot other schools out of competition.
Altogether I was quiet as a mouse, and attentive as a journalist, while T. kept up conversations diligently where possible. An extroverted, ruddy-cheeked and experienced tippler, who sat beside us, not unkindly remarked that T. and I had maybe been precipitated into the group too suddenly, and that we should make an effort to be friendlier. But I was as friendly as it was natural for me to be, and I think that friendliness should not be faked. Besides, given that two years ago I would have been in an agony of self-consciousness, my ease of mind and forthcoming manner (such as they were) were miraculous.
After over two hours, we settled the bill and waited and then walked home through the frosty night air. The tippler said to us, as we left, "You're just afraid." In the sense that we are inhibited, possibly so. But imbibing alcohol beyond a conservative point just isn't my thing; I don't like becoming red-faced and loud and irrational, the last time I had a severe headache and nausea I vowed that I'd never incur such misery by drinking my way into a hangover, and in university I heard or saw enough of people boozing themselves stupid and going to the hospital for alcohol poisoning and so on. It isn't a question of prudery but of common sense. Besides, I had ca. 15 Euros along and didn't feel like spending more.
So, in a nutshell, T. and I went to a cocktail bar and conducted ourselves as respectably as a pair of be-cardiganned grandmothers, so our potential heady adolescent adventure proved a tame and civilized matter after all.
*
P.S.: Hopefully the blog post title is not too inane.
Friday, January 30, 2009
Thursday, January 29, 2009
Sticks and Stones
(J. has written his own account at The Rambling Gnome. It should be more readable than mine, because I don't feel like polishing what I've written.)
At noon yesterday J. and I went to the hospital. . . . Now that the excitement naturally prompted by this gripping hook has subsided a little, it is to be added that we went because J. injured his arm during his sports lesson the day before. So, guided by the map that Papa printed out, we went to the Benjamin Franklin Campus (which is, as Papa and Mama told me later, where I had the surgery for my cleft palate when I was two years old) of the Charité (the large Berlin hospital organization in which the medical faculties of the Freie and Humboldt Universities are integrated), far out south in Steglitz. The building itself is an impressive complex in grey and glass, bleak but an atmospheric representative of its architectural era (it was built in 1968).
First we followed the signs to the "Erstkontaktstelle" (First Contact Location), a little office with requisite potted palmetto and windows at the level of the back road where the ambulances and their personnel were loitering. There a lady recorded the nature and location of the injury, as well as J.'s age and the day of the injury. Then we crossed the hall to the "Anmeldestelle" (check-in), a dimly lit room, as sterile as the first, in a wan colour scheme of white and blue, where a solitary lady beside the desk asked for J.'s health insurance card, etc. After that we were asked into the hallway where the paramedics and nurses were hanging out, it being a peaceful day, and (eventually) pointed into B-something-or-other room 13.
There we waited for a very long time, though we did not become too bored. Underneath the window there is a white desk of drawers, labelled "blankets" and "diapers" and so on, and a white desk with two telephones, a computer whose minitower reposes on its own wheeled tray underneath the desk so that the floor can be cleaned more easily, and a stately well-thumbed copy of the Rote Liste (a pharmacological manual, I believe). In between these and the narrow wheeled bed, there is a black rolly-chair and a caramel-tinted wooden chair, and a raised metal tray as well as a padded black thing that looked like a speaker's lectern. In the air a lamp whose inside looks, as J. remarked, like half a disco ball, awkwardly hovers on its folded arm. To the left of the door there is a sink and then an amply stocked cabinet. Two cartons dispensing rubber gloves are affixed to the wall, as are strips of metal presumably intended to prevent beds from scraping against the walls, an IV drip and a peculiar bottle that might hold oxygen or something. At the door there is a black analog clock that is stuck on ca. 7:10.
At length two doctors came in, of course in long white coats over blue suits. One of them shook our hands (which was, in my case, a little embarrassing, because due to the heat and my anxiety my hands were atypically warm and perspiry), asked who I was, and then proceeded to ask what had happened, carefully unwrap J.'s arm, probe it gently, and ask him to bend the hand up and down, curl his fingers, etc. I kept out of it as much as possible and let J. answer the questions. Then it was decided to X-ray his elbow and wrist.
So we waited in front of an X-ray room. It was impressive, with heavy sliding metal doors, an anteroom fitted out with flat-screen computers, and a spacious dark back room. Out in the hallway there was a constant coming and going of the personnel, wry and impatient but not unfriendly Berliner types, nurses in blue as well as the doctors. An elderly lady was wheeled in with an assortment of bags around her; she was going to be X-rayed, too, and was well provisioned for the wait. A long time she simply lay there quietly, yet when I eventually glanced over again she was standing beside the bed scarcely looking as if she had needed it at all, rummaging or packing up her luggage, in an amusing resurrection. Then there was a man in his thirties, the type who wears jeans and baseball caps and a ring in one ear, who was waiting beside us with surprising good humour. There was a child who passed through with his parents; he had crushed his hand but, as it seemed, not too badly. Finally there were two elderly men on stretchers, and I forbore from looking at them because they seemed to be in more serious straits. Lastly, on the wall there are two maps, one of Berlin and one of Brandenburg, which we could stare at.
Then J. entered, and the lady whom we had seen going back and forth through the rooms sat him beside a scanner/table, on which he had to lay his arm in a particular way. Then she summoned the X-ray beamer, which slid along the high rail in the darkness and gleamed with neon green figures before coming to a stop over the scanner, so that I had to laugh because it was strongly suggestive of Star Wars. Anyway, she took, I think, two shots of J.'s elbow and two of his wrist, in different positions. I could see the images as they appeared on the screen, and scrutinized them carefully, but from the hallway I could only see that the elbow is fine but that there appeared to be a fissure in the radius (the lower arm bone that is located on the side of the thumb). The lady then brought two classic black X-ray photos to the doctor, and a group of them then held a consultation with a gratifying absorption. We waited longer, and were finally led into the "Gipsraum" (plaster room). J. was seated, the X-rays were stuck up against the luminous screen, and then we waited again. At length we went up to take a closer look at the pictures, only to find, as we joked, that J. had done the thing thoroughly. There is a break running all the way across the ulna, and what had looked like a fissure from afar is actually the lower contour of a sizable bump on the radius.
Finally a nice nurse with flaming red-dyed hair came, tied a clear plastic apron over J.'s clothing (he had taken off his shirt), and then slipped a tube of a pantyhose-like material up the arm. J. had difficulties holding his arm properly, so she slowly lowered a metal hook from the ceiling, which made me feel like laughing again because it was so reminiscent of a horror film. The nurse was smiling, too; whether she did so at the same idea I couldn't tell. Anyway, the ends of the tube were tied up over the hook, and then she could cut the excess length off more easily. She summoned another nurse who reminded me of one of my classmates at UBC and who chatted away with her colleague in a pronounced Berliner accent. (No "ich" was left un-"ik"-ed.) I gathered that the red-haired nurse is a "Springer," i.e. she is a part-time employee who jumps in as needed, but she grumbled about being superfluous; then they talked about their co-workers' cars being towed because they were parked in the wrong spot. In the meantime the younger nurse wrapped a thick bandage (white, of course, as were all the others) around J.'s arm, then a thin gauze, as the older nurse held the arm and kept on asking J. to loosen his shoulder, which finally worked.
Then the nurse was anxious that the cast would not be good because of the swelling of J.'s arm, or something else, so she summoned the doctor. They consulted the X-rays again and thought that it should be fine, and that there was nothing else to be done. (What everyone also discussed is J.'s skin condition, which a dermatologist has examined and which he controls with a lanoline(?) cream, but which has been presumably aggravated by the dry winter weather.) So the younger nurse took up the plaster bandages, drenched them in tap water, and wound them gently over the other bandages. The older nurse stood at a careful distance, though still holding J.'s arm, so that the plaster wouldn't drip all over her, and intermittently checked whether the cast was too thin at some point.
As the cast was drying, the doctor told us that we would have to return tomorrow (i.e. today), and have a "Durchgangsarzt" check it; in two weeks we must return again, and J. will receive a new, lower-arm cast, which will be removed after a further two weeks. Then he gave us a record of the injury and the X-rays as well as an information sheet advising J. not to immerse the cast in water, etc. Lastly, if J.'s fingers begin to tingle, etc., we could come back at any hour of the day or night.
After this the older nurse cut a slot all the way along the cast. The implement with which she did it has an enormous handle with a round toothed blade at the tip, which looked pretty threatening. If I were J. I'd probably have been uttering a series of inward shrieks at this point. Then a male nurse, a mild edition of the portly, short-bearded professorial type, came in and tucked wadding into the slot, whilst chatting with the other nurse too (he mentioned that he was about to do, or had done, his turn at the fire department). Finally the other nurse wrapped a fresh bandage over the whole, and then J. was free to put on his shirt again, and then we were free to go.
We were in good spirits at going again. But frankly it was too strenuous for me, even if I'm not the one who broke the arm and therefore haven't much of a right to be so. The process did last ca. 4 hours. I started this blog entry yesterday but didn't feel like finishing it, just wanted to forget it, because the whole excursion was a little embarrassing since we didn't always understand where we were supposed to be or what was being asked, and because I felt (and still feel) so worried about J., even though broken bones do heal, of course, and though they are, on the spectrum of ailments, neither especially mysterious, nor pernicious in the long term.
Anyway, a good course of reading and watching The Sea Hawk on YouTube should help me feel better.
At noon yesterday J. and I went to the hospital. . . . Now that the excitement naturally prompted by this gripping hook has subsided a little, it is to be added that we went because J. injured his arm during his sports lesson the day before. So, guided by the map that Papa printed out, we went to the Benjamin Franklin Campus (which is, as Papa and Mama told me later, where I had the surgery for my cleft palate when I was two years old) of the Charité (the large Berlin hospital organization in which the medical faculties of the Freie and Humboldt Universities are integrated), far out south in Steglitz. The building itself is an impressive complex in grey and glass, bleak but an atmospheric representative of its architectural era (it was built in 1968).
First we followed the signs to the "Erstkontaktstelle" (First Contact Location), a little office with requisite potted palmetto and windows at the level of the back road where the ambulances and their personnel were loitering. There a lady recorded the nature and location of the injury, as well as J.'s age and the day of the injury. Then we crossed the hall to the "Anmeldestelle" (check-in), a dimly lit room, as sterile as the first, in a wan colour scheme of white and blue, where a solitary lady beside the desk asked for J.'s health insurance card, etc. After that we were asked into the hallway where the paramedics and nurses were hanging out, it being a peaceful day, and (eventually) pointed into B-something-or-other room 13.
There we waited for a very long time, though we did not become too bored. Underneath the window there is a white desk of drawers, labelled "blankets" and "diapers" and so on, and a white desk with two telephones, a computer whose minitower reposes on its own wheeled tray underneath the desk so that the floor can be cleaned more easily, and a stately well-thumbed copy of the Rote Liste (a pharmacological manual, I believe). In between these and the narrow wheeled bed, there is a black rolly-chair and a caramel-tinted wooden chair, and a raised metal tray as well as a padded black thing that looked like a speaker's lectern. In the air a lamp whose inside looks, as J. remarked, like half a disco ball, awkwardly hovers on its folded arm. To the left of the door there is a sink and then an amply stocked cabinet. Two cartons dispensing rubber gloves are affixed to the wall, as are strips of metal presumably intended to prevent beds from scraping against the walls, an IV drip and a peculiar bottle that might hold oxygen or something. At the door there is a black analog clock that is stuck on ca. 7:10.
At length two doctors came in, of course in long white coats over blue suits. One of them shook our hands (which was, in my case, a little embarrassing, because due to the heat and my anxiety my hands were atypically warm and perspiry), asked who I was, and then proceeded to ask what had happened, carefully unwrap J.'s arm, probe it gently, and ask him to bend the hand up and down, curl his fingers, etc. I kept out of it as much as possible and let J. answer the questions. Then it was decided to X-ray his elbow and wrist.
So we waited in front of an X-ray room. It was impressive, with heavy sliding metal doors, an anteroom fitted out with flat-screen computers, and a spacious dark back room. Out in the hallway there was a constant coming and going of the personnel, wry and impatient but not unfriendly Berliner types, nurses in blue as well as the doctors. An elderly lady was wheeled in with an assortment of bags around her; she was going to be X-rayed, too, and was well provisioned for the wait. A long time she simply lay there quietly, yet when I eventually glanced over again she was standing beside the bed scarcely looking as if she had needed it at all, rummaging or packing up her luggage, in an amusing resurrection. Then there was a man in his thirties, the type who wears jeans and baseball caps and a ring in one ear, who was waiting beside us with surprising good humour. There was a child who passed through with his parents; he had crushed his hand but, as it seemed, not too badly. Finally there were two elderly men on stretchers, and I forbore from looking at them because they seemed to be in more serious straits. Lastly, on the wall there are two maps, one of Berlin and one of Brandenburg, which we could stare at.
Then J. entered, and the lady whom we had seen going back and forth through the rooms sat him beside a scanner/table, on which he had to lay his arm in a particular way. Then she summoned the X-ray beamer, which slid along the high rail in the darkness and gleamed with neon green figures before coming to a stop over the scanner, so that I had to laugh because it was strongly suggestive of Star Wars. Anyway, she took, I think, two shots of J.'s elbow and two of his wrist, in different positions. I could see the images as they appeared on the screen, and scrutinized them carefully, but from the hallway I could only see that the elbow is fine but that there appeared to be a fissure in the radius (the lower arm bone that is located on the side of the thumb). The lady then brought two classic black X-ray photos to the doctor, and a group of them then held a consultation with a gratifying absorption. We waited longer, and were finally led into the "Gipsraum" (plaster room). J. was seated, the X-rays were stuck up against the luminous screen, and then we waited again. At length we went up to take a closer look at the pictures, only to find, as we joked, that J. had done the thing thoroughly. There is a break running all the way across the ulna, and what had looked like a fissure from afar is actually the lower contour of a sizable bump on the radius.
Finally a nice nurse with flaming red-dyed hair came, tied a clear plastic apron over J.'s clothing (he had taken off his shirt), and then slipped a tube of a pantyhose-like material up the arm. J. had difficulties holding his arm properly, so she slowly lowered a metal hook from the ceiling, which made me feel like laughing again because it was so reminiscent of a horror film. The nurse was smiling, too; whether she did so at the same idea I couldn't tell. Anyway, the ends of the tube were tied up over the hook, and then she could cut the excess length off more easily. She summoned another nurse who reminded me of one of my classmates at UBC and who chatted away with her colleague in a pronounced Berliner accent. (No "ich" was left un-"ik"-ed.) I gathered that the red-haired nurse is a "Springer," i.e. she is a part-time employee who jumps in as needed, but she grumbled about being superfluous; then they talked about their co-workers' cars being towed because they were parked in the wrong spot. In the meantime the younger nurse wrapped a thick bandage (white, of course, as were all the others) around J.'s arm, then a thin gauze, as the older nurse held the arm and kept on asking J. to loosen his shoulder, which finally worked.
Then the nurse was anxious that the cast would not be good because of the swelling of J.'s arm, or something else, so she summoned the doctor. They consulted the X-rays again and thought that it should be fine, and that there was nothing else to be done. (What everyone also discussed is J.'s skin condition, which a dermatologist has examined and which he controls with a lanoline(?) cream, but which has been presumably aggravated by the dry winter weather.) So the younger nurse took up the plaster bandages, drenched them in tap water, and wound them gently over the other bandages. The older nurse stood at a careful distance, though still holding J.'s arm, so that the plaster wouldn't drip all over her, and intermittently checked whether the cast was too thin at some point.
As the cast was drying, the doctor told us that we would have to return tomorrow (i.e. today), and have a "Durchgangsarzt" check it; in two weeks we must return again, and J. will receive a new, lower-arm cast, which will be removed after a further two weeks. Then he gave us a record of the injury and the X-rays as well as an information sheet advising J. not to immerse the cast in water, etc. Lastly, if J.'s fingers begin to tingle, etc., we could come back at any hour of the day or night.
After this the older nurse cut a slot all the way along the cast. The implement with which she did it has an enormous handle with a round toothed blade at the tip, which looked pretty threatening. If I were J. I'd probably have been uttering a series of inward shrieks at this point. Then a male nurse, a mild edition of the portly, short-bearded professorial type, came in and tucked wadding into the slot, whilst chatting with the other nurse too (he mentioned that he was about to do, or had done, his turn at the fire department). Finally the other nurse wrapped a fresh bandage over the whole, and then J. was free to put on his shirt again, and then we were free to go.
We were in good spirits at going again. But frankly it was too strenuous for me, even if I'm not the one who broke the arm and therefore haven't much of a right to be so. The process did last ca. 4 hours. I started this blog entry yesterday but didn't feel like finishing it, just wanted to forget it, because the whole excursion was a little embarrassing since we didn't always understand where we were supposed to be or what was being asked, and because I felt (and still feel) so worried about J., even though broken bones do heal, of course, and though they are, on the spectrum of ailments, neither especially mysterious, nor pernicious in the long term.
Anyway, a good course of reading and watching The Sea Hawk on YouTube should help me feel better.
Thursday, January 22, 2009
The Picturesque, Indoors and Outdoors
Yesterday J. and I went for a walk to the Volkspark for the first time this year. We discussed life and, as is customary, became a little irritated when I remarked elder-sisterly things which J. refused to believe could apply to him. For instance, he was not willing to agree that he would not figure out the New York transit system perfectly well if I lived there and he flew over on his own to visit me. I told him that for the first time, at least, it would be better if he had guidance.
Blackish gravel snaked along the sidewalks in two long tracks, and in some places patches of the compressed snow and ice remained. The lake at the Carl Zuckmayer Bridge was frozen over, unpicturesque but evocative in its polluted way, as a log hovered over its surface and the ducks were conspicuous through their absence. I inspected a willow twig nearby and it did have tiny green buds but they still looked hard and wintry. What was most interesting, though, is the layer of snow and ice that had hardened over the lawn in the middle. J. and I tottered over the bumpy Arctic expanse and we looked down at our feet much of the time so that we wouldn't slip. Here and there it was clear, and in the grey-tinged ice the tangled grass was suspended as if it were seaweed, and where it wasn't clear the frosty surface scintillated in the sun like a million infinitesimal diamonds. The birds were out in large numbers, so I suspect that the coldest part of winter is over.
In the evening I went for another excursion, this time to the Gemäldegalerie. I haven't felt as frugal lately, so I rode the bus instead of walking on the way up. It seems that the gallery is open later than I remembered; I thought it closes at 6 p.m., but it actually closes at 10 p.m. So I had the choice of only going into the other parts of the Kulturforum, or of paying entrance; I decided to do the latter, for once.
This time there wasn't anything particular that I wanted to see, so I aimlessly wandered around the rooms, which were nice and empty, beginning with 15th-century Dutch painters. For me (well, most likely for everybody) the most worthwhile way to appreciate art galleries is to become absorbed in the atmospheres of the paintings, and to temporarily imagine one's self in the world that is depicted in it. It's harder to do now than when I was little, but equally rewarding. So yesterday I would often, quite unconsciously, look at the backgrounds (which consist amusingly often of blue-green hills decorated in castles and set in a tranquil sky) first, and then slowly let my thoughts and glance wander to the foreground. By this means I discovered that I like the Biblical paintings of Rogier van der Weyden, because at times there are quite vivid scenes executed in the middle ground, where one normally doesn't pay so much attention.
My favourite paintings in the gallery are the big paradise scene of Roelandt Savéry, the Madonna with the roses by Rubens (I went looking for it before I left), and the painting of St. Catherine by Guercino. But I also like the round painting of the Madonna by Raphael, in spite of the fact that it is difficult to ignore the lavish flowered frame; Canaletto's scenes of Venice; the portraits of people whose grave and concentrated expressions arrest one's attention; and almost any still life where the glass and silver and linen and fruit and game are depicted with imagination and intense clarity. As far as details go, I like hellish monsters, and finely draped cloth, and gold stars and rays in Biblical paintings; intricate old towns; trees with flocks of delicate, dark leaves; flowers in the foreground (though it is puzzling why they are often so stylized); tiny people; and ruins, if they look convincing.
Still, I did become irritated now and then. For instance, I fumed a little at tableaus of Jesus's crucifixion where the artist had fiddled around with the eyes of the attendees until they were bloodshot like a raging bull's (but with weeping instead of rage), in what seemed to me a calculated tug on people's sensibilities. It is as if somebody would ostentatiously cry in public and then half-open one eye every now and then to see the effect. It also irritated me when very uncongenial-looking models portrayed saintly characters (vide the proliferation of stodgy-faced Marys). I also don't like it when the subjects of the paintings are in unnatural and self-conscious poses. Which reminds me that paintings of St. Sebastian tick me off irrationally. There is something about people looking at one with arrows peeking out of their tummies that is not quite right, and when the unfortunate man is affixed slumpingly to a tree-trunk like a teenager lounging against the wall of a bus stop, it is even more macabre. Another neurosis of mine is that crosses that look like a T are bothersome.
At any rate, I quickly dove into the exhibit in the Kupferstichkabinett, and had the room (lit in a vapoury white that reminded me vaguely of ET) all to myself. The artworks were mostly tracings of the outline of a human face, with one tracing superimposed for shock value (sometimes the artist went for a skull, sometimes for a urinal, etc.) and sometimes other tracings, for instance of something that looked a good deal like a tangle of airport runways as it might appear on a street map. Then there were scribbles. I didn't see the videos. I was in an unappreciative mood, so in short order I walked out again, and then walked home.
Picture Sources: Wikimedia Commons
Blackish gravel snaked along the sidewalks in two long tracks, and in some places patches of the compressed snow and ice remained. The lake at the Carl Zuckmayer Bridge was frozen over, unpicturesque but evocative in its polluted way, as a log hovered over its surface and the ducks were conspicuous through their absence. I inspected a willow twig nearby and it did have tiny green buds but they still looked hard and wintry. What was most interesting, though, is the layer of snow and ice that had hardened over the lawn in the middle. J. and I tottered over the bumpy Arctic expanse and we looked down at our feet much of the time so that we wouldn't slip. Here and there it was clear, and in the grey-tinged ice the tangled grass was suspended as if it were seaweed, and where it wasn't clear the frosty surface scintillated in the sun like a million infinitesimal diamonds. The birds were out in large numbers, so I suspect that the coldest part of winter is over.
In the evening I went for another excursion, this time to the Gemäldegalerie. I haven't felt as frugal lately, so I rode the bus instead of walking on the way up. It seems that the gallery is open later than I remembered; I thought it closes at 6 p.m., but it actually closes at 10 p.m. So I had the choice of only going into the other parts of the Kulturforum, or of paying entrance; I decided to do the latter, for once.
This time there wasn't anything particular that I wanted to see, so I aimlessly wandered around the rooms, which were nice and empty, beginning with 15th-century Dutch painters. For me (well, most likely for everybody) the most worthwhile way to appreciate art galleries is to become absorbed in the atmospheres of the paintings, and to temporarily imagine one's self in the world that is depicted in it. It's harder to do now than when I was little, but equally rewarding. So yesterday I would often, quite unconsciously, look at the backgrounds (which consist amusingly often of blue-green hills decorated in castles and set in a tranquil sky) first, and then slowly let my thoughts and glance wander to the foreground. By this means I discovered that I like the Biblical paintings of Rogier van der Weyden, because at times there are quite vivid scenes executed in the middle ground, where one normally doesn't pay so much attention.
My favourite paintings in the gallery are the big paradise scene of Roelandt Savéry, the Madonna with the roses by Rubens (I went looking for it before I left), and the painting of St. Catherine by Guercino. But I also like the round painting of the Madonna by Raphael, in spite of the fact that it is difficult to ignore the lavish flowered frame; Canaletto's scenes of Venice; the portraits of people whose grave and concentrated expressions arrest one's attention; and almost any still life where the glass and silver and linen and fruit and game are depicted with imagination and intense clarity. As far as details go, I like hellish monsters, and finely draped cloth, and gold stars and rays in Biblical paintings; intricate old towns; trees with flocks of delicate, dark leaves; flowers in the foreground (though it is puzzling why they are often so stylized); tiny people; and ruins, if they look convincing.
Still, I did become irritated now and then. For instance, I fumed a little at tableaus of Jesus's crucifixion where the artist had fiddled around with the eyes of the attendees until they were bloodshot like a raging bull's (but with weeping instead of rage), in what seemed to me a calculated tug on people's sensibilities. It is as if somebody would ostentatiously cry in public and then half-open one eye every now and then to see the effect. It also irritated me when very uncongenial-looking models portrayed saintly characters (vide the proliferation of stodgy-faced Marys). I also don't like it when the subjects of the paintings are in unnatural and self-conscious poses. Which reminds me that paintings of St. Sebastian tick me off irrationally. There is something about people looking at one with arrows peeking out of their tummies that is not quite right, and when the unfortunate man is affixed slumpingly to a tree-trunk like a teenager lounging against the wall of a bus stop, it is even more macabre. Another neurosis of mine is that crosses that look like a T are bothersome.
***
At any rate, I quickly dove into the exhibit in the Kupferstichkabinett, and had the room (lit in a vapoury white that reminded me vaguely of ET) all to myself. The artworks were mostly tracings of the outline of a human face, with one tracing superimposed for shock value (sometimes the artist went for a skull, sometimes for a urinal, etc.) and sometimes other tracings, for instance of something that looked a good deal like a tangle of airport runways as it might appear on a street map. Then there were scribbles. I didn't see the videos. I was in an unappreciative mood, so in short order I walked out again, and then walked home.
Picture Sources: Wikimedia Commons
An Inaugural Benediction
Here is the prayer that I enjoyed so much during the Inauguration:
"'God of our weary years, God of our silent tears, thou who has brought us thus far along the way, thou who has by thy might led us into the light, keep us forever in the path, we pray, lest our feet stray from the places, our God, where we met thee, lest our hearts, drunk with the wine of the world, we forget thee. Shadowed beneath thy hand may we forever stand -- true to thee, O God, and true to our native land.'
"We truly give thanks for the glorious experience we've shared this day. We pray now, O Lord, for your blessing upon thy servant, Barack Obama, the 44th president of these United States, his family and his administration. He has come to this high office at a low moment in the national and, indeed, the global fiscal climate. But because we know you got the whole world in your hand, we pray for not only our nation, but for the community of nations. Our faith does not shrink, though pressed by the flood of mortal ills.
"For we know that, Lord, you're able and you're willing to work through faithful leadership to restore stability, mend our brokenness, heal our wounds and deliver us from the exploitation of the poor or the least of these and from favoritism toward the rich, the elite of these.
"We thank you for the empowering of thy servant, our 44th president, to inspire our nation to believe that, yes, we can work together to achieve a more perfect union. And while we have sown the seeds of greed -- the wind of greed and corruption, and even as we reap the whirlwind of social and economic disruption, we seek forgiveness and we come in a spirit of unity and solidarity to commit our support to our president by our willingness to make sacrifices, to respect your creation, to turn to each other and not on each other.
"And now, Lord, in the complex arena of human relations, help us to make choices on the side of love, not hate; on the side of inclusion, not exclusion; tolerance, not intolerance.
"And as we leave this mountaintop, help us to hold on to the spirit of fellowship and the oneness of our family. Let us take that power back to our homes, our workplaces, our churches, our temples, our mosques, or wherever we seek your will.
"Bless President Barack, First Lady Michelle. Look over our little, angelic Sasha and Malia.
"We go now to walk together, children, pledging that we won't get weary in the difficult days ahead. We know you will not leave us alone, with your hands of power and your heart of love.
"Help us then, now, Lord, to work for that day when nation shall not lift up sword against nation, when tanks will be beaten into tractors, when every man and every woman shall sit under his or her own vine and fig tree, and none shall be afraid; when justice will roll down like waters and righteousness as a mighty stream.
"Lord, in the memory of all the saints who from their labors rest, and in the joy of a new beginning, we ask you to help us work for that day when black will not be asked to get back, when brown can stick around -- (laughter) -- when yellow will be mellow -- (laughter) -- when the red man can get ahead, man -- (laughter) -- and when white will embrace what is right.
"Let all those who do justice and love mercy say amen."
AUDIENCE: Amen!
REV. LOWERY: Say amen --
AUDIENCE: Amen!
REV. LOWERY: -- and amen.
AUDIENCE: Amen! (Cheers, applause.)
END.
Source: Chicago Sun-Times
"'God of our weary years, God of our silent tears, thou who has brought us thus far along the way, thou who has by thy might led us into the light, keep us forever in the path, we pray, lest our feet stray from the places, our God, where we met thee, lest our hearts, drunk with the wine of the world, we forget thee. Shadowed beneath thy hand may we forever stand -- true to thee, O God, and true to our native land.'
"We truly give thanks for the glorious experience we've shared this day. We pray now, O Lord, for your blessing upon thy servant, Barack Obama, the 44th president of these United States, his family and his administration. He has come to this high office at a low moment in the national and, indeed, the global fiscal climate. But because we know you got the whole world in your hand, we pray for not only our nation, but for the community of nations. Our faith does not shrink, though pressed by the flood of mortal ills.
"For we know that, Lord, you're able and you're willing to work through faithful leadership to restore stability, mend our brokenness, heal our wounds and deliver us from the exploitation of the poor or the least of these and from favoritism toward the rich, the elite of these.
"We thank you for the empowering of thy servant, our 44th president, to inspire our nation to believe that, yes, we can work together to achieve a more perfect union. And while we have sown the seeds of greed -- the wind of greed and corruption, and even as we reap the whirlwind of social and economic disruption, we seek forgiveness and we come in a spirit of unity and solidarity to commit our support to our president by our willingness to make sacrifices, to respect your creation, to turn to each other and not on each other.
"And now, Lord, in the complex arena of human relations, help us to make choices on the side of love, not hate; on the side of inclusion, not exclusion; tolerance, not intolerance.
"And as we leave this mountaintop, help us to hold on to the spirit of fellowship and the oneness of our family. Let us take that power back to our homes, our workplaces, our churches, our temples, our mosques, or wherever we seek your will.
"Bless President Barack, First Lady Michelle. Look over our little, angelic Sasha and Malia.
"We go now to walk together, children, pledging that we won't get weary in the difficult days ahead. We know you will not leave us alone, with your hands of power and your heart of love.
"Help us then, now, Lord, to work for that day when nation shall not lift up sword against nation, when tanks will be beaten into tractors, when every man and every woman shall sit under his or her own vine and fig tree, and none shall be afraid; when justice will roll down like waters and righteousness as a mighty stream.
"Lord, in the memory of all the saints who from their labors rest, and in the joy of a new beginning, we ask you to help us work for that day when black will not be asked to get back, when brown can stick around -- (laughter) -- when yellow will be mellow -- (laughter) -- when the red man can get ahead, man -- (laughter) -- and when white will embrace what is right.
"Let all those who do justice and love mercy say amen."
AUDIENCE: Amen!
REV. LOWERY: Say amen --
AUDIENCE: Amen!
REV. LOWERY: -- and amen.
AUDIENCE: Amen! (Cheers, applause.)
END.
Source: Chicago Sun-Times
Tuesday, January 20, 2009
Embracing What Is Right
Today was quite like Christmas. It was exciting even to wake up and know that it is the day of the inauguration. After taking a shower and writing and reading, then doing the dishes, I went grocery-shopping. At length Ge. and J. were at home again (Gi. was at home anyway), and then Uncle Pu came for a visit. I turned on the television, though it was over half an hour before the swearing-in ceremony was due to occur, and then found myself unexpectedly enjoying the chatter of the hosts, because the BBC World correspondents in Washington seem to be the pick of the lot. There was nice dry British wit and momentary flashes of intelligence, and the clichés were not as inane as usual.
We ate pretzels and drank Coke and watched the spectacle. The Americans are good at spectacles. I liked every flag, every soldier at attention, every carefully planned gesture; the booming sound; and the sheer vastness of the sea of people, tinted red by the flags that they waved, that flooded in segments along the National Mall was deeply stirring, as were the intricate tiers of white colonnades on the Capitol. I liked the sincere happiness and the good-humoured perseverance that people showed in waiting in the cold for hours without devolving into a snarling tangle. There were some two million of them.
During the swearing-in ceremony I liked the appearances of Jimmy Carter, who was quite brisk and unaffected, and of Ted Kennedy; the way that Malia and Sasha would stop bowing their heads and looking meditative if a prayer bored them; the almost tearful pride with which Michelle Obama watched her husband taking his oath on the Lincoln Bible; the moved faces in the audience (which often put me in danger of being a little weepy); even the error that Chief Justice John Roberts made in the oath. I also like the quite snappy and upbeat personality of Jill Biden. Though I am no great fan of Obama's inaugural address, it presented good thoughts as well as the platitudes which could be pronounced by anyone of any political affiliation in any situation, but more importantly he delivered it with such conviction as he warmed up to it that at least this feeling of conviction was stirring and inspiring. (And after it Pudel uncorked the bottle of champagne — all right, sparkling wine — and we toasted the new president.) What was very good in its understated way was his brief and sober speech later, during the inaugural lunch, which was overshadowed by Ted Kennedy's seizure. Then, when the parade was rolling down Pennsylvania Avenue, he was his customary genial self, no longer as determinedly stately or as nervous as before.
It was a little disappointing that George W. Bush spent his last minutes in office visibly ill at ease, instead of displaying gravitas or absorption or even pleasure in the proceedings, whereas Dick Cheney, who is in my view the greater villain, went out stoically. It was not, however, disappointing that Cheney was in a wheelchair. He has been compared to Mr. Potter of It's a Wonderful Life and to Dr. Strangelove. No further comment. The sight of the helicopter soaring off and carrying Bush and his "good bride" into hopeful obscurity was also a thing of beauty and a joy forever.
What I may have liked most of all is the benediction by Rev. Joseph Lowery, who was once a civil rights leader. It was original, cogent and passionate, and I loved the humour at the end.
At home we feasted on hamburgers and French (not freedom) fries; our decorations were a streamer of crepe paper in red, white, and blue as well as pinwheels in the same colours; and we sang, in honour of le roi who is mort, "Ding, Dong, the Witch Is Dead," and in honour of le roi who vive, and of his country, we sang "My Country, 'Tis of Thee" and "America the Beautiful" and "The Battle Hymn of the Republic" (i.e. "Mine eyes have seen the coming . . ."). Earlier on Papa had played one or both of the first two anthems on the piano, and later I played the beginning of Beethoven's variations on the theme of "God Save the Queen" (which, of course, has the same melody as "My Country, 'Tis of Thee"). The Hallelujah chorus from Händel's Messiah came to mind, but seemed a little blasphemous.
What truly characterized the D.C. celebration is, I believe, that the pomp and circumstance were heartfelt and human, which is not often the case with state events, and that it was a celebration to a significant extent by the people, for the people. Over a million ordinary Americans of all ages attended; the military and law enforcement were represented in large numbers; volunteers and professionals in the hundreds or thousands organized and carried out the logistics; the press was there and by extension so was the scrutiny of hundreds of millions of other people around the world; the politicians were out in the public eye. And all of these people met in the core of a city on a freezing day in the nadir of winter. So one can grumble about cults of personality and unreasonably high expectations all one wants; it was a great day in every sense of the word.
We ate pretzels and drank Coke and watched the spectacle. The Americans are good at spectacles. I liked every flag, every soldier at attention, every carefully planned gesture; the booming sound; and the sheer vastness of the sea of people, tinted red by the flags that they waved, that flooded in segments along the National Mall was deeply stirring, as were the intricate tiers of white colonnades on the Capitol. I liked the sincere happiness and the good-humoured perseverance that people showed in waiting in the cold for hours without devolving into a snarling tangle. There were some two million of them.
During the swearing-in ceremony I liked the appearances of Jimmy Carter, who was quite brisk and unaffected, and of Ted Kennedy; the way that Malia and Sasha would stop bowing their heads and looking meditative if a prayer bored them; the almost tearful pride with which Michelle Obama watched her husband taking his oath on the Lincoln Bible; the moved faces in the audience (which often put me in danger of being a little weepy); even the error that Chief Justice John Roberts made in the oath. I also like the quite snappy and upbeat personality of Jill Biden. Though I am no great fan of Obama's inaugural address, it presented good thoughts as well as the platitudes which could be pronounced by anyone of any political affiliation in any situation, but more importantly he delivered it with such conviction as he warmed up to it that at least this feeling of conviction was stirring and inspiring. (And after it Pudel uncorked the bottle of champagne — all right, sparkling wine — and we toasted the new president.) What was very good in its understated way was his brief and sober speech later, during the inaugural lunch, which was overshadowed by Ted Kennedy's seizure. Then, when the parade was rolling down Pennsylvania Avenue, he was his customary genial self, no longer as determinedly stately or as nervous as before.
It was a little disappointing that George W. Bush spent his last minutes in office visibly ill at ease, instead of displaying gravitas or absorption or even pleasure in the proceedings, whereas Dick Cheney, who is in my view the greater villain, went out stoically. It was not, however, disappointing that Cheney was in a wheelchair. He has been compared to Mr. Potter of It's a Wonderful Life and to Dr. Strangelove. No further comment. The sight of the helicopter soaring off and carrying Bush and his "good bride" into hopeful obscurity was also a thing of beauty and a joy forever.
What I may have liked most of all is the benediction by Rev. Joseph Lowery, who was once a civil rights leader. It was original, cogent and passionate, and I loved the humour at the end.
Lord, in the memory of all the saints who from their labors rest, and in the joy of a new beginning, we ask you to help us work for that day when black will not be asked to get back, when brown can stick around, when yellow will be mellow, when the red man can get ahead, man, and when white will embrace what is right. That all those who do justice and love mercy say Amen. [The crowd replies, "Amen!"] Say Amen. ["Amen!"]
What truly characterized the D.C. celebration is, I believe, that the pomp and circumstance were heartfelt and human, which is not often the case with state events, and that it was a celebration to a significant extent by the people, for the people. Over a million ordinary Americans of all ages attended; the military and law enforcement were represented in large numbers; volunteers and professionals in the hundreds or thousands organized and carried out the logistics; the press was there and by extension so was the scrutiny of hundreds of millions of other people around the world; the politicians were out in the public eye. And all of these people met in the core of a city on a freezing day in the nadir of winter. So one can grumble about cults of personality and unreasonably high expectations all one wants; it was a great day in every sense of the word.
Sunday, January 18, 2009
Scire ubi invenire
Every now and then it is fun to be confronted with an enigma which it is apparently impossible to dismantle into little components and render intelligible, but which shows fissures here and there if one works away at it long enough. The specific enigma I have in mind is a compound enigma, namely the King William's College General Knowledge Paper, which is released annually at New Year's by a British private school. Each set of questions has a common element; last year, for instance, the 14th set was about words that had "Martin" in them.
Last year I solved thirteen, and was on the right track for four, of the enigmas; this time I only solved ten, and was on the right track for eight. I mull over the quiz for days, refraining from consulting any books or other sources for help (except out of curiosity, and then the answer doesn't count). But it is actually intended that one research the answers (as the college's pupils do over their winter holidays), having an inkling where one is likely to find them, rather than know them right off the bat. This is the quiz's motto: Scire ubi aliquid invenire possis ea demum maxima pars eruditionis est; i.e. — if my vague recollection of the translation serves me correctly — the greater part of knowledge is knowing where to seek it. These are the problems that I solved:
1. During the year 1908:
1. who announced T?
2. Who began what by:
5. recalling melancholy inspiration from early evening sights and sounds in a rural churchyard?
6. suggesting that it was generally accepted that a well-heeled loner must be looking for a lady?
5. Travelling from Nordic lands, try unravelling:
1. the eponymous traitor
3 and a misplaced cygnet
7.
1. which language was developed by a Polish opthalmologist?
4. which geographically Scandinavian language is not linguistically Scandinavian?
13.
7. who, in his youth, admitted to cutting down a cherry tree?
14. Within the capital of which member state of the United Nations will you find:
3. that its alright?
10. nothing?
The entire quiz, and the answers, are available here.
Last year I solved thirteen, and was on the right track for four, of the enigmas; this time I only solved ten, and was on the right track for eight. I mull over the quiz for days, refraining from consulting any books or other sources for help (except out of curiosity, and then the answer doesn't count). But it is actually intended that one research the answers (as the college's pupils do over their winter holidays), having an inkling where one is likely to find them, rather than know them right off the bat. This is the quiz's motto: Scire ubi aliquid invenire possis ea demum maxima pars eruditionis est; i.e. — if my vague recollection of the translation serves me correctly — the greater part of knowledge is knowing where to seek it. These are the problems that I solved:
1. During the year 1908:
1. who announced T?
2. Who began what by:
5. recalling melancholy inspiration from early evening sights and sounds in a rural churchyard?
6. suggesting that it was generally accepted that a well-heeled loner must be looking for a lady?
5. Travelling from Nordic lands, try unravelling:
1. the eponymous traitor
3 and a misplaced cygnet
7.
1. which language was developed by a Polish opthalmologist?
4. which geographically Scandinavian language is not linguistically Scandinavian?
13.
7. who, in his youth, admitted to cutting down a cherry tree?
14. Within the capital of which member state of the United Nations will you find:
3. that its alright?
10. nothing?
The entire quiz, and the answers, are available here.
Tuesday, January 06, 2009
Moonlight
I've made a snide remark before about the countless renditions of the first movement in Beethoven's Moonlight Sonata that are on YouTube, but now I am one of the monkeys, for I've recorded and uploaded it too. (It may be the first Beethoven sonata movement that I played from start to finish, because my piano teacher taught it to me at one point.) The music doesn't remind me of moonlight in itself so much as a nocturnal scene among the shadier canals of Venice; the broken triads remind me of the washing of the waves against the piers and of the gliding of a gondola under the faded bridges and along the faded façades. This train of association is simple to trace to its source; Felix Mendelssohn also employed broken triads in his Venetian gondola songs, and the Italian connection is reinforced by the fact that Beethoven dedicated the sonata to a Countess Giulietta Guicciardi. A flaw in this narrative is that I haven't figured out yet how the remaining sonata movements fit into it.
Monday, January 05, 2009
Pirates on the Sea and on the Throne
For the past nights I've been amusing myself by, among other things, watching Captain Blood, a black-and-white film with Errol Flynn and Olivia de Havilland, on YouTube. First I had watched the Adventures of Robin Hood, which came out three years later in 1938, in glorious Technicolor, and which is constructed of similar elements: Michael Curtiz as director, the leading couple, memorable character actors, Basil Rathbone as a wily, slender villain, a vigorous crossing of rapiers, and the armed but principled protest of helpless poverty against authority, in a historical setting.
Captain Blood was originally a novel by Rafael Sabatini, a good and intelligent writer of historical swashbucklery. He (if I remember correctly) writes mostly of clever men, either witty or embittered or both, who run afoul of authority and then strike out on their own, living by a code which has little to do with established law, until they finally find pardon. Peter Blood falls squarely into this pattern. I've forgotten the details of the book, so here are the details of the film. He is an Irishman practicing medicine in England during the reign of King James II. When the Duke of Monmouth attempts to seize the throne and the eponymous rebellion breaks out, he goes to attend a wounded man who was fighting with the rebels. The notoriously cruel soldiers of the King arrive and arrest him on the wrongful charge of treason. He appears before Baron Jeffreys, an unpleasant bigoted individual, and is condemned by him to death. There is, however, a labour shortage in the colonies, so Doctor Blood and his fellow prisoners are reprieved from being hanged and sent off to Port Royal, in the Caribbean.
Once the prisoners arrive, after a deadly journey in a ship's hold, they are sold off by auction. The niece of Col. Bishop has compassion for the prisoners, and when Peter Blood resists the indignity of the physical examination (which includes checking the teeth of the prisoners, as if they were horses), she decides to buy him herself. This niece, Arabella Bishop by name, is exasperatingly frivolous; though I like the actress considerably, she is rather young and nervous and distracted in this film, not as gentle and sympathetic as in Robin Hood (where she plays Maid Marian). In any case, Blood becomes a slave under her uncle, and is treated as badly as the others in the uncle's care. It seems surprising for a Hollywood film of that era, but there are scenes that are hard to watch as they depict brandings, whippings, etc. Altogether I find Errol Flynn slightly irritating, and have found it hard to forgive the film where he plays General Custer (They Died With Their Boots On), this film being, if memory serves me correctly, an incredibly annoying piece of lying, moralizing, flippant ahistoricism. But in this film he appears genuinely haunted by the suffering and injustice around him.
At any rate, Peter Blood has the luck to become the physician of the good-humoured but gouty governor of the island. But at length he has another argument with Col. Bishop. Just as Blood is to be flogged as a result, a ponderous deus ex machina in the shape of a Spanish galleon sails into the harbour and attacks Port Royal. The roystering Spanish soldiers (the book is disturbingly anti-Hispanic) take over the town, as the slaves find the silver lining to this cloud by paddling over to the galleon in a boat, overpowering the boozing Spaniards on board, and then sinking the longboats of the victorious soldiers as they return with their ransom. Col. Bishop rows to the galleon convey his thanks in person, unaware that it is the slaves whom he treated so cruelly who are the saviours of the city. These slaves, though they have a few other ideas, are persuaded by Blood merely to throw the colonel overboard.
Then the slaves sail off, and as they cannot return to England, they form a band of buccaneers. Peter Blood, now Captain Blood, draws up the rules: all loot must be pooled and then divided, with men who have been injured receiving extra portions; women must be respected; and the punishment for failing to observe either rule is being marooned. In the book I believe that the Captain refuses to attack English ships; in the film he is not so choosy. Anyway, the film goes on for a while after that, as Basil Rathbone makes his appearance as the French pirate Levasseur, and so on and so forth, but I don't have to tell about all of that. It is splendid action, though, and I especially like the realistic scenes on the beach and at sea. Even when it is evident that the film is taking place in a studio, there are compensations, like the delightfully detailed ship deck. But the bombardment of Port Royal in the end was no longer so fun, as it reminded me of what is occurring in Gaza. At least, in the film, the French ships responsible were conquered, and peace and justice were restored.
Captain Blood was originally a novel by Rafael Sabatini, a good and intelligent writer of historical swashbucklery. He (if I remember correctly) writes mostly of clever men, either witty or embittered or both, who run afoul of authority and then strike out on their own, living by a code which has little to do with established law, until they finally find pardon. Peter Blood falls squarely into this pattern. I've forgotten the details of the book, so here are the details of the film. He is an Irishman practicing medicine in England during the reign of King James II. When the Duke of Monmouth attempts to seize the throne and the eponymous rebellion breaks out, he goes to attend a wounded man who was fighting with the rebels. The notoriously cruel soldiers of the King arrive and arrest him on the wrongful charge of treason. He appears before Baron Jeffreys, an unpleasant bigoted individual, and is condemned by him to death. There is, however, a labour shortage in the colonies, so Doctor Blood and his fellow prisoners are reprieved from being hanged and sent off to Port Royal, in the Caribbean.
Once the prisoners arrive, after a deadly journey in a ship's hold, they are sold off by auction. The niece of Col. Bishop has compassion for the prisoners, and when Peter Blood resists the indignity of the physical examination (which includes checking the teeth of the prisoners, as if they were horses), she decides to buy him herself. This niece, Arabella Bishop by name, is exasperatingly frivolous; though I like the actress considerably, she is rather young and nervous and distracted in this film, not as gentle and sympathetic as in Robin Hood (where she plays Maid Marian). In any case, Blood becomes a slave under her uncle, and is treated as badly as the others in the uncle's care. It seems surprising for a Hollywood film of that era, but there are scenes that are hard to watch as they depict brandings, whippings, etc. Altogether I find Errol Flynn slightly irritating, and have found it hard to forgive the film where he plays General Custer (They Died With Their Boots On), this film being, if memory serves me correctly, an incredibly annoying piece of lying, moralizing, flippant ahistoricism. But in this film he appears genuinely haunted by the suffering and injustice around him.
At any rate, Peter Blood has the luck to become the physician of the good-humoured but gouty governor of the island. But at length he has another argument with Col. Bishop. Just as Blood is to be flogged as a result, a ponderous deus ex machina in the shape of a Spanish galleon sails into the harbour and attacks Port Royal. The roystering Spanish soldiers (the book is disturbingly anti-Hispanic) take over the town, as the slaves find the silver lining to this cloud by paddling over to the galleon in a boat, overpowering the boozing Spaniards on board, and then sinking the longboats of the victorious soldiers as they return with their ransom. Col. Bishop rows to the galleon convey his thanks in person, unaware that it is the slaves whom he treated so cruelly who are the saviours of the city. These slaves, though they have a few other ideas, are persuaded by Blood merely to throw the colonel overboard.
Then the slaves sail off, and as they cannot return to England, they form a band of buccaneers. Peter Blood, now Captain Blood, draws up the rules: all loot must be pooled and then divided, with men who have been injured receiving extra portions; women must be respected; and the punishment for failing to observe either rule is being marooned. In the book I believe that the Captain refuses to attack English ships; in the film he is not so choosy. Anyway, the film goes on for a while after that, as Basil Rathbone makes his appearance as the French pirate Levasseur, and so on and so forth, but I don't have to tell about all of that. It is splendid action, though, and I especially like the realistic scenes on the beach and at sea. Even when it is evident that the film is taking place in a studio, there are compensations, like the delightfully detailed ship deck. But the bombardment of Port Royal in the end was no longer so fun, as it reminded me of what is occurring in Gaza. At least, in the film, the French ships responsible were conquered, and peace and justice were restored.
Thursday, January 01, 2009
Ringing in the New Year
[N.B.: The acidic commentary in the following may be taken with a pinch of salt. I'm only in a satirical, hopefully not a mean-spirited, mood.]
Yesterday we celebrated the end of 2008 predominantly by partaking of a feast: wieners (Knackwurst), potato salad, and pickles. The potato salad is a compound of diced boiled potatoes, pickles and apples, and a mixture of fried onion and bacon that is deglazed with balsamic vinegar and bouillon. I infinitely prefer it to the species of potato salad in which gloopy white mayonnaise covers everything. Mama also prepared a punch of white wine, champagne, and peach slices. Normally I dislike drinking much alcohol, preferring to be in perfect command of my wits; but yesterday I made an exception and downed at least five glasses of the punch, though over a period of as many hours, and did not feel woozy or dizzy at all. Sadly Gi. was missing again, but his absence felt more dreadful over Christmas, as that is a less profane occasion.
Out in the streets the firecrackers were not as prolific as in the previous year, and they have tended to sound anticlimactically like a car door being slammed shut, but in the afternoon a battery of very loud ones, reminiscent of cannonshot, verged on a public nuisance. I also dislike the ones that sound like automatic gunfire. As the evening progressed there were more fireworks, and I like hearing the ones that go wheeeeee before they disintegrate into crackling sparks.
As for television, the programming was spectacularly lousy in my point of view. There was classical music, but it was Beethoven's Ninth and modern stuff, and I was in a snobby mood. Likewise I choose to be a wet blanket about Dinner for One, a short black-and-white film about a lady's dinner where her butler must play the roles of four guests and becomes increasingly intoxicated in the process. Though it is English, it appears to be a staple of German New Year's culture. On the other channels there were also pop and rock offerings, including a concert with Coldplay, whose music I find a trifle monotonous though intriguingly hypnotic. There was also comedy: the channel ZDF put together an annual retrospective on German politics that was quite amusing, and it aired at least twice on the documentary channel Phoenix. Aside from that I mostly groaned about the absence of westerns or agreeably stupid action films, with which we have been blessed in great number around Christmas. There was at least The Thomas Crown Affair (the one with Pierce Brosnan and Rene Russo), of which I watched excerpts largely for the sake of the footage of New York in general and of the Metropolitan Museum in particular.
When the clock ticked down, we all gathered in the corner room. Papa held the champagne bottle and let the cork work itself loose, the glasses glimmered on the table, and we all looked expectantly at the television screen as the seconds were counted down at the Brandenburger Tor. Then the cork popped, injuring nobody and destroying nothing, and we took our glasses (beaded bubbles winking at the brim, to quote very pretentiously from Keats) and raised them in the obligatory toasts. The curtains were open and we saw the fireworks blobbing upward into the air, streaming away, and erupting into scintillating fragments, as the smoke fogged the light under the streetlamps. Mama, after playing "Auld Lang Syne" on the French horn as we sang along as our memory of the lyrics permitted, handed out long sparklers, which we lit at a candle and then held up into the air, at careful arm's length, as Papa looked on in slight anxiety. No fire resulted, and the pyrotechnics in our household were as modest as intended.
This morning I woke up after eleven. A hoarfrost, perchance mingled with the snow that fell as a tiny dust, had descended on the deserted streets, and it was and remains cloudy. From the direction of the corner room I heard the strains of the Vienna New Year's Concert. So I arose and watched the spectacle with the parents. Normally the concert teeters on the brink of the unendurable for me, as there comes a point where the polkas are indistinguishable and they are churned out like tunes from a music box, and the lush scenes of Austrian mountains, fields, gardens, and architecture become cloying, and the saccharine offerings in the way of everything inspire a more than faint nausea. Even the flower arrangements are bombastic. It is comical, but unintentionally as well as intentionally, and always a little painfully. So I can rarely tell whether it is more pleasant or unpleasant.
But this year the music was more than endurable. Daniel Barenboim was conducting, and under him the music of the Strausses had a Beethovenian substance that may not be so authentic but that was a great relief for me. The endless lilting levity that is more authentic gets on my nerves; one can only hear so many songs in a 3/4 tempo without losing one's marbles. If someone had asked me yesterday, I would have declared that I am sick of the Blue Danube waltz and even more so of the Radetzky March; today I even hummed them happily after the concert. I remarked here and there that the music reminded me of the "Lonely Goatherd" from The Sound of Music, but mostly (and unsuccessfully) did so to tease Mama. It was nice, too, that the Philharmonic performed the fourth movement of a Haydn symphony, in honour of the composer's approaching bicentenary; it was a change of pace, especially as the tone of the musicians grew gentler and quieter, but a welcome one.
As for the spectacle, it was groan-worthy as usual. The camera work inside the Wiener Musikverein was not too bad, though there was one angle up the cellos that was odd, and I mischievously enjoyed seeing the crack in the gold on a pilaster, right above its cherub-infested capital. The flowers (zinnias, roses, etc.) were blindingly orange; red and pink were also in evidence, not improving the matter. When the Musikverein was not shown, we were treated to vistas of the Alps, and of a cave (at first a confused bluish mass whose identity was indistinguishable), melting and dripping away like an endangered glacier; vineyards in green and gold; sunsets; etc. As a matter of course, the colours were so hyperinfused that they would overpower the most chromophilic toddler.
Nor were we spared the horribly perky ballet-waltzing. It began during the "Schatz" waltz, as a lady ballerina sat in a black carriage that drove up to the steps of a palace, where a gentleman who was quite evidently gay pretended to wait for her anxiously. This lady ballerina then descended and danced, with a grace which was nice to watch. She wore a red-ribboned white gown that was all right. Her blonde successor to the affections of the pink-shirted gentleman who had awaited her (apparently the colours of one's clothing make one compatible with certain people), however, had to put up with a pink-swirled white maternity gown. The simplified costumes are probably supposed to look moderned up, but they merely look dumbed down.
The inevitable pièce de résistance arrived as the strains of the Blue Danube waltz rose from the stage. A trio of boys dressed up as cherubs with awkward golden breastplates, possibly stolen from a low-budget production of a historical film or play set in Rome, and white wings, had to dance with a trio of girls, who were dressed in blue costumes with scaly golden diamonds at their tummies and blue furbelows in the back that may have been intended for fishtails but that looked like a cross between an eighteenth-century bustle and a bird's tail. Said tails can be attractive only to the avian mind. Then there was the choreography. The dancers had to mime flirtations, like their elders, and it was even more annoying here, since children should be permitted to be children and not forced to be little editions of grown-ups.
In his closing words, Barenboim wished for peace in the world and "human justice in the Middle East," and then in German the musicians all said, as custom dictates, "Prosit Neujahr!"
Yesterday we celebrated the end of 2008 predominantly by partaking of a feast: wieners (Knackwurst), potato salad, and pickles. The potato salad is a compound of diced boiled potatoes, pickles and apples, and a mixture of fried onion and bacon that is deglazed with balsamic vinegar and bouillon. I infinitely prefer it to the species of potato salad in which gloopy white mayonnaise covers everything. Mama also prepared a punch of white wine, champagne, and peach slices. Normally I dislike drinking much alcohol, preferring to be in perfect command of my wits; but yesterday I made an exception and downed at least five glasses of the punch, though over a period of as many hours, and did not feel woozy or dizzy at all. Sadly Gi. was missing again, but his absence felt more dreadful over Christmas, as that is a less profane occasion.
Out in the streets the firecrackers were not as prolific as in the previous year, and they have tended to sound anticlimactically like a car door being slammed shut, but in the afternoon a battery of very loud ones, reminiscent of cannonshot, verged on a public nuisance. I also dislike the ones that sound like automatic gunfire. As the evening progressed there were more fireworks, and I like hearing the ones that go wheeeeee before they disintegrate into crackling sparks.
As for television, the programming was spectacularly lousy in my point of view. There was classical music, but it was Beethoven's Ninth and modern stuff, and I was in a snobby mood. Likewise I choose to be a wet blanket about Dinner for One, a short black-and-white film about a lady's dinner where her butler must play the roles of four guests and becomes increasingly intoxicated in the process. Though it is English, it appears to be a staple of German New Year's culture. On the other channels there were also pop and rock offerings, including a concert with Coldplay, whose music I find a trifle monotonous though intriguingly hypnotic. There was also comedy: the channel ZDF put together an annual retrospective on German politics that was quite amusing, and it aired at least twice on the documentary channel Phoenix. Aside from that I mostly groaned about the absence of westerns or agreeably stupid action films, with which we have been blessed in great number around Christmas. There was at least The Thomas Crown Affair (the one with Pierce Brosnan and Rene Russo), of which I watched excerpts largely for the sake of the footage of New York in general and of the Metropolitan Museum in particular.
When the clock ticked down, we all gathered in the corner room. Papa held the champagne bottle and let the cork work itself loose, the glasses glimmered on the table, and we all looked expectantly at the television screen as the seconds were counted down at the Brandenburger Tor. Then the cork popped, injuring nobody and destroying nothing, and we took our glasses (beaded bubbles winking at the brim, to quote very pretentiously from Keats) and raised them in the obligatory toasts. The curtains were open and we saw the fireworks blobbing upward into the air, streaming away, and erupting into scintillating fragments, as the smoke fogged the light under the streetlamps. Mama, after playing "Auld Lang Syne" on the French horn as we sang along as our memory of the lyrics permitted, handed out long sparklers, which we lit at a candle and then held up into the air, at careful arm's length, as Papa looked on in slight anxiety. No fire resulted, and the pyrotechnics in our household were as modest as intended.
This morning I woke up after eleven. A hoarfrost, perchance mingled with the snow that fell as a tiny dust, had descended on the deserted streets, and it was and remains cloudy. From the direction of the corner room I heard the strains of the Vienna New Year's Concert. So I arose and watched the spectacle with the parents. Normally the concert teeters on the brink of the unendurable for me, as there comes a point where the polkas are indistinguishable and they are churned out like tunes from a music box, and the lush scenes of Austrian mountains, fields, gardens, and architecture become cloying, and the saccharine offerings in the way of everything inspire a more than faint nausea. Even the flower arrangements are bombastic. It is comical, but unintentionally as well as intentionally, and always a little painfully. So I can rarely tell whether it is more pleasant or unpleasant.
But this year the music was more than endurable. Daniel Barenboim was conducting, and under him the music of the Strausses had a Beethovenian substance that may not be so authentic but that was a great relief for me. The endless lilting levity that is more authentic gets on my nerves; one can only hear so many songs in a 3/4 tempo without losing one's marbles. If someone had asked me yesterday, I would have declared that I am sick of the Blue Danube waltz and even more so of the Radetzky March; today I even hummed them happily after the concert. I remarked here and there that the music reminded me of the "Lonely Goatherd" from The Sound of Music, but mostly (and unsuccessfully) did so to tease Mama. It was nice, too, that the Philharmonic performed the fourth movement of a Haydn symphony, in honour of the composer's approaching bicentenary; it was a change of pace, especially as the tone of the musicians grew gentler and quieter, but a welcome one.
As for the spectacle, it was groan-worthy as usual. The camera work inside the Wiener Musikverein was not too bad, though there was one angle up the cellos that was odd, and I mischievously enjoyed seeing the crack in the gold on a pilaster, right above its cherub-infested capital. The flowers (zinnias, roses, etc.) were blindingly orange; red and pink were also in evidence, not improving the matter. When the Musikverein was not shown, we were treated to vistas of the Alps, and of a cave (at first a confused bluish mass whose identity was indistinguishable), melting and dripping away like an endangered glacier; vineyards in green and gold; sunsets; etc. As a matter of course, the colours were so hyperinfused that they would overpower the most chromophilic toddler.
Nor were we spared the horribly perky ballet-waltzing. It began during the "Schatz" waltz, as a lady ballerina sat in a black carriage that drove up to the steps of a palace, where a gentleman who was quite evidently gay pretended to wait for her anxiously. This lady ballerina then descended and danced, with a grace which was nice to watch. She wore a red-ribboned white gown that was all right. Her blonde successor to the affections of the pink-shirted gentleman who had awaited her (apparently the colours of one's clothing make one compatible with certain people), however, had to put up with a pink-swirled white maternity gown. The simplified costumes are probably supposed to look moderned up, but they merely look dumbed down.
The inevitable pièce de résistance arrived as the strains of the Blue Danube waltz rose from the stage. A trio of boys dressed up as cherubs with awkward golden breastplates, possibly stolen from a low-budget production of a historical film or play set in Rome, and white wings, had to dance with a trio of girls, who were dressed in blue costumes with scaly golden diamonds at their tummies and blue furbelows in the back that may have been intended for fishtails but that looked like a cross between an eighteenth-century bustle and a bird's tail. Said tails can be attractive only to the avian mind. Then there was the choreography. The dancers had to mime flirtations, like their elders, and it was even more annoying here, since children should be permitted to be children and not forced to be little editions of grown-ups.
In his closing words, Barenboim wished for peace in the world and "human justice in the Middle East," and then in German the musicians all said, as custom dictates, "Prosit Neujahr!"
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