This afternoon I woke up to find that the Royal Wedding was already taking place rather than occurring in the early evening, as I had thought. The television was out in the corner room and I didn't want to suffer through the commentary and the length of the ceremony itself, so every now and then I read about it on the Guardian.
The more I read the more likeable and interesting the ceremony sounded. In the end, for strange reasons difficult to pinpoint, I became very fond of the wedding; as it turns out my critical faculties were melting into a species of naïve admiration.
The ceremonies had a fine balance between formality and informality, pomp and modesty, tradition and modernity; little things like the trees in Westminster Abbey, the fact that Kate Middleton's dress was neither fluffy nor too remote (as Karl Lagerfeld suggested), the red uniform of the groom instead of a rigid black suit or more gritty militaristic clothing (as it is the formally decorated and sculpted back of William's costume had a hint of the watchmen's attire in the Wizard of Oz — oh-wee-yo, oh-weeee-yo; etc. — about it), and the, er, creative exuberance of the ladies' hats were thoroughly pleasing.
What I did watch on television (where at least eight channels, including ARD, ZDF, CNN, BBC and TV Monde, were covering the ceremonies live) were the minutes on the balcony. It was rather fun to observe the dynamic between the actors, by which I mean the royal family.
As is well known, the kisses of the married pair were (as it was described on Le Monde's website) very English and not French. In that scenario — massive crowds, television, and the argus eyes of one's granny and other family, not to mention several centuries though not quite forty, contemplating them — an impetus of Heathcliffesque passion hardly seems proper or likely, so I found the absence of romantic fakery refreshing.
Besides the two of them have, to a degree (and in my opinion), slipped fairly suddenly into premature middle age and responsibility lately; it's clear that they have long and demanding careers ahead of them, whether as a rescue pilot or as a public figure or both, etc., so a certain pragmatism and sedateness is right.
What I really coveted was the wedding cake, a colossus of the genre, a veritably princely creation in beaded and flowered white, which I stared at in the monarchy's Flickr photostream. Cupiditas radix malorum est! In this type of crisis I remind myself of the time I read that fondant tastes lousy.
***
Anyway, otherwise weddings horrify me a little. First of all I tend to the opinion that love is egotistic and that weddings are generally self-seeking, secondly that the ceremonial form and public exhibitionism injures a relationship's private, unforced and sacrosanct nature. Thirdly the planning of them sounds nervewracking, for one's self and for any minions, and lastly I have the sense that the day of mine, if it occurs, will be a nightmare.
***
In the evening I made cucumber sandwiches; little rounds and hearts and an angel cut out of white bread, using cookie cutters, with dollops of cranberry on top; and a pot of chamomile tea. Together with the bags of winegums and licorice allsorts (since they were H***bo there were unfortunately far more gummies than licorice pieces) which Ge. had purchased they formed a repast in the corner room. The chamomile tea was intended to be fruit tea, and Mama howled in protest when she observed the switcheroo, but nobly drank a cup regardless.
In the past, and unrelated to current events, I have tried to make English teas, and the results have always been doubtful. The thing is that the sandwiches and tea are dainty but not very filling, and scones and clotted cream seem more rustic and besides a pain to prepare, and it is difficult to manufacture lemon curd which does not taste and look artificially enhanced and overly sugary; and even then these things are still not really filling. Besides the subtleties of the sandwiches are beyond me and the consequences are invariably plebeian.
Other than that I have been living the life of a slob, and the juxtaposition of that with the neat luxury of the wedding was highly enjoyable. Picture bare feet, clothing I've worn day and night perhaps even since the weekend, unwashed hair, a soupçon of perspiration in the air, and a fixation on the computer screen, and there you will have an unflattering but accurate portrait of me in a holiday mood. I did wash my hair in the evening and brush my teeth earlier, so it could be worse. What is sadly true, however, is that I am one of those commoners who looks to events of spurious significance, like the events of today, as a distraction from the plodding thoughts and minor feelings of inadequacy of everyday existence; a little opiate for the masses can help here and there . . .
Friday, April 29, 2011
Thursday, April 28, 2011
Fitzinghurst and Susannah
An accounting of royalle nuptialles, undertakene in the yeare 1736 in the faire kingdome of Englande. Tho' loste to posteritee for a nonce, rediscovered by E.H. and transmitted thusely to a century newe.
***
Dear diary,
'Tis the eve of the wedding of Prince Fitzinghurst with Susannah Centreham, daughter of a Berkshire coachman, and the coffee-houses (when not brooding o'er the parlous state of our state's finances) are agog with interest in the preparations.
Westminster is all barred to the publick, save to those who there have their home, and the gawkeres from foreign shores must content themselves with the environnes of Tyburn and other lurid and comparatively unkingly spectackles.
The armes of state and pennant of England are aflutter everywhere, indeede one cannot enter a whitewashed roome without beholding before one's eye a faint shadow of blue and red in reverse, in shorte (as the scientists have wrote) a spectral green and gold. I deem it not treesonous though impolitick to admit that I have affected short sighte and worne tinted goggles since Tuesdaye to spare mine visual (and mentall) healthe.
On Sundaye I walked the side of the Thames to finde that it was a thoughte less stinkee than upon previous rapprochements. The reason to this Enigma was evidente enough when my Horse led me upstreame past a kind of dory in which men (who looked to be of ill repute and doubtless grateful of the groats' payment) were a-skimming the noctious waves of our noble river and removing a Menagerie's worth of deceased beasts, fishe, and Debris of urban life. Greenere of visage I spurred my horse and soone arrived at home.
There I found my trusty servant bearing my eventide repast to table as the hour had strucke. With customary loquacitee he told me of the strange happenings in the town. One quarter in Westminster had been cleaned with such rapiditee that its inhabitants, when returning from the day's labours, failed to recognize their streetes and piteefully strayed. Our pick-pockets profited therefrom and it is said that more than one earnest thanksgiving to His Highness and Her incipient Highness was offered up among the more devoute, but the tradesmen and fine folk did not offere parallel gratitude even when at last they arrived in their homes. 'Tis bruited besides that one lady swooned giddilee as she passed into the abruptly purified atmosphere, and berating her servants when she had regained consciousness, declared that if she wished to draw breath relatively unhindered she would be living in sight of a Tree and not in sight of a Smokestack.
As I write this I look out upon the street and forcibly recall that the Fashioun has run mad. There are old and young men who bear upon their pates wigs dyed in the colours of State; the ladies affecte ribbons around the crownes of their headgear, gownes, shoes, &c., in the style of Miss Centreham, to the extent that there are hundreds of Miss Centrehams to be found in every quarter of the city. The taske of the Royal Guard must be truly of Mammoth proporcions. My old friende in the wildes of Buckinghamshire informs me that the Plague has Spread beyond the urban limits.
The pondes within twenty leagues of London have all been fished clean of the species of troute which is intended for the nuptial Banquet. Most have been purloined by an army innumerable of gastronomick imitators. My correspondent (invited to too many a supper) cannot bear the sight or taste of this fish anymore, and goes about with a porcion of pickled eel in his pocket by way of Anti-dote. A couple of species of songbird, doomed by their edibility and grace and like rumours of their presence in the banquet, will in probability not be seen on these shores again either. 'Twill lighten the labours of Linnaeus.
In fine 'tis a relief that a marriage like this comes perchance once every three decades. When the present Fuss and Frivolitee is fizzled, the earnest of our finances, ills of societee, &c. will pull us once again down to the sublunary realities of English existence. And then my goggles may be layed aside for another thirty years!
***
28th of April 1736
London Towne.
London Towne.
Dear diary,
'Tis the eve of the wedding of Prince Fitzinghurst with Susannah Centreham, daughter of a Berkshire coachman, and the coffee-houses (when not brooding o'er the parlous state of our state's finances) are agog with interest in the preparations.
Westminster is all barred to the publick, save to those who there have their home, and the gawkeres from foreign shores must content themselves with the environnes of Tyburn and other lurid and comparatively unkingly spectackles.
The armes of state and pennant of England are aflutter everywhere, indeede one cannot enter a whitewashed roome without beholding before one's eye a faint shadow of blue and red in reverse, in shorte (as the scientists have wrote) a spectral green and gold. I deem it not treesonous though impolitick to admit that I have affected short sighte and worne tinted goggles since Tuesdaye to spare mine visual (and mentall) healthe.
On Sundaye I walked the side of the Thames to finde that it was a thoughte less stinkee than upon previous rapprochements. The reason to this Enigma was evidente enough when my Horse led me upstreame past a kind of dory in which men (who looked to be of ill repute and doubtless grateful of the groats' payment) were a-skimming the noctious waves of our noble river and removing a Menagerie's worth of deceased beasts, fishe, and Debris of urban life. Greenere of visage I spurred my horse and soone arrived at home.
There I found my trusty servant bearing my eventide repast to table as the hour had strucke. With customary loquacitee he told me of the strange happenings in the town. One quarter in Westminster had been cleaned with such rapiditee that its inhabitants, when returning from the day's labours, failed to recognize their streetes and piteefully strayed. Our pick-pockets profited therefrom and it is said that more than one earnest thanksgiving to His Highness and Her incipient Highness was offered up among the more devoute, but the tradesmen and fine folk did not offere parallel gratitude even when at last they arrived in their homes. 'Tis bruited besides that one lady swooned giddilee as she passed into the abruptly purified atmosphere, and berating her servants when she had regained consciousness, declared that if she wished to draw breath relatively unhindered she would be living in sight of a Tree and not in sight of a Smokestack.
As I write this I look out upon the street and forcibly recall that the Fashioun has run mad. There are old and young men who bear upon their pates wigs dyed in the colours of State; the ladies affecte ribbons around the crownes of their headgear, gownes, shoes, &c., in the style of Miss Centreham, to the extent that there are hundreds of Miss Centrehams to be found in every quarter of the city. The taske of the Royal Guard must be truly of Mammoth proporcions. My old friende in the wildes of Buckinghamshire informs me that the Plague has Spread beyond the urban limits.
The pondes within twenty leagues of London have all been fished clean of the species of troute which is intended for the nuptial Banquet. Most have been purloined by an army innumerable of gastronomick imitators. My correspondent (invited to too many a supper) cannot bear the sight or taste of this fish anymore, and goes about with a porcion of pickled eel in his pocket by way of Anti-dote. A couple of species of songbird, doomed by their edibility and grace and like rumours of their presence in the banquet, will in probability not be seen on these shores again either. 'Twill lighten the labours of Linnaeus.
In fine 'tis a relief that a marriage like this comes perchance once every three decades. When the present Fuss and Frivolitee is fizzled, the earnest of our finances, ills of societee, &c. will pull us once again down to the sublunary realities of English existence. And then my goggles may be layed aside for another thirty years!
Sunday, April 24, 2011
Divers Pianistic Endeavours
On the piano I played the beginning of Schumann's a minor concerto, the first movement of Mendelssohn's d minor trio (may have finished the second, too), Chopin's "revolutionary étude," his "raindrop prélude," and maybe other things today. Afterwards I rummaged in our shelves, looking for Lizst's third "Liebestraum," and among other things unearthed Rachmaninoff's prelude in g minor again, to be revisited properly in future.
While the Haydn trios which I play with Papa and Pudel have been going beautifully, and the better things go the more imaginatively we render it and grasp the echoes of folkloric music and so on, I am not as happy about the way I am playing solo. Besides, due to the hot weather or something else two or so of the keys are sticking, which is a painof in the neck for the romantic repertoire that roams over almost the entire range.
The problem is that now I mostly consider the way I want to play the music; it seems humbler and nicer to follow the old approach of inhabiting the atmosphere and of figuring out what the composer was thinking and hoping for when he wrote the score. It does seem reductive to play Haydn and Mozart and Bach and Beethoven and Mendelssohn and the others too idiosyncratically Haydnishly, Mozartishly, Bachishly, etc., but it indicates a certain respect for their work and stature, and I like doing justice to zeitgeisty and stylistic quirks, and faithfully embodying their moods instead of drawing attention to myself.
So that's why I have thought that it might be worthwhile to compose things myself. Encouragingly, and along the lines of Lady Catherine de Bourgh's pronouncement in Pride and Prejudice, I have the inkling that if I learned to compose music, I would be very good at it.
***
(Quoted from Pride and Prejudice at Gutenberg.org)
***
Anyway, though I am presently completely ignorant of the laws and details of composition, I think it would be fun to find whether my style is old-fashioned, derivative, or a progression. When I am playing I tend to feel quite close to Beethoven's compositional thought processes, but when I dabble (badly) in writing little compositions myself they tend hypothetically to resemble Mozart's oeuvre at the age of two. So this is still a castle-in-the-air.
While the Haydn trios which I play with Papa and Pudel have been going beautifully, and the better things go the more imaginatively we render it and grasp the echoes of folkloric music and so on, I am not as happy about the way I am playing solo. Besides, due to the hot weather or something else two or so of the keys are sticking, which is a pain
The problem is that now I mostly consider the way I want to play the music; it seems humbler and nicer to follow the old approach of inhabiting the atmosphere and of figuring out what the composer was thinking and hoping for when he wrote the score. It does seem reductive to play Haydn and Mozart and Bach and Beethoven and Mendelssohn and the others too idiosyncratically Haydnishly, Mozartishly, Bachishly, etc., but it indicates a certain respect for their work and stature, and I like doing justice to zeitgeisty and stylistic quirks, and faithfully embodying their moods instead of drawing attention to myself.
So that's why I have thought that it might be worthwhile to compose things myself. Encouragingly, and along the lines of Lady Catherine de Bourgh's pronouncement in Pride and Prejudice, I have the inkling that if I learned to compose music, I would be very good at it.
***
"What is that you are saying, Fitzwilliam? What is it you are talking of? What are you telling Miss Bennet? Let me hear what it is."
"We are speaking of music, madam," said he, when no longer able to avoid a reply.
"Of music! Then pray speak aloud. It is of all subjects my delight. I must have my share in the conversation if you are speaking of music. There are few people in England, I suppose, who have more true enjoyment of music than myself, or a better natural taste. If I had ever learnt, I should have been a great proficient."(Quoted from Pride and Prejudice at Gutenberg.org)
***
Anyway, though I am presently completely ignorant of the laws and details of composition, I think it would be fun to find whether my style is old-fashioned, derivative, or a progression. When I am playing I tend to feel quite close to Beethoven's compositional thought processes, but when I dabble (badly) in writing little compositions myself they tend hypothetically to resemble Mozart's oeuvre at the age of two. So this is still a castle-in-the-air.
After tiring of the television I picked up a violin again with the most moderate imaginable success, and eventually went to sleep. Now I'm awake again.
Then, because it is Easter and bells are a symbol of the feast, I wanted to write about Schiller's poem "Das Lied von der Glocke" for the "Lighthouse." Since it isn't turning out the way I want, I will post it in Hermitologies as an unfinished fragment with no literary pretensions. I didn't consult a dictionary, either, so the translations are totally unreliable. Sorry for the lousiness.
***
First published: 1798
WHEN I was twelve years old or so my grandfather taught my sister and me a little German grammar and literature. Among other things Opapa read Schiller's "Lied von der Glocke" with us, and I liked it very much. Now it feels didactic and a little consciously quaint, but it has a purity of language that is quite classical as well as an informality of subject and diction that already feel romantic.
It traces the casting of a church bell, and describes in poetic terms the manufacture and its purpose once it is finished and hung in the tower (and I think it is very suited to Easter because of the association of the feast with bells in Italy and France).
After a Latin epigraph whose emphases echo the ringing of the bells — toll . . . toll . . . — it begins,
Fest gemauert in der Erden
Steht die Form, aus Lehm gebrannt.
Heute muß die Glocke werden.
"Firmly walled within the earths there stands the mold of fired clay; on this day the bell must be."
The bronze is formed from liquid tin and copper, ash salts are added and the foam removed so that the bell will have a clear tone as the dry fir wood heats the whole, and the workers are sweating like pigs.
Schiller reminds us of the higher purpose of these proceedings:
Soll das Werk den Meister loben,
Doch der Segen kommt von oben.
In other words, the work should sound its master's praises, and yet the blessing comes from heaven.
If I understand the lines he idealizes manual labour in general, arguing that it invariably has a purpose and that any man who does not work meditatively is degraded. Schiller doesn't do much for the repute of poets as pragmatic individuals who understand the realities of the labour here.
A church bell is admittedly lofty in more than the physical sense. It will persist (if providence permits) for centuries, and
rühren vieler Menschen Ohr
Und wird mit dem Betrübten klagen
Und stimmen zu der Andacht Chor.
Was unten tief dem Erdensohne
Das wechselnde Verhängnis bringt,
Das schlägt an die metallne Krone,
Die es erbaulich weiterklingt.
"touch the ear of many men and lament with those who live in grief and sound with the choir to the prayer. What to the sons of earth below the varying fates and destiny brings, that beats against the metal crown which it most usefully further rings." ("Erbaulich" is much like the modern word "constructive" — though I put it as "usefully" — and similarly pedantic.)
Then the narrator follows the fate of an ideal baby whose arrival and every subsequent epochal moment of life is celebrated by the bell. Schiller is drippingly sappy when the baby grows into the age of romance:
herrlich, in der Jugend Prangen,
Wie ein Gebild aus Himmelshöhn,
Mit züchtigen, verschämten Wangen
Sieht er die Jungfrau vor sich stehn.
"Glorious in the pomp of youth, like a presentment from heavenly heights, with decorously shameful cheeks he sees the maiden before him stand."
Bleaugh.
After the nuptials we revisit the bell. You poke in a stick of wood; if it comes out of the liquid bronze with a glassy coat it is time to pour the bronze into the mold.
Then the metonymous baby marries, as Schiller declares that an alliance of feeble (femininity?) and strong (masculinity?) is the ideal. The family flourishes and is from the sounds of it painfully bourgeois, though as Schiller points out fortune is fickle and they may yet be poor.
As the bronze is poured into the mold, at last and amid anxieties about its propensities to break, Schiller philosophizes about fire. Fire is good for humanity if we tame it and bad if we do not, etc. Any retelling of the Prometheus myth, however simplified, already has this truism covered, I think.
In Schiller's case it appears to be a metaphor for human passions, and he admonishes the reader to keep a tight rein on it, be decorous all the time, and keep the will of heaven always in mind. Otherwise God will unleash destruction upon him:
Leergebrannt
Ist die Stätte,
Wilder Stürme rauhes Bette,
In den öden Fensterhöhlen
Wohnt das Grauen,
Und des Himmels Wolken schauen
Hoch hinein.
. . .
Needless to say, Schiller's conception of religion pretty much does nothing for me, and it seems consciously folksy and naïve.
. . .
A major charm of the poem — as the relevant article at a certain online encyclopaedia states — is that it has a clear narrative, so that even a grade-schooler like I was can like it; besides it is feels like an atmospheric vignette of German society in terms of the late 18th-century ideal as well as of the historical setting, which is particularly useful as a kind of verbal illustration if one lives as I did in relatively ahistorical und un-Teutonic places where churches with bell towers are rare birds. It is left to adults to speculate on the full and finer significance of the poet's thought.
Then, because it is Easter and bells are a symbol of the feast, I wanted to write about Schiller's poem "Das Lied von der Glocke" for the "Lighthouse." Since it isn't turning out the way I want, I will post it in Hermitologies as an unfinished fragment with no literary pretensions. I didn't consult a dictionary, either, so the translations are totally unreliable. Sorry for the lousiness.
***
"The Song of the Bell"
First published: 1798
WHEN I was twelve years old or so my grandfather taught my sister and me a little German grammar and literature. Among other things Opapa read Schiller's "Lied von der Glocke" with us, and I liked it very much. Now it feels didactic and a little consciously quaint, but it has a purity of language that is quite classical as well as an informality of subject and diction that already feel romantic.
It traces the casting of a church bell, and describes in poetic terms the manufacture and its purpose once it is finished and hung in the tower (and I think it is very suited to Easter because of the association of the feast with bells in Italy and France).
After a Latin epigraph whose emphases echo the ringing of the bells — toll . . . toll . . . — it begins,
Fest gemauert in der Erden
Steht die Form, aus Lehm gebrannt.
Heute muß die Glocke werden.
"Firmly walled within the earths there stands the mold of fired clay; on this day the bell must be."
The bronze is formed from liquid tin and copper, ash salts are added and the foam removed so that the bell will have a clear tone as the dry fir wood heats the whole, and the workers are sweating like pigs.
Schiller reminds us of the higher purpose of these proceedings:
Soll das Werk den Meister loben,
Doch der Segen kommt von oben.
In other words, the work should sound its master's praises, and yet the blessing comes from heaven.
If I understand the lines he idealizes manual labour in general, arguing that it invariably has a purpose and that any man who does not work meditatively is degraded. Schiller doesn't do much for the repute of poets as pragmatic individuals who understand the realities of the labour here.
A church bell is admittedly lofty in more than the physical sense. It will persist (if providence permits) for centuries, and
rühren vieler Menschen Ohr
Und wird mit dem Betrübten klagen
Und stimmen zu der Andacht Chor.
Was unten tief dem Erdensohne
Das wechselnde Verhängnis bringt,
Das schlägt an die metallne Krone,
Die es erbaulich weiterklingt.
"touch the ear of many men and lament with those who live in grief and sound with the choir to the prayer. What to the sons of earth below the varying fates and destiny brings, that beats against the metal crown which it most usefully further rings." ("Erbaulich" is much like the modern word "constructive" — though I put it as "usefully" — and similarly pedantic.)
Then the narrator follows the fate of an ideal baby whose arrival and every subsequent epochal moment of life is celebrated by the bell. Schiller is drippingly sappy when the baby grows into the age of romance:
herrlich, in der Jugend Prangen,
Wie ein Gebild aus Himmelshöhn,
Mit züchtigen, verschämten Wangen
Sieht er die Jungfrau vor sich stehn.
"Glorious in the pomp of youth, like a presentment from heavenly heights, with decorously shameful cheeks he sees the maiden before him stand."
Bleaugh.
After the nuptials we revisit the bell. You poke in a stick of wood; if it comes out of the liquid bronze with a glassy coat it is time to pour the bronze into the mold.
Then the metonymous baby marries, as Schiller declares that an alliance of feeble (femininity?) and strong (masculinity?) is the ideal. The family flourishes and is from the sounds of it painfully bourgeois, though as Schiller points out fortune is fickle and they may yet be poor.
As the bronze is poured into the mold, at last and amid anxieties about its propensities to break, Schiller philosophizes about fire. Fire is good for humanity if we tame it and bad if we do not, etc. Any retelling of the Prometheus myth, however simplified, already has this truism covered, I think.
In Schiller's case it appears to be a metaphor for human passions, and he admonishes the reader to keep a tight rein on it, be decorous all the time, and keep the will of heaven always in mind. Otherwise God will unleash destruction upon him:
Leergebrannt
Ist die Stätte,
Wilder Stürme rauhes Bette,
In den öden Fensterhöhlen
Wohnt das Grauen,
Und des Himmels Wolken schauen
Hoch hinein.
. . .
Needless to say, Schiller's conception of religion pretty much does nothing for me, and it seems consciously folksy and naïve.
. . .
A major charm of the poem — as the relevant article at a certain online encyclopaedia states — is that it has a clear narrative, so that even a grade-schooler like I was can like it; besides it is feels like an atmospheric vignette of German society in terms of the late 18th-century ideal as well as of the historical setting, which is particularly useful as a kind of verbal illustration if one lives as I did in relatively ahistorical und un-Teutonic places where churches with bell towers are rare birds. It is left to adults to speculate on the full and finer significance of the poet's thought.
Easter in Insufferably Trivial Detail
I was up before the Easter bunny today, not on the "early to bed and early to rise" principle but on the principle that I like to kick back my heels and stay up into outrageous hours and now that I am on holiday there is no duty for me to be spiritually hungover for.
This year the Easter brunch was particularly munificent. Despite cynical prognostications one of us did shop for Easter eggs and Papa had a secret stash which enriched the table greatly. So we had a little bunch of chocolate eggs, filled or not, and candy eggs with nougat or marzipan or other centres, and sugar eggs that looked like a sunny-side-up egg on our plates and decorating the white tablecloth; our trusty reddish clay pot of tea; two platters of cheese and Schinkenspeck and maybe blood sausage; baskets of soft pretzel sticks and croissants filled with nougat or marzipan or plain and raisin buns and ordinary buns; cold boiled eggs that had been painted red or orange or yellow or green or blue or lilac with watercolours; and fresh soft-boiled eggs. Then there is a large platter of further Easter eggs, and two chocolate bunnies stood at each plate, and chocolate ladybugs interspersed; the centrepiece is a jar with cherry twigs and a scarlet geranium and a yellow and violet pansy, with three of our handpainted hollow eggs hanging from it. Ge. heated milk and there was I think also a pot of hot coffee.
* * *
Before it began we watched the children's show Die Maus. It had a depressing story about the history of the Easter egg hunt; the heroine was a hen who wanted to lay white eggs and could only lay them in different colours. Aside from the quality of the short animation, it was first of all disconcerting that the hen was so conformist and secondly that she was fixated on white skin tones, even if the skin is a shell and belongs to a fictive egg. Mama also thought it was weird . . . Then there was a segment about milking eggs, which was where the real depression set in, because the actor just went in and milked a random cow out of an anonymous row without asking permission or anything, and I was already feeling Charlie Brownish enough when they then showed how the machine milks cows, and anything more loveless, mechanical, and disrespectful can hardly be imagined . . . So to progress further into the children's literary canon I felt like Eeyore at this point.
Then a film crew accompanied our Pope as he went about his daily activities in the Vatican, and it was incredibly boring. There are two cooks and two housekeepers or something in his household, conservatively and formally dressed women who look utterly devoid of cheer (note to self: do not work for Pope unless wish to look like life sucked out of self), and then a secretary and other people, a very closed circle which barely enlivens the minimalist though not modern rooms. He eats breakfast off of specially commissioned plate with his coat of arms on it, presumably eats lunch or dinner off the same, takes a short walk along the same old route to aid his digestion (TMI, I thought!), signs proclamations given to him in a portfolio by someone in a boring office with however a checkerboard pattern in the floor which I found superficially intriguing, and then watches television on one of a set of dusty olive armchairs whose velvety surface looks like it has been vacuumed within an inch of its life twice every day. And in the morning he can appear on the balcony and wave to people and say something in several languages, as the flag waves below him. And so on and so forth. Given the choice of being a mafioso or Catholic grandee the former seems far more fun, though the formal gardens of the Pope's summer palace are like a wormhole in time, and the patch of olive trees where the cows graze and the brood of chickens are endearing. The footage of the Pope himself was captured by the Vatican; our secular Maus production team was permitted to film on the palace grounds.
The short animation about a sheep who runs a farm for a day was far more fun, and I can't presently recall if there was anything else.
Anyway, even an innocuous children's show can apparently feed my cynicism.
* * *
Then Arte showed a production of Händel's Messiah. I missed most of it but it looked like utter tosh. From an environmental perspective it was however most congenial, because it lit only the bottom tenth of the stage, though in antiseptic white glare, everything else being plunged in darkness; an energy-saving measure if I ever saw one.
The action took place on a gigantic revolving stage, which failed to transcend the dignity of a Lazy Susan, and for some reason the thick and towering partitioning walls were given a classisistic flair which did not fit the modern hotel(?) environment.
Which leads me to the dramatis personae, who were all dressed in modern businesswear, grey and black and other dark skirts and tights and jackets, and white shirts for the gentlemen. How is this related to the Messiah? — The secret is shared between the director and god.
By the time I arrived they were stacking dark wood chairs onto a pile in the centre of the Lazy Susan on top of an airport-lounge or hotel-room-y wall-to-wall carpet, and then bending over as if they were all afflicted with stomach cramps or extreme somnolence only to get up again and wilt in subsequent scenes, and Mama mentioned that there was an earlier scene where someone had slit his wrists.
Then the scene shifted to a hotel room where a woman was undressing, going to a crib that clearly had nothing in it and the white curtain above it did nothing to convince me otherwise, and dropping her clothes carefully on the floor!, and then a man in his shirtsleeves who (so Mama informed me) was supposed to be Jesus entered the door quietly backwards like Mr. Bean enacting the world's worst ninja and sat down on the floor before joining the lady in bed after she had peeled off her black stockings for the titillation of the audience.
Being fed up I wandered away from the corner room. When I came back there was a faintly North Korean choreographed group thing where they waved their hands about and so on, and then a woman in a pale nightgown who was presumably something like an angel interpreted the lyrics in sign language. Eventually the stage light narrowed in on the angel, who was terribly obnoxious, and it was somehow over. Then everyone came to take a bow and the audience clapped enthusiastically.
As far as the production goes this could have been any play or opera or oratorio ever written, if you're going to reinvent the tale entirely. In the US this would have been more amusing or genuine, but in Europe these things always reek of trying so, so hard to be cool and avantgarde.
Anyway, didn't see all of it and don't want to set myself up as a critic, but that was my take on the affair. At least the stage lighting, aside from its ecological worth, supports the opthalmological and optometrical trades. Thank you for your contribution to our economy!
* * *
Happy Easter!
This year the Easter brunch was particularly munificent. Despite cynical prognostications one of us did shop for Easter eggs and Papa had a secret stash which enriched the table greatly. So we had a little bunch of chocolate eggs, filled or not, and candy eggs with nougat or marzipan or other centres, and sugar eggs that looked like a sunny-side-up egg on our plates and decorating the white tablecloth; our trusty reddish clay pot of tea; two platters of cheese and Schinkenspeck and maybe blood sausage; baskets of soft pretzel sticks and croissants filled with nougat or marzipan or plain and raisin buns and ordinary buns; cold boiled eggs that had been painted red or orange or yellow or green or blue or lilac with watercolours; and fresh soft-boiled eggs. Then there is a large platter of further Easter eggs, and two chocolate bunnies stood at each plate, and chocolate ladybugs interspersed; the centrepiece is a jar with cherry twigs and a scarlet geranium and a yellow and violet pansy, with three of our handpainted hollow eggs hanging from it. Ge. heated milk and there was I think also a pot of hot coffee.
* * *
Before it began we watched the children's show Die Maus. It had a depressing story about the history of the Easter egg hunt; the heroine was a hen who wanted to lay white eggs and could only lay them in different colours. Aside from the quality of the short animation, it was first of all disconcerting that the hen was so conformist and secondly that she was fixated on white skin tones, even if the skin is a shell and belongs to a fictive egg. Mama also thought it was weird . . . Then there was a segment about milking eggs, which was where the real depression set in, because the actor just went in and milked a random cow out of an anonymous row without asking permission or anything, and I was already feeling Charlie Brownish enough when they then showed how the machine milks cows, and anything more loveless, mechanical, and disrespectful can hardly be imagined . . . So to progress further into the children's literary canon I felt like Eeyore at this point.
Then a film crew accompanied our Pope as he went about his daily activities in the Vatican, and it was incredibly boring. There are two cooks and two housekeepers or something in his household, conservatively and formally dressed women who look utterly devoid of cheer (note to self: do not work for Pope unless wish to look like life sucked out of self), and then a secretary and other people, a very closed circle which barely enlivens the minimalist though not modern rooms. He eats breakfast off of specially commissioned plate with his coat of arms on it, presumably eats lunch or dinner off the same, takes a short walk along the same old route to aid his digestion (TMI, I thought!), signs proclamations given to him in a portfolio by someone in a boring office with however a checkerboard pattern in the floor which I found superficially intriguing, and then watches television on one of a set of dusty olive armchairs whose velvety surface looks like it has been vacuumed within an inch of its life twice every day. And in the morning he can appear on the balcony and wave to people and say something in several languages, as the flag waves below him. And so on and so forth. Given the choice of being a mafioso or Catholic grandee the former seems far more fun, though the formal gardens of the Pope's summer palace are like a wormhole in time, and the patch of olive trees where the cows graze and the brood of chickens are endearing. The footage of the Pope himself was captured by the Vatican; our secular Maus production team was permitted to film on the palace grounds.
The short animation about a sheep who runs a farm for a day was far more fun, and I can't presently recall if there was anything else.
Anyway, even an innocuous children's show can apparently feed my cynicism.
* * *
Then Arte showed a production of Händel's Messiah. I missed most of it but it looked like utter tosh. From an environmental perspective it was however most congenial, because it lit only the bottom tenth of the stage, though in antiseptic white glare, everything else being plunged in darkness; an energy-saving measure if I ever saw one.
The action took place on a gigantic revolving stage, which failed to transcend the dignity of a Lazy Susan, and for some reason the thick and towering partitioning walls were given a classisistic flair which did not fit the modern hotel(?) environment.
Which leads me to the dramatis personae, who were all dressed in modern businesswear, grey and black and other dark skirts and tights and jackets, and white shirts for the gentlemen. How is this related to the Messiah? — The secret is shared between the director and god.
By the time I arrived they were stacking dark wood chairs onto a pile in the centre of the Lazy Susan on top of an airport-lounge or hotel-room-y wall-to-wall carpet, and then bending over as if they were all afflicted with stomach cramps or extreme somnolence only to get up again and wilt in subsequent scenes, and Mama mentioned that there was an earlier scene where someone had slit his wrists.
Then the scene shifted to a hotel room where a woman was undressing, going to a crib that clearly had nothing in it and the white curtain above it did nothing to convince me otherwise, and dropping her clothes carefully on the floor!, and then a man in his shirtsleeves who (so Mama informed me) was supposed to be Jesus entered the door quietly backwards like Mr. Bean enacting the world's worst ninja and sat down on the floor before joining the lady in bed after she had peeled off her black stockings for the titillation of the audience.
Being fed up I wandered away from the corner room. When I came back there was a faintly North Korean choreographed group thing where they waved their hands about and so on, and then a woman in a pale nightgown who was presumably something like an angel interpreted the lyrics in sign language. Eventually the stage light narrowed in on the angel, who was terribly obnoxious, and it was somehow over. Then everyone came to take a bow and the audience clapped enthusiastically.
As far as the production goes this could have been any play or opera or oratorio ever written, if you're going to reinvent the tale entirely. In the US this would have been more amusing or genuine, but in Europe these things always reek of trying so, so hard to be cool and avantgarde.
Anyway, didn't see all of it and don't want to set myself up as a critic, but that was my take on the affair. At least the stage lighting, aside from its ecological worth, supports the opthalmological and optometrical trades. Thank you for your contribution to our economy!
* * *
Happy Easter!
Saturday, April 09, 2011
Rant About the Ivory Coast
Not a cheerful subject, but I'm becoming very angry about the role the UN has played in the Ivory Coast. It has given Alassane Ouattara and everyone fighting under him a carte blanche — simply because he won the elections by whichever margin — which will have to be revoked soon, and it has not acted as an impartial arbiter in any sense.
It is fanatical to believe that the outward form of democracy is the highest good, above the wellbeing of Ivorian citizens whom it is supposed to represent. In fact in this case the election seems to have resulted in a UN-approved hegemony, and now the parties are fighting over who is the hegemon over whom.
Even the rebels in Libya have been criticized far more for deciding to take up arms against a state which has been run by Muammar Gaddafi for 42 years — not by firing missiles into markets, assassinating statesmen, setting car bombs, or slaughtering civilian opponents, as far as I have heard, but by openly attacking military vehicles and installations — than Ouattara's supporters in Côte d'Ivoire. Now that (inevitably, given this course of action) several massacres have been ascribed to fighters on Ouattara's side it is quite clear that it almost never was about the people of Côte d'Ivoire.
I think the UN has allowed itself to be unduly influenced by the fact that Alassane Ouattara has cooperated with it whereas Laurent Gbagbo hasn't. That circumstance is too unrepresentative and insignificant to be the foundation of such wholesale approval and persistent benefit of the doubt when it comes to allegations of massacring, and I am guessing there will have to be a change of official position.
It is fanatical to believe that the outward form of democracy is the highest good, above the wellbeing of Ivorian citizens whom it is supposed to represent. In fact in this case the election seems to have resulted in a UN-approved hegemony, and now the parties are fighting over who is the hegemon over whom.
Even the rebels in Libya have been criticized far more for deciding to take up arms against a state which has been run by Muammar Gaddafi for 42 years — not by firing missiles into markets, assassinating statesmen, setting car bombs, or slaughtering civilian opponents, as far as I have heard, but by openly attacking military vehicles and installations — than Ouattara's supporters in Côte d'Ivoire. Now that (inevitably, given this course of action) several massacres have been ascribed to fighters on Ouattara's side it is quite clear that it almost never was about the people of Côte d'Ivoire.
I think the UN has allowed itself to be unduly influenced by the fact that Alassane Ouattara has cooperated with it whereas Laurent Gbagbo hasn't. That circumstance is too unrepresentative and insignificant to be the foundation of such wholesale approval and persistent benefit of the doubt when it comes to allegations of massacring, and I am guessing there will have to be a change of official position.
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