Months ago I tried to live-blog my reading of Daniel Barenboim's autobiographical book which was published initially in 1991 as A Life in Music. Today I tried it again, though it can't really be called a 'live blog' if I wrote everything in one flow. Here's hoping, too, that the inaccuracies of my synopses especially of zeitgeist and other things which I don't know are forgivable!
1:41 a.m. I am hopping ahead to p. 33, which delves into Israel in the 1960s and 50s. It was, as a Jewish state, rather a confluence of different waters — American, South American, continental European and Middle Eastern Jews (which two groups, at the risk of looking like an ignoramus, I think are generally synonymous with 'Ashkenazi' and 'Sephardic'); educated as seemed typical for the emigrants to the New World or uneducated — at least fairly unworldly; and diverse in many other traits of Weltanschauung and character and tradition, I suppose, too.
In Barenboim's age group, earnest political convictions carried over into their daily life and habits, mirroring the convictions of the fully-fledged grown-ups; "It was the first time that I experienced a society that was built on idealism." There was apparently a great deal of soul-searching — what was a man's (or woman's) role in the state; what should be striven for as a citizen and as a citizenry, as a labourer on the construction site of one's own new home and of the state at large?
Wednesday, July 24, 2013
Thursday, July 18, 2013
Lists to Conquer Labour?
Operation Be An Adult has slowed down a trifle; the employer for the cleaning position didn't telephone on the weekend. I hopped from one foot to the other on Saturday, but this excitement was tempered by the knowledge that 'there's many a slip twixt the cup and the lip'; and by now I have resolved to Be Patient. The cleaning position starts in August.
In the meantime I have begun again to skim through job postings without committing myself, to remain apprised of what is 'out there.' The process is familiar and straightforward, and most often hinges on two criteria: being sure that I could do the work, above all; and determining that the posting does not convey a jerkwad tendency. If a bakery, cleaning, etc. position demands excellent German, I see no reason not to assume that the employer is a raging xenophobe; and rhapsodies about a 'young team' or other age discrimination are thought-provoking for slightly similar reasons of general unpleasantness. Spelling is not so important for me;
In the meantime I have begun again to skim through job postings without committing myself, to remain apprised of what is 'out there.' The process is familiar and straightforward, and most often hinges on two criteria: being sure that I could do the work, above all; and determining that the posting does not convey a jerkwad tendency. If a bakery, cleaning, etc. position demands excellent German, I see no reason not to assume that the employer is a raging xenophobe; and rhapsodies about a 'young team' or other age discrimination are thought-provoking for slightly similar reasons of general unpleasantness. Spelling is not so important for me;
Wednesday, July 10, 2013
Twinkletoes
In fulfillment of a girly childhood dream, besides everything else I've done lately I've also started a daily regimen of barré exercises for ballet, under the tutelage of divers people on YouTube. It is much easier at certain times of the day; I am far too embarrassed to want to grace my siblings with a sampling of my artistic endeavours (or catastrophes, if you will).
The first exercise is the plié. Ideally you turn your feet outward into the first position for this. I have managed to corral the feet in a straightish line after the first week of exercises; but mysteriously enough this only succeeds when I am in front of the computer and align my feet according to the seam in the floor in front of it. Therefore it seems to be my Lucky Spot.
Then you bend your knees outward and sink until you form a diamond with your legs. Then you stand up again.
According to the French etymology I should be thinking of delicately folding. As it is, I think of squatting; it is very hard to evoke poetry in motion if you are imagining Self as a supersized hen assuming the position to disgorge itself of an egg. A problem greatly exacerbated in the . . .
Grand plié. The feet are farther apart. In the video, the exercise practitioners sink so far down that their hips and upper legs form a kind of tabletop, propped up by their lower legs; I have not tried assuming this position exactly, having sworn a modified Hippocratean Oath: First, do not dislocate your limbs.
After that comes the relevé in the first position, which means standing with your feet outturned as in the plié and then rising to one's tippy-toes. This is quite easy, and still by the perversity of the exercise video I am only told to repeat it 16 times, rather than 32 times as with each previous ordeal.
Worse follows:
The first exercise is the plié. Ideally you turn your feet outward into the first position for this. I have managed to corral the feet in a straightish line after the first week of exercises; but mysteriously enough this only succeeds when I am in front of the computer and align my feet according to the seam in the floor in front of it. Therefore it seems to be my Lucky Spot.
Then you bend your knees outward and sink until you form a diamond with your legs. Then you stand up again.
According to the French etymology I should be thinking of delicately folding. As it is, I think of squatting; it is very hard to evoke poetry in motion if you are imagining Self as a supersized hen assuming the position to disgorge itself of an egg. A problem greatly exacerbated in the . . .
Grand plié. The feet are farther apart. In the video, the exercise practitioners sink so far down that their hips and upper legs form a kind of tabletop, propped up by their lower legs; I have not tried assuming this position exactly, having sworn a modified Hippocratean Oath: First, do not dislocate your limbs.
After that comes the relevé in the first position, which means standing with your feet outturned as in the plié and then rising to one's tippy-toes. This is quite easy, and still by the perversity of the exercise video I am only told to repeat it 16 times, rather than 32 times as with each previous ordeal.
Worse follows:
Arabic and Rainbow Flags
As the main project while I'm not cleaning yet, I've begun learning more Arabic and Farsi. The tools at hand: a Farsi-German dictionary, an Arabic reader for beginners and the entirety of the internet (outside of paywalls). So far I have copied out words and deciphered letters and meanings, with terribly slow progress wherein — after learning to recognize a, n and r with greatest confidence — I have finally remembered more.
e.g.
ابن
ibn; son
I would have assumed that the long stroke is an a, but it serves I guess as an all-purpose vowel; the b is recognizable enough even if I wouldn't remember which letter it is if I didn't look it up; the n is pleasingly easy to remember because it appears at the end of words so often and its swoopy shape with the diamond or dot over it is distinct.
***
I read another page of the Koran yesterday but found it too enigmatic to be anything but steep going; but besides that I am skimming through the chapter on hadith and sunna in Muslim Studies, by Ignaz Goldziher. Goldziher was an old-school academic who, with a large metaphorical foot in the 19th century, pioneered the western field of Islamic studies in many aspects; his choice of topics is far-ranging to the point of being as universal as you can probably become within the field. So I have wanted to read more of his work for a while. As for Edward Said's verdict, regarding the degree of 'orientalism,' a certain online encyclopaedia explains,
These hadith are the source of the sunna, which explains how Islamic principles and Muhammad's example are to be translated into daily life. At least that is the way I'd explain it. Then there is sunna which is the opinion of a Muslim writer who has passed into the religious canon, but not founded on a specific hadith — perhaps a Christian parallel might be the writings of St. Thomas Aquinas — and I think that Goldziher describes the Shi'a as being particular partial to these little innovations.
During an Islam-and-feminism research spree I came across Asma’ bint Umays, who recorded hadith as one of several women who were important in this scholarly tradition; but Goldziher seems to think she is unreliable, though at the same time mentioning that she married Abu Bakr, who was certainly in Muhammad's circle . . .
***
This past week, thanks to Twitter I've been following the situation in Egypt — according to American-Egyptian intellectuals and activists, Egyptian journalists, correspondents in Egypt, politicians, the Army's public relations staff, Muslim Brotherhood spokespeople etc. Everything which is happening seems wrong, pragmatically and ideologically, but it might not be polite to really vent about it here.
On the whole I found the news much more cheerful during the last week of June, even though I found the partial torpedoing of the Voting Rights Act by the Supreme Court very depressing and this feeling carried over to dampen even the joy of the rulings the next day on California's anti-gay marriage state law and on the federal law of the same aim. I have the feeling it will turn out for the best after all, but none of the language which I heard from the rulings in either gay marriage case seemed to me to provide a sturdy guarantee that gay marriage will be seen as a right under the 5th amendment. In federal tax law, marriage equality might exist; and in California it might exist now too as it does in a handful of other states where no successful referenda existed; but, in every other respect, it doesn't in over 30 states. Besides, how will the federal government safeguard the rights of people who live in a state where their across-the-border wedding isn't accepted?
On the other hand I very much liked that Anthony Kennedy seems to have written that a gay marriage ban is a malicious, gratuitous, and busybody-ish denial of someone else's freedoms (in other words, that homophobes should mind their own business). As for the legal hurdles, I think that the controversiality of the Prop 8 (i.e. Californian) ruling not on moral so much as on procedural grounds is very clear if you look at who agreed and who dissented — not the usual candidates, and even the gruesome twosome of Antonin Scalia and Clarence Thomas decided to take up opposing causes. 'At the end of the day,' however, I believe that seeing the happy photos from Stonewall, etc., made even pessimists like me a bit more cheerful.
e.g.
ابن
ibn; son
I would have assumed that the long stroke is an a, but it serves I guess as an all-purpose vowel; the b is recognizable enough even if I wouldn't remember which letter it is if I didn't look it up; the n is pleasingly easy to remember because it appears at the end of words so often and its swoopy shape with the diamond or dot over it is distinct.
***
I read another page of the Koran yesterday but found it too enigmatic to be anything but steep going; but besides that I am skimming through the chapter on hadith and sunna in Muslim Studies, by Ignaz Goldziher. Goldziher was an old-school academic who, with a large metaphorical foot in the 19th century, pioneered the western field of Islamic studies in many aspects; his choice of topics is far-ranging to the point of being as universal as you can probably become within the field. So I have wanted to read more of his work for a while. As for Edward Said's verdict, regarding the degree of 'orientalism,' a certain online encyclopaedia explains,
Of five major German orientalists, he remarked that four of them, despite their profound erudition, were hostile to Islam. Goldziher's work was an exception in that he appreciated 'Islam's tolerance towards other religions', though this was undermined [etc.]In the hadith and sunna chapter Goldziher is discussing the transmission of legends of the Prophet. — The Koran (I think) is about the messages of God, through Gabriel, to his Prophet. For stories about Muhammad's life and manners and those of his entourage, we turn instead to the hadith, anecdotes and sayings which have been shared and recorded (at least putatively) from his closest contemporaries, particularly after his death.
These hadith are the source of the sunna, which explains how Islamic principles and Muhammad's example are to be translated into daily life. At least that is the way I'd explain it. Then there is sunna which is the opinion of a Muslim writer who has passed into the religious canon, but not founded on a specific hadith — perhaps a Christian parallel might be the writings of St. Thomas Aquinas — and I think that Goldziher describes the Shi'a as being particular partial to these little innovations.
During an Islam-and-feminism research spree I came across Asma’ bint Umays, who recorded hadith as one of several women who were important in this scholarly tradition; but Goldziher seems to think she is unreliable, though at the same time mentioning that she married Abu Bakr, who was certainly in Muhammad's circle . . .
***
This past week, thanks to Twitter I've been following the situation in Egypt — according to American-Egyptian intellectuals and activists, Egyptian journalists, correspondents in Egypt, politicians, the Army's public relations staff, Muslim Brotherhood spokespeople etc. Everything which is happening seems wrong, pragmatically and ideologically, but it might not be polite to really vent about it here.
On the whole I found the news much more cheerful during the last week of June, even though I found the partial torpedoing of the Voting Rights Act by the Supreme Court very depressing and this feeling carried over to dampen even the joy of the rulings the next day on California's anti-gay marriage state law and on the federal law of the same aim. I have the feeling it will turn out for the best after all, but none of the language which I heard from the rulings in either gay marriage case seemed to me to provide a sturdy guarantee that gay marriage will be seen as a right under the 5th amendment. In federal tax law, marriage equality might exist; and in California it might exist now too as it does in a handful of other states where no successful referenda existed; but, in every other respect, it doesn't in over 30 states. Besides, how will the federal government safeguard the rights of people who live in a state where their across-the-border wedding isn't accepted?
On the other hand I very much liked that Anthony Kennedy seems to have written that a gay marriage ban is a malicious, gratuitous, and busybody-ish denial of someone else's freedoms (in other words, that homophobes should mind their own business). As for the legal hurdles, I think that the controversiality of the Prop 8 (i.e. Californian) ruling not on moral so much as on procedural grounds is very clear if you look at who agreed and who dissented — not the usual candidates, and even the gruesome twosome of Antonin Scalia and Clarence Thomas decided to take up opposing causes. 'At the end of the day,' however, I believe that seeing the happy photos from Stonewall, etc., made even pessimists like me a bit more cheerful.
* * * * *
Tuesday, July 09, 2013
Libération
Last week I decided to leave off university and set forth into the job market. So this coming weekend I might begin working as a cleaner for a lady in Tempelhof, and we'll see if I'll take more part-time or 'mini' jobs. Eventually I hope to work in something which trains me to a satisfyingly thorough standard in some field, because I would like to do more than one kind of work very well; but I feel happy and excited about this already. There are two other job applications I sent off, and we'll see if any reply arrives eventually.
The last year of university reminded me of school, too, so now I feel emancipated from educational institutions in general. 17 years, including kindergarten, is quite enough.
Even better, I feel old enough and confident enough to make my own decisions and to deal with whatever impediments and whatever good things they cause.
To a degree there isn't much of an alternative. Whenever I begin repressing instincts and adhering to the expectations of others, I feel as if I will never grow out of childhood, and never be a whole person, or even a person whom other people can rely upon, if I continue in that manner. It leaves questions unresolved which reappear later and with which one must deal eventually. So I refuse to continue and get an undergraduate degree simply because it is generally believed to be a prerequisite for decent work.
This seems like a dramatic line of argument to append to a declaration of intent to leave university, but to paraphrase Pope, trivialities at times give rise to big events. It is an open-ended question what to do so that I will arrive at the age of eighty knowing that I have done well and that I belong; and that I have laid a sufficient foundation to live happily for some twenty or thirty years more if need be. I have learned that it is best to start as you mean to go on, and if it means relying on one's own common sense and instincts in small things now, so much the better when big things present themselves later. Which sounds a bit morbid, but not nearly as morbid as the feeling of fighting against everything and hating the necessity to die, once the Grim Reaper approaches; or of living half a life long beforehand.
Besides I think I can permit myself the luxury of making my own mistakes, because I have no one relying on me yet. If I had three or four children . . . maybe not an entirely good idea. :)
The last year of university reminded me of school, too, so now I feel emancipated from educational institutions in general. 17 years, including kindergarten, is quite enough.
Even better, I feel old enough and confident enough to make my own decisions and to deal with whatever impediments and whatever good things they cause.
To a degree there isn't much of an alternative. Whenever I begin repressing instincts and adhering to the expectations of others, I feel as if I will never grow out of childhood, and never be a whole person, or even a person whom other people can rely upon, if I continue in that manner. It leaves questions unresolved which reappear later and with which one must deal eventually. So I refuse to continue and get an undergraduate degree simply because it is generally believed to be a prerequisite for decent work.
This seems like a dramatic line of argument to append to a declaration of intent to leave university, but to paraphrase Pope, trivialities at times give rise to big events. It is an open-ended question what to do so that I will arrive at the age of eighty knowing that I have done well and that I belong; and that I have laid a sufficient foundation to live happily for some twenty or thirty years more if need be. I have learned that it is best to start as you mean to go on, and if it means relying on one's own common sense and instincts in small things now, so much the better when big things present themselves later. Which sounds a bit morbid, but not nearly as morbid as the feeling of fighting against everything and hating the necessity to die, once the Grim Reaper approaches; or of living half a life long beforehand.
Besides I think I can permit myself the luxury of making my own mistakes, because I have no one relying on me yet. If I had three or four children . . . maybe not an entirely good idea. :)
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