tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-63084284677764001302024-03-06T08:15:13.124+01:00The Alchemist's PillowIf a little dreaming is dangerous, the cure for it is not to dream less but to dream more, to dream all the time - Marcel Proust (photo by Edward Steichen)Lorenzo — Alchemist's Pillowhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07522265816460154722noreply@blogger.comBlogger118125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6308428467776400130.post-44476422742449387182012-08-22T11:46:00.001+02:002012-08-22T11:46:19.436+02:00Raincheck in a drought<br />
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, serif;">Come back tomorrow.</span></div>
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There is no poem here.<br />
I tried but…<br />
<br />
... no iris blossoms dropped<br />
voluptuous tears on the page,<br />
there was no elixir I could distill<br />
from the morning mist;<br />
you know, from that misted meadow<br />
of my sleep where your voice<br />once foaled six galloping dreams?<br />
<br />
There was only silence,<br />
dry dry layers of silted silence<br />
caked and crusted<br />
on the notepad.<br />
If I could crush and grind the crust<br />
under my fisted palms<br />
and blow the dust and flakes<br />
of silence at my own face,<br />
into my own eyes<br />
then maybe …<br />
… but no. No.<br />
<br />
I even tried imagining<br />
I was a little girl imagining<br />
that if I blew hard enough<br />
on the six candles<br />
daddy would stride in through the door,<br />
walk over and hug us,<br />
home for good from the I-promise-this-is-the-last<br />
tour of duty.<br />
<br />
With my eyes shut tight under her curtained bangs,<br />
the candle flames flew away <br />
and the wicks saluted smellily<br />
but dad did not walk into the room<br />
and I didn’t write a poem<br />
and I am not sure if what I imagined was being the imagining girl<br />
smelling the smelly candles<br />
or the father stuck somewhere<br />
on the other side of the door.<br />
<br />
I don’t even know who the girl is<br />
or if she even is or ever was<br />
or if dad ever made it home.<br />
Strange, I did hear his voice.<br />
“Happy birthday” it said,<br />
but our eyes were closed and I don’t know<br />
if the voice was here<br />
or there, on this<br />
or that side of the door.<br />
<br />
I don’t really know if it matters.<br />
I think it might, perhaps it must,<br />
but I can’t be sure.<br />
All I know is that<br />
there is no poem here.<br />
Please come back tomorrow.<br />
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<!--[endif]--></span>Lorenzo — Alchemist's Pillowhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07522265816460154722noreply@blogger.com21tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6308428467776400130.post-9313258158490205262011-11-12T09:04:00.000+01:002011-11-13T10:27:27.898+01:00Festina lente<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjMP3Iag3JUmYbsHcGc7qwMUdHA0q_4ORPUudXV0ZD-_m67_ohEjBdgtCk4QL8LBD4jR-XAIQPtgFRruXJ7V98HjJ6xEemf2v9vA1aQsxG54_IQbDvVEfWHmjuBSq1B_R6LRqNr6SspD94M/s1600/Lone+stela.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; cssfloat: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" nda="true" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjMP3Iag3JUmYbsHcGc7qwMUdHA0q_4ORPUudXV0ZD-_m67_ohEjBdgtCk4QL8LBD4jR-XAIQPtgFRruXJ7V98HjJ6xEemf2v9vA1aQsxG54_IQbDvVEfWHmjuBSq1B_R6LRqNr6SspD94M/s320/Lone+stela.JPG" width="240" /></a></div>
One of the many rewarding moments on my trip to the lovely and enthralling city of Krakow this summer was an unplanned visit to the Remuh synagogue and its Renaissance-age cemetery. Founded nearly 500 years ago in the 1550s and used until the end of the 18th century, the cemetery has a remarkable collection of centuries-old stelae, headstones and stone coffins discovered during conservation works. It is surrounded by an outer wall built largely out of unmatched pieces of incomplete gravestones.<br />
<br />
The site is located in Kazimierz, the old Jewish quarter of the city, very close to the hotel where we were staying, so María and I decided to go with our daughters one morning. As it turned out, later that day we would visit Auschwitz, where, for reasons both hideous and obvious, there are no tombs or graves. So, though unintended at the time, the trip to this graveyard would in retrospect seem fitting and proper, a moment to visit and pay our respects to the ancestors of some of the so many who perished at the death camp.<br />
<br />
While strolling amongst the gravestones, I was struck by a custom I had never seen before: visitors would place small stones on top of the tombstones and stelae. The inscriptions on the stones are largely etched in Hebrew and many are badly faded, so I had no idea who was in the graves we were filing past, whether man, woman or child, or in what year or century they had died. Nevertheless, I instinctively felt moved to search the ground for the <em>right</em> pebble and place it atop one of the tombstones, joining in a rite whose meaning was unknown to me, yet at the same time familiar, perhaps in much the same way that most ancient secrets are...<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhEft6g32qSOQMS8oIJJQy9GHsp6VVH2_aZCSZWQgJdNKuRHzzHeAkiq2ciqkGOjCRlqvnMZhyphenhyphengAzUB5mofmNzcMLdRD4BTjweOra3bk6CEmYljNwT-Tmcb6PKDmMTgRM1Vpyh2i53WaMeA/s1600/Standing+before+a+stela.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="300" nda="true" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhEft6g32qSOQMS8oIJJQy9GHsp6VVH2_aZCSZWQgJdNKuRHzzHeAkiq2ciqkGOjCRlqvnMZhyphenhyphengAzUB5mofmNzcMLdRD4BTjweOra3bk6CEmYljNwT-Tmcb6PKDmMTgRM1Vpyh2i53WaMeA/s400/Standing+before+a+stela.JPG" width="400" /></a></div>
<br />
My bare Christian head<br />
capped by a yarmulke,<br />
<br />
I stand before<br />
the undecipherable.<br />
<br />
Strangers gather to string necklaces<br />
of gravel whispers on a stone throat<br />
<br />
and listen to its ancient tongue,<br />
swallowed whole but still wagging.<br />
<br />
Stones that clink like flint chalices,<br />
vessels of mute blessings,<br />
<br />
in each stone a word embalmed<br />
<em>(in the beginning was the word)</em>.<br />
<br />
Soft stones of alchemists<br />
quarried from secrets guarded<br />
<br />
in the sliver of space between<br />
molten lead and frozen mercury.<br />
<br />
My own pebble is hewed<br />
from poems I never learned<br />
<br />
but have always known<br />
yet fear I will not sing.<br />
<br />
Worried fingers warm<br />
my rounded stone<br />
<br />
before I perch it atop<br />
the roof of this tilting stela,<br />
<br />
repeating a rite felt more<br />
than understood,<br />
<br />
above illegible words<br />
chiseled in a language<br />
<br />
I will only know<br />
the day I meet<br />
<br />
the stranger who today<br />
for some reason<br />
<br />
has chosen me<br />
to remember him<br />
<br />
in this petrified choir<br />
on this verdant morning.<br />
<br />
Come now, time.<br />
Come blow on our ember stones.<br />
<div style="text-align: right;">
<span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: ES;"><span style="font-size: x-small;">© Lorenzo — Alchemist’s Pillow</span></span></div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhNCyzIkACDcP65F4BUOAIkFvp0Xr8mST_2sVZH02TeGmLGZ5UwERnHPlNcYZ8WeknigYD-yfIfsC57_vb-ABjqUSFVa4FsiQg__g10-VxYGqHMxw6H78TuhVtFpp5F2jlw_FNQ35YiNcg7/s1600/Three+tilting+stelae.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="270" nda="true" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhNCyzIkACDcP65F4BUOAIkFvp0Xr8mST_2sVZH02TeGmLGZ5UwERnHPlNcYZ8WeknigYD-yfIfsC57_vb-ABjqUSFVa4FsiQg__g10-VxYGqHMxw6H78TuhVtFpp5F2jlw_FNQ35YiNcg7/s400/Three+tilting+stelae.JPG" width="400" /></a></div>
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<em>Written for Tess Kincaid's Magpie Tales prompt for this week. Click on</em> <a href="http://magpietales.blogspot.com/2011/11/mag-90.html" target="_blank"><em><strong>this link</strong></em></a> <em>to see the other magpies.</em></div>Lorenzo — Alchemist's Pillowhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07522265816460154722noreply@blogger.com22tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6308428467776400130.post-49546928903429959532011-11-01T11:47:00.000+01:002011-11-11T09:19:08.037+01:00Plea for Mercy<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi4lCm1lrckjSew2vzx7TAidwBk0jFC6YNLbpS30r8WGUeKDmqccTyvaOfM7VozdJWPaNGFvQaVmI79kOloj2ArZIe1TPXv8QG1K0eO_StIRcKbJXP1zH9F77EMvISOdKkFMFm5ke2YqUvK/s1600/Shadow+on+Roc%25C3%25ADo+-+May+2011.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; cssfloat: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="400" ida="true" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi4lCm1lrckjSew2vzx7TAidwBk0jFC6YNLbpS30r8WGUeKDmqccTyvaOfM7VozdJWPaNGFvQaVmI79kOloj2ArZIe1TPXv8QG1K0eO_StIRcKbJXP1zH9F77EMvISOdKkFMFm5ke2YqUvK/s400/Shadow+on+Roc%25C3%25ADo+-+May+2011.JPG" width="300" /></a></div>
Long have I cherished the perhaps unoriginal but abiding belief that all art is a plea for mercy, that underlying all our poetry, music, painting, song, all our dancing hopes and rhymed and rhythmed rituals, is a plea for mercy, a petition to be reprieved, a pitch, if not quite for immortality, then for at least a new dawn, another child, for another day to see the harvest of what has been sown and hear new chapters in the unfinished story, an appeal for the circle to remain unbroken, the chain whole … just a little while longer, dear lord, just a little while longer…<br />
<br />
<br />
Yes, all art is a plea for mercy.<br />
<br />
On the shadow throat of the pilgrim’s path<br />
each chanted step is a prayer,<br />
at the bottom of the heart’s well,<br />
each gulped silence<br />
a plea for mercy.<br />
<br />
Every saxophone solo that noodles the sacred night<br />
as the moist nostrils of the newborn calf<br />
nudge and nuzzle the silent udder<br />
is a plea for mercy.<br />
<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgVgIKZkSE0SQjIsG8Y7XCt1fXHbTfEpjO_rPayuj1Df19t12KtmXy4SpnpG6D6s8XhTUahL3j0piR9npNf9dFTNW6kvtZw_uGrkEZVxwQe6Qe37VGwbg_qMk-ZSsKJeWw1BpzNY54ScsTq/s1600/Shadow+in+Duero+-+August+2011.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; cssfloat: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" height="200" ida="true" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgVgIKZkSE0SQjIsG8Y7XCt1fXHbTfEpjO_rPayuj1Df19t12KtmXy4SpnpG6D6s8XhTUahL3j0piR9npNf9dFTNW6kvtZw_uGrkEZVxwQe6Qe37VGwbg_qMk-ZSsKJeWw1BpzNY54ScsTq/s200/Shadow+in+Duero+-+August+2011.JPG" width="150" /></a></div>
Every lullaby<br />
epilogued by a rose-puckered kiss<br />
on the fevered brow <br />
of the sleeping child,<br />
<br />
and every eve when a lover petitions<br />
the stars with verse, a shepherd deflowers<br />
the wind with song, a lone rhapsode<br />
stitches geese into the clouds,<br />
is a plea for mercy.<br />
<br />
Every scribble in a tattered notepad, sighing<br />
to capture the melt of frost by the canyon rim,<br />
is a plea held up like the shield of Achilles<br />
when the thhhwang of the bow reminds us<br />
yet again that the great arrow is in flight.<br />
<br />
The thrilled eye that dips the paintbrush<br />
into the throbbing crucible before the canvas,<br />
aching to capture the poplars panticulating<br />
in the dusk purred breeze,<br />
is pleading for mercy.<br />
<br />
Every crooned blues sired by a whistling train<br />
infected with the pulse of wind-polished stars,<br />
every hand that skips on a goatskin drum<br />
as the barefoot girl shadow dances by the fire,<br />
every oboe bleating the memory of a mother’s scented breast,<br />
is a plea for mercy,<br />
<br />
is the compass of our wearied hero on the long trek home,<br />
is a plea, a wince, a supplication,<br />
a hiccup in the relentless countdown,<br />
a fistful of seed hurled at the eternal soil.<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg2QyS5oPusP1Rqr9YoOM5wdmlrFoZZ8l9506VysGoOuUCSEr2iURLNzkL0UtVGRwigQzoD8JM4RsoHRM_hccJ2zCXhct7UWSF6TnscVlse6HqUsXD3gYtWBEzc6l2vdn8Xp0yXOzXOYTix/s1600/Shadow+at+Auschwitz+-+summer+2011.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; cssfloat: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" ida="true" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg2QyS5oPusP1Rqr9YoOM5wdmlrFoZZ8l9506VysGoOuUCSEr2iURLNzkL0UtVGRwigQzoD8JM4RsoHRM_hccJ2zCXhct7UWSF6TnscVlse6HqUsXD3gYtWBEzc6l2vdn8Xp0yXOzXOYTix/s320/Shadow+at+Auschwitz+-+summer+2011.JPG" width="240" /></a></div>
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* * *</div>
<br />
Yes, all my adult life I have held fast to this modest belief and still do even as I struggle to make it up right here and now. Yet, though I would only discover this later on, this and all other warm fuzzy certitudes suddenly turned to salt stone in that one incalculable instant when I walked beneath a crooked metal arc that muttered in a foul-breathed whisper: “Arbeit Macht Frei”.<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
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<br />
<span style="font-size: x-small;"><u>Photos of Lorenzo shadows</u>:</span><br />
<span style="font-size: x-small;">Top: On the Rocío pilgrimage trail — Spring 2011</span><br />
<span style="font-size: x-small;">Middle: Drinking in the Duero river between Spain and Portugal — Summer 2011</span><br />
<span style="font-size: x-small;">Bottom: Snagged in the barbwire at Auschwitz-Birkenau — Summer 2011</span><br />
<br />
<br />Lorenzo — Alchemist's Pillowhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07522265816460154722noreply@blogger.com27tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6308428467776400130.post-2345442493553409912011-09-11T19:37:00.002+02:002011-09-11T19:55:28.920+02:00Etching movements in the sky<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiiZaxJeKjmiBBfGmhByww4nOcnkFjpjvPcMqawq-1jpEi4S38o3KyR3g0HqrgQiSIrcoMBY7Pr1hyphenhyphenS-Mq3ff_V15oD0kAbH9vky7apumIIK37ODK8H3MBVAAiWZh4dM-6i1ul6dOxPAcnb/s1600/First+step+man+on+wire.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; cssfloat: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="400" rba="true" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiiZaxJeKjmiBBfGmhByww4nOcnkFjpjvPcMqawq-1jpEi4S38o3KyR3g0HqrgQiSIrcoMBY7Pr1hyphenhyphenS-Mq3ff_V15oD0kAbH9vky7apumIIK37ODK8H3MBVAAiWZh4dM-6i1ul6dOxPAcnb/s400/First+step+man+on+wire.jpg" width="301" /></a></div>
<em>The essential thing is to etch movements in the sky, movements so still they leave no trace. The essential thing is simplicity. That is why the long path to perfection is horizontal. </em>— Philippe Petit<br />
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Georgia; font-size: 10pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: ES;"></span> <br />
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Georgia; font-size: 10pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: ES;">Today, I choose not to remember them as towers of steel or cement or glass. Nor as towers of light in the bugled air. And certainly not as exploding hives or doomed smoldering pyres. No, I do not want to recall how they fell. Today, I prefer to remember them as they swayed, while they swung and rolled the rope under the feet of the beautiful madchild who loved them so.</span> <br />
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Georgia; font-size: 10pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: ES;"></span> <br />
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Georgia; font-size: 10pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: ES;">If you have not seen the film <strong><a href="http://www.manonwire.com/">Man on Wire</a></strong> documenting high-wire artist Philippe Petit's incredible feat of August 7, 1974, I recommend it and leave some video embeds and links below.</span> Click on the film's name to see the trailer.<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Georgia; font-size: 10pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: ES;"></span> <br />
<br />
The video below captures some of the best photos of the day and shots from the film: <br />
<br />
<iframe allowfullscreen="" frameborder="0" height="390" src="http://www.youtube-nocookie.com/embed/8jov-HMaOPQ?rel=0" width="480"></iframe><br />
<br />
For news footage from that day, including helicopter views and interview with the police officer who arrested him, see the following clip:<br />
<br />
<iframe allowfullscreen="" frameborder="0" height="390" src="http://www.youtube-nocookie.com/embed/lAVj2IVC9ko?rel=0" width="480"></iframe><br />
<br />
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Georgia; font-size: 10pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: ES;"></span> <br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Georgia; font-size: 10pt;">I recommend viewing the videos in full screen mode and at the highest definition available. <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6hRlFsBBje4">Click on this link</a> <span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Georgia; font-size: 10pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: ES;">to see a slideshow of Petit's astonishing stroll, with Leon Russell singing "Tightrope" as soundtrack</span>.</span></div>
<br />
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Georgia; font-size: 10pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: ES;"></span> <br />
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<em><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Georgia; font-size: 10pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: ES;">To those who built them high</span> </em></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Georgia; font-size: 10pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: ES;"><em>and those who gaped below, </em></span></div>
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<em>to those who tumbled down</em></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<em>and those who combed the rubble.</em></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<em><br /></em></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<em>And to those of us</em></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<em>who see them yet,</em></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<em>our still hearts clutched</em></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<em>on the quivering wire,</em></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<em>pilgrims perched on this traceless trail.</em></div>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh7QztpiUn6G2f0jCpcLMI5QEEMIeeHzAFx0mVeWG6mDk259vyhbwaOTrAlDFcNHF10i9eLzWBHHtSDKkIflSoeu9Zhnn1RBizy6RwYUFmMpk22bnT3CKs31W8LZjvbKO9jZHTwlQn3lV1_/s1600/Plane+over+Petit+between+Twin+Towers.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="220" rba="true" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh7QztpiUn6G2f0jCpcLMI5QEEMIeeHzAFx0mVeWG6mDk259vyhbwaOTrAlDFcNHF10i9eLzWBHHtSDKkIflSoeu9Zhnn1RBizy6RwYUFmMpk22bnT3CKs31W8LZjvbKO9jZHTwlQn3lV1_/s400/Plane+over+Petit+between+Twin+Towers.png" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
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Lorenzo — Alchemist's Pillowhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07522265816460154722noreply@blogger.com15tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6308428467776400130.post-29603497180438861402011-05-28T16:50:00.000+02:002011-05-28T16:50:42.443+02:00S.I.P. Gil Scot HeronI have been in the New York area for the last two weeks, working in the City the first week and visiting with my parents and friends in NJ for the last few days, before returning to Spain tomorrow.<br />
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Ever since I left the US for Spain some 26 years ago, such returns tug my mind and memory in many different directions. "You can't go home again" goes the old truism. It may be right, but whatever truth it encloses seems to wrong us in our perpetually earnest efforts to travel back across cultures, continents, ages and periods of our lives, to reconnect and mend frayed threads.<br />
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Many memories welled up today on hearing the sad news that singer, songwriter, musician and poet Gil Scot Heron has passed on, finishing his sojourn here all too soon at just 62, before moving on to the definitive home where we are all summoned to return. Swing in peace, Gil.<br />
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I am embedding below a clip of his classic "The Revolution Will Not Be Televised". It still packs a wallop after all these years...<br />
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<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><iframe allowfullscreen='allowfullscreen' webkitallowfullscreen='webkitallowfullscreen' mozallowfullscreen='mozallowfullscreen' width='320' height='266' src='https://www.youtube.com/embed/BS3QOtbW4m0?feature=player_embedded' frameborder='0'></iframe></div><br />
An alternate <em>reading</em> of the poem by Gil Scot Heron <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hjaADbq_2AI">can be heard here</a>.<br />
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Anyone care to reprise this for the revolution will not be podcast?Lorenzo — Alchemist's Pillowhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07522265816460154722noreply@blogger.com23tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6308428467776400130.post-84362914578950325892011-05-10T20:30:00.002+02:002011-05-10T21:15:00.765+02:00Four Haiku Movements of a Near Summer Day<div style="text-align: left;"><strong> I</strong></div>the sunlight nestles<br />
on the maple’s brow and lays<br />
golden trembling eggs<br />
<br />
<strong> II</strong><br />
the melon’s crisp red<br />
crunches the noonday silence<br />
until the breeze blows<br />
<br />
<strong> III</strong><br />
the green choirs of rye<br />
dance glissandos in the wind<br />
humming their sun strobed songs<br />
<br />
<strong> IV</strong><br />
fog erases my home<br />
smears its glow onto the night<br />
muffling my footsteps<br />
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<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgMGcExg_WNe1Op72ZYW2tkZ5z5xZdq2xvc74X5HprtfhJPzWgarch5ISlhVHLVxkbh8rxIS3PwVYF76815IcMHkgttKCr__jTkQZtTmkaR2wpvVSlEiKIBtlEpRFK-7a-TJHsd7DKEIDBP/s1600/Shoreham+Lavender+-+DerekHansen.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="281" j8="true" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgMGcExg_WNe1Op72ZYW2tkZ5z5xZdq2xvc74X5HprtfhJPzWgarch5ISlhVHLVxkbh8rxIS3PwVYF76815IcMHkgttKCr__jTkQZtTmkaR2wpvVSlEiKIBtlEpRFK-7a-TJHsd7DKEIDBP/s400/Shoreham+Lavender+-+DerekHansen.jpg" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: xx-small;">Shoreham Lavender</span> — © <span style="font-size: x-small;"><a href="http://1x.com/artist/41384">Derek Hansen</a></span><br />
<span style="font-size: x-small;">Click photo to enlarge, click on photographer's name to visit him at 1x.com</span></td></tr>
</tbody></table>Lorenzo — Alchemist's Pillowhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07522265816460154722noreply@blogger.com21tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6308428467776400130.post-79554194055526321082011-04-25T19:49:00.002+02:002011-04-26T01:01:50.368+02:00Descent from the Cross<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: left; margin-right: 1em; text-align: left;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiYUpLR4aEaSP5MQaQc1sBReOLqr8_DdI_iL9i6hYLyLidbb0QAZDACO55fdubDQwtZRUYeigJJa0WWMhX5nU01ft5K2133brHpXYOXLge5O9KAhiEHw3ODdjzNTkAA1yPlP3LjhW_Ulsbl/s1600/Cleophas+tears-2.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; cssfloat: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="181" i8="true" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiYUpLR4aEaSP5MQaQc1sBReOLqr8_DdI_iL9i6hYLyLidbb0QAZDACO55fdubDQwtZRUYeigJJa0WWMhX5nU01ft5K2133brHpXYOXLge5O9KAhiEHw3ODdjzNTkAA1yPlP3LjhW_Ulsbl/s200/Cleophas+tears-2.jpg" width="200" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Detail of Mary of Clopas</td></tr>
</tbody></table>I spent the better part of <em>Semana Santa</em> (Holy Week) holed up in my translator's den, pounding out an urgent tax law translation — how tediously inappropriate for a week that is celebrated and commemorated like no other here in Spain. Beginning as early as the Friday before Palm Sunday and lasting until Easter Sunday, every city and town and most villages host day after day of processions; plazas and streets fill with the slow somber shuffle of <em>Nazarenos</em> carrying flower-laden floats that bear wooden statues and images depicting scenes from the week that encapsulates the central drama of Christianity. The plaintive sour wail of trumpets and solemn rolling drums are heard everywhere. Some of the processions stretch on until nearly dawn.<br />
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In a week during which every year it feels like half of Spain has gone off to the shore and the other half is marching in or watching the processions, I was unable to do either. In atonement, I want to offer you a more solitary and quieter contemplation of the story commemorated by these festivities. It was gifted to all of us by the Flemish painter Rogier van der Weyden: his masterpiece "The Descent from the Cross" (also known as The Deposition). Painted in 1435, this oil on wooden panel is one of the treasures of the Prado Museum in Madrid. Though not as widely known and celebrated as the emblematic works of Velázquez, Goya, Rubens, Dürer, Bruegel the Elder, Bosch, Titian, El Greco, Tintoretto, Raphael and so many others that keep art lovers from all over the world streaming to the magnificent museum, it is one of my personal favorites.<br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg8f-Di7M3MdYqWz8jCBLD8_yUCXGKlYAkpgl0LqpeA8EdzuGWVHS9kBOo30fB9H6AMFmhQyHlNVbNmvw98bHJLCIj2P00ulGhYJ-NmkRg3NXnJMZ8Zq30479WE7Gc5A_QtxQG21YqU1saI/s1600/Weyden_Deposition.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="315" i8="true" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg8f-Di7M3MdYqWz8jCBLD8_yUCXGKlYAkpgl0LqpeA8EdzuGWVHS9kBOo30fB9H6AMFmhQyHlNVbNmvw98bHJLCIj2P00ulGhYJ-NmkRg3NXnJMZ8Zq30479WE7Gc5A_QtxQG21YqU1saI/s400/Weyden_Deposition.jpg" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Descent from the Cross. Rogier van der Weyden (1435).<br />
<a href="http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/1/1a/Weyden_Deposition.jpg">Click here for larger full resolution image</a>.</td></tr>
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I was first alerted to the wonders of this painting by a friend of mine who works as a restorer in the Prado. She explained that it is perhaps the best conserved work in the entire museum, in large part thanks to the technique used by Van der Weyden and other Flemish painters of his time of applying layer after layer of translucent paint onto an elaborate underpainting until a near enamel-like effect is achieved. The lapis lazuli used for Mary's robe is also amongst the finest that can be found in any painting from that period. As you contemplate this work, keep in mind that it was painted nearly 600 years ago. It underwent a major restoration in 1992 led by George Bisacca of the Metropolitan Museum of Art. <br />
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It is quite large, 220 cm by 262 cm (a bit more than 7 feet x 8.5 feet), so the figures are nearly lifesize. I have sat long and often in front of this scene, stood transfixed by its intense tones and glowing light, paced back and forth along its panorama of pent up pain. The details are simply astonishing. I can think of no other painting that more movingly captures and conveys the contained emotion of the persons represented here, their subdued and tender distress. Have tears ever been painted any better than this? See the two embedded videos further below before you answer.<br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiGA9rd2KI6RP4tOHoEFsF3X8sGIcPoyEVCAR6MX2ue_HI7MWzNOYdTqX3T1YQYmQocDM-Cq84j51RNFzuWfv7tr4-bc2HQhZfYwrQ6h4J9aj8cTYhMi770Xa0SB0v1OEza-evjTe1kxDRR/s1600/St+John+Evangelist+detail.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; cssfloat: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="200" i8="true" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiGA9rd2KI6RP4tOHoEFsF3X8sGIcPoyEVCAR6MX2ue_HI7MWzNOYdTqX3T1YQYmQocDM-Cq84j51RNFzuWfv7tr4-bc2HQhZfYwrQ6h4J9aj8cTYhMi770Xa0SB0v1OEza-evjTe1kxDRR/s200/St+John+Evangelist+detail.jpg" width="171" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">St. John the Evangelist</td></tr>
</tbody></table>On the right, clasping her hands, the stricken Mary Magdalene is curled by pain and sorrow into an arc of anguish that pairs well with the bowed solicitous figure of Saint John the Evangelist on the other end. He and Mary Salome gently attend to the swooned <em>mater dolorosa</em> sagging down into the deep folds of her lapis lazuli robe. Christ’s limp body is being swathed in fine linen and deposed from the cross by the venerable Nicodemus, the eldest of this congregation and the first to ponder the meaning of to be born again. The descended savior’s legs are held tenderly by Joseph of Arimathea, the man who donated the cave reserved for his own burial so that it be used for Christ’s entombment instead, and whose distrait gaze here seems lost in the cave of Adam’s eyes along a diagonal time tunnel that runs from the skull next to the Virgin’s right hand, through the wounds in Jesus’ hands, to Joseph’s tear soaked face (reflecting the belief that Christ was crucified on the spot where Adam was buried; indeed, Golgotha means the place of the skull).<br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhzZO2FDsSxi3savv-7BqZqS_dFiCDDxzRgmqqJeJwnoD5H3WgfxLJVZ-ZRIcj-HuQYC3ulDHjuV8YPJ_SLVzr-ZwUs1O7N2y1sGNWMPQGTfKerVYsdH_CnToNQgsh3ajHe5osmyyDjajjt/s1600/Detail+Mary+Magdalene.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; cssfloat: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="200" i8="true" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhzZO2FDsSxi3savv-7BqZqS_dFiCDDxzRgmqqJeJwnoD5H3WgfxLJVZ-ZRIcj-HuQYC3ulDHjuV8YPJ_SLVzr-ZwUs1O7N2y1sGNWMPQGTfKerVYsdH_CnToNQgsh3ajHe5osmyyDjajjt/s200/Detail+Mary+Magdalene.jpg" width="166" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Mary Magdalene</td></tr>
</tbody></table>The Virgin Mary and Jesus are at one again, coupled in the supple mirrored waves of their descending bodies, in the helpless fall of their arms, in the pallor of their skin tone — her virginal white further blanched by grief; his blue-grey pall of death somehow become the luminous focus of the painting. A mother and child reunion in their unconscious states: hers, the lapse between fainting and waking; his, the interlude between dying and arising.<br />
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I invite you to see the two embedded videos below to better witness what Van der Weyden has wrought with this masterwork. They come close to capturing the fascination one feels when viewing the Deposition up close. Very close. Do you see the tears move?<br />
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In this first video, I recommend setting the resolution at 480 and viewing in full screen. You would do well to turn your speakers up, too...<br />
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<object height="390" width="480"><param name="movie" value="http://www.youtube-nocookie.com/v/qD52rOsNE9M?fs=1&hl=en_US"></param><param name="allowFullScreen" value="true"></param><param name="allowscriptaccess" value="always"></param><embed src="http://www.youtube-nocookie.com/v/qD52rOsNE9M?fs=1&hl=en_US" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" allowscriptaccess="always" allowfullscreen="true" width="480" height="390"></embed></object><br />
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This second, briefer, video is largely concentrated on the holy woman to the far left, behind Saint John the Evangelist, identified by some art historians and Bible scholars as Mary of Clopas (Cleophas).<br />
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<object height="349" width="560"><param name="movie" value="http://www.youtube-nocookie.com/v/AVcp9t71nqo?fs=1&hl=en_US"></param><param name="allowFullScreen" value="true"></param><param name="allowscriptaccess" value="always"></param><embed src="http://www.youtube-nocookie.com/v/AVcp9t71nqo?fs=1&hl=en_US" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" allowscriptaccess="always" allowfullscreen="true" width="560" height="349"></embed></object><br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEheJavwgWeDuFmZDre-t1YrEIkgqrbDwDSJdZ6Jer9c3B2PPdHFtzLsfGYbTHo4BbcNLH_MvqSVLFp2UNjVvq7z3_4fPU7yuWkj9NSOCm0LRDbteDLeqY1zK4hWYtQy4Q7qX_BDfiTvMhaG/s1600/Rogier+Van+der+Weyden+deposition+detail+1.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="640" i8="true" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEheJavwgWeDuFmZDre-t1YrEIkgqrbDwDSJdZ6Jer9c3B2PPdHFtzLsfGYbTHo4BbcNLH_MvqSVLFp2UNjVvq7z3_4fPU7yuWkj9NSOCm0LRDbteDLeqY1zK4hWYtQy4Q7qX_BDfiTvMhaG/s640/Rogier+Van+der+Weyden+deposition+detail+1.jpg" width="435" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Mary of Clopas</td></tr>
</tbody></table><br />
I have always found the rendering of Mary Cleophas here to be especially riveting. The closeups allow us to appreciate the many fine details: the pin in her shawl, the reddened nose of ruddy grief, the tear about to find her lips...<br />
<blockquote><span style="color: #073763;">An iron sliver pins the folds</span><br />
<span style="color: #073763;">where birdsong tears the sails of dawn.</span><br />
<span style="color: #073763;">Her wedding band wraps horizons</span><br />
<span style="color: #073763;">into a golden nest of muted song.</span><br />
<br />
<span style="color: #073763;">Beneath the sutured brows</span><br />
<span style="color: #073763;">her sealed oyster eyes</span><br />
<span style="color: #073763;">squeeze out pearl gel tears</span><br />
<span style="color: #073763;">that slide down tracery veins of time</span><br />
<span style="color: #073763;">to salt the gathering of new hymns</span><br />
<span style="color: #073763;">cloistered in her lips.</span><br />
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<span style="color: #073763;">No shrill laments,</span><br />
<span style="color: #073763;">no cries, no wails, no</span><br />
<span style="color: #073763;">procession trumpets blare their sour dirge,</span><br />
<span style="color: #073763;">only the drum roll moaning of grief gulped down</span><br />
<span style="color: #073763;">in a throat threshed raw on Calvary stones.</span><br />
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<span style="color: #073763;">Who would know the tidal wave of sorrow</span><br />
<span style="color: #073763;">was but the cusp of hope?</span><br />
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-size: 10pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US;"> <span style="font-size: xx-small;">© Lorenzo — Alchemist's Pillow</span></span></blockquote><br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgPXhtIo8r3kTLNWXiykxIC4o1XM5VUV8jsc3-8KR49u8KDtgzxXnaeUYAriVW8RqJF5v6C09PKe9BgxEICm-vnbuiFNsQf0Parj07zKiJhpY-jL8ZSR7WzDMqFqfDB3GszGYbvfw29-OKN/s1600/Rogier+Van+der+Weyden+deposition+detail+2.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="300" i8="true" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgPXhtIo8r3kTLNWXiykxIC4o1XM5VUV8jsc3-8KR49u8KDtgzxXnaeUYAriVW8RqJF5v6C09PKe9BgxEICm-vnbuiFNsQf0Parj07zKiJhpY-jL8ZSR7WzDMqFqfDB3GszGYbvfw29-OKN/s400/Rogier+Van+der+Weyden+deposition+detail+2.jpg" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Further closeup of Mary of Clopas</td></tr>
</tbody></table><br />
<div style="text-align: justify;">For more information on this painting, I recommend the video and commentary at the always rewarding Smarthistory site, <a href="http://www.smarthistory.org/weyden-deposition.html?searched=weyden&highlight=ajaxSearch_highlight+ajaxSearch_highlight1">found here</a>. Another closeup exploration of the painting with music is <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L5TYzcef-OY">available here</a>.</div><br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhiB6P57NTpxso_FrEbxtsi112avViK5wkLv7c3828uShLdbtRsMQeHyq89P7emNjsdRvGqUdHf62ZgypTqvcY_1Gamc82vjRgAf2TBpvgjjHBH9JvaYu1tnKjcbrFMXtJXXeVIPkv0engP/s1600/Joseph+of+Arimathea+detail.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; cssfloat: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" i8="true" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhiB6P57NTpxso_FrEbxtsi112avViK5wkLv7c3828uShLdbtRsMQeHyq89P7emNjsdRvGqUdHf62ZgypTqvcY_1Gamc82vjRgAf2TBpvgjjHBH9JvaYu1tnKjcbrFMXtJXXeVIPkv0engP/s1600/Joseph+of+Arimathea+detail.jpg" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Joseph of Arimathea</td></tr>
</tbody></table>The <a href="http://www.museodelprado.es/en/visit-the-museum/15-masterpieces/work-card/obra/descent-from-the-cross/">Prado Museum web page on this work</a> is worth a visit. In addition to a brief description and history of the painting, it also allows you to hear the audio-guide while viewing a high resolution version. <a href="http://www.museodelprado.es/en/education/resources/audioguias/el-descendimiento/">It is available here</a> (the play icon there is easy to miss, it’s just above the right part of the cross. On the left side of the image, click on the full screen icon and then use your mouse wheel to zoom in and slide along this epic living altarpiece). The Prado page also has a link to see the painting in ultra-high resolution with Google Earth.Lorenzo — Alchemist's Pillowhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07522265816460154722noreply@blogger.com37tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6308428467776400130.post-38007995270278582412011-04-12T09:43:00.000+02:002011-04-12T09:43:22.720+02:00Anniversary<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEin8hxccB2J-_iGeQgxRh3QhqpKX41O8tv3KDZ1_VMiyafh9WLdEzthRAHF-LvNNJ9v_J2LPQWJgEupGNLTPDTyvA_6iAm5ctpFro6oXRUeY122JwdYzUnlYpRtiOfQN8SbLeIH4VJy_ZgA/s1600/all+those+dreams+from+the+past+-+Vlad+Dumitrescu.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="265" r6="true" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEin8hxccB2J-_iGeQgxRh3QhqpKX41O8tv3KDZ1_VMiyafh9WLdEzthRAHF-LvNNJ9v_J2LPQWJgEupGNLTPDTyvA_6iAm5ctpFro6oXRUeY122JwdYzUnlYpRtiOfQN8SbLeIH4VJy_ZgA/s400/all+those+dreams+from+the+past+-+Vlad+Dumitrescu.jpg" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: x-small;">Photo by </span><a href="http://vlad-dumitrescu.blogspot.com/"><span style="font-size: x-small;">Vlad Dumitrescu</span></a><span style="font-size: x-small;"> from </span><a href="http://1x.com/photo/29637/portfolio/9541"><span style="font-size: x-small;">1x.com</span></a></td></tr>
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<div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: large;">The widow</span></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: large;">suckles his photo,</span></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: large;">black bunting</span></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: large;">drapes chipped glass.</span></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: large;">She sighs a craquelure smile—</span></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: large;">"I'm all he has left".</span></div><br />
Anne Welch is guest hosting this week’s <i>Monday One Stop Poetry Form</i> at One Stop Poetry. There she is discussing a poetic form know as <i>shadorma</i>, basically, a six-line poem with no fixed rhyme scheme and a 3/5/3/3/7/5. syllable structure. I had never heard of this form before and the poem above is thus my respectful first offering. To read more about the shadorma form and see what other One Stop Poetry participants have done with it, <a href="http://onestoppoetry.com/2011/04/monday-one-stop-poetry-form-guest-host-anne-welch-shadorma.html">click here</a>.<br />
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The image is from photographer Vlad Dumitrescu of Romania, who has a <a href="http://vlad-dumitrescu.blogspot.com/">lovely blog</a>.Lorenzo — Alchemist's Pillowhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07522265816460154722noreply@blogger.com19tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6308428467776400130.post-4116436845833218212011-03-29T01:49:00.002+02:002011-03-29T01:59:29.446+02:00Through a glass, lightly<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgYFMGruUUWI7KQG5ielL6zHhzPMSLi7UrH4NJkO-TpPojZMcdA24hKlkb9rAPSdBhouGo0TUNMioGSkvqpaxxgTcnWPtbNZunm1HEdX-jRZQB0PQn75yXyuUe-aeWCyerCfCKjcjMRudPI/s1600/Mona+Lisa.jpeg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; cssfloat: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" r6="true" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgYFMGruUUWI7KQG5ielL6zHhzPMSLi7UrH4NJkO-TpPojZMcdA24hKlkb9rAPSdBhouGo0TUNMioGSkvqpaxxgTcnWPtbNZunm1HEdX-jRZQB0PQn75yXyuUe-aeWCyerCfCKjcjMRudPI/s320/Mona+Lisa.jpeg" width="213" /></a></div><br />
<span style="color: #073763; font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;">Buxom smile</span><br />
<span style="color: #073763; font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;">in a diffident corset,</span><br />
<span style="color: #073763; font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;">she sat for one</span><br />
<span style="color: #073763; font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;">now stands for the mega-art-millioned.</span><br />
<br />
<span style="color: #073763; font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;">More than a portrait,</span><br />
<span style="color: #073763; font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;">Leonardo slipped a perverse lens,</span><br />
<span style="color: #073763; font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;">a re-fractious looking glass,</span><br />
<span style="color: #073763; font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;">into the centre of impossible scales.</span><br />
<br />
<span style="color: #073763; font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;">Gioconda, coy grin on one still pan,</span><br />
<span style="color: #073763; font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;">balancing a world agawk </span><br />
<span style="color: #073763; font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;">swinging wildly on the other.</span><br />
<span style="color: #073763; font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;">Leonardo: master optician, engineer,</span><br />
<span style="color: #073763; font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;">prankster.</span><br />
<div style="text-align: right;"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 10pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: ES;"> <span style="color: #073763;"> © Lorenzo — Alchemist's Pillow</span></span></div><br />
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</div><div style="text-align: center;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: center;">* * *</div> <br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgmzh1vWVrma3RZ5ne1vnlfOdAte85uHBZfU3-ZBcSIiS3IJ79LB4ko1S0J2FbMwOPcjhWxsqcCQqL-QapOCnu1s7dZw11iP6P4fhrvg2wihzSme1h8VCxqWWPy16zaZtkxakHq1J6b-i44/s1600/Mona+Lisa+crowd+by+Jack+Holmes.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="212" r6="true" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgmzh1vWVrma3RZ5ne1vnlfOdAte85uHBZfU3-ZBcSIiS3IJ79LB4ko1S0J2FbMwOPcjhWxsqcCQqL-QapOCnu1s7dZw11iP6P4fhrvg2wihzSme1h8VCxqWWPy16zaZtkxakHq1J6b-i44/s320/Mona+Lisa+crowd+by+Jack+Holmes.jpg" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Mona Lisa crowd — photo by <a href="http://www.pbase.com/jackholmes/image/50602235">Jack Holmes</a></td></tr>
</tbody></table>This piece was written for this week's <em>magpie tales</em> prompt, the hyped and hyper arch-famous image of the Mona Lisa (La Gioconda). To see what other participants in Tess Kincaid's writing group are offering, and perhaps give it a try yourself, go see <a href="http://magpietales.blogspot.com/2011/03/mag-59.html">Mag 59</a>. This is also my first attempt at the new genre started by Ruth at <a href="http://ruthie822.blogspot.com/2011/03/nouvelle-55-girl-by-window.html">synch-ro-ni-zing</a>: <em>Nouvelle 55</em>, "flash fiction, based on a piece of art, in 55 words".Lorenzo — Alchemist's Pillowhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07522265816460154722noreply@blogger.com29tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6308428467776400130.post-83203927978671113082011-03-07T22:31:00.004+01:002011-03-07T22:35:28.878+01:00Pentatonic memories<div style="text-align: right;"><em>Life without music would be a mistake</em></div><br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://www.vectorstock.com/composite/15185/notes-lines-vector.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; cssfloat: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="200" q6="true" src="http://www.vectorstock.com/composite/15185/notes-lines-vector.jpg" width="190" /></a></div>The above quote from Nietzsche is what my oldest daughter uses as her wall slogan on facebook. An accomplished cellist, Isabel, now 20, has been a music lover all her life. Perhaps a bit longer even. I remember going to a jazz club in Madrid one night with my wife María when she was seven months pregnant with Isabel. The swirling sound of Frank Lacy’s rollicking trombone seemed to touch off an especially vigorous round of kicking and dancing from our soon to be firstborn.<br />
<br />
As a newborn, hearing music would almost always arrest her attention instantly. Lullabies soothed her to sleep, although at times not without some poignant whimpering and gurgling that we eagerly took to be attempts to hum along. A few months shy of her second birthday, she had already learned to use the sound system in the living room, pushing Play on the CD player and adjusting the volume. It is an abiding image I have of her, standing on her doughy baby legs in front of the amplifier and CD unit, concentrating as she poked her finger at the button, waiting in rapt attention as if for an oracle to speak, and then raising her faint eyebrows and waving her arms to spin into a triumphant dance as <em>El Señor Don Gato</em> would come on for the umpteenth time that day.<br />
<br />
When she turned three we signed her up for a music academy. The system followed there was that a parent had to go to the classes with the child in order to be able to guide their playing at home. So once a week for three years I had the pleasure of attending piano lessons with my daughter and a small group of other toddlers. The goal for the first year was for the child to learn how to pick out middle C on the piano (<em>do</em> in the <em>do-re-me-fa-sol-la-si</em> musical nomenclature used here in Spain) with her right thumb and play the four keys to the right of it, each key with it is own finger. They were to recognize those five notes on the pentagram, sing and play them on the piano; five notes, C-D-E-F-G (<em>do re mi fa sol</em> sounds so much nicer) on the G clef — the treble clef, up there where Langston Hughes heard “the tingle of a tear”.<br />
<br />
At first this struck me as quite ambitious for three year olds, but the kids were up to it and more. After a few months they could read, sing and play simple tunes with their right hands using those notes. The second year expanded the musical palette of the child musicians to a full octave and to the left hand as well, one octave lower, the F (bass) clef. Down there it was the left pinkie that played <em>do</em>, ring finger <em>re</em> and so on.<br />
<br />
I tell you this as background for an anecdote I have always cherished. One day at home, when she was four years old, a red-faced Isabel marched up to me with a mournful pout, a few big tears straggling down her cheeks, holding her left hand out for me to examine and dote on a swollen finger while she bawled out her mortified lament: <em>¡Papá! Mi hermanica me ha mordido en Re de la clave de Fa</em> — “Daddy, my baby sister bit me on D of the bass clef!”. Needless to say, she did not know how to say “the ring finger of my left hand”.<br />
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So from the tender youngest age, music was already part of her life and body. Her hands as staves, each finger a line of music. Ah, the grace notes I still hear when she points one of those lines at me in my memories.<br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhlYmYVmaRAwQJjff3RHtWAylpEdd_7f08iOuqEQyQh4GFpVkDwpREO3dUQr0pZCKDVTCMwJH3fYfvgv5GtnrnAM6AhLgq63Rnjtjs7ygIgMHK6Cvv63Z0Xw0WJuRn-CIg6o-Tv9D6nI7GQ/s1600/Hands+of+Pianist+-+Rodin-+Mus%25C3%25A9e+Rodin%252C+Paris.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="137" q6="true" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhlYmYVmaRAwQJjff3RHtWAylpEdd_7f08iOuqEQyQh4GFpVkDwpREO3dUQr0pZCKDVTCMwJH3fYfvgv5GtnrnAM6AhLgq63Rnjtjs7ygIgMHK6Cvv63Z0Xw0WJuRn-CIg6o-Tv9D6nI7GQ/s400/Hands+of+Pianist+-+Rodin-+Mus%25C3%25A9e+Rodin%252C+Paris.jpg" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><em>Hands of Pianist</em> - Rodin (Musée Rodin, Paris)</td></tr>
</tbody></table> <span style="font-size: x-small;">Image at top by </span><a href="http://www.vectorstock.com/royalty-free-vector/15185-notes-lines-vector"><span style="font-size: x-small;">angelp from vectorstock.com</span></a>Lorenzo — Alchemist's Pillowhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07522265816460154722noreply@blogger.com26tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6308428467776400130.post-17098789980645861242011-03-01T01:50:00.003+01:002011-04-12T10:01:58.996+02:00Dawn<div style="text-align: center;"><div align="justify"> <br />
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiBsqerUOAXOtreutYVVgvDs-BD_rHUyZ-AMgYsSPADpw9EMk9TGEkENUVs7VjSsJ85GyOc-v_yHt2DyyxJd4dBKKHjEyg5SbE3wv2RYJ1ORYYSpYB_gXDu3riM-T4w-5iC87pNuLnkMrk6/s1600/The+Church+in+Cassone+%2528Landscape+with+Cypress%2529+-+Gustav+Klimit.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="400" l6="true" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiBsqerUOAXOtreutYVVgvDs-BD_rHUyZ-AMgYsSPADpw9EMk9TGEkENUVs7VjSsJ85GyOc-v_yHt2DyyxJd4dBKKHjEyg5SbE3wv2RYJ1ORYYSpYB_gXDu3riM-T4w-5iC87pNuLnkMrk6/s400/The+Church+in+Cassone+%2528Landscape+with+Cypress%2529+-+Gustav+Klimit.jpg" width="397" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><em>The Church in Cassone (Landscape with Cypress)</em><br />
Gustav Klimt</td></tr>
</tbody></table> </div><span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;">dawn finds the graveyard</span></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;">skylarks bathe in puddled tombs</span></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;">sipping lost refrains</span></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;">there stands the silent cypress</span></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;">rooted and rising the song</span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: left;"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 12pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: ES;">The above is a tanka. For more on this Japanese poem form I recommend </span><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 12pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-weight: bold; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: ES;">this <a href="http://www.ahapoetry.com/tanka.htm">introduction from the AHA Poetry site</a>. I am linking this post at the current One Stop Poetry Form post, where you can read more haiku and tanka poems by other participants by <a href="http://onestoppoetry.com/2011/02/one-stop-poetry-form-a-little-tanka-a-little-haiku.html">clicking here</a>. </span></div>Lorenzo — Alchemist's Pillowhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07522265816460154722noreply@blogger.com19tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6308428467776400130.post-26316709312939699792011-02-27T19:35:00.000+01:002011-02-27T19:35:06.664+01:00The sweet breath of flattery .... <table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: left; margin-right: 1em; text-align: left;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhr7WAqog8xRj4AnJRkVPmm_MA8oba-FY-RQAfS1TeCTs4N-qARDLSEQ-YuRPKO_YGR4vFZD4Yzpl4PZY8IFMwDNTXpGF52NeZTQt0Y4NOBfrjFYn_Hqj71UIeNK6_FMcA_xz3R7P82kmRm/s1600/Heraclitus+detail+from+Raphael%2527s+School+of+Athens.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; cssfloat: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="200" l6="true" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhr7WAqog8xRj4AnJRkVPmm_MA8oba-FY-RQAfS1TeCTs4N-qARDLSEQ-YuRPKO_YGR4vFZD4Yzpl4PZY8IFMwDNTXpGF52NeZTQt0Y4NOBfrjFYn_Hqj71UIeNK6_FMcA_xz3R7P82kmRm/s200/Heraclitus+detail+from+Raphael%2527s+School+of+Athens.jpg" width="138" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Heraclitus. Detail from<br />
<em>School of Athens</em> - Raphael</td></tr>
</tbody></table> <div style="text-align: right;"><em>'Tis holy sport to be a little vain,</em></div><div style="text-align: right;"><em>When the sweet breath of flattery conquers strife.</em></div><div style="text-align: right;">(William Shakespeare<em>, The Comedy of Errors)</em></div><br />
A couple of weeks ago I learned that this blog had been included on a list of the “Top 50 Art History Blogs”. What’s that you say? You are startled? You should be, I certainly was. I received an unexpected email kindly informing me of this distinction, with a link to the site and inviting me to put the link and badge for the list on my blog. On visiting the web page, I found that, sure enough, my humble pillow was listed there with this blurb:<br />
<blockquote><span style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue", Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">“Alchemist’s Pillow: This lovely blog is intended as a respite for readers who at times find the world a bit jarring. We like the blogger’s refreshing perspective on familiar works. Featured artists include Ansel Adams, Rafael, Escher, and Goya.”</span></blockquote>How nice, I thought, although quietly trying to remember when I had ever done anything on the painter Raphael (clue: never, but I did post a poem by Rafael Alberti). Even nicer, though, was the fine company I was in, as some of the other art sites on the list are long-time favorites of mine, like Margaret’s <a href="http://www.theearthlyparadise.com/">The Earthly Paradise</a>, Bob’s <a href="http://artblogbybob.blogspot.com/">Art Blog by Bob</a> and a few others (though I was a bit puzzled and disappointed over some of the ones that were missing, like Linnea West’s <a href="http://artsravel.blogspot.com/">Art Ravels</a> and Jane Librizzi’s <a href="http://thebluelantern.blogspot.com/">The Blue Lantern</a>).<br />
<br />
Although this little ego massage was not unappreciated, I decided not to insert a link/badge, mainly because the list is featured on a commercial site that seems otherwise unconcerned with art history. Although they have done at least some research, and the list is helpful in finding art history sites, it had all the makings of a marketing wiz’s ploy to build up traffic to a decidedly non-art commercial site. And, after all, how reliable can a top 50 art history blogs list be that includes a little lapis lazuli elephant whose most prized self-proclaimed talent is an <a href="http://www.alchemistspillow.com/2010/04/my-braggadocio-screeches-louder-than.html">ability to talk to fax machines</a>? It had to be a gimmick.<br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEidD3r5VVZC7XV8fXXX5pkagKc3JBDOwjWeA7bHK4wGq-l6ziag_C2usSZ3soPHuvnhAm1zuhFFPJS7eiR8uwI6Dg47HJu8FE7f38J0Cc-VrR27av6_5NG5Wo1bwgwOF8RcPHNLe9ZZ53yi/s1600/Raphael%25E2%2580%2594+The+School+of+Athens.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="310" l6="true" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEidD3r5VVZC7XV8fXXX5pkagKc3JBDOwjWeA7bHK4wGq-l6ziag_C2usSZ3soPHuvnhAm1zuhFFPJS7eiR8uwI6Dg47HJu8FE7f38J0Cc-VrR27av6_5NG5Wo1bwgwOF8RcPHNLe9ZZ53yi/s400/Raphael%25E2%2580%2594+The+School+of+Athens.jpg" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://boisestate.edu/courses/images/art/Raphael-SchoolofAthens.jpg">Raphael — <em>The School of Athens</em>, 1510, fresco, Vatican</a><br />
(There! Now, I have done something on Raphael)</td></tr>
</tbody></table><br />
And so it was… and it is not the only one. Apparently this is becoming a fairly common tactic, not just in art history but in many other appealing fields as well. The site I am cited on also carries lists of the Best 50 Buddhist Blogs, 50 Awesome Atheistic/Agnostic Blogs, Top 50 Insect Blogs, Top 50 European Travel Blogs, Top 30 Civil War Blogs... Isn’t it reassuring, at least, to see that we get <em>fewer</em> (only 30) civil wars than dragonflies, awesome atheists, presumably awed Buddhists and leaning-tower-of-Pisa-holder-uppers? And isn't it fun imagining a blog that could somehow manage to make it onto all of these lists (Jeffscape, and 10th Daughter of Memory, are you out there)? This weekend I found an excellent description and discussion of this trend, <em><a href="http://www.3pipe.net/2011/02/toplists-and-award-badges-art-history.html">Top lists and award badges: art history bloggers beware</a></em>, at H Niyazi’s superb art blog <a href="http://www.3pipe.net/">three pipe problem</a> (3pp). I encourage you to read the article and treat yourself to a rewarding stroll through his blog.<br />
<br />
<div style="text-align: left;"></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://www.ahdb.org/" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; cssfloat: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" l6="true" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjI4QzEyZLvytYmCeK-L841UTWhD9LZnyVnAR3pPWWEyZ2p2IwAJDSYtkSm8q_i4fHsqsNDrCuR-lrUFvOiNaDDl_C2LGVG4D-eCqlwSuudr-jFtCl38073LJCpJqcOjEgWOH-WVpuQRZZZ/s1600/AHDB.png" /></a></div>Which brings me to the real point of this post: 3pp has just announced a new project, the art and history site database (AHDB). It is in part a response to the success toplisters are achieving in having their less than reliable lists and rankings of websites claim the choicest turf of the google-search hits list real estate. <br />
<br />
In 3pp’s own words:<br />
<blockquote><span style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue", Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">"The Art and History site Database (AHDB) has been created to serve a specific purpose. Searching online for quality sites dedicated to art and history has become a time consuming process. The Wiki entry for a particular topic or artist is usually the top result in many instances, followed by a slew of image gallery or painting reproduction sites. With particular regard to blogs on the topics of art and history, there is presently no detailed resource that attempts to catalogue these sites and create a search engine that searches only these sites. (…)</span><span style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue", Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br />
</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue", Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">This project was commenced in November 2010 and has been tested by a closed group of students and art historians. The basic aim is to create a useful tool to make finding art and history sites easier. There are many resources for art and history online but one that aims to include blogs simply does not exist. An increasing amount of art historians, classicists and authors are now blogging, and there should be a resource to find them that is as easy to use as Google."</span><br />
<div style="text-align: right;">(<a href="http://www.3pipe.net/2011/02/art-and-history-site-database.html">Click here to read 3pp’s introduction to the database</a>)</div></blockquote>To be included on the list of sites that AHDB will search, a blog must be previously submitted to and approved by the AHDB administrator. I have the impression that the list is growing quickly and will soon become a very valuable resource for art history enthusiasts and researchers. I encourage all of you to check out the site, spread the word to bloggers who may be interested in using its search engine and/or being included on the site list. It is not a commercially driven project and will therefore be much harder to manipulate for toplisters and all those clever people out there who devote their time and talent to such things.<br />
<br />
The address for the new search tool is <a href="http://www.ahdb.org/">http://www.ahdb.org/</a>. I will probably put a link to it on my sidebar in the near feature. The alchemist’s pillow has been included there, and that is a distinction I am pleased to have been given and just as pleased to publicize. So, spread the word.<br />
<br />
I know I have inserted many links here; if you only have time or patience or clicking stamina for one, it is <a href="http://www.3pipe.net/">this one for 3pp</a>, a wonderful, rewarding and very enjoyable site.Lorenzo — Alchemist's Pillowhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07522265816460154722noreply@blogger.com15tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6308428467776400130.post-57630881512117245272011-02-23T19:14:00.003+01:002011-02-28T08:52:02.499+01:00Throbbings<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: left; margin-right: 1em; text-align: left;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEik4Kz_hK1B93XYzre3oT07dSAcEcCkVhh13v1WIxuKUh3LdUcoANJGsQAypxYzS_HlEfUrvdPyCQ0y7eEVL0dURn0WgsjGA7Ln3yrQCmps_gT0o4j8k2CzmmrMt-bXXPmiI8CMN2NeAOp2/s1600/Dad+%2526+Me+-+Caracas.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; cssfloat: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="320" j6="true" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEik4Kz_hK1B93XYzre3oT07dSAcEcCkVhh13v1WIxuKUh3LdUcoANJGsQAypxYzS_HlEfUrvdPyCQ0y7eEVL0dURn0WgsjGA7Ln3yrQCmps_gT0o4j8k2CzmmrMt-bXXPmiI8CMN2NeAOp2/s320/Dad+%2526+Me+-+Caracas.jpg" width="241" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: x-small;">Dad and me in Caracas 1957/8</span></td></tr>
</tbody></table>I am still mulling and musing the followup to my previous post on <a href="http://www.alchemistspillow.com/2011/02/olvidium.html">olvidium</a> ... In the meantime I thought I would post something different, although perhaps not completely unrelated to that term that I offered as the opposite of memory. We tend to think of remembrance and forgetting as individual processes in our minds, but there is, of course, also collective memory and amnesia. Today I wanted to float up something that has been nearly lost in my family memory, specifically, on my father's side.<br />
<br />
As I have mentioned elsewhere, my dad was born over 84 years ago in Brooklyn, NY, to Lebanese-Syrian immigrant parents. Unfortunately, I am completely ignorant of my Arab ancestry and heritage, do not speak the language, never been in the Middle East, did not really know my paternal grandparents (my father's father died before I was born and my grandmother when I was still a toddler in Venezuela), and know next to nothing about the family tree. All I consciously carry of this heritage is a love for Lebanese food of the kind that accompanied all holiday gatherings at the Brooklyn home of my uncle Floyd and aunt Beatrice 'Beattie' Holway. The contrast with the centrality in my life of my Spanish family and heritage is striking. Although I never gave this more than a passing thought when younger, in recent years I have come to rue this silence and absence, the roots and trunk of a family tree sunk in a mysterious, almost exotic darkness.<br />
<br />
Sometimes a distant flash of lightning has briefly pierced that darkness. I recall a night 20 years ago, when my aunt Beattie was visiting us in Spain from Brooklyn just a few months after our daughter Isabel was born. One quiet stay-at-home night in our small apartment in downtown Madrid, my aunt gathered Isabel up in her arms from her crib and began cooing her to sleep with a Lebanese lullaby sung in Arabic. I felt spellbound by the unknown music, as if witnessing the arc of time pass above me from lost generations of the past to the daughter child who in those days seemed nothing less than the gurgling, diapered concentration of my life's hopes and dreams. The moment still glows warmly in my memory, which searches itself futilely for the hushed hum of a tune I never learned and words I could not understand. That quiet night, the cooing arc, the way Beattie cradled my daughter in her arms, Isabel gurgling off to sleep are all so vivid in my mind — how is it that the music and words are nowhere to be found?<br />
<br />
Some years later, at a surprise 80th birthday party for my aunt Beattie, I met George Selim, a scholar, researcher and translator of Arab-American poetry. He explained to me that his connection with the family was that he had done extensive research into a Syrian poet in my family's past who had lived in New York as a member of what he termed the Syrian-Lebanese diaspora in New York. The story piqued my interest but I pursued it no further and even forgot the name of the poet.<br />
<br />
<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: left; margin-right: 1em; text-align: left;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi3lq6Out9If_y8nTpILqsF91ZbyRbmCCg6v-QUGd2BB0eyMR_CjhxJz6vFDY2aHK9rFnd79mS2p0p2NuB9wq1Ddu1-Oc-vcfEesYaoo_OjM5uWuHAzajXsIxsNhTqmrkMEMI_t_ThVZ5qx/s1600/Grape+Leaves+-+A+Century+of+Arab-American+Poetry.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; cssfloat: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="320" j6="true" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi3lq6Out9If_y8nTpILqsF91ZbyRbmCCg6v-QUGd2BB0eyMR_CjhxJz6vFDY2aHK9rFnd79mS2p0p2NuB9wq1Ddu1-Oc-vcfEesYaoo_OjM5uWuHAzajXsIxsNhTqmrkMEMI_t_ThVZ5qx/s320/Grape+Leaves+-+A+Century+of+Arab-American+Poetry.jpg" width="203" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Grape Leaves: A Century of<br />
<a href="http://www.interlinkbooks.com/product_info.php?products_id=391">Arab-American Poetry</a></td></tr>
</tbody></table>Then last October, on a visit to my parents back home in New Jersey, I had lunch with a cousin who is much better versed than I am in Arabic and our Lebanese-Syrian ancestry. I asked about the poet and she told me about Jamil B. Holway, a distant relative of mine as it turns out (a great uncle, once or twice removed). Jamil Holway was born in Damascus, Syria in 1883 and studied at the American University in Beirut before emigrating to the US, where he practiced law, served as an interpreter and examiner for the Immigration Service, and worked for the US Office of War Information during World War II. A contemporary and acquaintance of Khalil Gibran (famous for <em>The Prophet</em> and other works), Elia Abu Madi and other Arab-American poets, he was himself a published and respected poet. <br />
<br />
A bit of google research has allowed me to find the following poem by Jamil B. Holway, translated by George Dimitri Selim, the family friend I met at my aunt's birthday. It is called <em>Throbbings</em> (note that 'Zaynab' is a popular name for women in Arabic).<br />
<br />
<em><strong><u><span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;">Throbbings</span></u></strong></em><br />
<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;">Zaynab complained against me</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;">to the judge of love.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;"><em>"He has sly eyes,"</em> she told him,</span><br />
<em><span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;">"which roam around me</span></em><br />
<em><span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;">to devour my beauty.</span></em><br />
<em><span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;">Judge of love!</span></em><br />
<em><span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;">I am not safe anymore.</span></em><br />
<br />
<em><span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;">"I think his eyes are two bees</span></em><br />
<em><span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;">raiding the honey</span></em><br />
<em><span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;">which sweetens my lips.</span></em><br />
<em><span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;">I see them as two eagles</span></em><br />
<em><span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;">hovering in space,</span></em><br />
<em><span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;">descending to snatch me.</span></em><br />
<em><span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;">I think, and from my fear,</span></em><br />
<em><span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;">I think strange things.</span></em><br />
<em><span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;">God knows how much I suffer from my thoughts.</span></em><br />
<br />
<em><span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;">"He invaded me with his eyes</span></em><br />
<em><span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;">and, as if this were not enough,</span></em><br />
<em><span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;">he tried to lower my standing among people.</span></em><br />
<em><span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;">Hypocritically, he said</span></em><br />
<em><span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;">that I have stolen my beauty from the universe,</span></em><br />
<em><span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;">and that it was not created naturally in me.</span></em><br />
<em><span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;">That I have plundered the morning for a face,</span></em><br />
<em><span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;">the dusk for hair,</span></em><br />
<em><span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;">uniting both in me.</span></em><br />
<em><span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;">That from the gardens</span></em><br />
<em><span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;">I have stolen the flowers for cheeks</span></em><br />
<em><span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;">—my cheeks are rosy.</span></em><br />
<em><span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;">That I have covered my neck with pure snow,</span></em><br />
<em><span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;">and that my eyes are tinted with narcissus.</span></em><br />
<br />
<em><span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;">"When my voice enchanted him</span></em><br />
<em><span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;">he denied it, and said:</span></em><br />
<em><span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;">'It's a nightingale singing in the garden.'</span></em><br />
<em><span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;">With sword-like glances I struck him,</span></em><br />
<em><span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;">he said, and in his deep-red blood</span></em><br />
<em><span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;">I dyed my finger tips</span></em><br />
<em><span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;">and in his poems he chanted alluding to me.</span></em><br />
<em><span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;">So people said:</span></em><br />
<em><span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;">'His meanings are necklaces of pearls.'</span></em><br />
<em><span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;">Lord of verdicts!</span></em><br />
<em><span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;">Administer your justice between us.</span></em><br />
<em><span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;">Enough of his straying in love.</span></em><br />
<em><span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;">I've had enough!"</span></em><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;">When the time of complaint was over,</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;">the judge asked me:</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;">"What is your answer,</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;">you who are so passionately in love?"</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;">I said:</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;">"I find ... that I am a criminal.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;">My insanity may not be deferred.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;">She has dispossessed me</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;">of mind and heart."</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;"> <span style="font-size: x-small;">From the book <em>Grape Leaves: A Century of Arab-American Poetry</em></span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif; font-size: x-small;"> Published by Interlink Books, 2000; edited by Gregory Orfalea and Sharif Elmusa</span><br />
<br />
I offer these 'throbbings' from the accused heart of an Arab-American poet in hopeful solidarity with the dramatic and inspiring stirrings we have been seeing these days on the Arab street.<br />
<br />
As a soundtrack for these musings, I will leave you with the quartet led by percussion great Chico Hamilton, with a very young Larry Coryell playing his original composition "Larry of Arabia", from the 1966 album <em><a href="http://www.amazon.com/Dealer-Chico-Hamilton/dp/B00001QGOB">The Dealer</a></em>:<br />
<br />
<object height="349" width="425"><param name="movie" value="http://www.youtube-nocookie.com/v/dHP6NzrFrR0?fs=1&hl=en_US&rel=0"></param><param name="allowFullScreen" value="true"></param><param name="allowscriptaccess" value="always"></param><embed src="http://www.youtube-nocookie.com/v/dHP6NzrFrR0?fs=1&hl=en_US&rel=0" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" allowscriptaccess="always" allowfullscreen="true" width="425" height="349"></embed></object>Lorenzo — Alchemist's Pillowhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07522265816460154722noreply@blogger.com24tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6308428467776400130.post-50985347918697775082011-02-18T22:22:00.000+01:002011-02-18T22:22:01.632+01:00Olvidium<br />
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: left; margin-right: 1em; text-align: left;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEigE4_RPeDodEDddy55affKxGNcV1EsxZohuAsc8oW072InfC82wNHKA0np1uozM5BVkNstfyOTKOhdVmGWATM3QcR0Uz5clCOy6FxProzhZNFjpoHpeUYgi0uAal_6_TuBDcw6m5ujKISI/s1600/Beyond+the+Nothingness+-+Andrea+Auf+dem+Brinke.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="320" j6="true" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEigE4_RPeDodEDddy55affKxGNcV1EsxZohuAsc8oW072InfC82wNHKA0np1uozM5BVkNstfyOTKOhdVmGWATM3QcR0Uz5clCOy6FxProzhZNFjpoHpeUYgi0uAal_6_TuBDcw6m5ujKISI/s320/Beyond+the+Nothingness+-+Andrea+Auf+dem+Brinke.jpg" width="302" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: x-small;"><a href="http://1x.com/photos/member/10009/20451/">Beyond the Nothingness</a></span><br />
<span style="font-size: x-small;"> Andrea Auf dem Brinke —</span> <a href="http://1x.com/">1x.com</a></td></tr>
</tbody></table>English, like all major languages, is hugely rich beyond our capacity to exhaust its possibilities. Not even Shakespeare would entertain the notion that he did or ever could plumb its full depths, float up all its sunken treasures. Language is as bottomlessly deep as mythic oceans, as our collective unconscious. But it does have boundaries, porous ones, but boundaries nonetheless. And it is sometimes when one straddles or crosses the borders with other languages that one can find our language does have some gaps, some missing pieces. I feel we have the duty and the pleasure of pondering and filling in those blanks. <br />
<br />
A case in point: we do not have a word for … for … hmmmm … How can I say this? A word for …<br />
<br />
Well, that’s just the problem, isn’t it? When your language does not have a word for something, it can be vexingly difficult to pinpoint that something or even be aware that it exists ... or that it doesn’t; like trying to imagine and describe an unknown color or spot a shadow in the dark. Not just any candlestick will do.<br />
<br />
Let me take another tack… What is the opposite of memory? When we remember something, it is in our memory, but when we do not remember, where is it? Where do forgotten memories go? I know we have the term ‘oblivion’, but it is too dire and absolute for what I am grasping at here, its connotations too apocalyptic. Oblivion is where lost time gets irretrievably lost; I am looking for something lighter, less dire.<br />
<br />
As you may have already noticed, I love wordplay and like to invent words. I have even coined a term for this, “woiding”, inventing a word to fill a void, whether real, perceived or imagined. Recently I devoted a post to one — <a href="http://www.alchemistspillow.com/2011/01/hydrochromology.html">hydrochromology</a>: the search for a unified field theory of the water and color cycles. And today I need a term for the opposite of memory, for the graveyard of vanished recollections, the repository of things that we have forgotten.<br />
<br />
Spanish, like other languages, has a word for it: <em>olvido</em>, from the verb <em>olvidar</em>, to forget, with the same Latin root <em>obliv-</em> as 'oblivion'. In Spanish, when things slip out of my memory, they slide into <em>el olvido</em>. Memory can be personal, <em>mi recuerdo</em>, <em>mi memoria</em>, <strong>my</strong> recollection, <strong>my</strong> memory, or universal/impersonal/collective, <em>el recuerdo</em> or <em>la memoria</em>. But <em>olvido</em> is seemingly never personal, no one ever says <em><strong>mi </strong>olvido</em>; when something leaves <em><strong>mi</strong> memoria</em>, it goes into <em><strong>el</strong> olvido</em>.<br />
<br />
In English we tend to use the gerund “forgetting”, as when translating Neruda’s <em>es tan corto el amor y tan largo el olvido</em> — “so short is love, so long forgetting”. But still, forgetting is the act, whereas <em>olvido</em> is a place … the place where misplaced memories get shelved … memories lost, stolen or strayed. Where are you?<br />
<br />
I have toyed with different possible word corks to plug this gap, words like <em>oblivium</em> (an actual Latin word), <em>oblitium</em>, … Or a Greek morph: <em>letheum,</em> from the river Lethe of forgetfulness in the underworld of Hades, where it curls around the cave of Hypnos (the personification of sleep, twin brother of Thanatos, death, both born to the goddess Nyx, night, and Erebus, darkness — what a family!). Nice, but, again, these are so absolute sounding as to border on the cataclysmic. A less melodramatic and more English and Germanic-rooted stab in the dark would be <em>forgotdom</em>. Maybe <em>dismemory</em> or <em>unmemory</em>, <em>dismemberdom</em>, … no, none of these will do.<br />
<br />
I gave close consideration to <em>olvimory</em>, but that sounds a bit clunky, and I have provisionally opted for <em>olvidium</em>, as it seems to roll off the tongue more smoothly, just the way recollections can roll out of memory. Even so, it is, admittedly, a rather awkward way of expressing something that we all do so easily and naturally, something we are as comfortably familiar with as sleep and silence and darkness. A clumsy grafting of a familiar suffix onto an uprooted Spanish word; rather than truly ‘woiding’, what I am perhaps doing here is smuggling a term across linguistic borders, a little mangled after being snuck by the customs agents, but I hope it’s meaning is nonetheless clear. Olvidium: the opposite of memory, the capacity to forget experiences, impressions, recollections that were once in memory. And please, if you can do better or prefer another of the above, do let me know.<br />
<br />
But why do I feel the need to press this strange invention olvidium into service here? There is a reason. While I will not be so bold as to claim there is method to my madness, I do have my reasons, which I will be happy to lay before you, my esteemed and patient readers, in a future post. <br />
<br />
To be continued … (I hope, please remind me if I forget)Lorenzo — Alchemist's Pillowhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07522265816460154722noreply@blogger.com26tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6308428467776400130.post-35266507993286989352011-02-13T11:50:00.001+01:002011-02-13T15:48:42.133+01:00The hard struggle with his tools — Rilke and Rodin (part III)<div style="text-align: right;"><em><span style="font-size: xx-small;">{This is a continuation of the previous post on Rilke and Rodin;</span></em></div><div style="text-align: right;"><em><span style="font-size: xx-small;"> </span><span style="font-size: xx-small;"><a href="http://www.alchemistspillow.com/search?q=rilke+and+rodin%2C+sculpture">you can see parts I and II here</a></span><span style="font-size: xx-small;">.}</span></em></div><br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjUFKIYoTlW8hWcel9tLRgxGdprHW1pNkVoJzAjNE7x7JerQtEMbRFLjMzxCnvkMjb4roZ_7RODxpsJ7YbMqN5ivHv4aZX72JIkQNK0bc5m1y5MumjTYsbH__MpIQtjvyNKx3521plFACm6/s1600/-Auguste_Rodin_signature+-the+Thinker.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; cssfloat: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" h5="true" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjUFKIYoTlW8hWcel9tLRgxGdprHW1pNkVoJzAjNE7x7JerQtEMbRFLjMzxCnvkMjb4roZ_7RODxpsJ7YbMqN5ivHv4aZX72JIkQNK0bc5m1y5MumjTYsbH__MpIQtjvyNKx3521plFACm6/s1600/-Auguste_Rodin_signature+-the+Thinker.jpg" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Rodin's signature on The Thinker</td></tr>
</tbody></table><span style="font-family: inherit;">As we have seen in the previous parts of this series, Rodin was a towering artist in Rilke's life and writings. The young German poet had immense respect and admiration for the elder sculptor whose works he regarded as '<span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: ES;">strange documents of the momentary and of the unnoticeably passing'. And he was convinced that Rodin's greatness sprang from his unstinting dedication to his craft more than from any grand ideas on sculpture or art. For Rilke, Rodin's genius was the product of 'the hard struggle with his tools', of his relentless work discipline and of his insistence on direct, intense and minute observation as the starting point on the path toward finding and creating beauty.</span></span><br />
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<span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: ES;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">This approach greatly influenced Rilke's own, and helped shape his cardinal notion that the currency of art was not ideas, but things, the everyday things of our world, which are here to be observed tenderly, almost feverishly. That "<span class="highlight"><span lang="EN-US" style="background: aqua; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: ES; mso-highlight: aqua;"><span style="background-color: white;">our task is to impress this provisional, transient earth upon ourselves so deeply, so agonizingly, and so passionately that its essence rises up again “<em>invisibly</em>” within us. We are the bees of the invisible. We ceaselessly gather the honey of the visible to store it in the great golden hive of the Invisible".</span></span></span></span></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: inherit;"><span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: ES;"><span class="highlight"><span lang="EN-US" style="background: aqua; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: ES; mso-highlight: aqua;"><span style="background-color: white;">The arrow of artistic genius arcs from the particular to the whole, from the visible to the invisible, the mundane to the eternal. And not the other way around. "T</span></span></span></span><span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: ES;"><span class="highlight"><span lang="EN-US" style="background: aqua; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: ES; mso-highlight: aqua;"><span style="background-color: white;">he task of all tasks is to transform what is insignificant into greatness, what is inconspicuous into radiance; to present a speck of dust in a way that shows it to be part of the whole so that one cannot see it without also instantly seeing all of the stars and the heavens’ deep coherence to which it intimately belongs".</span></span></span></span></span><br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg0Qnkggb4QptDJEEX1FC0t-N48RpEpQLQUeQgaZ_iwC-oogi3sS1mgmWQ86MXITWBUB72ZKAoysjaa9PAoTCA13m3aWc2ZKjqcTCCanAakNBlKytxXLhS7arApZk1yAWxFLNZ2KIX5cVnY/s1600/eternal_spring_elsen_48_small.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" h5="true" height="306" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg0Qnkggb4QptDJEEX1FC0t-N48RpEpQLQUeQgaZ_iwC-oogi3sS1mgmWQ86MXITWBUB72ZKAoysjaa9PAoTCA13m3aWc2ZKjqcTCCanAakNBlKytxXLhS7arApZk1yAWxFLNZ2KIX5cVnY/s400/eternal_spring_elsen_48_small.jpg" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><em>Eternal Spring</em> — Rodin</td></tr>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">For Rilke this was best exemplified by Rodin, whose "art was not built upon a great idea, but upon a minute, conscientious realization, upon the attainable, upon a craft. There was no haughtiness in him. He pledged himself to a humble and difficult beauty that he could oversee, summon and direct. The other beauty, the great beauty, had to come when everything was prepared as animals come to a drinking place in the forest in the late night when nothing foreign is there.”</span><br />
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<span lang="EN-US"><span style="font-family: inherit;">This idea that the devoted eye was to be trusted more than the inventive imagination is beautifully expressed in this passage from Rilke's book on Rodin (which you can read and/or download </span><a href="http://www.archive.org/stream/augusterodin00traugoog#page/n1/mode/2up"><span style="font-family: inherit;">here</span></a><span style="font-family: inherit;">):</span></span><br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi3qBeWB2SujPR25-b-Y-wf9vJXpzV-t2VTpH4u9_zNrsqqSsEOobXd4nGBSEcu5ix0HTKQ26tPy99-eW5gKSYJpa6gIx-evF0nWXDP2jWCai9pSbm76DCLXpq4-LfpKaraL8-jA0JxtJD2/s1600/Man+with+Broken+Nose+-+Mus%25C3%25A9e+Rodin.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; cssfloat: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" h5="true" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi3qBeWB2SujPR25-b-Y-wf9vJXpzV-t2VTpH4u9_zNrsqqSsEOobXd4nGBSEcu5ix0HTKQ26tPy99-eW5gKSYJpa6gIx-evF0nWXDP2jWCai9pSbm76DCLXpq4-LfpKaraL8-jA0JxtJD2/s320/Man+with+Broken+Nose+-+Mus%25C3%25A9e+Rodin.jpg" width="247" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="color: black;"><em>L’Home au Nez Cassé</em> — Musée Rodin</span></td></tr>
</tbody></table><span lang="EN-US" style="color: #0b5394;">“The mask of 'The Man with the Broken Nose' was the first portrait that Rodin modeled. In this work his individual manner of portraying a face is entirely formed. One feels his admitted devotion to reality, his reverence for every line that fate has drawn, his confidence in life that creates even when it disfigures. In a kind of blind faith, he sculptured <em>L’Home au Nez Cassé</em> without asking who the man was who lived again in his hands. He made this mask as God created the first man, without intention of presenting anything save Life itself — immeasurable Life. But he returned to the faces of men with an ever-growing, richer and greater knowledge. He could not look upon their features without thinking of the days that had left their impress upon them, without dwelling upon the army of thoughts that worked incessantly upon a face, as though it could never be finished. From a silent and conscientious observation of life, the mature man, at first groping and experimenting, became more and more sure and audacious in his understanding and interpretation of the script with which the faces were covered. He did not give rein to his imagination, he did not invent, he did not neglect for a moment the hard struggle with his tools. It would have been easy to surmount, as if with wings, these difficulties. He walked side by side with his work over the far and distant stretches that had to be covered, like the ploughman behind his plough. While he traced the furrows he meditated over this land, the depth of it, the sky above it, the flights of the winds and the fall of the rains; considered all that existed and passed by and returned and ceased not to be. He recognized in all this the eternal, and becoming less and less perplexed by the many things, he perceived the one great thing for which grief was good, and heaviness promised maternity, and pain became beautiful."</span><br />
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For your daily dose of Rilke, remember to visit <a href="http://yearwithrilke.blogspot.com/">A Year With Rilke</a>.<br />
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</div>Lorenzo — Alchemist's Pillowhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07522265816460154722noreply@blogger.com18tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6308428467776400130.post-13096589620836047812011-02-10T16:44:00.004+01:002011-02-10T19:20:43.732+01:00Chop down the memory tree <br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhfb9lYzeH-tKshVrQaaEFRCGqTmMwmAjMNff86PYppL1KIABq3t-Wip-bipeNJXFg4HqGhRfaWcBkhKCh2yYNIUYb4qoIT9P6910U0SPv4QtQYPqea1i9fjs_oIqdr1uxyFU22LsXbaPkA/s1600/Nighthawks+-+Edward+Hopper%252C+1942.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" h5="true" height="216" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhfb9lYzeH-tKshVrQaaEFRCGqTmMwmAjMNff86PYppL1KIABq3t-Wip-bipeNJXFg4HqGhRfaWcBkhKCh2yYNIUYb4qoIT9P6910U0SPv4QtQYPqea1i9fjs_oIqdr1uxyFU22LsXbaPkA/s320/Nighthawks+-+Edward+Hopper%252C+1942.jpg" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Nighthawks — Edward Hopper</td></tr>
</tbody></table> <br />
No Rilke or Rodin here today. Just a bit of autobiography, an outbreak of remembrance triggered a couple of weeks ago when I came across this delightful poem by Elliot Fried at Garrison Keillor’s <i>The Writer’s Almanac</i> blog (where amongst other treats you can <a href="http://writersalmanac.publicradio.org/index.php?date=2011/01/18)">hear Keillor recite it</a>) ...<br />
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<div style="text-align: center;"><strong>Daily I Fall In Love With Waitresses</strong></div><div style="text-align: center;"><strong>by Elliot Fried</strong></div><div style="text-align: center;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: center;">Daily I fall in love with waitresses</div><div style="text-align: center;">with their white bouncing name tags</div><div style="text-align: center;">KATHY MARGIE HONEY SUE</div><div style="text-align: center;">and white rubber shoes.</div><div style="text-align: center;">I love how they bend over tables</div><div style="text-align: center;">pouring coffee.</div><div style="text-align: center;">Their perky breasts hover above potatoes</div><div style="text-align: center;">like jets coming in to LAX</div><div style="text-align: center;">hang above the suburbs—</div><div style="text-align: center;">shards of broken stars.</div><div style="text-align: center;">I feel their fingers</div><div style="text-align: center;">roughened by cube steaks softened with grease</div><div style="text-align: center;">slide over me.</div><div style="text-align: center;">Their hands and lean long bodies</div><div style="text-align: center;">keep moving so...</div><div style="text-align: center;">fumbling and clattering so harmoniously</div><div style="text-align: center;">that I am left overwhelmed, quivering.</div><div style="text-align: center;">Daily I fall in love with waitresses</div><div style="text-align: center;">with their cream-cheese cool.</div><div style="text-align: center;">They tell secrets in the kitchen</div><div style="text-align: center;">and I want them.</div><div style="text-align: center;">I know them.</div><div style="text-align: center;">They press buttons creases burgers buns—</div><div style="text-align: center;">their legs are menu smooth.</div><div style="text-align: center;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: center;">They have boyfriends or husbands or children</div><div style="text-align: center;">or all.</div><div style="text-align: center;">They are french dressing worldly—</div><div style="text-align: center;">they know how ice cubes clink.</div><div style="text-align: center;">Their chipped teeth form chipped beef</div><div style="text-align: center;">and muffin syllabics.</div><div style="text-align: center;">Daily I fall in love with waitresses.</div><div style="text-align: center;">They are Thousand Island dreams</div><div style="text-align: center;">but they never stand still long enough</div><div style="text-align: center;">as they serve serve serve. </div><br />
This piece touched a soft spot in the tummy of my memory, recalling for me the fondness I have long felt for diner restaurants. My first meal in the United States was at just such an establishment and though I had not yet turned five, I remember still …<br />
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My parents, brother Phil and I arrived at JFK airport in New York in the summer of 1961, back when it was still known as Idlewild. We had flown in from Caracas, Venezuela, where I was born and spent my toddlerhood, which I now suppose ended on that flight to America. Leaving the only home I had known, my toys, bed and room, saying goodbye to family and friends and <i>adiós</i> to <i>español</i>, were all farewells a bit too outsized for me to comfortably pack and carry. On arriving in New York, there was more wild than idle at the airport; I vaguely recall a sense of feeling lost and adrift in the bustling vastness of the airport, with so many complete strangers hustling by as fast as the words I couldn’t understand. Nothing made any sense… until one of those seeming strangers picked me up and wrapped me in a hug; my Uncle Floyd, a gentle bear with a pencil moustache that stretched out above a rich deep voice as he bellowed “Larry, my boy!”, a call that would forever after in my life announce and rhyme with Thanksgiving and giving thanks, with Christmas trees and Easter eggs and all family holy days.<br />
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I suddenly felt less lost and, though perhaps nothing made much sense yet, there was now a possibility that it would, that my parents may actually have been right when they reassured me that I would be happy in America. This possibility began to flesh out soon after leaving the airport when Uncle Floyd wheeled his huge car and my entire family and our belongings into the parking lot of a diner, a <i>real</i> diner, one of those converted railroad dining cars, somewhere in Brooklyn (“God’s country”, as my Brooklyn-born dad must always clarify). Inside the curved silver walls of the strange restaurant, I now imagine that I was christened into my new American life with maple syrup and pancakes. No more <i>arepas</i> for Lorenzo; pancakes for Larry.<br />
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I digress … I actually wanted to talk about diners that came later in my life, all-night diners that I frequented for many years over a quarter century ago now, the diners conjured up by the Elliot Fried poem above. But, as my good friend Bonnie observed recently in a comment, sometimes we can only reach out by first reaching within, so while blowing on those memories, the long lost ember memory of Brooklyn baptismal flapjacks flared up, and I offer it here as the first course of this long all-night meal.<br />
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Unlike the daily enamoring of Fried’s poem, for me it was <i>nightly</i> that I fell in love with waitresses — the ones at the 24-hour diners I visited several times a week after work during the years I worked nights loading and unloading trucks. Perhaps that first Brooklyn diner planted the seed, but my fondness for diners stems from those years when me and my work buddies would punch out from work at 3 or 4 am and head for the diner nearly every night.<br />
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<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg3gv6r8dPngIj3VyMfREXROb2Cr7qDwAh0mDmMUvVW7FbD9mpUdKE9Y_-oqnuCw8MFgzPe1Tm1HhOLL0k4Sm4FF2ksPrBGs47aaN55hqpc_vU8LiiAkRLeBSQ33-0bvXLMDd-5OktJUuaO/s1600/TDU+button.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; cssfloat: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" h5="true" height="198" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg3gv6r8dPngIj3VyMfREXROb2Cr7qDwAh0mDmMUvVW7FbD9mpUdKE9Y_-oqnuCw8MFgzPe1Tm1HhOLL0k4Sm4FF2ksPrBGs47aaN55hqpc_vU8LiiAkRLeBSQ33-0bvXLMDd-5OktJUuaO/s200/TDU+button.jpg" width="200" /></a></div>From 1976 to 1985 I worked as a Teamster at a transportation company that has long made scientific harassment the core of its management ethos and practice. The job did pay the rent and put food on the table, two concerns shared by poets and non-poets alike, or so I have been led to believe. But there was more to it than that. Somewhere in my history studies, I had been so taken by the thesis of two venerable Germans who long ago observed that philosophers have only interpreted the world but that “the point is to change it”, that I decided to drop out of college and go change the world from inside 42-foot semi-trailer trucks and from deep within a corrupt union. Working nights allowed me time during the day for community organizing where I lived and union organizing at work. A few of us took part in the founding of a nationwide rank-and-file reform movement, <a href="http://www.tdu.org/node/754">Teamsters for a Democratic Union</a>, and began a chapter of TDU in our own Local 177.<br />
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The pay was decent and we fought like hell to keep it that way. The work was physically exhausting, but we were young and grew strong in the punishment; mentally it was stultifying, our dreams were still unquenchable though. We got harassed and treated like trash by the supervisors, but some nights we gave as good as we got. Some nights. And our union was misrun by hacks; quietly we would swallow our pride and loudly we spit fire. Some nights.<br />
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Every night we would emerge from the trucks physically spent and covered with dust. Working the graveyard shift and the ever-present cardboard dust turned us all into a monoracial brotherhood of sorts; regardless of whether we were black, brown or beige when we punched into work, by the time we clocked out, we were all just different shades of grey. And ready for coffee and some eats.<br />
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There was a poem in here somewhere …. Oh yes, here it is, it begins in the diner washroom where we’d stalk in on arriving to try to remove our grey patinas of dust and sweat…<br />
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<span style="color: black; font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">caked in dried sweat</span><br />
<span style="color: black; font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">gotta hit the head</span><br />
<span style="color: black; font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">a quick trip to the terlets</span><br />
<span style="color: black; font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">we grimly smeared the grey grime</span><br />
<span style="color: black; font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">across our faces</span><br />
<span style="color: black; font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">patted down</span><br />
<span style="color: black; font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">our uncooperative hair</span><br />
<span style="color: black; font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">scrubbed our hands good</span><br />
<span style="color: black; font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">yeah, got them real clean</span><br />
<span style="color: black; font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">before we pissed</span><br />
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<span style="color: black; font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">and then for some eats</span><br />
<span style="color: black; font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">coffee</span><br />
<span style="color: black; font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">boob banter</span><br />
<span style="color: black; font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">chit chatter with the waitresses</span><br />
<span style="color: black; font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">who for some reason</span><br />
<span style="color: black; font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">my memory has now all named</span><br />
<span style="color: black; font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">Josie</span><br />
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<span style="color: black; font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">The menu had French omelets</span><br />
<span style="color: black; font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">Spanish omelets</span><br />
<span style="color: black; font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">German omelets</span><br />
<span style="color: black; font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">Italian omelets</span><br />
<span style="color: black; font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">English omelets</span><br />
<span style="color: black; font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">yeah, we chowed down</span><br />
<span style="color: black; font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">a lot of Old World worldliness</span><br />
<span style="color: black; font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">right there in Edison, New Jersey</span><br />
<span style="color: black; font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">had home fries too</span><br />
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<span style="color: black; font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">Cheesecake could turn the talk sweet</span><br />
<span style="color: black; font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">to what we would do</span><br />
<span style="color: black; font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">when we won the big weekly lottery,</span><br />
<span style="color: black; font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">that would get Johnny Paycheck</span><br />
<span style="color: black; font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">singing on the mini-jukebox at the table</span><br />
<em><a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EPrSVkTRb24"><span style="color: #666666; font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">Take this job and shove it</span></a></em><br />
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<span style="color: black; font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">On those other nights when</span><br />
<span style="color: black; font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">unbending lottery numbers</span><br />
<span style="color: black; font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">only made the coffee extra bitter,</span><br />
<span style="color: black; font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">there’d be elaborate plans for</span><br />
<span style="color: black; font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">daring heists</span><br />
<span style="color: black; font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">to knock over an Atlantic City casino</span><br />
<span style="color: black; font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">maybe two</span><br />
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<span style="color: black; font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">Or wolfman Chris might tell us about the poem</span><br />
<span style="color: black; font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">he would write one day</span><br />
<span style="color: black; font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">“chop down the Cadillac tree”</span><br />
<span style="color: black; font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">what does it mean?</span><br />
<span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;"><i>I don’t know</i> he would tell us</span></span><br />
<i><span style="color: black; font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">but it’s a great first line</span></i><br />
<span style="color: black; font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">and we would all agree</span><br />
<span style="color: black; font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">a great first line</span><br />
<br />
<span style="color: black; font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">Or we would retell and celebrate</span><br />
<span style="color: black; font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">the night that him and Sam drove</span><br />
<span style="color: black; font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">into the City in Sam’s revved up GTO,</span><br />
<span style="color: black; font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">common sense damped down</span><br />
<span style="color: black; font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">and their courage souped up</span><br />
<span style="color: black; font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">on some beers and bourbons,</span><br />
<span style="color: black; font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">and drove the wrong way</span><br />
<span style="color: black; font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">across the Brooklyn Bridge</span><br />
<span style="color: black; font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">all the way to the other side</span><br />
<span style="color: black; font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">all the wrong fucking way to fucking Brooklyn</span><br />
<span style="color: black; font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">(<em>God’s country</em>)</span><br />
<span style="color: black; font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">without killing anyone</span><br />
<span style="color: black; font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">or themselves</span><br />
<span style="color: black; font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">or landing their fool asses in jail</span><br />
<span style="color: black; font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">a great line</span><br />
<br />
<span style="color: black; font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">With our gutwanderlustfulness sated</span><br />
<span style="color: black; font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">or Dillinger derring-do depleted</span><br />
<span style="color: black; font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">with our wrong-way one-line poems doing u-turns</span><br />
<span style="color: black; font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">it’d be time to split</span><br />
<span style="color: black; font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">we’d leave</span><br />
<span style="color: black; font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">our Josie sisters of the night</span><br />
<span style="color: black; font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">outlandish tips next to</span><br />
<span style="color: black; font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">crumpled cigarette packs</span><br />
<span style="color: black; font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">and a song still playing</span><br />
<span style="color: black; font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">on the tabletop jukebox</span><br />
<em><span style="color: black; font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">Don’t let the sun catch you crying</span></em><br />
<br />
<span style="color: black; font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">on the way out</span><br />
<span style="color: black; font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">there were arcade machines with some jeopardy</span><br />
<span style="color: black; font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">question and answer game</span><br />
<span style="color: black; font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">but when we did not want to not be stumped</span><br />
<span style="color: black; font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">again</span><br />
<span style="color: black; font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">by who directed Cool Hand Luke</span><br />
<i><span style="color: black; font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">(what we have here is a faaaailyour to communicate)</span></i><br />
<span style="color: black; font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">we would play the great new thing</span><br />
<span style="color: black; font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">Pacman</span><br />
<span style="color: black; font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">wow</span><br />
<span style="color: black; font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">how sophisticated</span><br />
<span style="color: black; font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">better than Pong even</span><br />
<span style="color: black; font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">or another game where</span><br />
<span style="color: black; font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">my electronic blips and bloops</span><br />
<span style="color: black; font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">had to break through</span><br />
<span style="color: black; font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">the descending brick wall</span><br />
<span style="color: black; font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">before your blips and bloops</span><br />
<br />
<span style="color: black; font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">and they did</span><br />
<span style="color: black; font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">our late nights yawned</span><br />
<span style="color: black; font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">with such howling triumphs</span><br />
<br />
<span style="color: black; font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">we were resigned prisoners though</span><br />
<span style="color: black; font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">and tunneled our walls</span><br />
<span style="color: black; font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">only halfheartedly</span><br />
<span style="color: black; font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">while inviting the blips and bloops</span><br />
<span style="color: black; font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">to do on our minds</span><br />
<span style="color: black; font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">the same numbing number</span><br />
<span style="color: black; font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">the trucks and night</span><br />
<span style="color: black; font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">had done on our bodies </span><br />
<br />
<span style="color: black; font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">and we left dust trails</span><br />
<span style="color: black; font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">in the prison yard parking lot</span><br />
<span style="color: black; font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">on the way to our cars</span><br />
<span style="color: black; font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">on the way home</span><br />
<span style="color: black; font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">on the way to sleep</span><br />
<br />
<span style="color: black; font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">Damn! Is that the sun coming up already?</span><br />
<span style="color: black; font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">Tomorrow was already here</span><br />
<span style="color: black; font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">again</span><br />
<span style="color: black; font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">and all I wanted to do was</span><br />
<span style="color: black; font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">sleep away</span><br />
<span style="color: black; font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">such alarming wisdom</span><br />
<span style="color: black; font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">and scrub my face away</span><br />
<span style="color: black; font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">on the pillowcase</span><br />
<span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;"> <em><span style="font-size: x-small;">© Lorenzo — Alchemist's Pillow</span></em></span></span><br />
<br />
In affectionate memory of <em>Wolfie</em>, with whom so many of those all-night work and diner sessions were shared and who, 30 years ago today, mistook a sunrise for a sunset, the wrong end of a shotgun for a friend and quenched his thirst and his dreams with a cannonball instead of a bourbon. Oh, Chris, what you’ve been missing…<br />
<br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg7tcVweIiRV-BC8wtqWm4UYMvUq8oKj8qo02ljpfmKADf81kn3GUvuIEM-EAc4k8-6aJ-24BlZq0C3xY3gEwp8ymQ4kiecaNCttQ8DqJM3484Dn33YT8wV3ob_CugMsayC5Yx7WXluaC9c/s1600/Brooklyn+Bridge+tribute+in+light.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" h5="true" height="266" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg7tcVweIiRV-BC8wtqWm4UYMvUq8oKj8qo02ljpfmKADf81kn3GUvuIEM-EAc4k8-6aJ-24BlZq0C3xY3gEwp8ymQ4kiecaNCttQ8DqJM3484Dn33YT8wV3ob_CugMsayC5Yx7WXluaC9c/s400/Brooklyn+Bridge+tribute+in+light.jpg" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Brooklyn Bridge, A Tribute in Light</td></tr>
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Well, not sure how I got from Fried's perky potato breasts landing at LAX airport to Chris going the wrong way over the Rubicon in his one-line Cadillac, but strange things can come down when one begins to shake that memory tree...<br />
<br />
Ray Charles — <em>Don't Let the Sun Catch You Crying ...</em><br />
<br />
<object height="349" width="560"><param name="movie" value="http://www.youtube-nocookie.com/v/rHUrkdqCopA?fs=1&hl=en_US&rel=0"></param><param name="allowFullScreen" value="true"></param><param name="allowscriptaccess" value="always"></param><embed src="http://www.youtube-nocookie.com/v/rHUrkdqCopA?fs=1&hl=en_US&rel=0" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" allowscriptaccess="always" allowfullscreen="true" width="560" height="349"></embed></object>Lorenzo — Alchemist's Pillowhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07522265816460154722noreply@blogger.com26tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6308428467776400130.post-48778502658216714702011-02-06T20:21:00.002+01:002011-02-13T11:05:48.315+01:00Rilke and Rodin (part II) <br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgaKzXzsxCjJgREEH1jTM8N3n9IK2SxegzjijbC-Ry_p3QEw5ePm4JyMedUAdmt5OvjCzAo2d0sb31GsMI8dmoMpsCjhZWlzJBfMUEwkv866wx7gsIb_NB_BjOajq_TpWbCatbyAdjJ11Rt/s1600/Eduard+Steichen+photograph+of+Rodin%252C+1907.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" h5="true" height="287" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgaKzXzsxCjJgREEH1jTM8N3n9IK2SxegzjijbC-Ry_p3QEw5ePm4JyMedUAdmt5OvjCzAo2d0sb31GsMI8dmoMpsCjhZWlzJBfMUEwkv866wx7gsIb_NB_BjOajq_TpWbCatbyAdjJ11Rt/s400/Eduard+Steichen+photograph+of+Rodin%252C+1907.png" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: x-small;">Rodin and statue of <em>The Hand of God</em> - Edward Steichen, 1907</span></td></tr>
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<div style="text-align: right;"><em><span style="font-size: x-small;">{This is a continuation of the previous post on Rilke and Rodin;</span></em></div><div style="text-align: right;"><em><span style="font-size: x-small;"> </span><a href="http://www.alchemistspillow.com/2011/01/rilke-and-rodin-impermanence-wrought-in.html"><span style="font-size: x-small;">you can see part I here</span></a><span style="font-size: x-small;">.}</span></em></div><div style="text-align: left;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: left;">Today, I will include one single passage from Rainer Maria Rilke's book-essay, <em>Rilke on Rodin</em>. It is long, but the writing is so beautiful that I trust it will be well worth your attention and momentary surrender here. I hope that after reading it you will feel, like me, that your view of Rodin's masterworks is forever changed and charged with new energy. Rilke's discussion of Rodin's treatment of wholeness/incompleteness, his rendering of hands, the central importance of the points of contacts between figures in the group sculptures as the flash points of his craft and genius is superb. It begins with his discussion of <span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 12pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: ES;"><em>La Méditation</em></span><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 12pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: ES;"> (The Meditation), also known as <span style="background: aqua; mso-highlight: aqua;"><span style="background-color: white;"><em>Voix Intérieure </em>(Inner Voice)<em>.</em></span></span></span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiLxEgvIWanvlSWsauQ15d9PqL3hmN1Uc4rT8lvWFU_3YZH353ThcVWW9IpI6J-6OBezfSfZdrH9vb1nBWW_CLJrVv1jEF7Qlekx4ypmSigrg_HWskvsWbOFys2ju8Noc_TzprOx0okdLG-/s1600/Voix+Int%25C3%25A9rieure-2.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; cssfloat: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" h5="true" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiLxEgvIWanvlSWsauQ15d9PqL3hmN1Uc4rT8lvWFU_3YZH353ThcVWW9IpI6J-6OBezfSfZdrH9vb1nBWW_CLJrVv1jEF7Qlekx4ypmSigrg_HWskvsWbOFys2ju8Noc_TzprOx0okdLG-/s400/Voix+Int%25C3%25A9rieure-2.jpg" width="265" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><em>Voix Intérieure</em> — Musée Rodin, Paris</td></tr>
</tbody></table><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="color: #0b5394;">“Never was human body assembled to such an extent about its inner self, so bent by its own soul and yet upheld by the elastic strength of its blood. The neck, bent sidewise on the lowered body, rises and stretches and holds the listening head over the distant roar of life; this is so impressively and strongly conceived that one does not remember a more gripping gesture or one of deeper meaning. It is striking that the arms are lacking. Rodin must have considered these arms as too facile a solution of his task, as something that did not belong to that body which desired to be enwrapped within itself without the aid of aught external. When one looks upon this figure one thinks of Duse in a drama of d’Annunzio’s, when she is painfully abandoned and tries to embrace without arms and to hold without hands. This scene, in which her body has learned a caressing that reaches beyond it, belongs to the unforgettable moments in her acting. It conveys the impression that the arms are something superfluous, an adornment, a thing of the rich, something immoderate that one can throw off in order to become quite poor. She appeared in this moment as though she had forfeited something unimportant, rather like someone who gives away his cup in order to drink out of the brook.</span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><br />
</div><span style="color: #0b5394;">The same completeness is conveyed in all the armless statues of Rodin; nothing necessary is lacking. One stands before them as before something whole. The feeling of incompleteness does not rise from the mere aspect of a thing, but from the assumption of a narrow-minded pedantry, which says that arms are a necessary part of the body and that a body without arms cannot be perfect. It was not long since the rebellion arose against the cutting off of trees from the edge of pictures by the Impressionists. Custom rapidly accepted this impression. With regard to the painter, at least, came the understanding and the belief that an artistic whole need not necessarily coincide with the complete thing, that new values, proportions and balances may originate within the pictures. In the art of sculpture, also, it is left to the artist to make out of many things one thing, and from the smallest part of a thing an entirety.</span><br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjHmW1sCQmI-gff6ymHbbrFFf3_SWOyTHptWdJ6JWH32QxUu9ObpJNwf_5BJXOHDo-kdEl_qKgHXiJhCVG_dUsH59HDrOlKo7ePI8IDobiSvvd_mqgw9u0NA7jrau5FXKD5Um73dGi6KKpP/s1600/Mighty+Hand+-+Rodin.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; cssfloat: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" h5="true" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjHmW1sCQmI-gff6ymHbbrFFf3_SWOyTHptWdJ6JWH32QxUu9ObpJNwf_5BJXOHDo-kdEl_qKgHXiJhCVG_dUsH59HDrOlKo7ePI8IDobiSvvd_mqgw9u0NA7jrau5FXKD5Um73dGi6KKpP/s320/Mighty+Hand+-+Rodin.jpg" width="213" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><em>Mighty Hand</em></td></tr>
</tbody></table><span style="color: #0b5394;">There are among the works of Rodin hands, single, small hands which, without belonging to a body, are alive. Hands that rise, irritated and in wrath; hands whose five bristling fingers seem to bark like the five jaws of a dog of Hell. Hands that walk, sleeping hands, and hands that are awakening; criminal hands, tainted with hereditary disease; and hands that are tired and will do no more, and have lain down in some corner like sick animals that know no one can help them. But hands are a complicated organism, a delta into which many divergent streams of life rush together in order to pour themselves into the great storm of action. There is a history of hands; they have their own culture, their particular beauty; one concedes to them the right of their own development, their own needs, feelings, caprices and tendernesses. Rodin, knowing through the education which he has given himself that the entire body consists of scenes of life, of a life that may become in every detail individual and great, has the power to give to any part of his vibrating surface the independence of a whole. As the human body is to Rodin an entirety only as long as a common action stirs all of its parts and forces, so on the other hand portions of different bodies that cling to one another from an inner necessity merge into one organism. A hand laid on another’s shoulder or thigh does not any more belong to the body from which it came — from this body and from the object which it touches or seizes something new originates, a new thing that has no name and belongs to no one.</span><br />
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><em>The Kiss</em></td></tr>
</tbody></table><span style="color: #0b5394;">This comprehension is the foundation of the grouping of figures by Rodin; from it springs that coherence of the figures, that concentration of the forms, that quality of clinging together. He does not proceed to work from figures that embrace one another. He has no models which he arranges and places together; he starts with the points of the strongest contact as being the culminating points of the work. There where something new arises, he begins and devotes all the capacity of his chisel to the mysterious phenomenon that accompanies the growth of a new thing. He works, as it were, by the light of the flame that flashes out from those points of contact, and sees only those parts of the body that are thus illuminated.</span><br />
<br />
<span style="color: #0b5394;">The spell of the great group of the girl and the man that is named “The Kiss” lies in this understanding distribution of life. In this group waves flow through the bodies, a shuddering ripple, a thrill of strength, and a presaging of beauty. This is the reason why one beholds everywhere on these bodies the ecstasy of this kiss. It is like a sun that rises and floods all with its light.</span><br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhwtee5dfp6OAHZrUE6CibZyP6WfHYnS4WXBRQMBo-P1hIfDTKC56UKhDjtAK31L7ZlnTCPYjY_nL0sOn9JaxtIG8XjLws-O2Y7JfHuSWVtbUcNxP9LjpcWfoMjvhXiYO12pPpBZGmgEVY/s1600/rodin-lovers-1911-granger.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" h5="true" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhwtee5dfp6OAHZrUE6CibZyP6WfHYnS4WXBRQMBo-P1hIfDTKC56UKhDjtAK31L7ZlnTCPYjY_nL0sOn9JaxtIG8XjLws-O2Y7JfHuSWVtbUcNxP9LjpcWfoMjvhXiYO12pPpBZGmgEVY/s640/rodin-lovers-1911-granger.jpg" width="436" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="color: black;"><em>L’Éternelle Idole</em></span></td></tr>
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<span style="color: #0b5394;">Still more marvelous is that other kiss “L’Éternelle Idole”. The material texture of this creation encloses a living impulse as a wall encloses a garden. One of the copies of this marble is in the possession of Eugène Carrière, and in the silent twilight of his house this stone pulsates like a spring in which there is an eternal motion, a rising and falling, a mysterious stir of an elemental force. A girl kneels, her beautiful body is softly bent backward, her right arm is stretched behind her. Her hand has gropingly found her foot. In these three lines which shut her in from the outer world her life lies enclosed with its secret. The stone beneath her lifts her up as she kneels there. And suddenly, in the attitude into which the young girl has fallen from idleness, or reverie, or solitude, one recognizes an ancient, sacred symbol, a posture like that into which the goddess of distant cruel cults had sunk. The head of this woman bends somewhat forward; with an expression of indulgence, majesty and forbearance, she looks down as from the height of a still night upon the man who sinks his face into her bosom as though into many blossoms. He, too, kneels, but deeper, deep in the stone. His hands lie behind him like worthless and empty things. The right hand is open; one sees into it. From this group radiates a mysterious greatness. One does not dare to give it one meaning, it has thousands. Thoughts glide over it like shadows, new meanings arise like riddles and unfold into clear significance. Something of the mood of a Purgatorio lives within this work. A heaven is near that has not yet been reached, a hell is near that has not yet been forgotten. Here, too, all splendor flashes from the contact of the two bodies and from the contact of the woman with herself.”</span><br />
<br />
<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: right; margin-left: 1em; text-align: right;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi9JiIRJF8MZpXUTc9yVxkwPpBejJk5TnKqH1N1yJ_YjeNW36j8Ix1kwy_a96Hhxc2ffcBJxrcY1TM3PBe04yvY8Cn69mNeo-1Tbeb8snJ_dRcrE5zEqLm2a86qpWyDr2iP28n8bNnKPVD3/s1600/Large+Left+Hand+of+a+Pianist+-+Rodin.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; cssfloat: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" h5="true" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi9JiIRJF8MZpXUTc9yVxkwPpBejJk5TnKqH1N1yJ_YjeNW36j8Ix1kwy_a96Hhxc2ffcBJxrcY1TM3PBe04yvY8Cn69mNeo-1Tbeb8snJ_dRcrE5zEqLm2a86qpWyDr2iP28n8bNnKPVD3/s1600/Large+Left+Hand+of+a+Pianist+-+Rodin.jpg" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><em>Large Left Hand of a Pianist</em>, bronze</td></tr>
</tbody></table>The passage is taken from the 1919 English translation of the book (translated by Jessie Lamont and Hans Trausil), available for download at the Internet Archive site <a href="http://www.archive.org/stream/augusterodin00traugoog#page/n1/mode/2up">here</a>.<br />
<br />
Remember to read your Rilke every day at the <a href="http://yearwithrilke.blogspot.com/">A Year With Rilke</a> blog.<br />
<br />
<br />
<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: left; margin-right: 1em; text-align: left;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj6VJYzrddAI-VpA7Rg-FIcYeWtKC0967kOFgd5i3gOjZR4Zltkq0yCCHAq0QD60M-6Eq1uCjsuhPyfUS2fPOSx13chLvruIhl2hgwL7ujFLKDEfZw-PxrcWzUP6XJFvMqKH14Rxwz1c5B0/s1600/Left+Hand+26.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; cssfloat: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" h5="true" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj6VJYzrddAI-VpA7Rg-FIcYeWtKC0967kOFgd5i3gOjZR4Zltkq0yCCHAq0QD60M-6Eq1uCjsuhPyfUS2fPOSx13chLvruIhl2hgwL7ujFLKDEfZw-PxrcWzUP6XJFvMqKH14Rxwz1c5B0/s1600/Left+Hand+26.jpg" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><em>Left Hand</em> (26), plaster</td></tr>
</tbody></table>Lorenzo — Alchemist's Pillowhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07522265816460154722noreply@blogger.com15tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6308428467776400130.post-38434854772481271512011-01-28T20:23:00.006+01:002011-02-13T11:04:21.710+01:00Rilke and Rodin — Impermanence wrought in stone and metal?<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: left; margin-right: 1em; text-align: left;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiBtaBp-CHfebesP_ih5otXWkefiFelS4VqJOjXkH2VOlZcPfArZ6bWNo86oKqMI5YtoE0xgFPB3Vlml_TcuNsQvbzz7k0GrJqmkBVVnWij1lxy0wuIRUd1VtFwWYBp4axsBihQaIPcKo81/s1600/Rilke+in+Meudon+-+anonymous+.+Muse%25C3%25A9+Rodin.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; cssfloat: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="400" n4="true" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiBtaBp-CHfebesP_ih5otXWkefiFelS4VqJOjXkH2VOlZcPfArZ6bWNo86oKqMI5YtoE0xgFPB3Vlml_TcuNsQvbzz7k0GrJqmkBVVnWij1lxy0wuIRUd1VtFwWYBp4axsBihQaIPcKo81/s400/Rilke+in+Meudon+-+anonymous+.+Muse%25C3%25A9+Rodin.jpg" width="311" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Rilke in Meudon, Rodin's studio and residence.<br />
Photographer: anonymous. <a href="http://www.musee-rodin.fr/Meuhi-e.htm">Museé Rodin</a></td></tr>
</tbody></table>This post is a companion piece to the <a href="http://yearwithrilke.blogspot.com/p/about-images.html">A Year With Rilke</a> (AYWR) blog, which we have been illustrating recently with images of sculptures by Auguste Rodin. Here I wanted to offer a few quotes from and about Rainer Maria Rilke that shed some light on his relationship with the great French sculptor. No other artist in any field had a greater impact on the German poet's writing and approach to his poetry. Surely, there is a delicious irony somewhere to be carved out of the fact that the 'poet of impermanence' was most powerfully swayed by an artist whose masterpieces reach us in bronze, marble and plaster.<br />
<br />
Rilke first approached Rodin while writing a booklength essay on the sculptor. For more on that book and details on their relationship, see the links at the AYWR blog. Rilke spent much time with Rodin and in correspondence with him and worked as his personal secretary for a year or so. And his wife, Clara Westhoff, was a sculptress and had been a student of Rodin's.<br />
<br />
In the second letter of his highly celebrated <em>Letters to a Young Poet</em>, Rilke wrote:<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt 35.4pt;"><span class="highlight"><span lang="EN-US"></span></span><br />
<blockquote><em>"If I were obliged to tell you who taught me to experience something of the essence of creativity, the depth of it and its enduring quality, there are only two names that I can name: that of Jacobsen, the very greatest of writers, and Auguste Rodin, the sculptor. No one among all artists living today compares with them."</em></blockquote></div>What was the source of the famous sculptor's powerful hold on the fledgling German poet? Apart from artistic and philosophical considerations, some have seen personality factors at work here, primarily in Rilke's attraction to character traits of Rodin's that he admired and perhaps wished to emulate. Kent Nerburn, in his foreword to the New World Library edition of the Letters quoted above, writes: <br />
<br />
<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: left; margin-right: 1em; text-align: left;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhgzyrKSVUx8RwV5qf8qQy7ZfQ-y8zyCyEBlaMoIiWi1uCd8zrOo0SlqiKS6We2Hn7etdW02U-HRAjZoLr25V21ESJImkA0dG4eo0Pnpt3UxWasr-WYN3NNK384XUbnMkPsySPVYxNgVbuX/s1600/Steichen+photogravure+of+Rodin%252C+1911.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; cssfloat: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="320" s5="true" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhgzyrKSVUx8RwV5qf8qQy7ZfQ-y8zyCyEBlaMoIiWi1uCd8zrOo0SlqiKS6We2Hn7etdW02U-HRAjZoLr25V21ESJImkA0dG4eo0Pnpt3UxWasr-WYN3NNK384XUbnMkPsySPVYxNgVbuX/s320/Steichen+photogravure+of+Rodin%252C+1911.jpg" width="220" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: x-small;">Rodin, 1911. Photo: </span><span style="font-size: x-small;">Edward J. Steichen</span><br />
<span style="font-size: x-small;">Please click on the photo to enlarge.</span><br />
<span style="font-size: x-small;">They don't get much better than this.</span><br />
<br />
</td></tr>
</tbody></table><em>"Rodin was everything Rilke was not — confident, robust, sensual, an older man who was secure in his artistic identity and accomplished in his artistic voice. He was an elemental presence, with a chiseled brow, a laborer’s broad physique, and piercing eyes that seemed to see through the artifice and brittle surface of anyone on whom he chose to focus his attention. He was also a man of few words who worked with unceasing diligence, and thought, felt, and spoke not through his words but through the creations of his hands. As Rilke himself said, Rodin lived inside his art; he did not have to constantly seek it and court it from amongst the intrusive distractions of daily affairs.</em><br />
<br />
<em>Contrasted to this was Rilke, the fragile, often sickly young man of delicate sensibilities and uncertain artistic direction, who suffered long periods of artistic aridity and terrifying self-doubt. Slim, slight, easily led astray from his artistic tasks, he lived in constant fear of days when all inspiration failed him and he was left with nothing but 'dead words …corpse heavy'. </em><em>How could he not stand in the presence of Rodin without seeing before him the embodiment of all he desired to be as an artist, as well as a mirror of all his own artistic deficiencies and insecurities? And, in fact, this is exactly what happened. In the person of Rodin, Rilke found the model for the artistic authority he wished to possess."</em><br />
<br />
And this is how Rilke described his first meeting with Rodin in a letter to his wife Clara on September 2, 1902:<br />
<br />
<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: left; margin-right: 1em; text-align: left;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh3DvRLY3rqqmGmNUfJnZcseTaFpMs-41AbCwBbUgSqr-Ng-uMza4MclWBc_AHHAQhclten9T_9j6tEs3KJ8-Pkig7ebMZvFaJJwgk4Cyn3Vcu5STEionS7ht1XuDV1DpEsN9CsZhzPPzQh/s1600/Gerolf+Van+de+Perre+painting.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; cssfloat: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="320" n4="true" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh3DvRLY3rqqmGmNUfJnZcseTaFpMs-41AbCwBbUgSqr-Ng-uMza4MclWBc_AHHAQhclten9T_9j6tEs3KJ8-Pkig7ebMZvFaJJwgk4Cyn3Vcu5STEionS7ht1XuDV1DpEsN9CsZhzPPzQh/s320/Gerolf+Van+de+Perre+painting.jpg" width="316" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Painting by <a href="http://www.gerolfvandeperre.net/dichterindemassa/Poet_among_the_Masses/Rilke_in_Paris,_year_1900.html">Gerolf Van de Perre</a>. Visit this Belgian artist's<br />
beautiful series of Rilke paintings.</td></tr>
</tbody></table><em>". . . Yesterday, Monday afternoon at three o'clock, I was at Rodin's for the first time. Atelier 182 rue de l'Universite. I went down the Seine. He had a model, a girl. Had a little plaster object in his hand on which he was scraping about. He simply quit work, offered me a chair, and we talked. He was kind and gentle. And it seemed to me that I had always known him. That I was only seeing him again; I found him smaller, and yet more powerful, more kindly, and more noble. That forehead, the relationship it bears to his nose which rides out of it like a ship out of harbor . . . that is very remarkable. Character of stone is in that forehead and that nose. And his mouth has a speech whose ring is good, intimate, and full of youth. So also is his laugh, that embarrassed and at the same time joyful laugh of a child that has been given lovely presents. He is very dear to me. That I knew at once. We spoke of many things (as far as my queer language and his time permitted). . . . Then he went on working and begged me to inspect everything that is in the studio. That is not a little. The "hand" is there.</em> C'est une main comme-ça <em>(he said and made with his own so powerful a gesture of holding and shaping that one seemed to see things growing out of it)."</em><br />
<br />
As this is getting fairly lengthy, and I have just learned I am making an unexpected but welcome weekend getaway to the hills, I will cut off this post here and continue in Part II in a few days. Have a nice weekend everyone ... and read your Rilke. We are enjoying it immensely and very heartened by the warm enthusiasm with which many of you have been reading, commenting and participating in the venture.Lorenzo — Alchemist's Pillowhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07522265816460154722noreply@blogger.com23tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6308428467776400130.post-4903563720065990912011-01-23T22:24:00.002+01:002011-02-18T00:45:12.984+01:00Hydrochromology <br />
<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: left; margin-right: 1em; text-align: left;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgct-x9W4Dm9Wr4Ym9lWKRm2hl2P0Y7GGV9X2E7mttG5sKZHyFaRX4H2JXEw8U39qXd6VECvSskMZwzpIvO1IbSFnVxKG_1LLug-iiYdW691x0_oEZD8T8DKsF4DIz2dKv2teOtW0OVUBtD/s1600/Morning+at+Lokbaintan+%25E2%2580%2594+Yudhi+Fardian.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; cssfloat: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="220" s5="true" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgct-x9W4Dm9Wr4Ym9lWKRm2hl2P0Y7GGV9X2E7mttG5sKZHyFaRX4H2JXEw8U39qXd6VECvSskMZwzpIvO1IbSFnVxKG_1LLug-iiYdW691x0_oEZD8T8DKsF4DIz2dKv2teOtW0OVUBtD/s320/Morning+at+Lokbaintan+%25E2%2580%2594+Yudhi+Fardian.jpg" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: xx-small;">Morning at Lokbaintan</span> — <span lang="EN-US" style="color: #777777; font-family: "Trebuchet MS"; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: Tahoma; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: ES;"><span style="font-size: xx-small;"><a href="http://1x.com/member/12101/yudhi-fardian/">© Yudhi Fardian</a> / <span style="color: black;"><a href="http://1x.com/">1x.com</a></span></span></span></td></tr>
</tbody></table>Water is evaporated by the sun and returned to our rivers and lakes by the clouds. We all learn the water cycle as children. But I have always wondered — where do colors go at night, before they are returned to us at dawn? Is there a color cycle, governed by the moon? Is the governess of the tides, also the goddess of a chromatic cycle? And since they dance in the same sky, do the sun and moon share this labor between them, the sun returning the hues the moon has evanesced, the moon gently rocking to and fro the waters the sun will vaporize?<br />
<br />
Physicists strive for a unified field theory that can unite our understanding of the fundamental forces of nature. But in me there is something that longs to unify hydrology and chromology. Are they one? Science may tell us no, but if you have ever seen how a teardrop can bend a candle’s light and paint a watercolor rainbow, what does your heart tell you?<br />
<br />
<span style="color: black;"><em><strong><u>Hydrochromology</u></strong> </em></span><br />
<span style="color: black;"><em>By day</em></span> <br />
<span style="color: black;"><em>the sun beckons</em></span> <br />
<span style="color: black;"><em>to the tinctured sea.</em></span><br />
<span style="color: black;"><em>Rising, the vapor</em></span><br />
<span style="color: black;"><em>veil of tears</em></span><br />
<span style="color: black;"><em>caresses the sky</em></span><br />
<span style="color: black;"><em>like moth wings</em></span><br />
<span style="color: black;"><em>on the magic lantern.</em></span><br />
<br />
<span style="color: black;"><em>By night</em></span><br />
<span style="color: black;"><em>the moon siphons off</em></span><br />
<span style="color: black;"><em>the colors of the world.</em></span><br />
<span style="color: black;"><em>Funneling up through the dark hallow,</em></span><br />
<span style="color: black;"><em>their evanescent secrets pour</em></span><br />
<span style="color: black;"><em>like whispers into deep ancient jugs</em></span><br />
<span style="color: black;"><em>left by furtive gods.</em></span><br />
<br />
<span style="color: black;"><em>Dawn breaks</em></span><br />
<span style="color: black;"><em>the pink melon open</em></span><br />
<span style="color: black;"><em>for the chroma to seep in.</em></span><br />
<span style="color: black;"><em>Prism dew drops</em></span><br />
<span style="color: black;"><em>wander down</em></span><br />
<span style="color: black;"><em>Buddha-bellied jugs,</em></span><br />
<span style="color: black;"><em>the throb of light</em></span><br />
<span style="color: black;"><em>rehydrates</em></span><br />
<span style="color: black;"><em>and the air hums</em></span><br />
<span style="color: black;"><em>pellucid opal blue.</em></span><br />
<br />
<span style="color: black;"><em>¿see? how</em></span><br />
<span style="color: black;"><em>the rainbow is brushing</em></span><br />
<span style="color: black;"><em>her unwoven aurora hair</em></span><br />
<span style="color: black;"><em>and admiring herself</em></span><br />
<span style="color: black;"><em>in our swollen</em></span><br />
<span style="color: black;"><em>borrowed mirror?</em></span><br />
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 10pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: ES;"> © Lorenzo — Alchemist's Pillow</span><br />
<br />
John Coltrane saw it in Mal Waldron's <em>Soul Eyes</em> ...<br />
<br />
<object height="344" width="425"><param name="movie" value="http://www.youtube-nocookie.com/v/1hdy5G94AHc?fs=1&hl=en_US&rel=0"></param><param name="allowFullScreen" value="true"></param><param name="allowscriptaccess" value="always"></param><embed src="http://www.youtube-nocookie.com/v/1hdy5G94AHc?fs=1&hl=en_US&rel=0" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" allowscriptaccess="always" allowfullscreen="true" width="425" height="344"></embed></object><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: inherit;">I offer this poem for this week's <span lang="EN" style="mso-ansi-language: EN; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: ES;"><a href="http://oneshotpoetry.blogspot.com/p/one-shot-poetry.html"><span style="color: windowtext; text-decoration: none; text-underline: none;"><em><u>One Shot Wednesday</u></em></span></a>, the weekly "open mike" at <span lang="EN" style="mso-ansi-language: EN; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: ES;"><a href="http://oneshotpoetry.blogspot.com/"><span style="color: windowtext; text-decoration: none; text-underline: none;"><u><em>One Stop Poetry</em></u></span></a>. Click on the links for poems from other contributors. New batches of links arrive every Wednesday</span>.</span></span>Lorenzo — Alchemist's Pillowhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07522265816460154722noreply@blogger.com33tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6308428467776400130.post-40590175257322592542011-01-18T02:29:00.000+01:002011-01-18T02:29:43.628+01:00Psst! Pssst!If any of you have ever wondered<br />
why<br />
a ride cymbal can splash and shake<br />
and shudder<br />
but can’t go psst! pssst!<br />
the way a hi-hat can<br />
<br />
and what the difference<br />
is between grace notes<br />
and ghost notes<br />
<br />
and how fingers<br />
can do a cross stick backbeat <br />
all in a 16th note shuffle<br />
<br />
and why oh why oh why do<br />
jazz lovers scorn drum machines ...<br />
<br />
... then percussion master Bernard "Pretty" Purdie is here to explain it all:<br />
<br />
<object height="344" width="425"><param name="movie" value="http://www.youtube-nocookie.com/v/WGXGpa458Ig?fs=1&hl=en_US&rel=0"></param><param name="allowFullScreen" value="true"></param><param name="allowscriptaccess" value="always"></param><embed src="http://www.youtube-nocookie.com/v/WGXGpa458Ig?fs=1&hl=en_US&rel=0" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" allowscriptaccess="always" allowfullscreen="true" width="425" height="344"></embed></object><br />
<br />
<div style="text-align: right;">yeaaahh ... pssst! psssst!<br />
</div><u>And a short poem from Langston Hughes</u>:<br />
<br />
<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: left; margin-right: 1em; text-align: left;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg-igQ8n91QceDxrDbcxAaAGzuDoYfJM716g2f8AdhO8MjFhdSulJHpRUmCKvPAq0p2FNMoR1iUUpcD673lE5a7p-ePrxY69i7dIl7DZQv7jc_FhVg3Erab1JzpK1nLksHPuqLCWipvgRrX/s1600/Langston+Hughes+on+his+front+steps+in+Harlem%252C+1958.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; cssfloat: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="320" n4="true" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg-igQ8n91QceDxrDbcxAaAGzuDoYfJM716g2f8AdhO8MjFhdSulJHpRUmCKvPAq0p2FNMoR1iUUpcD673lE5a7p-ePrxY69i7dIl7DZQv7jc_FhVg3Erab1JzpK1nLksHPuqLCWipvgRrX/s320/Langston+Hughes+on+his+front+steps+in+Harlem%252C+1958.jpg" width="213" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Langston Hughes on front steps of<br />
his home in Harlem, 1958.<br />
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-ansi-language: ES; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: ES;"><span style="font-size: xx-small;"><a href="http://maap.columbia.edu/image/view/714.html">Robert W. Kelley/Time & Life Pictures/Getty Images </a></span></span></td></tr>
</tbody></table><br />
<br />
<strong>Midnight Dancer</strong><br />
<em>(To a Black Dancer in "The Little Savoy")</em><br />
<br />
Wine-maiden<br />
Of the jazz-tuned night,<br />
Lips<br />
Sweet as purple dew,<br />
Breasts<br />
Like the pillows of all sweet dreams,<br />
Who crushed<br />
The grapes of joy<br />
And dripped their juice<br />
On you?Lorenzo — Alchemist's Pillowhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07522265816460154722noreply@blogger.com23tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6308428467776400130.post-60009459911084894422011-01-05T18:06:00.002+01:002011-01-07T14:58:31.877+01:00Of epiphanies great and small<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: left; margin-right: 1em; text-align: left;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjsoJ-zfUBTKHeh825e-csbqiIUKJkvW_URVI6Lq5nmpj-to5J9fSn9y65mGNk5XZmwI0UZIuDzFkkHisDdul-oW2EWwgMgwmYoo0UYrUxOOwDUMJJimfC2r-a19CHSPBgzDlzyQ3sT3s3U/s1600/The+Middle+King.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; cssfloat: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="320" n4="true" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjsoJ-zfUBTKHeh825e-csbqiIUKJkvW_URVI6Lq5nmpj-to5J9fSn9y65mGNk5XZmwI0UZIuDzFkkHisDdul-oW2EWwgMgwmYoo0UYrUxOOwDUMJJimfC2r-a19CHSPBgzDlzyQ3sT3s3U/s320/The+Middle+King.jpg" width="212" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Detail from Gozzoli's<br />
<a href="http://www.museumsinflorence.com/foto/cappella%20dei%20magi/big/landscape.html">Procession of the Magi</a></td></tr>
</tbody></table>Although Christmas may seem over in much of the world, it is still in full swing here in Spain. Indeed, tonight, the eve of this the 12th day of Christmas, is the most eagerly awaited night of the entire Christmas holiday for Spanish children. <br />
<br />
Traditionally, Christmas Eve and Christmas Day were for family gatherings, meals and mass, and little or nothing in the way of gift giving. Instead, children received gifts on the night of January 5th, the Epiphany, the day of the Magi, the Wise Kings of Orient, <em>los Reyes Magos</em>. So it is this night that was and still is the most magical for the young and young at heart in Spain. Christmas trees were never a tradition here (although they are becoming increasingly popular), but most homes had a manger nativity scene, known as a <i>Belén</i> or <i>nacimiento</i> (literally Bethlehem or nativity), with figures representing the birth of Christ and his revelation to the Magi. Some of the figures can be quite ornate and beautiful and are handed down in families for generations. On the eve of the Epiphany, after seeing the <i>cabalgata de los Reyes Magos</i>, a street procession with elaborate staged representations of the Christmas story, highlighted by the three wise kings from Orient, children rush home to put their shoes next to the manger and in the morning find the gifts that the Magi <em>Melchor, Baltazar</em> and <em>Gaspar</em> have left for them.<br />
<br />
Of course, the child in me is partial to Santa, but I have to say that Saint Nick’s connection to Christ is tenuous at best, so I think there is a bit more liturgical ‘integrity’ in giving pride of place to the Magi over the chubby jolly fellow in the red suit. I must say, though, that last year we were in Brussels, Bruges and Ghent shortly before Christmas and I found some of the commemorations of Saint Nicholas (<i>Sinterklass</i>) on December 6th to be quite beautiful. Specifically, in Ghent, we saw how a few boats full of boisterous singing children made their way through a half frozen canal, with Saint Nick leading the way, while their classmates on the bridges and streets collected money for orphans from the happy onlookers, many of whom joined the kids in song. (I recently learned from Wikipedia that in Belgium Saint Nicholas is the “patron saint of sailors, merchants, archers, thieves, children, and students” — comforting to learn that even thieves have patron saints, how democratic is that?!)<br />
<br />
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgI3qKIByv_h3BpTlKhJrf7W7SInY2PELWXOAiqtn2OitqW96eQzDK4psKdB5kE0sRxSChZBuEFoy7IGGPoIVm8uZx5OfxhMSdhs6rnZGPpxIl5puWUasBr_hNiJy9aEfsjqtwsTSj7TRMn/s1600/Procession+of+the+Middle+King.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="341" n4="true" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgI3qKIByv_h3BpTlKhJrf7W7SInY2PELWXOAiqtn2OitqW96eQzDK4psKdB5kE0sRxSChZBuEFoy7IGGPoIVm8uZx5OfxhMSdhs6rnZGPpxIl5puWUasBr_hNiJy9aEfsjqtwsTSj7TRMn/s400/Procession+of+the+Middle+King.jpg" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://www.museumsinflorence.com/foto/cappella%20dei%20magi/big/landscape.html">Benozzo Gozzoli, Procession of the Middle King, detail</a></td></tr>
</tbody></table><br />
One of the favorite though waning activities during the Christmas holiday is spending the time between Christmas Day and the Epiphany visiting the nativity scenes in churches, store displays and other public places. Some are quite large, sophisticated and even mechanized, so we can see a shooting star cross the sky, the Magi arrive on their camels, Herod issuing his murderous decree to slay the innocents, and Mary, Joseph and the newborn Christ taking flight to Egypt. There is something so warmly satisfying about watching the faces of little children light up with big eyes as they pick out the main players in the birthing drama of dramas about the king of kings. <i>¡Mira, la virgen! ¡El ñiño Jesús! ¡¡Baltazar!!</i> (being the lone black man of the three, Balthazar is the easiest to pick out). There is little or nothing in the way of snow, but much moss and sand. Here, where I live, in <i>Don Quijote</i> country, there are mini-windmills. I particularly like the Bethlehem representations that show us bakers taking bread out of their ovens, ironsmiths hammering blades on anvils, a shepherd readying a lamb for slaughter.<br />
<br />
<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: left; margin-right: 1em; text-align: left;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhm3ndHvKaw-CYY1brnPEJSeNRj5cm9bEY3DGxrtFjaYzujTNyws_GQ-PSUAmJjFMWXKZNQ2grnDuxdxmf4eJUAzilQ7nZC3BEWGHEmF53m66P8Z5sr3j2lUMsk1MtgNzm111PxIg07rkXl/s1600/Capella+dei+Magi.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; cssfloat: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="320" n4="true" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhm3ndHvKaw-CYY1brnPEJSeNRj5cm9bEY3DGxrtFjaYzujTNyws_GQ-PSUAmJjFMWXKZNQ2grnDuxdxmf4eJUAzilQ7nZC3BEWGHEmF53m66P8Z5sr3j2lUMsk1MtgNzm111PxIg07rkXl/s320/Capella+dei+Magi.jpg" width="272" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://draft.blogger.com/goog_22540675">Gozzoli — Cappella dei Magi</a><br />
<a href="http://www.museumsinflorence.com/foto/cappella%20dei%20magi/big/landscape.html">Palazzo Medici-Ricardi, Florence</a></td></tr>
</tbody></table>One rather comical tradition in this part of Spain is the <i>cagané</i> (a Catalan word, as this originated in Catalonia), which literally means the “shitter”. Yes, for the sake of realism, the big nativity scenes normally include the figure of a man squatting down with his pants bunched up at his ankles and tending to certain organic needs, respectfully removed at a discreet distance from baby Jesus, Mary and Joseph. Needless to say, the ooooing and awwwwing that accompany the excited fingerpointing when Mary and Jesus are spotted soon melt into delighted giggles when the kids spot this figure, <i>¡Mira! El cagané!,</i> and the pointed fingers quickly cover up their giggle laughs. So from a very early age, Spanish children know what myrrh and frankincense are —although they prefer more modern gifts from the Magi, like WIIs, Ipads and cellphones— and also learn that people have to squat and take dumps, did not always have flush toilets, and that there is nothing innately shameful or vile about the human body and its functions. Or so I would like to think that they learn.<br />
<br />
Well, returning from the socio-scatological to the ritual sacred, I am embedding a video below that is representative of how elaborate and beautiful these <i>belenes</i> can be. This particular nativity scene is set up every year during the 12 days of Christmas at a church in a lovely town called Chinchilla, around 10 miles from where I live. I recommend setting the resolution to 720p and viewing it full screen.<br />
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<div style="text-align: center;"><strong>* * *</strong></div><br />
The term epiphany was originally coined by the ancient Greeks to refer to the appearance or manifestation of a god. Later on, it became identified with this particular Christian celebration and tradition. Over time it has also come to be used to refer to a luminous moment of intense insight into the essence of something, normally an otherwise mundane or commonplace object, that special flashpoint where the everyday and the transcendent suddenly meet. It was James Joyce who perhaps did the most to give the word epiphany this secular meaning, unrelated to the appearance or manifestation of a deity or of Christ. He wrote brief vignettes, prose poems, in which he illustrated epiphanies. For Joyce, an epiphany was a sudden “revelation of the whatness of a thing”, the moment when “the soul of the commonest object … seems to us radiant”. Surely, epiphanies are the lifeblood of poetry, the shudder we feel when the things of this world seem to overflow into us.<br />
<br />
In this vein, I was tickled to learn recently (a little bird on Facebook told me) that January 6th, the Epiphany, el <i>día de los Reyes</i>, is also the birthday of a very special blog friend. How delightfully appropriate, I thought, feeling that many things were thus explained, for this child of the Epiphany strikes me as a person who forever craves not so much chocolate —as she is fond of claiming— as she does epiphanies. A poetess who seems addicted to finding, creating and sharing epiphanies on her blog, <a href="http://thechocolatechipwaffle.blogspot.com/">The Chocolate Chip Waffle</a>. So now I know your secret, Terresa: your sublime and scintillating poetry and prose is a birthmark and birthright, gifts from some wandering magi. And I know this day is especially important to you. That you approach the Epiphany from your deep Christian faith as the 12th and crowning day of Christmas, festival of the rebirth of hope for a more loving world and belief in the possibility of salvation and redemption. And that you also come to the epiphany from your poetic practice, in the JamesJoycean sense of finding and spreading radiance in our everyday lives.<br />
<br />
So, if you like, treat yourself to a visit to Terresa's blog and wish her a happy; tell her Lorenzo said <i>¡Felix cumpleaños!</i><br />
<br />
<div style="text-align: center;"><strong>* * *</strong></div><br />
The images I have used on this post are from the wonderful cycle of 15th century frescoes, The Procession of the Magi, painted by Benozzo Gozzoli in the Chapel of the Palazzo Medici-Riccardi in Florence. By clicking on the captions you can see a large landscape image of the series. You can also see a very brief visual intro to the wonderful chapel below (again, try seeing it in 720p and full screen): <br />
<br />
<object height="340" width="560"><param name="movie" value="http://www.youtube.com/v/rPhlfZOxWmc?fs=1&hl=en_US"></param><param name="allowFullScreen" value="true"></param><param name="allowscriptaccess" value="always"></param><embed src="http://www.youtube.com/v/rPhlfZOxWmc?fs=1&hl=en_US" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" allowscriptaccess="always" allowfullscreen="true" width="560" height="340"></embed></object>Lorenzo — Alchemist's Pillowhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07522265816460154722noreply@blogger.com21tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6308428467776400130.post-9016799884110419312011-01-01T16:42:00.001+01:002011-01-07T15:04:07.222+01:00A year with Rilke and all of you ...<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"></div><br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgDNvGMx-h1LxTz_3-lkCtGaQMbD4C8BodKbBlUdzyaLC4iGmXhR5QmTVs6q36ZPpPgq2zISz1aMOsolRJRjk4Z7qjNlsmg5oA6LZukTQpy1dkhnaRlmI0nRfvI2dTVNLtNQFwOo1_Hleqn/s1600/IMG_0134.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; cssfloat: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="400" n4="true" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgDNvGMx-h1LxTz_3-lkCtGaQMbD4C8BodKbBlUdzyaLC4iGmXhR5QmTVs6q36ZPpPgq2zISz1aMOsolRJRjk4Z7qjNlsmg5oA6LZukTQpy1dkhnaRlmI0nRfvI2dTVNLtNQFwOo1_Hleqn/s400/IMG_0134.JPG" width="300" /></a></div>Happy new year to all my readers and blog friends. And a very happy birthday to my oldest daughter Isabel, who turns 20 today. Isabel is featured in the photos I am posting here, taken from concerts she gave with her chamber music group at different churches in Madrid during Easter Week and this past Christmas.<br />
<br />
Today, standing inside the festive gate of this new year, I take pleasure in announcing a gift for all my blog friends: a new blog with daily readings from the poet Rainer Maria Rilke. This project has been launched by Ruth of <a href="http://ruthie822.blogspot.com/">synch-ro-ni-zing</a> and myself out of the appreciation we both feel for the beauty and many insights we find in Rilke’s writing. It is based on the recently published collection <em>A Year With Rilke</em> (translated and edited by Joanna Macy and Anita Barrows, <a href="http://www.harpercollins.com/books/Year-With-Rilke/?isbn=9780061854002">Harper Collins</a>), which features a short daily offering of excerpts from his poems and letters. For Rilke, letter writing was the workshop for his poetry and something he took extremely seriously, as becomes quite clear when contemplating the staggering volume and remarkable depth of this facet of his literary output. He spent an astonishing amount of time in that epistolary workshop, penning some 11,000 letters during his relatively short life (1875–1926). The blog will also include images of photos and paintings that bear some relation to the German poet, his life and writings, friends and social and cultural milieu. It contains a link to a biographical piece on him from The Poetry Foundation.<br />
<br />
Neither Ruth nor I make any pretense of being experts in Rilke. Speaking for myself, though I had been familiar with bits of his poetry and fragments from his widely and deservedly celebrated <em>Letters to a Young Poet</em>, it was only quite recently that I began to delve into his works “seriously” (pronounced ponderously with one arched eyebrow and graven voice). And how rewarding it has been! Rilke is one of those poets, like, say, Mary Oliver, whose magic goes beyond the sheer beauty of their verse. More than a poet, he seems to be a guide to how <em>to be</em> in this world, how to see, feel and engage intensely with our immediate surroundings, latching our senses onto the beauty that abounds everywhere and everyday, exploring the continuous and limitless opportunities for appreciative amazement. In this sense, his poetry is based on a supreme magnification and intensification of things, not on an exquisite delectation of philosophical ideas, as can be seen in the “thing poems” (<em>dinggedichte</em>) in which he set himself the task of taking down every word of the “dictation of existence".<br />
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<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgHnESOG_IW3XNlCoSxUdUcqUfsQeB7UBtSHyBu4S6hAgH-GJrEolaxZeA1956QMuLxZuhY6C4QmyBtoa-Jlg3-1sl4JiRshmYb31e31NEi299-rI0v3chOG3k_lbPPRmplA7bBTFuc7jy0/s1600/IMG_0130.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="302" n4="true" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgHnESOG_IW3XNlCoSxUdUcqUfsQeB7UBtSHyBu4S6hAgH-GJrEolaxZeA1956QMuLxZuhY6C4QmyBtoa-Jlg3-1sl4JiRshmYb31e31NEi299-rI0v3chOG3k_lbPPRmplA7bBTFuc7jy0/s400/IMG_0130.JPG" width="400" /></a></div><br />
But you are better off reading this from the poet himself, not from me, so I will include some quotes from Rainer Maria Rilke below. As was modestly stated by the young poet addressee of <em>Letters to a Young Poet</em>, Franz Xaver Kappus, in his introduction to that memorable book, “when a truly great and unique spirit speaks, the lesser ones must be silent” (all of the following quotes are taken from <em><a href="http://www.randomhouse.com/catalog/display.pperl/9780679642923.html">The Poet’s Guide to Life: The Wisdom of Rilke</a></em>, another highly recommendable collection of his writings thematically arranged by translator and editor Ulrich Baer into a sort of user’s manual for life).<br />
<blockquote><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 12pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: ES;">♫</span><em> The possibility of intensifying things so that they reveal their essence depends so much on our participation. When things sense our avid interest, they pull themselves together without delay and are all that they can be, and in everything new the old is then whole, only different and vastly heightened.</em></blockquote><div><blockquote><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 12pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: ES;">♫</span><em> Seeing is for us the most authentic possibility of acquiring something. If god had only made our hands to be like our eyes —so ready to grasp, so willing to relinquish all things— then we could truly acquire wealth. We do not acquire wealth by letting something remain and wilt in our hands but only by letting everything pass through their grasp as if through the festive gate of return and homecoming. Our hands ought not to be a coffin for us but a bed sheltering the twilight slumber and dreams of the things held there, out of whose depths their dearest secrets speak. Once out of our hands, however, things ought to move forward, now sturdy and strong, and we should keep nothing of them but the courageous morning melody that hovers and shimmers behind their fading steps.</em></blockquote><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEio8MAt26tq6Oyqf81nT2FhKWinTDyzZPpt2XOiYCyScM9PRX6mgUaZFHtTMw3TSVoUYzJZ1TYFXjeDzEszb_ok68f253fTDXrzYllJjP2m4fbyC7Gm25Jy0jIR9Pq3-ZKcWoml_RDegQyy/s1600/IMG_1738.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; cssfloat: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="400" n4="true" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEio8MAt26tq6Oyqf81nT2FhKWinTDyzZPpt2XOiYCyScM9PRX6mgUaZFHtTMw3TSVoUYzJZ1TYFXjeDzEszb_ok68f253fTDXrzYllJjP2m4fbyC7Gm25Jy0jIR9Pq3-ZKcWoml_RDegQyy/s400/IMG_1738.JPG" width="300" /></a></div><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 12pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: ES;">♫</span><em> Yes, for it is our task to impress this provisional, transient earth upon ourselves so deeply, so agonizingly, and so passionately that its essence rises up again “invisibly” within us. We are the bees of the invisible. We ceaselessly gather the honey of the visible to store it in the great golden hive of the Invisible.</em></div><blockquote><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 12pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: ES;">♫</span><em> Most people do not know at all how beautiful the world is and how much magnificence is revealed in the tiniest things, in some flower, in a stone, in tree bark, or in a birch leaf. Adults, being preoccupied with business and worries and tormenting themselves with all kinds of petty details, gradually lose the very sight for these riches that children, when they are attentive and good, soon notice and love with all their heart. And yet the greatest beauty would be achieved if everyone remained in this regard always like attentive and good children, naïve and pious in feeling, and if people did not lose the capacity for taking pleasure as intensely in a birch leaf or a peacock’s feather or the wing of a hooded crow as in a great mountain range or a magnificent palace. What is small is not small in itself, just as that which is great is not great. A great and eternal beauty passes through the whole world, and it is distributed justly over that which is small and that which is large; for in important and essential matters, there exists no injustice anywhere on earth. Art is childhood.</em> </blockquote><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgktGjMqkau6LZSwMcTPLiLmJZu4333cvcyeZkNfPZMo8UvnC1LEjlRsPyPu1tRSO4GCo_SMFkLiwXllkXvPvkvzm14pdcSs2Emg6s4SvgG_S3ZcpIuYBSkPRMTYRt2v2I9Bz4vZ1VWDosT/s1600/IMG_1724.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="300" n4="true" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgktGjMqkau6LZSwMcTPLiLmJZu4333cvcyeZkNfPZMo8UvnC1LEjlRsPyPu1tRSO4GCo_SMFkLiwXllkXvPvkvzm14pdcSs2Emg6s4SvgG_S3ZcpIuYBSkPRMTYRt2v2I9Bz4vZ1VWDosT/s400/IMG_1724.JPG" width="400" /></a></div><br />
<span class="highlight"><span lang="EN-GB"><span class="highlight"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 12pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: ES;"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 12pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: ES;">♫</span><em> Whether you are surrounded by the singing of a lamp or the sounds of a storm, by the breathing of the evening or the sighing of the sea, there is a vast melody woven of a thousand voices that never leaves you and only occasionally leaves room for your solo. To know when you have to join in, that is the secret of your solitude, just as it is the art of true human interaction: to let yourself take leave of the lofty words to join in with the one shared melody.</em></span></span></span></span><br />
<br />
<span class="highlight"><span lang="EN-GB">So, please go visit the blog (via the link on the sidebar <a href="http://yearwithrilke.blogspot.com/">or here</a>) and join Ruth and myself in beginning this new year with a daily dose of Rainer Maria Rilke. </span></span><span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">The year that has just closed was my first full year as a blogger and thus very special for me. And I look forward to 2011 with great enthusiasm as we continue to share the secrets of our solitidues, our solos and our melodies here, at A Year With Rilke and on all of your blogs.</span><span class="highlight"><span lang="EN-GB"></span></span>Lorenzo — Alchemist's Pillowhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07522265816460154722noreply@blogger.com28tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6308428467776400130.post-73336128724520320332010-12-26T13:54:00.003+01:002010-12-26T20:18:43.488+01:00Christmas birdsong<blockquote><span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;"><em>prayers felt in hearts</em></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;"><em>that minds command lips</em></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;"><em>never to utter</em></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;"><em>will nest in throats</em></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;"><em>awaiting the day </em></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;"><em>they take flight on song</em></span> </blockquote><span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;"></span><span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">Today is that day, my friends: sing your hearts out!</span> </span></span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: inherit;">Merry Christmas from me and Ray Charles ...</span><br />
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For a stirring gospel version of <em>Silent Night</em> by Ray Charles and the Jubilation Gospel Choir of Newark, New Jersey, <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GU9CW8IpNlM">click here</a>.Lorenzo — Alchemist's Pillowhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07522265816460154722noreply@blogger.com15tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6308428467776400130.post-54989254963561593532010-12-24T17:37:00.001+01:002010-12-26T11:56:40.258+01:00Silent Night<span class="highlight"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 12pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: ES;"><em>To be loved means to be ablaze. To love is: to cast light with inexhaustible oil. To be loved is to pass away; to love is to last ... </em>Rainer Maria Rilke</span></span><br />
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 12pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: ES;">Tonight, on Christmas Eve, I wish all my blog friends much light, inexhaustible oil, love and everlasting hope on this holiday and always. </span>Lorenzo — Alchemist's Pillowhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07522265816460154722noreply@blogger.com16tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6308428467776400130.post-90435655111339235802010-12-19T00:10:00.009+01:002010-12-20T23:51:08.712+01:00Dicebamus hesterna die ... <br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiV6RrOsMiuBh_VhoOQU7ygKJRnxgGOUDQcrs_Dz8l6xLSljCmh5qVDKTpGRX5gx3bsRvR__a9JEEHhZvX0SX_52Zg3inWO8O4CNKZwv83l94HqoDYyWJ5ayKM7boeIV7xkceaeYepvsKNH/s1600/Fray+Luis+de+León-Jan+Mariën.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="266" n4="true" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiV6RrOsMiuBh_VhoOQU7ygKJRnxgGOUDQcrs_Dz8l6xLSljCmh5qVDKTpGRX5gx3bsRvR__a9JEEHhZvX0SX_52Zg3inWO8O4CNKZwv83l94HqoDYyWJ5ayKM7boeIV7xkceaeYepvsKNH/s400/Fray+Luis+de+Le%25C3%25B3n-Jan+Mari%25C3%25ABn.jpg" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Statue of Fray Luis de León at the Universidad de Salamanca<br />
Photo: <a href="http://www.janantoon.be/">Jan Mariën</a></td></tr>
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The expression <em>decíamos ayer </em>(in Latin: <em>dicebamus hesterna die</em> or "we were saying yesterday") is used in Spain when one wishes to make passing acknowledgement of a long silence or absence without actually discussing or even mentioning the interruption. It dates back to the 16th century poet, scholar and humanist, Fray Luis de León, a friar of the Augustinian order who studied at the venerable University of Salamanca and then went on to hold chairs there in philosophy, religion and biblical studies. It is said that he would always begin his lectures with those now famous words, <em>dicebamus hesterna die</em>, we were saying yesterday ...<br />
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In the 1570s he ran afoul of the Spanish Inquisition for, amongst other heresies, his translation and commentary on that sensual Solomonic book from the Old Testament, <em>Song of Songs</em>. The accusations soon landed the poet in prison, where he continued to write and study as best he could in the harsh conditions and isolation. After four years of confinement his name was cleared and he was allowed to resume teaching at the university. Needless to say, the university was astir with tense excitement when he returned for his first class. Legend has it that he stepped to the lectern before the expectant students and simply began his lecture with his classic <em>dicebamus hesterna die</em> and then continued the lesson with no mention of his forced absence of four years.<br />
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<div style="text-align: center;">* * *</div><br />
So, where were we yesterday? Ah yes, Miguel Hernández... Actually, after this break of more than one month from the blog, today I wanted to share some rambling thoughts and musings before returning to the series on Miguel Hernández another day.<br />
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The first thing that comes to mind is an etheree, a poem form unknown to me until just a few days ago, when I saw it mentioned by a blog friend. Basically an etheree is a 10 line poem, the first line of one syllable, the second with two, third with three, and so on until the 10-syllable last line. No rhyme or set meter. Here is mine ...<br />
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<div style="text-align: center;"><strong><u><span style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue", Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Caught always</span></u></strong></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue", Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"></span></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue", Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br />
</span></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue", Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">His</span></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue", Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">eyes would</span></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue", Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">always catch</span></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue", Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">on the knot in</span></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue", Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">his mother’s rosary,</span></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue", Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">in much the way her voice</span></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue", Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">always caught on father’s name</span></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue", Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">ever since the fire at the inn</span></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue", Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">where he always stopped on the way home</span></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue", Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">to catch some beers and worry-polished songs.</span></div> <span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 10pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: ES;">© Lorenzo — Alchemist's Pillow</span><br />
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</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;"><span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;">Of course, for purposes of the form I have counted the syllables as they are pronounced, not as they are written ('polished' as two, 'stopped' as one), and chosen to <em>say</em> 'rosary' as two instead of three syllables, and 'fire' as one. Which brings to mind an observation the poet Robert Pinsky makes in his excellent book, <em>The Sounds of Poetry: A Brief Guide, </em>that fire can be pronounced as one or two syllables and, if you are from the South, as three or even four. </span></div><br />
And leaving form aside and looking at content, on seeing rosary, inn, beers and songs, I realize that this week's visit to Dublin has seeped into my blog. One of the many highlights of my three days in the wonderful city of James Joyce, Yeats, Oscar Wilde, George Bernard Shaw, Johnathan Swift and so many others was the last night at <a href="http://www.brazenhead.com/">The Brazen Head</a>, the oldest pub in Ireland, dating back to 1198. That's right, no typo — 1198. Over eight centuries. In fact, they have posted signs advertising their New Year's Eve Party, inviting guests to "join us as we celebrate the 813th year of our existence". That does give one pause.<br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjfvXpaSYrbDhJ88TVLZOH7nsZIkvzHXumf_M1rnXLcE5IkYy4ptHNPVdPVeLF9ol6CnF5bi_XtqpVm0I4LvvLb-o2_eY4zWZdOEQsRlpk3VVcVRSo1zNcnL1zvlPEryZ2WkgyWFj4waEJb/s1600/Brazen+Head-1.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="300" n4="true" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjfvXpaSYrbDhJ88TVLZOH7nsZIkvzHXumf_M1rnXLcE5IkYy4ptHNPVdPVeLF9ol6CnF5bi_XtqpVm0I4LvvLb-o2_eY4zWZdOEQsRlpk3VVcVRSo1zNcnL1zvlPEryZ2WkgyWFj4waEJb/s400/Brazen+Head-1.jpg" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Musicians in one corner of the packed Brazen Head pub this past Monday.</td></tr>
</tbody></table>Lorenzo — Alchemist's Pillowhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07522265816460154722noreply@blogger.com23