Back to the Textile Museum

We went back to the Textile Museum to have a docent explain the Japanese Rozome wax-resist painted textiles we had seen several weeks ago, and immediately following to hear a lecutre from a Professor at Catholic University on the cosmology of the Huari people (these are the pre-Incas in Peru and the subject of another exhibit at the museum). A previous posting discusses the exhibits.

The docent tour was very good and to our surprise attracted about 25 people. It was helpful to have seen the exhibit earlier, and made you realize how much you miss when you simply look at an exhibit on your own.

We had read that this particular technique flourished in 8th century Japan and then was "forgotten" until the 20th. This seemed hard to believe, but now we understood it a little better. In the 8th century (a prosperous one for Japan), a statue of the Great Buddha was unveiled with extraordinary pomp and circumstance, including much in the way of textiles for clothing, banners, etc. After the celebration, all of the textiles were packed away and stored, and the boxes were not discovered and opened until the 1920's. There were thousands of preserved textiles found at that time.

She explained how Japan has always gone through periods of isolationism, followed by periods of trade and contact. The 8th century was a great commercial century, but it was followed by considerable isolation. As wax is not indiginous to Japan, this cut off the importation of wax from China, helping to ensure that the wax-resist technique would be lost.

I am not sure exactly how this technique works, but it appears that a hot wax applied to a fabric will keep paint from bleeding, and that the nature of the wax and the intensity of the heat permits controlled fading if that is what is required. Continual layers of wax, and precise painting, gives the desired result to the accomplished artist. The pieces in the exhibit include wall hangings, standing screens and kimonos of various types of color and design.

The upstairs exhibit of the fabrics found in pre-Inca Peru is also very interesting, and we hoped that the lecture would help us understand some of the imagery by giving us an idea of the world-view of the Huari (also spelled Wari) people. The lecturer is a scholar in the field of Huari culture and anthropology, and had an array of Power Point slides, but was disorganized and off-subject most of the time. Partly reading too quickly, and partly going off paper for hard to understand interpretations of what she wished the slides really showed, we learned very little, except that we don't know a lot (and a lot of what we know is colored by our Christian world-view), and the Huari used to keep their dead ancestors in corners of rooms of their houses (perhaps just their skulls, as decapitation seems to be a standard image in their textiles).

This latter practice may sound a bit weird but, as coincidences continue, I was looking through a book called "Ring of Fire", a companion book to a PBS series on primitive Indonesia, yesterday afternoon, and came upon a picture of a "Bugi Warrior" (hence, boogey man) from the Indonesian Aru Islands, off the coast of Borneo. The caption reads: "Even the bravest warriors are subject to psychic attack, so this man sleeps on the skull of his father as a counter-measure." Perhaps the practice is more widespread than one would think.

Communist China (12 cents)

That is how they refer to it. "They" being the Chinese, as well as the outside world. But, why is it considered a Communist country today?

The article in today's New York Times that stated that 78% of rural Chinese now lack health care (because they cannot afford to pay the required premiums) led me to thinking about this.

Are we sure that China is now not a Fascist country, rather than a Communist one?

Now, I will admit that I have never been too sure what a Fascist country is. I know that Hitler's Germany was Fascist, as well as Mussolini's Italy and (to a large extent) Franco's Spain. I have read many defintions of Fascism, but they never seem to be quite definitive enough. But, if you think of a Fascist country as being one with a one-party, dictatorial government, one where the government controls the majority of the means of production by a combination of state owned enterprises, and close ties with large private industries, where the press and other forms of communications are controlled as well, where leaders are venerated, where family relationships are highly regulated, and where the military keeps order in society, you have both China and the elements that prevail in Fascist countries. On the other hand, a Communist country would control all the means of production and not ally itself with capitalist forces, but provide all basic services to its citizens (certainly including health care).

I know that the Chinese Communist Party is still called Communist, but, truthfully, is it?

"Everything Jewish"

So we get this catalog in the mail that contains "everything Jewish". Thought I would look to see what was included. Here is my top 5:

1. There is a Garden of Eden Lovers' Candle, with entwined nude wax figures, with flowers painted on them, and flames spurting from each of their heads, which would (I am certain) burn down first, so eventually you would have fiery legs painted with green stems burning to the ground. "sure to be appreciated by any loving couple" $20. By the way, you can also get a robed loving couple holding Shabbat candle holders, an "aluminum lovers menorah" or a "pewter one heart statue" (you can imagine the anatomical convention of that one).

2. You can get the full Shema inscribed into a crystal prism sitting on a glass base (Hebrew only). The carving "stands on a firm foundation". $150.

3. How about a "faberge-style", star of David, "egg pendant"? Yes, "a crystal star rests on an iridescent gold framed blue egg." $100. Or a pendant whicreads "I'll never stop loving you", with the "o" in stop being a star of David?

4. Or (figure this one out), a five volume Chumash written by Rabbi Yisrael Herczeg. (Mystery solved) $103.49. (I am sure that there is something in the gamatra that led to that price.)

5. Finally, Manny the Electric Menorah, which has a feature that lights just the right number of candles and plays Moaz Tzur at the same time. Comes with a special "battery saving" feature. $21.99

Pat Robertson One More Time

1. So the Washington Examiner, following Robertson's disgusting statement about Ariel Sharon, announced on its editorial page that Robertson made his ludicrous comments only for the publicity, and that therefore the Examiner was to give no more space to his rantings.

Two days later, guess what! A one half page article on fallout from the Robertson outburst. Go figure.

2. The focus of today's article in the Examiner (and elsewhere) is that Israel The Country has announced that it will cease doing business with Robertson The Evangelist. (Like, "The State of Israel has announced that it is calling its ambassador to Pat Robertson home for consultation.") This threatened the proposed Galilee Center for Christian Truth, or whatever Pat's pre-Armageddon museum is to be called. (Like, "The State of Israel has announced the imposition of an economic boycott against Robertson the Evangelist.")

Immediately, Robertson says, more or less, "I apologize to the Israeli people. I really love the Jews. Sharon is a sweetheart; always has been. I goofed when I said what I really believed."

Will this be sufficient to induce the State of Israel to reopen its Robertson consular office?

The shadow knows.

Art, Drama, Music and Turtles

Four brief reviews where much more is warranted.

Art: The Retratos exhibit of Latin American portraitry (is that a word) at the Smithsonian Ripley International Gallery is gone. You can catch in next, I believe, in San Antonio. One hundred exhibits of Latin portrait art, ranging from 2000 year old Peruvian clay sculptures, to late 20th century modern portraits and self portraits. The big names are represented (Rivera, Tomayo, Botero, Sequeiros,Kahlo and so on) and many you have never heard of. A fascinating sixteenth century painting of ethnic African nobility; religious paintings of saints and priests; portraits of wealthy women and their husbands. All with those rich and lustrous colors that were found in the Peruvian exhibit last year at the National Geographic.

Drama: Nextbook's program last night, featuring four actors reading from literature written by non-Jews but about Jews, was also not to be missed. But most people missed it, as I only counted about 50 or so in the Theater J space. The readings were from The Canterbury Tales (the Prioress' tale), Ivanhoe, Daniel Deronda, The Great Gatsby, House of Mirth, the Sun Also Rises and Ulysses. All four actors were excellent: Laura Ferri, Colin Byrne, David Klein and Shellie Shulkin. They went from character to character, from American to British to Irish dialects, giving great comic and dramatic readings. This was rehearsed; no sight readings here. See it when it plays Chicago next.

Music: My Tuesday lunch time concert today featured three Levine School staff members, vocalist Marilyn Moore-Brown, clarinetist Tiffani Perry and pianist Matthew van Hoose. The music they chose to play left something to be desired. First, there were three songs by Gordon Jacobs (don't know him, do you?) for voice and clarinet. I did not care for them musically, and the words (which I read but could not understand from Moore-Brown, whose beautiful voice masks her diction) were nonsense, I thought. van Hoose then played a Beethoven sonata (E major, Opus 109). I thought I would recognize all the Beethoven sonatas...but not this one. It is characterized by a superabundance of notes. Not always the best thing. but it does give a chance for the painist to show off his talents. They ended with Schubert's "The Shepherd on the Rock", a lied with piano and clarinet accompaniment, with lyrics by Wilhelm Mu[with an umlaut]ller. I could listen to most Schubert 24/7 and this song is no exception.

Turtles: Yesterday, I went to the National Acquarium at the Commerce Department on 14th Street, just south of Pennsylvania Avenue. I had not been there in about 30 years. It has not changed a bit. The water in the tanks looked clean, so I assume the fish are well cared for, but the basement acquarium remains dreary, dreary, dreary. And you have to feel sorry for the residents. They don't know how good their Balitmore cousins have it. But then, there is the sea turtle. He is an intellect, and an actor, and quite friendly. He (like the otters at the National Zoo) is worth the price of admission. In fact, I may go back just to see him. He is my friend.

Art, Drama, Music and Turtles

Four brief reviews where much more is warranted.

Art: The Retratos exhibit of Latin American portraitry (is that a word) at the Smithsonian Ripley International Gallery is gone. You can catch in next, I believe, in San Antonio. One hundred exhibits of Latin portrait art, ranging from 2000 year old Peruvian clay sculptures, to late 20th century modern portraits and self portraits. The big names are represented (Rivera, Tomayo, Botero, Sequeiros,Kahlo and so on) and many you have never heard of. A fascinating sixteenth century painting of ethnic African nobility; religious paintings of saints and priests; portraits of wealthy women and their husbands. All with those rich and lustrous colors that were found in the Peruvian exhibit last year at the National Geographic.

Drama: Nextbook's program last night, featuring four actors reading from literature written by non-Jews but about Jews, was also not to be missed. But most people missed it, as I only counted about 50 or so in the Theater J space. The readings were from The Canterbury Tales (the Prioress' tale), Ivanhoe, Daniel Deronda, The Great Gatsby, House of Mirth, the Sun Also Rises and Ulysses. All four actors were excellent: Laura Ferri, Colin Byrne, David Klein and Shellie Shulkin. They went from character to character, from American to British to Irish dialects, giving great comic and dramatic readings. This was rehearsed; no sight readings here. See it when it plays Chicago next.

Music: My Tuesday lunch time concert today featured three Levine School staff members, vocalist Marilyn Moore-Brown, clarinetist Tiffani Perry and pianist Matthew van Hoose. The music they chose to play left something to be desired. First, there were three songs by Gordon Jacobs (don't know him, do you?) for voice and clarinet. I did not care for them musically, and the words (which I read but could not understand from Moore-Brown, whose beautiful voice masks her diction) were nonsense, I thought. van Hoose then played a Beethoven sonata (E major, Opus 109). I thought I would recognize all the Beethoven sonatas...but not this one. It is characterized by a superabundance of notes. Not always the best thing. but it does give a chance for the painist to show off his talents. They ended with Schubert's "The Shepherd on the Rock", a lied with piano and clarinet accompaniment, with lyrics by Wilhelm Mu[with an umlaut]ller. I could listen to most Schubert 24/7 and this song is no exception.

Turtles: Yesterday, I went to the National Acquarium at the Commerce Department on 14th Street, just south of Pennsylvania Avenue. I had not been there in about 30 years. It has not changed a bit. The water in the tanks looked clean, so I assume the fish are well cared for, but the basement acquarium remains dreary, dreary, dreary. And you have to feel sorry for the residents. They don't know how good their Balitmore cousins have it. But then, there is the sea turtle. He is an intellect, and an actor, and quite friendly. He (like the otters at the National Zoo) is worth the price of admission. In fact, I may go back just to see him. He is my friend.

Rock, Paper, Scissors

Now here is a coincidence.

I am reading two books, "Fatelessness" by Imre Kertesz, a Nobel Prize winning Holocaust novel, and "One's Company" by Peter Fleming, a British journalist and brother to Ian, who wrote a travel book about his journey to China in 1933. Very different books.

In the Kertesz book, after our fifteen year old hero and tens of other Jewish youth are herded off a bus in Budapest in 1944, and held in a large empty builidng for several hours, the guarding policeman asks them if they knew any "party games". Page 45: "One boy - "Leatherware" as I recall - suggested paper, scissors, stone. The policeman, however, was not too keen on that, saying that he had expected better of "such bright kids" like us."

In the Fleming work, in Hangchow, the author is dining in a restaurant with a friend. Page 167: "From a room downstairs came that sound which so often accompanies meals in China - the staccato, competitive ejaculations of a party playing the "scissors" game. In this you and your opponent shoot out your right hands at each other simultaneously, the fingers being arranged in three postures. A clenched fist means "stone"; two fingers extended mean "scissors"; all five fingers extended mean "paper"........"

I can't wait for Google to put every book in the world on line. As soon as they tell me they are finished, I am going to write my Ph.D. thesis on "rock, paper, scissors" in fiction and non-fiction writing across the ages.

Haiti at the Beginning (13 cents)

I really did not know much about the creation of Haiti. i knew it was the first independent country in the Caribbean, and the first black run country in the hemisphere. I knew that it owed its existence to a man named Toussaint L'Ouverture; I had been to his palace in Cap Hatien. But I was very weak on the details.

I still am not strong, but have a much better feel for them after reading Gordon Brown's new book, "Toussaint's Clause". Brown interweaves three stories: the separation of Haiti from France in the early 1800s; developments in France itself during the Napoleanic years; and this country's relationship and reaction to the prospect of an independent Haiti, both politically and economically.

The facts themselves are too complex to relate. The Haitians took the French revolutionary slogan of equality, liberty and fraternity seriously, even when the French did not. They demanded an end to slavery and a change to the plantation system that led so many to a quick and early death. Because of the lack of assumed French support for their position, the African population turned anti-white in general, and also against the favored mulatto class. But they had no basis for the creation of a democratic society, and fell into dictatorship immediately. And, the plantation economy might have been socially reprehensible, but it was the economy, and with its collapse, Haiti quickly turned from the most prosperous island in the Caribbean to one of the poorest.

The French were conflicted, as well. They did not want to lose their prize colony, but could not hold onto it; they had neither the resources, nor (once the Napoleanic Wars began) the economic capacity that was needed. It was the same drain on their resources that led to the bargain sale of the Louisiana territory to the United States. But the French wanted to maintain some trade with Haiti, they wanted to preserve the wealth of its French population, they did not want to see America, and especially Britain, gain as a result of their limitations.

America had a number of conflicting interests. The northern states, mouthing support for another new self-governing republic, were in fact mainly interested in the preservation of trade, which was very important to the New England economy. The south, on the other hand, saw only bad precedent in the existence of a free black population so close to our shores. At least these were the major issues; in fact, things were much more complex, getting involved in issues of domestic politics to be sure, and even more with our relationship with our sometime friends and sometime adversaries, Britain and France, who were for the most part at war with each other.

Nothing turned out as expected, or as it could or should have, and Haiti suffers for it to this day. Brown's book sheds significant light on this interesting aspect of US history, even if its complexity is too great for perfect understanding.

More on Pat Robertson

Proof that the dodo bird is not extinct?

My Four Cents on Abortion (4 cents)

With the Alito hearings starting, abortion policy is on everyone's mind.

It poses some interestng questions.

First, we have an issue that the "left" (which normally favors governmental regulation) wishes the government not to regulate at all, and which the "right" (which normally favors minimal government regulations) wants to the government to regulate completely.

Second, the issue focuses on Roe v. Wade, a thirty year old case which precluded state regulation of abortions under what most people recognize is a relatively weak constitutional theory, and is potentially subject to reversal, or modification, if the Supreme Court is faced with certain facts and an anti-abortion disposition. It has always been vulnerable in this regard, but has been in place for 30 years. Indeed, one of the questions now is whether the precedent set by 30 years of Roe v. Wade, or the legal concept of "stare decisis", should induce the Court not to overturn a decision that today might be decided much differently.

The number of people in the United States today advocating abortion as a matter of right, irrespective of situation or facts, seems to be diminishing. This is because the anti-abortion lobby has been very successful in bringing the negatives of abortion into public view, while the "pro-choice" lobby has been less successful in advocating the opposite position.

But to my mind the most complicating issue today is that the arguments in favor of eliminating or abolishing the right to an abortion has taken on sectarian, religious tones to the extreme.

The Catholic church has long been anti-abortion on the theory (another charged term these days) that life begins at conception. Thus, an abortion is murder and, as I understand it, murdering a "pre-born child" may be worse than murdering any other living person, because the pre-born child has not been baptized (why can't they baptize in utero?), and therefore the afterlife of its soul is in question. For this reason, again as I understand it, the church would, if there were a conflict between saving the life of the unborn child and saving the life of the pregnant mother, save the child at the expense of the mother.

The Jewish position is very different. Under Jewish law, a child is not born until it leaves its mother's body. Although great respect is paid to the fetus, an abortion is not "murder" under Jewish law, and if there is a question of saving the life of the unborn child, or the life of the mother, it is the mother's life that is favored. Just the opposite of the Catholic position. In addition, under Jewish law, abortions are permitted to preserve the health of the mother (physical or mental, under relevant responsa), again the opposite of the Catholic position that there can be no basis for an abortion.

As to Protestant and other non-Catholic Christian denominations, the positions vary greatly, with the more fundamentalist denominations taking positions close to the Catholic position and the more liberal denominations taking positions more alligned to the Jewish position (although for different reasons).

Another difference, of course, is that the Jewish position would oppose governmental regulation on the basis that the Jewish community self-regulates according to its halakhic rules, and that those rules do not govern other communities, which should be left to their own devices. The Catholic/rightwing Protestant position, on the other hand, is a universal position, not permitting other groups to operate by other religious or ethical standards.

If Roe v. Wade were overturned, abortion rights would revert to the states. It would be expected that some states would seek to regulate abortion closely (or eliminate it entirely), and others would leave it unregulated.

Suppose this happens. I would expect that, if say Alabama outlawed abortions, the challenge to the state legislation would be made on a different basis than Roe was decided. It would be made on the basis that this is a law that embodies a particular religious position and thus does not permit others to enjoy freedom of religion. This would be a different issue than the courts would have faced before and, because the anti-abortion positions all seem to the based on particular religious beliefs held by certain denominations, we might be back where we are now, with state regulation of abortion deemed unconstitutional.

Because of the volatility of the issue, however, it would not only be a question of confusion and cost while this battle is being refought, but stands to deepen even further the polarized positions on abortion more and more evident in American society, and have a continuing negative influence on the commonweal.

No Known Motive (ten cents)

A close paraphrase of news I heard yesterday on the radio.

"A 28 year old man has been arrested for setting fire to a commercial building in Thurmont, Maryland, on New Years Day. Authorities say there is no known motive for the assumed arson. The suspect had previously worked for a company headquartered in the building, had been fired, and had been engaged in a dispute with his former boss over the firing and back pay."

An Embarrassment to Yale Law School

Is Pat Robertson, who believe it or not has a Yale LLB. He is also part of the best proof against Intelligent Design (no intelligent deity could ever have designed Robertson).

Having said that God struck down Ariel Sharon because he gave up Gaza to the Palestinians, Robertson has joined Rabbi O.J. (Obediah Joseph - see previous posts)in the lead for the category "Religious Stupidity". (OJ said that Katrina hit New Orleans because the black population of New Orleans did not study Torah.)

"God said: This is my land. You can't give it away", said Robertson. Even today's Wall Street Journal, of all papers, with its generally simplistic and wrongsided editorial policy, said that Robertson had hit a new low in religious crassness. Way to go, WSJ.

I Should Have Said Something Earlier

The Sean Scully exhibit at the Phillips is not to be missed. And, if you don't go by Sunday, you will have missed it.

Look up Scully on the Internet and you will see what he does. Basically, geometric walls and shapes, often on large, textured canvasses, showing extraordinary colors and light.

It is a large exhibit, but you can do it quickly, as the impressive thing about it is the overall impression it makes, not the details on each piece.

No such thing as a klezmer organ (4 cents)

This is what I learned at Tuesday's lunchtime concert at Grace Episcopal Church. It was called "Music for Christmas and Epiphany" and consisted of organ solo renditions of various carols and other seasonal songs. I was relatively unexcited about most of the songs and most of the arrangements. Several seemed to consist of too many notes and too much noise. A simple melody line would have been preferable.

But I did like (a lot)a piece called Weinachten (Christmases in German), composed by Max Reger. It is a soulful piece meant to explore the relationship between World War I (it was written in 1914) and the prince of piece. Very moving.

Most of the pieces were hymns, with words (and piano music) found in the hymnals. Did you know that the fourth verse of O, Come, All Ye Faithful contains: "Lo, he abhors not the virgin's womb"? What does that mean?

The organist, Lawrence Young is organist for a Presbyterian church in Annandale. He wrote the program notes. I think that his view of organ music and mine differ quite a bit. He called one of the pieces a "rollicking bit of fun". Can you imagine an organ that rollicks?

We'll see what next week brings.

Starbucks Egg Salad Sandwich (25 cents)

I was enjoying my Starbucks egg salad on dark bread until I looked at the label and saw that this one sandwich contained 740 calories.

My lunch? One half of a Starbucks egg salad sandwich.

Heartburn

I don't have a CURE for heartburn, but if you want to GET heartburn, sit through the new movie, "Syriana".

What's worse, under the current rules of our house, I have now lost the ability to select the next movie. After a successful run of two (Goodnight and Good Luck, and Capote), I now must await my wife's selection of a klunker before I can pick another.

The Bugatti Queen

Recall my reviews of books about "progressive" women of the early twentieth century (such as the novel about Tina Modotti, "Tinisima" by Eleana Poniatowsa), and add to them the Bugatti Queen, Helle Nice. This biography tells the story of a girl from rural France, born in 1900, who finds her way to Paris, becomes a night club performer, and professional dancer, but who has always wanted to become a race car driver. Her career picks up, she makes friends with all the right people (in all the wrong ways, perhaps) and then has an accident which destroys her knee and her dancing career.

Not to be held down, this gives her the chance to really concentrate on the still new (and very dangerous) sport of auto racing, something that few women were involved with. She sees an extraordinarily high percentage of her male peers killed in racing accidents, but she becomes the toast of racing circles in (at least) France, her fame and ambition growing. Until she, too, is in a racing accident, this time in South America, which leads to a long recovery, and to an end to her highflying career as a driver (although she does not stop participating in the sport).

Cut to Paris in WWII, and the German occupation. Now, Nice's activities grow mysterious, as evidence of them does not seem to exist. She is living with her latest lover (and mechanic, a much younger man) in Paris, but they move to the Riviera where they live in elegant surroundings in a villa overlooking the sea. The war ends, the Germans vanish, and life goes on. But within a few years, Nice finds herself in a restaurant in Monaco where the runs into another well known French racer, named Louis Chiron, who loudly and publically accused her of being an agent of the Gestapo. The run-in is reported, and obviously was meaningful, because Nice drops from public view.

Was she a Gestapo informer? Was she a Nazi? Was she anything?

Again, the evidence one way or another appears to be non-existent. Nice lives almost another 40 years. But she lives them in poverty, loneliness and obscurity.

As a subject of a biography, she is interesting. Her story has never before been written and there are obvious gaps in it. (The author, Miranda Seymour, includes an Afterwood, where she talks about how she came to write this book, and how she obtained the information contained in it.) It ends in mystery.

Most importantly, in addition to the biography of the subject, is the description of the early days of automobile racing, especially in Europe. Fascinating.

Siberia

"Siberia" is a travel book written by English travel writer Colin Thubron. Thubron at the age of 58 decided to travel throughout Siberia to see the effect of the fall of Communism on life (if you can call it that) in this large (and cold) region. Speaking some Russian (and having written one previous travel book on Russia), he embarked by himself in 1998 on what seemed to have been a 4-5 month trip, generally following the Trans-Siberian railroad, but going off on excursions (sometimes hitching a ride, and sometimes flying in propeller planes) both north and south. He method is as follows, or so it seems: he researches the area to which he is to travel in order both to set out his route (marked generally by distinct locations which he believes are 'must see'), and to get background on the places he is to visit (generally, it appears, by reading and by visiting museums in Moscow and St. Petersburg, where he speaks to scholars and curators. Then he sets off, with minimal baggage. It seems he is only carrying a large rucksack. Although he knows where he is going and what he wants to accomplish there, he makes no advance arrangements, relying on his wits to find places to sleep and eat, and people to meet. Often the places he travels to are very remote, with no accomodations, and he must fend for himself.

What a terrible place Siberia is. And always has been. Largely, of course, because of weather and expanse. The native tribes began to be joined by Russian who were fur trading and mineral mining centuries ago. But those were the good told days. Struggles with native populations, continued and generally unsuccessful attempts at larger scale colonization and industrialization, the creation of enormous prison and labor camp systems by a series of Russian governments, and environmental destruction have all left their mark.

In some of the larger cities (Krasnoyarsk, Irkutsk, Novosibirsk, Yekaterinislav), there are hotels, but not first class ones. In some smaller places, there are guest houses. But there are also places, such as Pokrovskoe (the boyhood home of Rasputin) where he stays in the two room cabin of an old woman.

"It never fails. You arrive in a small town towards sunset. You know nobody, nothing. The main street is empty, the shops closed, the few offices, almost deserted. But you tell yourself: within an hour, I'll be under shelter. So you trudge into some municipal building, where a dazed looking secretary directs you down the street to a guesthouse. It doesn't exist."

The trip is certainly not without interest. You see where Tolstoy died, where Doestoevsky and Lenin and Stalin were exiled. You meet people who survived the gulag and hear of those who did not. You see the Communist attempts to build industrial powerhouses in the east, now mainly abandoned and left to decay. You see the large science center built at Novosibirsk, once totally off limits to foreigners, and now attracting only third rate researchers, who scrape buy with virtually no financial support from the government. You see the resurgence of Russian orthodoxy, and of buddhism. You see how removed the non-Russians feel from Moscow, and how so many of the Russians believe that they are still part of a large unified country. You see the brain drain, the vodka, the lack of a balanced diet, the madmen, the religious enthusiasts of all stripes. You visit Lake Baikal, deepest and purest in the world, in spite of increasing pollution. You go into regional museums, you see the large public and cultural buildings in places such as Irkutsk, built in better times. You see Chinese merchants who cross the border to see, you visit Birobidjan (the Jewish autonomous republic) now without Jews, you enter a restaurant in Yakutsk, where horsemeat and pony stew highlight the menu.

You are fascinated by the trip as it moves along. You are thrilled when it is over.

Thubron is an excellent writer, but he makes you wonder about what was left out, as well as about the situations he describes. You don't want to visit Siberia.

What is KlezKamp?

This is the question of the day, after our four days as Kampers. So here goes.

Imagine Interlocken Music Camp, in the woods of northern southern Michigan, near the shore of the lake of that name, with hundreds of campers taking performance and related music theory and culture courses.

Now take that camp, remove it from the Michigan woods and instead put it on a cruise ship.

Now, lower the temperature from about 80 degrees to about 35 degrees.

Now, take the cruise ship and put it in the middle of the mountains of the Hudson River Valley, and turn it into a hotel, which resembles a cruise ship, in that you cannot disembark from it.

Now take the restaurants on the cruise ship and compress them into one restaurant, serving three meals a day, under the supervision of the local kosher authorities.

Now change the music from classical to klezmer, and the language from English to Yiddish.

Now give each camper the opportunity to attend four ninety minutes classes a day, whether they are performance related (instrumentation, voice or dance), culture related (Yiddish literature, or the history of the language, etc.), language related (Yiddish instruction at various levels), or art related (Hebrew/Yiddish calligraphy, papercutting, etc.) along with eating his/her three meals a day (dairy breakfasts and lunches/meat dinners).

Now in the lobby of the hotel, place several artists who are hawking their works, a piano around which there are jam sessions going on most hours of the night or day, and sellers of related books, tapes and cds (along with Kamp tshirts and sweat shirts). And because it is Hanukah, put several tables together on which Kampers can place and light their menorahs.

Every night, schedule an activity (a staff concert, a student concert, productions by Klezkids and by Klezteens, a spoof on the Purim megilla written by a Yiddish poet and produced in Yiddish, a showing of the 1970s movie Hester Street, with a discussion with Joan Micklin Silver, the director.

Add an orthodox morning and evening minion. And create a general feeling of informality and music making, and you get the general idea.

The instructors include some of the most accomplished klezmer players in the country, the instructors include well know authors and university professors.

Picture about 500 or 600 campers, ranging in age from 3 year old toddlers to 93 year old toddlers.

You begin to get the idea.

Vice President Cheney in Kehonkon?

It's a perfect place for his secret location. It is not only remote, but Al Quaida's ability to find it would be vastly limited by their inability to spell it correctly. Al Quaida? Al Keida? Al Qayda?

Still in Kerhonkon

To find out what I am doing here (more or less), go to www.klezkamp.blogspot.com, or www.klezkamp.org.

Back in DC tomorrow night.

I am in Kerhonken, New York (2 cents)

Wanna guess why?

Capote and I would have made quite a team

He said that he had 94% recall of any conversation he heard (this is how he wrote his book without taking notes).

I have 6% recall.

Together, we'd have been perfect.

Capote [17 cents]

"Capote" may be the darkest movie I have ever seen. Also, one of the best. Based on Gerald Clarke's biography of Capote, it tells of the writing of "In Cold Blood", the story of the murder of a Kansas family of four in 1959, and the two men arrested for, convicted of, and executed for the killings. Capote spent almost five years on the story, which was the subject of his acclaimed and best selling book.

Philip Seymour Hoffman plays Capote extraordinarily, and Caroline Keener plays Harper Lee, his friend and sometime assistant, who wrote "To Kill a Mockingbird" when some of her friends did not even know she wrote.

Of the two murderers, Perry is the more central character. Truman and Perry, both products of terrible homes, virtually abandoned to the world As Capote says, it is like we were the raised in the same house, only I went out the front door and he went out the back. This is obviously one of the reasons for their drawing so close to each other, and one of the reasons that Capote suffered a virtual nervous breakdown and never wrote another book.

The movie is in color, but its memory is in black and white. It is slow moving, it is fascinating, and boy, does it make you think.

Do I Hate Bagpipes

more than anyone else in the world?

Could be.

All the News That's Fit to Print

1. War continues in Iraq: Middle East stability nowhere in sight.

2. Global warming threatens civilization as we know it.

3. United States President believes anything he wants to do is legal and authorized by the war powers resolution.

4. Baby penguin missing in London.

Or, do I have the order of importance wrong?

At the National Gallery

By the way, the website for the National Gallery of Art is www.nga.gov. If you go to www.nationalgallery.org, you wind up at the National Gallery of Jordan!

There are a number of exhibits at the National Gallery, and I saw four of them briefly today--the ones in the West Building. None are bad, but if you don't see them, you probably won't miss them.

Briefly, I saw:

The exhibit of Audubon bird prints (handcolored lithographs). They are very striking, but you have seen them before, if only in book reproductions. So, they are not "new". The exhibit is there through March and I may go back and look again, with more care. You can't say anything negative about Audubon; it's just that I have been exposed to them for so long.

The exhibit of Peter Claesz still lives. Claesz lived in Holland in the 17th century and was one of the pre-eminent still life painters, who brought more realism into his paintings than did his predecessors. The exibit closes on December 31, and was the primary reason for my visit today. Still lives have never been very attractive to me and, as still lives go, these seemed pretty ordinary. I expect this is why I had never heard of Claesz before (or at least don't remember hearing of him). And this is the first exhibit of his work in this country, ever. There are 25 tabletops on display. As far as food in Holland goes, the baked goods and the cheeses don't look like they have changed a bit. The meat pies are different (peacock, mincemeat and pheasant are shown), and highly decorative. The olives and nuts look like our olives and nuts. But the fruit is not quite the same, and my guess is that there has been more variation in apples, pears and grapes than in other types of food.

There is an exhibit of 19th century engravings and acquitints by Felix Buhot. He was a perfectionist, who kept altering the plates as additional strikes were made, so there is a lot of almost-duplication in the exhibit. His scenes of urban Paris and the rural French coast are very interesting, but I can't say that the prints themselves are particularly appealing. You have to see this one for yourself and decide. For some, this may be just the ticket. It is there through February 20.

Finally, there is a small exhibit of photography by Nicholas Nixon called "The Brown Sisters". He is married to one of them and has taken pictures of the four sisters, in the same order left to right, every year since 1975. Then, they were in their twenties; now their fifties, and you can see how they age not only year to year (sometimes imperceptible), but over 5, 15 or even 30 years. I found it moderately interesting. But I wouldn't go see it again.

There is a Winslow Homer exhibit and an exhibit of drawings from the Getty Museum that I did not have an opportunity to see. Next time.

You are what you eat.

From today's Jerusalem Post's article on Ariel Sharon's minor stroke:

"A day before suffering the stroke, Sharon reportedly dined on hamburgers, steak in nchimichurri sauce, lamb chops, shish kabab and an array of salads... For dessert, Sharon had double servings of chocolate cake."

Is Kent Conrad My Favorite Senator?

I had the absolute pleasure last night of hearing his remarks on the Senate Floor (interrupted a number of times by Paul Sarbanes, who also said all the right things, and acted as a foil for Conrad) on the administration's proposed budget reconciliation legislation (styled deficit reduction, while it expands the deficit). I am waiting to see if Conrad's statements will appear on his website; they will be worth re-reading.

The question is: should I move to North Dakota so I can vote for him? I know they need Democrats out there? And I hear the weather is nice, and surf very gentle.

Another Side to Novgorod

In addition to the exhibit described in the previous posting, the comment book at the museum was almost worth the price of admission.

Other than a number of long and (I am sure) very thoughtful comments in Russian, there were such comments as:

This was a really great exhibit and besides, today is my birthday (that by a sixth grader)

December 7, 1941, a day that will live in infamy.

This exhibit proves that Christ as risen.

I am an Isralite of the tribe of Juda and I love Jesus.

Novgorod (3 cents)

The exhibit at the Walters in Baltimore on artifacts (more than just icons) from Novgorod is very interesting. Novgorod is an old, old city in the heart of Russia that has always been exceedingly Russian. It has existed since at least about 800 C.E., and because of the nature of the soil and ground, and the wood construction which has always been predominant, it provides fertile ground for archeologists and anthropoligists, who have identified twelve different layers of the city, one on top of the other. Excavations are continuing, and will continue for a long time, bringing up items that demonstrate some of the basic characteristics of Russian life for over a millenium.

The Walters exhibit is sponsored by the museum, as well as by museums in Moscow and Novgorod, so it presents one of the only opportunities to see some of the many items on display. The icons and other religious pictures on wood (actually on canvas on treated rough wood, with a varnish for protection) are striking, with their bright colored dyes, all made (of course) from natural sources (plants and rocks). There is also jewelry and other articles of adornment, ceramics and metal cookery, coins, books and writings on wood and parchment, toys, riding aides and so forth. The signage is excellent, both for its content and its placement. There are also objects (particularly cloth fragments) that demonstrate that Novgorod was a major trade center on routes to the west, to the north, and to the south (Constantinople) from which Christianity (of the eastern orthodox variety) arrived at any early date.

Photos and models of cathedrals and reminders that this has always been a cold and muddy place complete the picture. It is there until sometime in February and worthy the drive. It is too bad that the book created for the exhibit is hardback, $65, and not that attractive at that.

Campbell Brown and Colonial Lane

Campbell Brown is the accomplished and attractive NBC Today Show weekend host (and weekday sometime substitute). The only other thing I knew about her is that she had an interesting first name.

So, much to my surprise, in looking a the most recent quarterly alumni magazine of Ladue High School, I see reference to Campbell Brown, NBC personality and daughter of Ladue graduate Jim Brown. This particular Jim Brown (I assume this is the right one, based on his graduation year) was a year or two older than me, and lived about 12 houses away on Colonial Lane. We were not friends, and during high school probably had nothing really to do with each other, but were part of the same group that spent their summer evenings on bicycles through the neighborhood in junior high school years.

At any rate, it got me thinking that there were a lot of kids on Colonial Lane. Some stayed there until I left after high school graduation, but others moved away earlier, to be replaced by families with kids much too young for me to pay attention to (not being a pedophile).

And, I don't know what happened to (virtually) any of them. So, here are the names of those I remember. Your job is to locate them.

John Vencill (saw him a few years ago; lived in Atlanta working for some aircraft company)
Anne Richardson (saw her a few years ago; retired in North Carolina playing golf)
Cindy Richardson
Marsha Steinberg
Nancy Laba
Jody Laba
Barbara McCracken
Dick Elliott
Brian Zingsheim
Steve Kunkel
Barbara Kunkel
Ann Braznell
Joann Larsen
Lanny Jones

Some of them may not remember me. They've been gone a long, long time. But I think I have the names right.

The Worst Play in the History of American Theater

We saw last night what is either the worst play in American theater history, or perhaps one that is tied for last. "The Beautiful Child" is its name, and it played at a small black box theater near the new Washington convention center. We went because the daughter of a friend of my wife's was involved in its production.

The staging was fine. The acting ranged from OK to abominable. And the text is horrific, generally involving a tragic spoof (if there wasn't such a genre before, this is it!) on a pedophile school teacher who confesses to his parents his love for an 8 year old student (with whom he has developed a physical relationship) and their decision to save him by hiding him out, but also to cut out his eyes so he can never see another child. Meanwhile, his parents are engaged in a 24-7 spat, his father has impregnated his secretary, and a deus ex machina (as opposed to deus sax machina--see recent posting) psychiatrist (who is sometimes called a psychologist) hangs around talking about her own problems.

The play was compounded by our return home, and happened to turn on the Dateline show about the MSNBC sting in Fairfax County to catch real pedophiles, who had met fake 13 year olds on on-line chats, and arranged to meet the kids when they were "home alone". No spoof here. Pure tragedy.

Eli Evans Again

In speaking about his interviews with Jews in small towns, Evans said that he asked one man why his grandfather settled in this particular place. He said he was told that the man's grandfather was moving west, and stopped there because his horse died.

In a review yesterday in the New York Times of a new book which chronicles the life of several families affected by the Dust Bowl of the 1930s, the author was quoting as saying that one of the families he was following was living in a small town because, as the family was moving west, their horse died.

If I had only heard Evans, I would have believed him. If I had only read the Dust Bowl history, I would have believed it. But now it reminds me of the story told by a law school professor, who said: If you are listening to a clock strike the hour and it strikes 13, you not only disbelieve the 13th chime, but all that came before.

But, if you are ever asked by someone how your family got to your home town, one thing is clear. You can't beat a dead horse.

More Morning Thoughts

I obviously hit the Post button too soon.

But it goes with my first morning thought. Au Bon Pain, on L Street, has several thermoses of coffee from which its customers pour their own cups. OK, so far, so good. But Au Bon Pain, on L Street, changes the order and placement of the thermoses from day to day. Sometimes, the one closest to the door is Cafe Roast, sometimes Hazelnut, etc. There should be a law against this, don't you think? The whole purpose of getting coffee is to enable you to read signs and process what you read. You cannot be expected to this first thing in the morning.

One other thing. An article I saw this morning on CNN's website talked about an explosion in Russia. It was quoting a source from what may be the world's most difficult to pronounce word (other than those without vowels and with Slavic consonent order):
Rosenergoatom. Want to tell me how you think you say it?

Morning Thoughts (16 cents)

Sax, Sax, Sax (1 cent)

This week's Tuesday concert at Grace Episcopal Church was fascinating. A saxophonist (Noah Getz) with a piano accompanist (Matthew van Hoose), both Levine School faculty members, among other things.

The pieces were all 20th century (not that the sax is too much older than that). The pieces were all in teh nature of tone poems, meant to be evocative of particular settings or events. Briefly:

"Holy Roller" by Libby Larsen was, to me, just noise, with no redeeming qualities. I did not understand it at all, and saw no relationship between the music (very, very abstract - a squeak here, and a sqawk there) and the title. The program notes says it was based on three year revival meeting in Los Angeles, 1906 to 1909. Of course, I was not there.

"Wings" by Joan Tower was terrific and very saxophony. You could just imagine a hummingbirds wings as the entire piece was played with rapid flutters (di,dah; di, dah; di,dah; etc., very very fast).

"Sonata: Deus sax machina" by Gregory Wanamaker was comic classical music at its best. Imagine it: the first part basically a Rube Goldberg machine put to music, the second part called 'Refrigerator' a slow modern piece with what appear to be random "slap-tonguing" (so says the program) meant to represent ice falling from the ice maker; the third section just good twentieth century modern music, non-melodic and highly rythmic.

Finaly, "Tableux de Provence" by Paule Maurice, six short representations of the south of France, not quite as abstract, almost (if not actually) as much jazz and classical, with a strong taste of Gershwin-like urban chaos.

Next week is the Christmas concert, which I will skip.

Eli Evans and the Jews of the South (24 cents)

Author Eli Evans spoke on the Jews of the South at the DC JCC last night, as part of the Nextbook series, and I have to say I was disappointed. Evans has written a number of books abouth Jews in southern communities, as well as a biography of Judah Benjamin, the first Jewish U.S. Senator and the Confederacy's Secretary of State. He does a lot of lecturing around the country. I had great hopes.

But his talk was primarily anecdotal, stories about his grandfather, his father, his brother, and people he has met along the way, and while they were sometimes amusing and moderately interesting, I don't think that they imparted much in the way of new knowledge. And when speaking of broader trends in today's south and with regard to its Jewish community, he was, I thought, fairly hackneyed, and did not demonstrate any significant depth in his thinking.

Not that the evening was a waste; it was just disappointing.

He did bring out some points which resonated, however. He has not lived in the south since he left Yale Law School 42 years ago, although he has devoted much of that time to his subject, and is obviously an expert in this field. When his son was born in New York City, he carried a bag of North Carolina soil into the delivery room, so his son would not be all Yankee. In fact, his son chose to go to UNC, leading his wife (she from Alabama; he from North Carolina) to suggest that the bag must have worked. Evans says that, wherever he lives or goes, he always carries his southern upbringing with him, and he believes that to be unique.

I am not sure how unique that is. As a native of St. Louis, who has lived in Washington DC for over 35 years, I still consider myself a St. Louisan, and consider that my world view was set by my upbringing in the St. Louis Jewish community. This is no different from the way Evans appears to feel. St. Louis is, to some people, the South, and to others, an eastern outpost in the midwest, and to still others, the heartland of the country. I don't know what it is, but it has (or had) its own distinctive personality and social structure. I consider my daughters, who were born in and still live in Washington, D.C., to be from St. Louis, too. And, I was very surprised once, when I said this out loud, that one of them looked at my like I was crazy, and said to me "what did you say?" But I know the truth, even if she did not recognize it.

One of my favorite author (most of the time) is Calvin Trillin, who writes in the New Yorker and is a product of the Kansas City Jewish community. In his "Letters from my Father" (I think that is the name), an extraordinary book, I thought, he tells of raising his daughters in Greenwich Village, but wanting them to in fact be as if they were raised in Kansas City. They too thought he was a little nuts, but I know exactly what he means.

Fateless

Fateless is the name of a semi-autobiographical novel by Hungarian-Jewish writer Imre Kertesz, who won the Nobel Prize for Literature in 2002, in large part on the basis of this book. It is also the name of a movie, produced in Hungarian in Hungary, scheduled to be released in the United States in January. The movie has been playing in Hungary to large audiences since February of this year, and has been shown at several film festivals, including the Washington Jewish Film Festival, where it was screened on Sunday night.

The story is of a 14 year old boy in Budapest in 1944, who is rounded up off a bus with a number of other Jewish men and shipped to Auschwitz. Told to say, when asked, that he is 16 (to be old enough for a work detail), he does, and winds up on work details at Buchenwald and other, smaller work camps. He is in these camps for over a year, holding himself together under obviously horrendous conditions, until he develops a severe knee infection that leaves him unable to stand, much less walk. By some chance event (which the real Kertesz still cannot explain), rather than being shot, he is carried to the Buchenwald hospital, where he is well cared for in a bed with a blanket and clean sheets, and where he gets real food. He is there a short time, when the camp is liberated. He chooses to go back to Budapest (now under Soviet control), and finds himself fairly alone (his father has been killed; his mother apparently survived, but he does not have a reunion with her during the film), wandering the streets, wondering what his future will bring. He is still in his camp clothes, he has no money, he feels an outsider in the city of his childhood, he even longs for the regularity and comeradery of the German work camps.

It is a harsh picture (although one wonders if the concentration camp scenes are all harsh enough). The director, Lajos Koltai, was in town and gave a very nice introduction to the film and its creation. As he said, when he finished his introduction: "The one thing I cannot say here is, 'sit back and enjoy the film. This is not a film to enjoy.'" The young actor who plays the lead, Marcell Nagy, is excellent in his first film role. The cast is all Hungarian. The musical score, by Italian composer Ennio Morricone, is haunting.

It will be very interesting to see the American public's reaction.

Are You a Man or a Mouse?

That is the question being asked to those lucky mice whose brains are being injected with embryonic human brain cells.

This may be great science, but is is clearly news of the weird.

They say that it will be great for research. I say: Will Mickey Mouse become a reality? And if so, was it really Walt Disney pulling the strings of intelligent design? When he wakes from his frozen stupor, he will be one surprised guy.

Schwarzenegger and Clemency

The issue, to me, is not this particular individual, but the death penalty itself. Perhaps the reaction in California will be strong enough for the state to change its policy.

Tookie Williams is a very unsympathetic guy, having founded a deadly gang and participated in several murders. I am not sure that one can reform sufficiently from that to be qualified for a particularized "mercy" clemency and there were no allegations that I know about that would lead one to give clemency on the basis of legal insufficiency in connnection with the conviction.

So, the result is not surprising.

We will see what happens.

Another Direct Quote from the Post

"[Pakistan's] Supreme Court has extended a ban on making, selling and flying kites that it imposed two months ago after ruling that the sport had become increasingly deadly...."

Richard Pryor, 1940 - 2005

Talented guy. Very active. But....

1970's, charged with failing to pay federal income taxes for four years
1970's, convicted of marijuana possession
1978, heart attack
1978, charged with firing a .357 magnum (that's a gun, I believe) at his wife's ear (he missed?)
1980, set himself on fire while freebasing cocaine
1986, diagnosed with multiple sclerosis

Married and divorced six times (twice to the same woman: times 5 and 6)

How did he live as long as he did?

Christmas vs Holidays: the question of the year

Not that I can understand why the religious right is so upset about the lack of Christmas in advertisements that they want to boycott those stores whose ads say "happy holidays", but aren't these the same guys who were complaining that all of the commercialism was taking Christ out of Christmas??? You just can't please some people.

I did look at the first section of today's Washington Post. There are 28 pages in the section, and 59 ads (yes, I was surprised the number was that low). Only one ad, on page A27, advertises a Christmas sale. Creative Playthings of Gaithersburg and Chantilly. And, the sale ends December 13.

From Today's Washington Post

And I quote:

"The man accused of killing the American nun and rain forest defender Dorothy Stang told a jury (in Belem, Brazil) Friday that he acted in self-defense after mistaking her Bible for a gun".

End quote.

Presumably

I used the word 'presumably' three times in close proximity in my most recent posting. Presumably, this is too much.


Answer: Dr. Livingston, I Presume.

Question: And what is your full name, Dr. Presume?

Guantanamo: Good Radio?

"Guantanamo", at the Studio Theater in Washington, would make good radio. That is because there is no action on the stage. The characters are either sitting or standing in place. There is no direct dialogue. They are all talking to the audience, either directly as if one-on-one, or directly as if making a public speech, or indirectly by mouthing the words of a letter they had written to a family member. There is no reason to have your eyes open, unless it is to distinguish the characters one from the other, but this could be done by other means, as simply having a radio announcer state their name in an undertone before each speech.

That is not completely a criticism. The play is about inactivity, the inactivity (or inability to take action) of "enemy combatants" detained at Guantanamo, and the inactivity (or inability to take effective action) of their family members or attorneys. So, the lack of action on the stage is appropriate.

The story is about U.K. citizens, Moslems all, detained at Guantanamo, and focuses on the life stories of five of them, presumably all innocent of whatever they could be charged as having done (in fact, they were not charged specifically of anything). The words are taken from official documents, presumably, and organized by the two playwrights, on British, one South African, into a two hour, two act play. It premiered in London where it played for over a year.

The purpose of the play presumably is to show how a democracy like the United States (and its ally Britain) could fail abysmally in protecting human rights, and innocent people can be caught in a terrible situation by happenstance. It therefore both describes the forest and the trees.

The problem (in addition to a fair amount of wordiness) is that it is impossible to grasp truth regarding these individuals one way or another. There is no way you can believe, or disbelieve, the stories you hear. Also, there is nothing "dramatic" about it: you know exactly where it is going from the beginning. It is a manufactured documentary play.

The acting was very strong, and most of the audience stayed awake during the full production (except for one elderly man who slept through it all leaning forward on his cane, and who was unfortunately in the first row, no more than three feet from one of the lead actors).

It is also hard to judge the political goals of the authors of this very political play. It may be more than your typical American liberal type opposition to the war. One of the authors, Gillian Slovo, was the daughter of Joe Slovo, the former head of the South African Communist Party and the only white member of the executive committee of Nelson Mandela's ANC in opposition to the apartheid government of the U. of S.A. The other playwright, according to her mini-bio in the program heads a Palestinian rights organization.

From the Sublime to the Ridiculous

Tuesday, at lunch, I went to back to Grace Episcopal Church, for their weekly music program, this one featuring the Washington Bach Consort. The program was very enjoyable - a lengthy organ solo, followed by a melodic contata that I did not recognize, "Es ist dir gesagt, Mensch, was gut ist".

What surprised me was the size of the audience. When I went to the piano solo last week, I would guess that there were between 100 and 150 people there, which I thought was a respectable group. Yesterday, the church was filled with what I estimate to be 500-600 people. I was led to the balcony, coming in a little late, which had about 150 sitting (or standing) there.

The Consort had 11 singers, and 11 instrumentalists, plus the conductor, J. Reilly Lewis. I believe that it performs with more musicians in some of its other venues.

That evening, we went to the (formerly British) Embassy Players' winter panto, "Babes in the Woods", featuring Michelle as a very pretty Maid Marion. Slapstick comedy all the way, it was ridiculous in the best of senses, just as it set out to be. It plays all this week at the Kensington Armory, through Sunday matinee.

Memoirs

I have just finished reading two books, each of which are, in their own ways, memoirs. They are very different from each other.

The first was Richard Halliburton's "The Glorious Adventure", published in 1927, being the story of the young post-college Halliburton determining to follow the route of Odysseus, starting and ending in Ithaca. A student of the classics, Halliburton travels with few possessions, but for his many translations of "The Odyssey", all annotated. His style is breezy and appealing, as he visits some very primitive locals (primitive compared to how they are in 2005), in Greece, Italy, Turkey and North Africa. He starts with a friend, who needs to cut his trip short, but finds others (male and female, old and young) as he wends his way from improbable adventure to adventure.

It is hard to tell what is the truth, and what is exaggeration. But exaggeration there must be, as even Halliburton the narrator implies in his conversation with Calypso (real name: Fifi. Age: about 65) near the end of the book: "At twenty six, I hadn't an especially crimson record to confess. However I wasn't going to disappoint her by admitting it. Fifi never listened to a more profligate autobiography than the one I made up and related to her on the porch of Calypso's cave. Of course she was far too sophisticated to believe me entirely."

Very different is a much newer book, "A Walk Toward Oregon", published when the author, Alvin M. Josephy, Jr. was 85. (He died last year at 89.)

My guess is that Josephy was planning on a multi-volume memoir, but that time caught him short. His first 40 years take up, perhaps, 80% of the book, and his many accomplishments of the last half are handled much more matter-of-factly. What makes the first part of the book so good is that, in addition, to detailing his life to you, he paints a very clear portrait of the United States in the period 1920 through 1960. His style of writing is, perhaps not as breezy as Halliburton's, but equally appealing and accomplished.

Josephy was a man of many accomplishments. A long time editor of Time Magazine of the American Heritage, a New York Herald Tribune reporter, and the author of many volumes on the history of American Indians, Josephy, born in 1915, started out with a life of privilege (his mother was a Knopf of the publishing family), but his father's poultry business fell apart in the Depression, forcing him to leave Harvard after his second year, never to return. For a while, he lived in Hollywood, working with an uncle, who was an MGM screenwriter. For a while, he was down and out. He traveled to and from California; he went on a long road trip with a friend to Mexico. He interviewed Trotsky there. He became active in liberal Democratic politics.

He tells the story of privilege, of poverty, of ethnicity, and of history. And he tells it remarkably well. (Even the final few chapters, where everything seems so rushed, are fascinating; the difference here is that they primarily tell the Josephy story, while the earlier book tells the story of an entire country.)

And, as Halliburton seems prone to exaggeration as poetic license, you feel that Josephy is staying very close to the truth. His first marriage fell apart, and he does not tell that story: "..seemed too personal and melodramatic to pour it all out in a book for others to read about". That quote is from page 230.

On the same page, he introduces the woman to whom he will be married for the rest of his life (almost 60 years). She was probably one of the reasons that his first marriage disintegrated, although he obviously does not want to say so. Yet, he cannot tell a lie. He does not say that he met Betty (that's her name) after his marriage to Roz ended. He says: ".....at about the same time as the end of my marriage, some friends introduced me to......."

For this reason, I conclude that Josephy's book, in addition to being enjoyable and very interesting, is completely honest.

Act of God and OJ

Looking out this morning after the season's first measurable snowfall, you can see white covering the lawns and the branches of the trees. Very nice. But the streets stayed clear of snow and even the walkway to the driveway was basically clear, with only small patches of snow here and there.

Why was it, therefore, that the two cars in the driveway were totally covered (like top to bottom, side to side, front to back) by about four inches of packed snow on top of about a quarter of an inch of ice?

You can look at it in one of two ways, each starting from the basic premise, which I think that I learned I law school, that any natural tragedy or any inclement weather is an "act of God". OK, I will accept that for now.

If so, would former Israeli Sephardic chief rabbi Ovidiah Joseph (hereinafter called "OJ") conclude that God put four inches of snow on both cards as a punishment, if not for me, for the reincarnated souls of dead Jews that I carry around (after all, this is what he said about Holocaust victims), or perhaps as a punishment from me because I don't spend all my time studying Torah (after all, this is what he said about Katrina victims)?

Or, looking at the more positive side of things, is it possible that God put 90% of the snow that fell around our house on our cars because he wanted to be certain that I got sufficient upper body exercise this morning?

OJ?

Maybe It Will be Better (2 cents)

I was writing a very nice review about Alvin Josephy's "A Walk Toward Oregon", when everything went kaputt.

I bought a new computer today. An Apple or a Mac or something like that. I will try to get it hooked up soon. Maybe it will be better.

George Catlin at the Renwick

Several hundred Indian and related paintings by George Catlin are in the upper gallery at the Renwick. All are part of the Smithsonian collection.

Catlin painting Indian scenes from 1828-1848. His catalog shows that he made over 600 paintings during this time period. Each is numbered and described in an 1848 catalog, that the Smithsonian has reproduced for this exhibit.

His Indian portraits are of obvious interest, as are his scenes of buffalo hunting, Indian dances and Indian villages. Even one of his few non-Indian paintings, that of the St. Louis waterfront painted from across the river in Illinois is of interest. His notes say that at the time of this painting, in the early 1830s, St. Louis had 25,000 residents. It looks like quite a big city. No high-rises, of course, and not even the "old" court house, but it stretched for quite a way on the river. About a dozen large river boats are also in evidence.

But, having said all of this, the fact of the matter is that these paintings are of historic value only; they are not works of art. Catlin could not draw well (of course, he could draw better than I can, but not well), and has no concept of depth. It is as if these would fit into a category of "naive" or "primitif" art. That surprised me.

What do they have that we don't? (6 cents)

Again, from today's Wall Street Journal:

"Mexico's [President] Fox basked in near-record approval ratings as polls found voters strongly approved handling of Hurricane Stan and Wilma relief efforts."

Take that, FEMA!

Not Possible (2 cents)

The Wall Street Journal today, in an article about luxury automobiles, says that Rolls Royce is now offering purchaser their choice of 45,000 different shades of paint.

There goes the credibility of that paper.

Radio Time (2 cents)

I spent a fair amount of time this morning in the car, and had the radio on, and am pleased to report that I found three interesting things to listen to (and that I did not turn anything off in disgust):

1. The president's speech at Anapolis on Iraq strategy. Like the contents or not, it was a good speech, well delivered and interesting to hear.

2. The Supreme Court argument on Planned Parenthood's challenge to the state of New Hampshire on requirements for parental notifications before abortions can be performed on minors.

3. The Kojo Mnambe show with British mystery writer P.D. James.

This was especially refreshing, since so much of what you hear is just drivel.

Quick concert notes

You can attend free concerts in Washington. Another reason this is a good place to retire.

Saturday, at the Andersen House, we attended a piano-cello recital of pieces by Schumann (Immanuela Gruenberg and John Kaboff) and today I went to Grace Episcopal Church and saw solo pianist Joseph Currie. Currie played Schumann's Arabeske (a familiar piece) and Liszt's Annes de Pelerinage (2nd Annee), which I had not heard before. Gruenberg and Kaboff played pieces that were unfamiliar to me: Three Romances, Five Pieces in Folk Style and Fantasy Pieces. Most were written originally for instruments other than the cello, and transcribed by Schumann. Gruenberg and Currie gave interesting introductions to what was played.

The musicians were all of high quality, although none of them will probably solo with the New York Philharmonic.

Barry Rubin at Politics and Prose

My Monday Night at Politics and Prose this week led me to hear Barry Rubin speak about his new book on the prospects for democracy in the Middle East. I am not sure how many books Rubin has written over the past thirty years. Based on his presentation, it must be thousands. No matter what question was asked him, he answer was "I did not deal with that subject in this book. But I have written two others concentrating on the point."

Any insights? Two items of importance that I picked up. First, that Rubin thinks that democracy will come to the Arab Middle East, but that it might take another millenium or two. Second, that what the United States does in the Middle East has limited effects on what happens there. In other words, we may be disrupting Iraq with our presence, but are we really changing Iraq? Probably not -- stick around another millenium or two and see.

TV News Hits New Low!! (2 cents)

With Larry King's show tonight dedicated to Hugh Hefner and his three live-in girl friends. A new low!

The News!

They say that fewer people are reading newspapers, and that the average newspaper reader is 55 years old. They say that the largest group of people, and especially young people, are getting their news from the internet, where they look at only selective subjects whose reliability is questionable.

Some people get their news from the radio, where there are some acceptable all news stations such as WTOP is Washington, but where news is generally limited to repetitive five minute bites, or dangerous right wing crazies.

What about television? Obviously, a lot of people watch a lot of television, but the network newscasts have lost significant numbers of viewers, and are clearly in transition mode.

For a while, you could turn on CNN, or CNN Headline, or Fox, or MSNBC and get news virtually anytime day or night. (Of course, this was a very short while.) Now, it is impossible. Prime night time TV time has third-rate biopics or crime stories on NBC, absolute loons on Fox News, Larry King and his third rate interviews, followed by a too cute Anderson Cooper 360 show on CNN and, of all people, strident, unwatchale Nancy Grace on CNN Headline News, the station that should provide 'round the clock information. But graceless Nancy Grace is not the only deficient news host. Look at Shawn Hannity and Bill O'Reilly, who disgrace the legitimate right wing, and Allen Combs, the "liberal" who plays Abbot to Hannity's Costello. Then there is the perpetually unpleasant Greta van Sustern, and the perpetually silly Joe Scarborough. They almost make Geraldo Rivera look good.

This is a big country, with a lot of talented people. Where are today's Ted Koppels? Why did Aaron Brown get canned? How is it that the networks and the cable stations feel obliged to put mediocrity or worse on the air? Have they no pride whatsover?

Street Musicians: There Ought To Be a Law (1 cent)

I have given it much thought. The law should provide encouragement to, and subsidies for, those musicians of whom I approve, and punish with permanent exile and banishment those whom I do not care for.

The Textile Museum

Here is a place to visit in Washington, off the normal tourist trail. Located in the Kalorama neighborhood, in an elegant house, it features special textile exhibits, has an extensive library, and offers classes of various sorts. It is free, and parking is easy. There is a gift shop. The museum appears to be very well maintained.

There are two exhibits now.

The first, Rozome Masters of Japan, closes on February 12. It has a number of largely contemporary art works on fabric, created using an old hot wax technique, where the wax is applied with brushes. Most of the pieces are screens, mainly flat mounted on the wall, but there is also several kimonos and other items.

I cannot understand the technique, which is apparently about 1500 years old, but which had gone out of fashion and has only been recently revived. The designs went from realistic nature designs (birds and flowers, mainly), to social settings of various sorts, to abstract designs, some soft and some harsh.

My favorite is called Upheaval Seashore by Chie Otani, a four part screen of a bright and highly textured bring orange-red-brown shore, with protruding rocks, which look almost like helmets left from a recent battle. Some I did not like at all, particularly those that were the most abstract.

The second exhibit, which runs until February 26, is called "Silk and Leather: Splendid Attire of Nineteenth Century Central Asia", and that is what it is. Adult and children's clothing, men's and women's, cloaks, boots, hats, belts and more.

The colors tend to be very bright. The embroidery techniques are quite old. According to the material available at the exhibit, the 19th century in what is now Uzbekistan, Turkmenistan, Tajikistan and Kyrgyzstan was apparently properous enough to engender a revised interest in highly decorative apparel, and this exhibit shows a variety of what was produced.

Worth seeing. For a preview, go to www.textilemuseum.org.

Good Night and Good Luck

'Good Night and Good Luck', the George Clooney-directed movie about Edward R. Murrow and Joe McCarthy was, to me, a bit disappointing. I was expecting something riveting, but I found it to be relatively shallow. The movie looked good - black and white, and all that. And the acting was good enough, and I assume it was historically very accurate, since so many of those involved are still around. But you really did not learn anything about any of the characters, and it only dealt with a small period of Murrow's career. Not that it was bad; it was just disappointing.

Thanksgiving Reading: Two Quick Books (3 cents)

I am not exactly sure why I chose either of these to read this weekend, but...

I first sat down with "a novel of suspense" called "The Floating Girl" by Sujata Massey, published in 2000. It is the third of a series of books set in Japan and starring a young journalist/antique expert, who has a pension for getting herselves involved in murder mysteries. The author is American, of German/Indian parentage (see Vikram Seth's "Two Lives"), who lives in Baltimore and writes about Japan, where she has apparently spent a fair amount of time. The victim is an American living in Tokyo involved with the production of pirated manga books (Japanese serial comic books); it all has to due with Japanese gangsters horning in on the sparse profits of this enterprise. You learn a little about some aspects of contemporary Japanese life, but the story is a little weak and far fetched. Not sure why I kept reading, but the fact that I did must say something. But it does not say enough for me to search out the others in the series.

The second book is, I guess, part of my "catch up" reading. It was Kitty Dukakis' "Now You Know". Daughter of BSO first violinist and Pops conductor Harry Ellis Dickson (I learned that Dickson was changed at Ellis Island or thereabouts, and that Harry Ellis Dickson's first cousin was Eddie Duchin.), and wife of Massachusetts governor and presidential wannabe Michael Dukakis, Kitty D. was a golden girl, who (like her golden mother) was apparently always an insecure mess underneath. This book is about her psychological battles, with alcohol, diet pills and depression, and her several hospitalizations. And that is all it is about. Not that that it not a lot, but she obviously was a very accomplished person, moving amongst accomplished people, but this all gets lost in the dust. For periods of time, Kitty seems able to keep her demons in check, and then something happens (like her husband losing the election) and all hell breaks loose. A sad story. You feel not only for her but for her husband, her father, and her children. Perhaps the book was cathartic; I do not know what has happened in the fifteen years since she wrote it. But it is certainly not a book that I, had I been her, would have wanted to write.

Recurrent Dream and More (9 cents)

I have had the same dream a number of times. It is about my grandmother, who lived 100 years and died in 1972. The dream is that in fact, she hadn't died, but had been living the whole time and I just forgot about her, until I found her in a nursing home, very old, but still alert. How I found the nursing home, I don't know, but a felt terrible, as you would imagine, that she had been left alone all these years, that we thought she had died, and who knows what she was thinking about us. But she seemed fine and happy to see me, and not at all mad at me or anyone else, and I knew I couldn't let this happen again. That's the dream. Quite spooky, and who knows what it could mean.

But yesterday, I am reading an article called "Keeping alive the Memory" about the Weissensee Cemetery in Berlin, the largest Jewish cemetery in the city, with about 115,000 graves, still in use. The cemetery, located in former East Berlin, has opened its archives to the public, and now is getting a number of visitors from other parts of the world. The article was in the November 2005 Atlantic Life.

I quote: "The elderly lady from Brazil was one such visitor - at least she thought she was. Borgmann [caretaker of the archives] describes how the woman arrived at the cemetery hoping to find the grave of an aunt. Less than an hour later, she was standing stupefied in front of the headstone of the grandmother she thought had been killed by the Nazis. The death of her grandmother had weighed on the consciences of the family for more than six decades. They had left her behind when they fled to Palestine. Using the archive, Borgmann had been able to find out the grandmother had survived the war, and lived until she was 93 years old in a Jewish nursing home in Berlin."

I assume that the lack of possible communication was very much exacerbated because the grandmother was caught in Communist East Germany, but nevertheless, the story seems impossible, doesn't it? But then, so does my dream which, each time it recurs, seems as real as can be.

Yoram Meital

Yoram Meital is the head of the Chaim Herzog Center and on the faculty of Ben Gurion University. He spoke last night to a small group of BGU supporters. He was scheduled to speak on changes in the political structure of the Arab middle east, but concentrated more on Israel in light of the recent major changes in that country.

He described himself as optimistic in some areas, and pessimistic in others. An "opssimist".

The optimism comes from the naming of Peretz as new head of the Labor Party, mainly because of his Morrocan background and his union/Histadrut background. He believes that Peretz will bring domestic, social issues back to the forefront of Israeli consciousness, something that has been missing for decades.

The optimism also comes from the withdrawal of Sharon from Likud, and the formation of a new "centrist" party. He believes that most Israelis (right or wrong) are comfortable with the Sharon foreign policy, and with the Peretz domestic policy, so he believes that the next government may be set and stable.

He recognizes the need of the new part to be more than a one-man party. (In the car, after the session, as we were driving him back to his hotel, Meital said that BGU president Avashai Braverman has been approached by Sharon to come into a new government; Braverman's term as president of the university is ending.)

His pessimism comes from the short term inability of any Israeli government to reach an accommodation with the Palestinians. Apparently, Sharon, who is now in favor of reconciliation, believes that a minimum of 70,000 West Bank settlers will be affected. After the turmoil of 7,000 in Gaza, Meital does not know how this can be handled domestically. He also believes, and believes that Sharon thinks, that Abu Massen does not have sufficient control over Palestinian affairs and that Hamas will strengthen. But, he thinks, that if Hamas comes to power, you can't tell whether they will hold on to their current strident position, or modify it. Look at Begin, he says, or De Gaulle, or Nixon in China.

Exhibitionism (2 cents)

I believe that I am the only person in Washington who has seen the American Silver exhibit at the Renwick, the Adolph Cluss exhibit at Sumner School, the Napoleon exhibit at the National Geographic and the The Pope and the Jews exhibit at the John Paul II Cultural Center.

What's wrong the rest of you guys?

Vikram Seth's "Two Lives" Is an Odd Book, and Disappointing

I went into it with so much hope. A renowned writer, whom I had never read. A sparkling presentation at Politics and Prose. A subject matter (Indian great-uncle/German Jewish great-aunt in Germany and England) with so much promise. Where did it go wrong?

First, the source material could have been expanded. Why, for example, did Seth pay so much homage to the often fascinating correspondence of his Aunty Henny and her pre-war German friends, without apparently ever trying to contact those friends (or their children) to see what more could be discovered from this perspective? Why, as his Aunty Henny and Shanti Uncle were married for almost forty years, and together as close friends for more than a decade before that in England, did he not talk to their English friends? Why rely virtually exclusively on one trunk of correspondence of his aunt's, his interviews with his sick, octogenarian great uncle, his own memories, and a few communications with his own relatives, mainly in India?

Second, what was this book about? Henny and Shanti (obviously an interesting topic)? Was it about the way the story was uncovered and the book put together (sort of like that classic "The Search for Corvo")? Was it about Seth and his realization that the world was a bit more complicated than even he, with all of his sophistication and intelligence, dreamed?

You get the clear feeling that Vikram Seth struggled with this book. (In fact, from the length of time he apparently spent writing other books, you get the feeling that he does a lot of struggling to finish a book - although you cannot tell if it is because he agonizes so much over every page, or because he is easily diverted. My hunch is the latter.) I also came away with the conclusion that it was published well before it was finished. That it would have taken substantially more work and time to track down more of the story, and that it needed a fair amount of editing. Hard editing.

Perhaps Seth was tired of the subject; perhaps his concentration is limited; perhaps his publisher was impatient. Perhaps, one day, someone will write "Vikram Seth - One Life" and we will find out.

It is Show Me You Care time

All readers: please respond and say hello.

Senator Giovanni (1 cent)

We went to see The Forgotten Opera's production of Don Giovanni last night at, of all places, the Alexandria Masonic Hall. TFO is a small local company made up of singers about town who have put together several food length, staged operas, with small music ensembles (in this case a 5 piece orchestra cum conductor). Scenery is minimal, but it shows that you can put on an opera, with a very small budget, quite successfully, if you don't expect Met quality.

The updating was interesting. Don Giovanni is a womanizing senator who would like to be president. Elvira is his old girl friend who took the fall for him when he hit and killed a young woman in an auto accident, and has been in jail 8 years. The opening scene is the retirement party of Justice Callahan, whose daughter is attacked by the Senator in the mask, after which Giovanni murders Callahan by accident. It is Callahan who comes back at the end to haunt Giovanni and carry his soul to hell. Leporello is Leporello. Zerlina is the new wife (and former intern) of Representative Brady, who carries on with the Senator, either for her own, or perhaps for her husband's, eventual gain.

They hammed it up and handled it like a farce. The company did its own, very witty translation (which I would like to see in print). They kept their clothes on, but through their translation and some of the handprops, played this seduction opera with the R rating it deserves.

All in all, good fun. To bad it is only being performed twice, and that more people won't have an opportunity to see it.

Arthurthinks readers know that we saw Don Giovanni in Prague, its original home, this summer. A more polished and more lavish performance, to be sure. But The Forgotten Opera was much more fun.

No Child Left Behind? (11 cents)

A recent internet poll from Belief.net shows that 55% of Americans believe the Genesis story of creation and, presumably, that any opposing scientific information should be ignored.

Another recent poll conducted by CNN shows that 40% of Americans believe that human life will end at some point through divine, supernatural intervention, and that a large number of those Americans believe that it will happen in their lifetime.

Talk about failure of American education!!!

One of the common beliefs of how the world will end, of course, is with a rapture, where believing Christians will be swept up into heaven (I guess it's heaven), and everyone else will perish. My question here is: will all of the children be swept upwards, or will there be Some Child Left Behind????? Oh, my. W. W. J. D. ????"

Vikram Seth

has written a book about his uncle (Indian Hindu) and aunt (German Jewish) and their entertwined lives. I have just started reading it, after hearing is terrific presentation the other night at Politics and Prose. What a charming presenter.

Is the book well written? Here is from the final chapter (I didn't cheat; he read this portion at the store):

"Behind every door on every ordinary street, in every hut in every ordinary village on this middling planet of a trivial star, such riches are to be found. The strange journeys we undertake on our earthly pilgramage, the joy and suffering we taste or confer, the chance events that ccleave us together or apart, what a complex trace they leave: so personal as to be almost incommunicable, so fugitive as to be almost irrecoverable.

Yet seeing through a glass, however darkly, is to be less blind. That is what has motivated this effort; that is all I have hoped would result. These two people whom I love and who loved me may not, in differing degrees, have wanted every stroke - sometimes distorted, sometimes overexplicit - of this portrait. but they are dead and past caring; and I want them complexly remembered - in sickness as in health, in weakness as in strength, in secrecy and in openness. Their lives were cardinal points for me, and guide me still; I want to mark them true."

A Singular Cingular Experience ($10.03)

Some of you might remember my posting about the Zips man. Here is Mr. Cingular.

My cell phone has only been successfully charging about half of the time. The other half of the time, when I put it in the charger, there is a message on the phone that says "unable to charge". This has been going on for several months.

I stopped by a Cingular outlet to ask what the problem might be. He told me that he did not have any diagnostic tools. He said it could be the charger, it could be the battery and it could be the phone.

I asked him if he could test the battery. He said that he couldn't, that he did not have any battery testing equipment and in fact he did not have any replacement battery for my phone.

He asked me if I had the charger with me; I said no, and asked him if I should bring it in. He said then he could see if it charges. I said half the time it does and half the time it doesn't. I said: if it charges, you will tell me it looks OK, right? Right, he said. And if it doesn't, you will tell me that it might be charger, it might be the battery and it might be the phone, right? Right, he said. So, what good would it do me to bring it in? No answer.

He then took the phone and put it into another charger. It started charging. He told me that. I told him that it does that half the time. No answer.

He then said that the phone might be getting old and need upgrading. I told him it was just a year old. He said, you know, in cell phones, one year is like ten. I asked him what that meant - 10 years old didn't seem so bad. He said, well, they build them to become obsolete, particularly if you don't take care of them.

I told him I took very good care of my cell phone. He looked at me. No answer.

I wanted to suggest that he might be in the wrong business; maybe he should be managing a Zips.

Recent Books (2 cents)

I have not published any references to recent books I have read, so here I go:

1. "The Adamses, 1735-1918" by Richard Brookhiser contains brief biographical sketches of John Adams, John Quincy Adams, Charles Francis Adams, and Henry Adams, four generations. It is a relatively short book, contains some interesting segments, but was, for me, inspiring. It may be that the Adams family just does not inspire. Remember, that a few weeks ago I heard Garry Wills talk about his new biography of Henry Adams, and it left me quite cold.

Two interesting tidbits. First, Brookhiser says that John Adams ranked 14th out of 24 in his Harvard class.....but that in those days, Harvard ranked not by grades but by social standing. Second, there is one John Adams quote that I repeat a lot (and misquote, of course). Its sentiments are right on, but it shows less than an adroit sense of human nature:

"I must study politics and war that my sons may have liberty to study matematics and philosophy. My sons ought to study mathematics and philosophy.......in order to give their children a right to study painting, poetry, music, architecture, statuary, tapestry and porcelain."

Brookhiser's writing is grammatically correct and to the point, but it is not inspired. It is as if I had written the book. I would not go out of my way for this one, but would not avoid it, either.

2. "Lindberg" by A. Scott Berg. This book is long, almost three times as long as Brookhiser's. It is better written, and its subject is someone what more interesting. Lindberg was a daredevil (the first person to have to parachute out of airplanes four times to avoid being killed) in his youth, and certainly when he flew the Spirit of St. Louis to Paris. But then he turned scientist, working on a number of medical inventions (such as artificial heart pumps to permit more sophisticated heart surgery, and with Robert Goddard, rocketry), spent a lot of time avoiding publicity unsuccessfully, dealing with the kidnap and murder of the eldest son, being at various times very close to and virtually estranged from his talented writer-wife, traveling the world over again and again and again, and dying of lymphoma in his early seventies. While it seems clear that he was not a Nazi, he certainly was an America Firster, and an isolationist believing and speaking against entry into World War II, and while not a religious person, he clearly had a strong anti-Semitic streak in him. Not someone you would want to spend a lot of time with, although he clearly was attractive and had, when he wanted to, a great deal of charm. The book won a Pulitzer Prize. Worth reading.

3. "Tinasima", by Elena Poniatowska, who in spite of her name is a Mexican author, journalist and feminist. The book pretends to be fiction, but it is history based fiction (and probably as close to a biography as many books purporting to the a biography). I thought it was a terrific book.

Tina Modotti (the subject) is of Italian ancestry, raised in California and becomes photographer Edward Weston's model and later his mistress, moving him away from California (and his family) to Mexico. There, she becmes a photographer in her on right, Weston leaves and goes back to California, and she becomes involved in left-wing politics as well as her art, and becomes extremely well known amongst Mexican and communist circles. Eventually being forced out of Mexico, and having given up on her photography, she moves to Europe and eventually to Moscow in the 1930's believing that all the deprivations she sees are necessary to move to the communist paradise. She has a couple of other coworker/lovers, becomes a Russian spy, becomes a nurse during the Spanish civil war, and is eventually sent back to Mexico, where the movement has lost most of its steam. At an early age (I believe in her 40s), she get ill (presumably a form of cancer) and dies.

Shortly after finishing this book, I was at an elementary school book sale, and noticed a coffee-table size soft cove book about a woman named Lee Miller. After looking at it, I purchased it for $2 or so. Miller also started off as a photographer's model, and then herself became a photographer, and an excellent one, although she too left the craft for a long period of time, engaging in other artistic ventures, raising a family, and falling prey to depression. From what I have seen, Modotti's photographs are good; Miller's are spectacular.

By coincidence I saw an actual biography of Modotti for sale at Second Story Books in Dupont Circle. Looked at it; the facts seemed just as written in the novel, "Tinisima".

4. False Starts. I tried to find my next fiction book, but started three and stopped each shortly after I started them. Books by Ian Pears, Jennifer Egan and David Veronese. Still looking.

Napolean

is at the National Geographic. 250 items are on display. most are part of a private collection on display for the first time. Maps and books belonging to him, clothing and furniture, sculpture and paintings of him, and a good description of his life and deeds as you move along.

no reason to miss it.

St. Paul Vignettes (37 cents)

Four days in St. Paul, Minnesota. Vignettes.

On Thursday morning, I had coffee and a bagel at Dunn's (sort of a local Starbucks). The Dunns is in an office building at the corner of 5th and Wabasha. It shares it space with an eyeglass store. Weird, I thought....., but then.......

I decided I needed to get my shoes shined, and I found someone who shined shoes while wandering the St. Paul skywalks. The shoeshine stand sits right in the middle of the office of a mortgage loan company (Bell is the name of the mortgage company; I was told it was the largest private residential mortgage lender in Minnesota).

In Washington, DC, there are some parking meters where it would cost you almost $2 to park for an hour, and it is difficult to find a parking lot where $2 would buy you an hour of parking, but......in St. Paul, I found a place where you can park all day for $1.25.

I had two firsts, when I had lunch at a restaurant on University whose name is something like Chang Geng (but not exactly). The first first is that I had never been in a Cambodian restaurant before; the second first is that when I asked the very nice waitress how the chicken, mixed vegetables and peanut sauce was, she said: "It is not something that everyone can eat. Are you allergic to peanuts?"

We saw the Friday night "dress rehearsal" performance of Prairie Home Companion at the Fitzgerald (yes, it is F. Scott) Auditorium, and were surprised that it is a show. Garrison Keillor does not sit at a desk like Jay Leno; he struts and walks; there is a set consisting of a two story Lake Wobegon house, there is a five piece combo, etc. It was much more entertaining than I thought it would be, but went on very long......like 2 1/2 hours. Best line, I thought, was when Keillor was talking (in his very very clever opening monologue, much better than his later visit to Lake Wobegon) about the strange young men and women with their many tattoos who you see near university campuses, including one young man whose face looked like he had fallen head first into a tackle box.

Terrific food at the St. Paul Grill (been there before; still as good), Fhima's (not Brownie's outfit), A Rebours (best new restaurant in the Twin Cities in 2005, says their version of the Washingtonian Magazine) and even the Carousel in the Radisson Riverfront (or at least as far as the walleye goes). The Cambodian food (sans peanuts, I decided) was also good.

Looking for Joan Didion's new book, my wife was told at the Border's in St. Paul that, as Didion had just spoken in town, the book was sold out at all the Border's and that you probably could not find it anywhere in the Twin Cities. That sounded weird, but we stopped at the Borders on the way to the airport, and lo and behold - - - they were out as well. So........where did we find it? In the bookstore at the airport that apparently had no problem keeping up with their stock. My wife says that Border's is becoming like CVS: they are guaranteed to have everything except the one thing you want.

Very friendly place, St. Paul. Very friendly. And everyone talks with a Jesse Ventura accent, and says "Yah" and "OhhhKay" a lot.

Ohhhkay? Yah!