a contemporary haiku, on wine
________
a glass of wine, I sing,
two, in German,
go figure
R ! chard
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Category: paintings to ponder
September 7, 2017
September 6, 2017
on “Elegy for the Victims of the Tsunami of March 11, 2011 in Japan” – Nobuyuki Tsujii
“Tsunami“ (1998)
__________
while watching Nobuyuki Tsujii play the
extraordinarily demanding Tchaikovsky
First Piano Concerto on television the
other night, with no less than Valery
Gergiev, conducting the resident
orchestra at the Mariinsky Theatre in
Moscow, for its White Nights, I was
wonderstruck by the challenges a
visually handicapable pianist would
have to conquer in order to reach
such an apogee
everything must be learned by ear, all
items must be discovered tactually,
from the piano itself to the very
individual keys, not to mention
the player’s very own fingers
there can be no visual contact with a
conductor, either, for cues, for
instance, nor for any other
accompaniment, for neither even an
audience, it would all take place in
the dark recesses of the head, the
amorphous and, I suppose,
confounding, cerebellum
later he played for an encore his own
composition, “Elegy for the Victims of
the Tsunami of March 11, 2011 in Japan“,
a fine addition to my budding collection
of threnodies
and a very, very moving piece
an elegy, incidentally, is usually written,
while a threnody is composed, but these
terms are often used interchangeably, as,
indeed, they are here
you’ll note the utterly Classical mode of
composition of the “Elegy“, it adheres to
a uniform tonality, a consistent tempo,
and the grounding and comfort of
repetition, returning always to the main,
endearing air, rather than more modern
tripwires and stridencies, traditionalism
being not an inappropriate, nor ineffective,
mode of address for honoured forebears
long live Classicism
R ! chard
September 2, 2017
on “Song to the Moon” – Antonin Dvořák
“Rising Moon“ (1964)
__________
the moon was out last night, grand
upon the starlit evening, either
waxing or waning, I’m not sure, but
not full, a gibbous moon, above the
buildings that scrape, in my big city
neighbourhood, in the very Cubist
manner, the night sky, see above
I’d been listening to Renée Fleming
singing Dvořák‘s “Song to the Moon“
in my head since I’d seen her do it,
on television, in a summer evening
concert at Schönbrunn, Vienna, some
few days ago, she, it, had been utterly,
sublimely, enchanting, I’m a Cancer, a
moon child, I speak to the moon
to the moon, I said, moon in the dark
heavens, who steal into every home
and hearth at night, find my beloved
and tell him what is in my heart, rapt
as I was in the spell of my special
planet, my personal orb, and the
enveloping Dvořákian magic, though
there’s been no beloved lately, just
trailings of the latest one who broke,
of course, my heart, which gives more
pathos, however, incidentally, to my
singing, I’ve giddily gathered
at home, I found Renée Fleming doing
the piece on the Internet, entirely as
splendidly, earlier, at London’s Royal
Albert Hall, September, 2010
R ! chard
September 1, 2017
an homage to the victims of the Titanic
“The Fighting Temeraire tugged to her last berth to be broken up“ (1839)
_______
while I’m on the subject of threnodies,
which is to say “song[s] of lamentation
for the dead”, as I earlier stated, let me
bring your attention to this extraordinary
piece, an homage to the victims of the
Titanic
it doesn’t even have a title, much as
Mozart and Haydn didn’t before music
went mainstream, into public forums
rather than merely aristocratic salons,
and when an identifying moniker
instead of a number became manifestly
more practical, especially when the
emerging Middle Classes were
becoming the ones who were paying
the composer’s bills, at the opera
houses and the other sprouting
concert venues, when some composers
had even up to 32 sets of piano sonatas
to remember, three and four often to
a single set, opus number, as many as
there are movements in a very sonata
and that’s not counting the numbered
symphonies and string quartets of
theirs, left to similarly calculate,
decipher, extricate
it doesn’t have a title, I think, because
to my knowledge, it is the first of its
kind, a composition created by
computer, for computer, an entirely
self-contained digital work of,
manifestly, art – I’d been waiting,
diligently, for one – and like Beethoven,
after the work was done, the artist(s)
just felt the title best left to the
wordsmiths, thus – you’re welcome –
“Threnody for the Victims of the
Titanic“
sure, computers have done practical
things before, admirably, but never
told a story, and certainly never one
as profound as this one
these are the last moments of the
Titanic, digitally reproduced, in real
time, 2 hours and 40 minutes, they
are mesmerizing, you don’t want
to miss a thing
there are no voices, apart from a
few radio transmissions at the
start, spotting the iceberg, calling
out commands to beware, stop
the engines
afterwards only silence, and the
sound of the waves, the churning
of the engines, which have been
restarted, sounding as rhythmic,
incidentally, and numbing, as the
wheels on the railroad tracks of
Steve Reich‘s “Different Trains“,
another powerful threnody
later the flash and crack of flares,
the crunch of the ship sinking
the pervasive, however disrupted,
silence and the inexorable passage
of ever ticking time combine to be,
thereafter, transfixing, meditative,
ultimately transcendent, a fitting
setting for a threnody
I know of only another work to take
you to that venerable place,
Beethoven’s opus 111
and often enough Pink Floyd, for
that matter, and the visionary
Alan Parsons Project, of course,
discoursing on inexorable Time
and, now that I think of it, Elgar‘s
“The Dream of Gerontius“, whose
character goes from his deathbed
in the first act, to his afterlife in
the second, effecting transcendence
for us by, yes, ingenious
metaphorical proxy
but I digress
what I call “Threnody for the Victims
of the Titanic“ is a narrative with
sound, not a movie, not a television
program, it has more commonality
with a musical production than
anything else but painting in art
history, though its means are
intuitively literary, ship stories go
back to “The Odyssey“ through
“Gulliver’s Travels“ , “Treasure
Island“ and to one of my very
favourites, “Ship of Fools“,
relatively recently
I could add “Mutiny on the Bounty“,
“Moby Dick“, “The Caine Mutiny“
in art, a precedent would’ve been set
in our collective consciousness by
William Turner‘s celebrated “The
Fighting Temeraire …“, but I would
mention as well Caspar David
Friedrich‘s “The Wanderer above
the Sea of Fog“ for its existential
pertinence
a few literary points I’d like to stress
to back up my overt adulation, I find
it impressive that the Classical rules
of tragedy have been maintained,
unity of action, time, and place,
prescriptions going back to
Aristotle‘s “Poetics“ in our cultural
history, to profoundly express
tragedy, iconic, epic, misfortune
not to mention the Classical musical
imperatives of tempo, tonality and
repetition, none of which can be
faulted here in this consummate
composition
there is a no greater leveller of tempo
than time, larghissimo here*, in the
largest sense of that word, the
cosmic, the inexorable pace of
temporality in our brief heavens
a greater leveller of tonality neither
is there than the rigorously impartial
hum of the imperturbable Cosmos
nor is there greater repetition than
uniformity, however disrupted by
however fervent ever human
intervention, see Sisyphus, or
Martha in “Who’s Afraid of Virginia
Woolf“ for iconic disrupters
R ! chard
* Shostakovich had asked the
Beethoven Quartet to play the first
movement of his 15th String Quartet,
“Elegy: Adagio“, “so that flies
drop dead in mid-air, and the
audience start leaving the hall from
sheer boredom“
well this inspired elucidation is even
slower than that
August 29, 2017
patience
_________
in the regular line at the market today,
not the express line, the man ahead of
me turned towards me and looked at
my basket quizzically
are you after my crackers, I said,
jovially, I’ve been stocking up on
a favourite brand on sale
no, he said, but you could be in
the express line with your only
five articles
I don’t mind the wait, I replied, and I
didn’t take the time to count
I hate waiting in line, he said, I want
to get out of here as quickly as
possible
I’ve slowed everything down to a
snail’s pace, I said, it makes you,
I think, a nicer person, plus you
get to smell the basil and the
raspberries
I guess I’m not a nice person, he
countered, not at all, I replied, you
are evidently friendly, you addressed
me, you were concerned, put forth a
desire to help
he glistened, blushed, was manifestly
nonplussed, speechless, then his turn
came up at the check-out counter
at the cash he glowered at some
empty baskets that had been left
there unattended, discombobulating
his station, I refrained from
instinctively moving them myself,
since I would’ve lost my place in line
in the process, and though I might
sometimes be gracious, I am mostly
not subservient, though that’s up still
for some metaphysical consideration
I made it home with my five items,
the sky was blue, but again there’s
smoke above the mountains
shrouding the eastern horizon,
from forest fires burning inexorably
in our Interior
the sky is falling, we need to take
care of each other, ourselves
R ! chard
August 11, 2017
threnodies: to the victims of Hiroshima, of the Holocaust, and to the Canadian North
.jpg!Large.jpg "The Scream, 1893 - Edvard Munch")
“The Scream“ (1893)
____________
before we leave too far behind the
anniversary of the annihilation of
Hiroshima, August 6, 1945, let me
introduce you to a piece that
purports to pay it homage
if I didn’t bring it up before, it’s
because the date was wrong, but
especially because the work
offends me, the only thing I like
about it is the title, a thing of
beauty, poetry – Threnody to the
Victims of Hiroshima – a threnody
is a song of lamentation for the
dead, which worked for me, this
one, no further than its title
there is nothing remotely
reminiscent of the tragedy
throughout the piece, it is a
collection of academic exercises,
pretensions, I think, without a
heartbeat
let me compare Steve Reich’s
threnody to the victims of the
Holocaust, the other signature
Twentieth Century atrocity, his
“Different Trains“, a work in three
movements, “America – Before the
War”, “Europe – During the War”,
and “After the War”, for string
quartet and tape, upon which
Reich has recorded interviews
with people relating impressions
from before the war, during, and
after, according to the movements
the quartet, you’ll note, must keep
time with the tape, and in this
production visuals have been
effectively added
Glenn Gould had done something
like this several years earlier,
incidentally, in his “The Idea of
North“, a threnody itself to that
very idea, a masterpiece, a
groundbreaking transcendental
work of the imagination, with
overlapping voices, which is to
say human counterpoint, though
without string quartet
you’ll note that distressing tonalities
affect throughout this other, much
more successful however, tribute,
but the different rhythms of the
recurrent, which is to say minimalist,
rails keep you emotionally, as it were,
on track
“Different Trains“ is appropriately,
and profoundly, commemorative,
not to mention unforgettable
Richard
July 16, 2017
on courage
“Socrates”
__________
following in the footsteps of Socrates,
who, I agree with the Oracle, has been
ever the wisest man, one whose example
I’ve followed since first hearing of him, let
me query, what is courage
a tentative definition would have one
stating that courage is a determination
to overcome danger
but to use my own example, being called
courageous for surviving an aneurysm,
would this instance have qualified
where was my determination, apart from
waiting, submissively, for the axe to fall,
or to not fall, I felt no fear, merely time
passing, not an ounce of determination
but what of those others who endure
the pain often associated with dying,
agony, is that not a kind of enforced
courage
so did I qualify
an aneurysm swells the blood vessels
to the brain as the brain heals, but
meanwhile the heart pumps a rhythmic
tattoo on those passages rendered
more tender, so that a throbbing
anguish is ever drumming its drill
upon the cerebrum of the sufferer
perhaps I did qualify
but Socrates brings up an interesting
objection, can animals be brave, it
would seem not, therefore courage
requires self-consciousness, whether
or not it is defiant or compliant
and what about defiance before a lost
cause, is that courage or doomed
bombast
Aristotle adds to the mix the notion
of a noble cause, not merely an
instinctive, however, in the event,
morally prompted, position
so what is courage, you tell me
I say that you know it when you see
it, the courageous act defines the
word, not the other way around,
much like flowers are the result of
their own efflorescence, not the
manifestation of a preset Ideal
you are the measure of your own
words
for better or for worse
Richard
psst: it is interesting to note that
according to the Bible, in the
beginning was the Word,
John 1:1, a convenient tool
to impose order
June 26, 2017
“Cairo Time”
“Street In Cairo“ (1873)
____________
many years ago, when I was in my
skittish twenties, and the world had
opened up to me as I’d started work
at an international airline, I opted
to go to Tunisia, less harried than
Morocco, I thought, and probably
less expensive
a friend had asked to come along,
who worked for the same company
Judy was my age, honey blond, lithe,
curvaceous, voluptuous, though
ever entirely unassuming, we made
a lovely pair
but soon the locals had our number,
understood that I was merely her
friend, no challenger for her
affections, somehow
from our seaside hotel in nearby
Hammamet, a coastal resort, we set
out our first day for the nearby capital,
Tunis, a dusty town, I remember, a
cowtown, or a camel town, north of
the Sahara Desert, with shoddy
buildings and not much else, I was
young
we found ourselves on the Boulevard
Habib Bourguiba, the name of the first
President of the Republic of Tunisia,
not paved then, or with what we used
to call soft shoulders, when the
pavement doesn’t reach the sidewalks,
where we looked for a restaurant or a
coffee house to get our bearings
inside a nondescript place we found
for lack of anything else, we sat down,
had a coffee, looked around
it didn’t take long for us to realize that
Judy was the only girl in the place, so
we finished our fare and took off
when all the men in the place followed
we found a cab to take us back to the
hotel and didn’t return to Tunis apart
from accompanied
but that’s another story
it’s seemed so hard for me to explain
this to people who haven’t experienced
this discomfort cause this kind of
indignity is so foreign to us, offensive
and hard to imagine
but a film I just saw about Cairo,
“Cairo Time“, gives a good impression
of the differences in our cultures
were it only for this insight, I wouldn’t
suggest this movie, but because it is
a wonderful travelogue through this
remarkable city, with views of bazaars,
pyramids in the distance, and all of it
in splendid cinemascope and colour,
the film is a marvel
Patricia Clarkson, an actress I greatly
admire, plays the role Katharine
Hepburn played in “Summertime“,
one of my all-time favourite movies,
of a woman alone in a city, needing
to trust in the kindness of strangers
Clarkson‘s kind stranger is no slouch
either
Richard
June 23, 2017
“My Romance” – Carly Simon
“Hot Jazz“ (1940)
_____
in this video of one of her concerts,
Carly Simon tells the story of how
when she told her special guest on
the program, Harry Connick Jr., that
he was born the same year as
Sgt. Pepper, he answered, Sgt. Who
“Harry, you were born the same year that
Sgt. Pepper came out”, she said
“Sgt. Who”, he answered
the same had happened to me when
I’d told someone, a sprite, ten years
younger, don’t ask, about my
admiration for Susan Hayward,
Richard, he asked, who’s Susan
Hayward, to my utter consternation
I mean, Susan Hayward
you might not know who Carly Simon
is, nor even Sgt. Pepper, but the story
is that those who once had been our
very idols fade and become question
marks in the eyes of the following
generations
you might not either know who Harry
Connick Jr. is, but listen to both of
them here, Carly and Harry, put
together an entertainment enough
to turn an otherwise lazy hour into
an unmitigated enchantment
Richard
May 12, 2017
“Tango Lesson” – Lisa Richter
‘El Jaleo‘ (1882)
_________
After a history lesson, crash course in Buenos Aires
a hundred years before our time, we begin
at last. You gently place my arm over yours, my hand
on your shoulder, our bodies distant enough
to have an invisible body between us – this is open embrace,
you explain, abrazo abierto. We dare not dance in abrazo cerrado,
where our chests would nearly touch – I’m not single-
minded enough about learning these moves to unlock
what I fear might spill out, should I let myself fall
into your hazelnut voice – so rich and deep I might never
emerge from it. You teach me the new skill of following,
though your lead feels less like control and more
like stewardship, carving swans of negative space
that stretch their graceful necks along the diagonals
of our bodies. We’re in a conversation of pauses
and advances. I step too soon, but you are eminently patient,
your large hand over mine, poised mid-air, a paper crane
mid-flight. As you shift your weight from side to side,
I wait, trying to sense which way we are going,
and for a moment, I have the chance to look at you not
looking at me, your calm grey eyes fixed above my head.
On the small of my back, your warm hand –
a breathing orchid, cupped flame.
____________
for, especially, Tonyia
the clash of cultures is exposed to the light
here as a tango dancer teaches an English-
speaking novice how to dance
there is no evident metre in the verse, the
poem is in prose, contained within terse,
two-lined stanzas which act as constraints
on the forward flow, however ever fluidly
continuous, like tenutos in music, where
the note is held, dramatically, before a
return to the original rhythm
but slowly this prose develops its own
irresistible rhythms, an abandonment
to the metre of the whole, a languid
surrender to the pulse and propulsion
of the dance, and becomes, despite
its, ahem, flat feet, a poem
the very vocalic construction of
Romantic languages, abrazo abierto,
for instance, or abrazo cerrado,
propelled by vowels for their forward
motion, in imitation of the heartbeat,
preclude in natives unfamiliarity with
cadence, the tango is already in their
blood, the teacher here ineluctably
lives, breathes, hir ethnic identity
Anglo-Saxons and Teutons excel,
rather, at political science and
philosophy, more sober, cerebral
preoccupations, suppressing
gutturally in their glut of gurgled
consonants, the more carnal
allure or, from a primmer
perspective, temptations, of the
senses
which Romantic poets, incidentally,
pointedly sought out in the seductive
rhythms of the Mediterranean, much
as this very student succumbs to the
‘breathing orchid’, the ‘cupped flame‘
of this tantalizing tango
Richard
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