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Category: people to ponder

July 10, 2016

up my idiosyncrasies – a bio

marcel-proust.jpg!Large

      “Marcel Proust” 
 
       Richard Lindner
 
          ___________
 
 
for a bio with which I’ve been asked 
to provide an online poetry magazine 
I’ve been encouraged to apply to, I’m 
submitting the following text
 
I thought you might enjoy it
 
 
Richard
 
           ______________
 
 
my name is Richard Bisson, from
which you’ll intuit my French 
Canadian background, though I 
write mostly in English, with no 
trouble however in French, my 
mother tongue is le français  
 
I am thus imbued, undoubtedly,
with that sensibility, my peers 
have been Hugo, Flaubert, and
most of all Marcel Proust, whom 
I imbibed for 33 years, in French,
page by page, reading each out 
loud as though it were my own, I 
cannot but be replicating now his 
rhythms, his aesthetic, his view 
of the world
 
it didn’t take me as long to read 
Homer, in the thunderous Robert  
Fitzgerald translation, – a mighty
roar resounding still from the 
ninth century before the Christian 
Era – from him I learned to speak 
from the heart, it’s not one’s style  
one has to master, but one’s 
humanity
 
Robert Browning gave me the 
dramatic monologue as a poetic
device, a gift he’d received from
 
Shakespeare himself, of course,
the unbridled freedom of his own 
literary imagination
 
Carl Sandburg‘s “Chicago“ taught 
me to talk about every wo/man, 
about things even my own folks 
were doing
 
Collapsed“ showed me that even 
apparently inconsequential acts
can be poetry, poetry in the 
apparently humdrum 
 
Mary Oliver is a strong present 
influence
 
the cadence is entirely Beethoven,
with some help, I must admit, from 
the atonalists, Schoenberg, Berg,
and Webern, commas are my bar 
lines
 
 
I call what I do prosetry, a word so 
new my computer won’t even let 
me write it, I’m a prosetrist, this 
word either
 
I want to link everyday experience 
with poetry, make poetry in the eye 
of the beholder, where truth and 
beauty lie
 
if people can see what I see, they 
can see that way themselves, it’s 
something one learns, and it’s all 
in the way one entrenches words 
and ideas
 
I eliminated the word “if” from my 
vocabulary once, for being then
too speculative, it changed my life, 
I’ve replaced it since with the word 
“miracle”, that has also changed 
my life
 
I am 67 years old
 
I live in Vancouver, Canada
 
I consider myself to be, at this 
point in my life, bibliosexual, I
sleep with my books, and we’re
all still getting along just fine 
 
may you be so blessed
 
 
Richard
 
psst: also Anaïs Nin, for the 
          intimacy of her diaries
 
          o, and Woody Allen, for
          giving up before his  
          nihilism and just 
          laughing
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June 19, 2016

me in the key of B major – 60 Jubilee East (the master bedroom)‏

krefeld-project-bedroom-scene-1.jpg!Large

 
            Eric Fischl 
 
                   ______
 
 
at the bottom of the stairs on the left,
there was my parents’ bedroom, the
master bedroom, an inner sanctum
where things of only great import 
took place, where behind its closed 
doors, my mom and dad would 
propose, concoct, discuss, ponder, 
deliberate, envision, enact, create 
the structure that would be the 
elements of our lives 
 
interestingly, no children were 
conceived there, we, my sister and 
I, had shown up earlier, and by then  
my parents had settled on only two 
children, were already blessed with 
the order they had preferred, an 
older boy, and a slightly younger 
girl, where more would’ve been 
financially impracticable
 
the Catholic Church disapproved 
of such practicality then, and my 
folks would’ve been refused 
communion had they ever been 
to church, but by then such 
observance had become irrelevant 
to them, despite their Christian still
trappings 
 
and their plans were to transcend 
rather the humble beginnings the 
Church would’ve confined them to, 
if not also the very mores of the day,
it was still only the mid Fifties, God 
would die in the early Sixties only,  
after which women would get the 
pill
 
and the world changed
 
 
there also had I been taken to heal, 
in the darkened room, when I had 
the measles, I remember waking  
up weary in someone’s arms, my 
mother’s, my father’s, to be paraded 
into the kitchen for a moment, then 
returned to the inner, recuperatory, 
chamber
 
also, for the talk, when my dad 
figured it was time to speak to 
me about guy things, girl things, 
birds, bees
 
I told him they were called penis,
and vagina, but he already knew 
nomenclature had nothing to do 
with it, that a rose by any other 
 
 
otherwise our chambers were 
private, each our place of private
recuperation, regeneration, 
contemplation, creativity, sleep, 
dreams, all of us respectful of 
each others’ inviolable space 
ever, each with a room of our 
own
 
 
Richard  
 

 

 

 

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May 28, 2016

a coronation anthem – Handel‏

Normans_Bayeux

                      “the Battle of Hastings” –  the Bayeux Tapestry 

                                       ______________________ 

among the ruling entities in our, indeed,
global history, none apart from the Catholic
Church has lasted so long as the English
monarchy, not even the Roman Empire, 
from Julius Caesar in 48 BCE, the year he 
took power, called himself emperor, until
Charlemagne, King of the Franks, who on 
the highly political date of December 25, 
800 CE, and at St Peter’s very Basilica in 
Rome, wrenched power from Leo lll, then 
Pope, and claimed the title of Holy Roman 
Emperor, Protector, thus, of the Church, 
changing thereby the face of Europe, and
burying forever Ancient Rome’s aegis, 
yes, aegis, protectorate
 
in 1066, once again on the propitious, 
apparently, date of Christmas Day, 
William the Conqueror, after his Norman 
Conquest, and the Battle of Hastings, 
proclaimed himself first king of England
in London
 
we count from there to Queen Elizabeth ll,
still monarch after all these years
 
here’s a pictorial rundown to the tune of 
England’s musical specialty, the ceremonial, 
one of Handel‘s Coronation Anthems 
commissioned for George ll by his dad, 
George l, for his 1727 coronation, though 
not, this time, on Christmas Day, sung at 
coronations apparently ever since
 
the Priest after the mystic who anointed 
 
long live the Queen, I guess
 
 
Richard
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April 19, 2016

Meditation 1 – John Donne

John_Donne

                              John Donne
 
                                 _______
 

to my utter embarrassment, my
profound dismay, I attributed in
my last title John Donne‘s “No
inadvertently, a somewhat later 
though nearly contemporary 
poet of Donne‘s, equally as 
noteworthy, thereby accounting, 
maybe, for my confusion, my 
lapse, my infelicity, however still 
unforgivable
 
once I mistook Schubert for 
Beethoven, and, however similar
these might become in their 
euphoric musical explorations
despite their obvious rhythmic 
differences, never a sufficient 
excuse, though, for that flagrant 
flaw – I still blush at the memory 
of that faux pas, among French 
intellectuals no less, the worst, 
the least forgiving   
 
John Donne, I’ve found since, is
not only noteworthy for his ribald 
poems, the ones we studied mostly 
at school, but his “Devotions upon
Emergent Occasions“, from which 
“No man is an island” is but one
inspirational bit, is replete with 
other gems 
 
he’d composed them after having
survived a brush with death, they 
are wise, and worth individually
considering for their spiritual 
illumination, their metaphysical 
light, their sage and sober 
guidance
 
here’s Meditation 1, or
 
                                   The first grudging of, the sicknesse.
 
“Variable, and therfore miserable condition of Man; this minute I was well, and am ill, this minute. I am surpriz’d with a sodaine change, and alteration to worse, and can impute it to no cause, nor call it by any name. We study Health, and we deliberate upon our meats, and drink, and ayre, and exercises, and we hew, and wee polish every stone, that goes to that building; and so our Health is a long and regular work; But in a minute a Canon batters all, overthrowes all, demolishes all; a Sicknes unprevented for all our diligence, unsuspected for all our curiositie; nay, undeserved, if we consider only disorder, summons us, seizes us, possesses us, destroyes us in an instant. O miserable condition of Man, which was not imprinted by God, who as hee is immortall himselfe, had put a coale, a beame of Immortalitie into us, which we might have blowen into a flame, but blew it out, by our first sinne; wee beggard our selves by hearkning after false riches, and infatuated our selves by hearkning after false knowledge. So that now, we doe not onely die, but die upon the Rack, die by the torment of sicknesse; nor that onely, but are preafflicted, super-afflicted with these jelousies and suspitions, and apprehensions of Sicknes, before we can cal it a sicknes; we are not sure we are ill; one hand askes the other by the pulse, and our eye asks our urine, how we do. O multiplied misery! we die, and cannot enjoy death, because wee die in this torment of sicknes; we art tormented with sicknes, and cannot stay till the torment come, but preapprehensions and presages, prophecy those torments, which induce that death before either come; and our dissolution is conceived in these first changes, quickned in the sicknes it selfe, and borne in death, which beares date from these first changes. Is this the honour which Man hath by being a litle world, That he hath these earthquakes in him selfe, sodaine shakings; these lightnings, sodaine flashes; these thunders, sodaine noises; these Eclypses, sodain offuscations, and darknings of his senses; these Blazing stars, sodaine fiery exhalations; these Rivers of blood, sodaine red waters? Is he a world to himselfe onely therefore, that he hath inough in himself, not only to destroy, and execute himselfe, but to presage that execution upon himselfe; to assist the sicknes, to antidate the sicknes, to make the sicknes the more irremediable, by sad apprehensions, and as if he would make a fire the more vehement, by sprinkling water upon the coales, so to wrap a hote fever in cold Melancholy, least the fever alone should not destroy fast enough, without this contribution nor perfit the work (which is destruction) except we joynd an artificiall sicknes, of our owne melancholy, to our natural, our unnaturall fever. O perplex’d discomposition, O ridling distemper, O miserable condition of Man!”
  
                                                                                      John Donne
 
 
in other words, carpe diem, seize 
the day, don’t worry, be happy,
something too many of us learn 
too late 
 
Richard
 
psst: thanks, Guy, for the heads up,
         Guy is a librarian friend of mine 
         with the goods on the Tudors

 

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April 9, 2016

“No man is an island” – John Donne

john-donne-arriving-in-heaven-1911.jpg!Large                                     

                              “John Donne Arriving in Heaven“ (1911)
 
                                                   Stanley Spencer
 
                                                        _________
 
 
the Munk Debates have been going  
on for some time now, a community 
service program of the very highest 
order, personalities of considerable 
note come together to champion their
positions on questions of supreme
importance in our global environment
 
Hitchens, the notorious, and highly 
influential, atheist contrarian, on 
religion, and suffered to him an 
ignominious defeat   
 
the crude but highly influential military 
advocate and, for a time, Canada’s Chief 
of Defence Staff, as well as the irascible 
Robert Bolton, American Ambassador to 
the U.N during the George W. Bush 
administration, and mightily held her 
own
 
Glenn Greenwald, the man who
published Edward Snowden’s trove
of leaked documents, discusses state
surveillance, others, all, have 
contributed to eloquent, and often 
riveting, exchanges 
 
last week the Canadian program went
continent-wide, including, this time, 
in other words, the United States, 
Louise Arbour, the highly respected 
Canadian jurist, and other mostly 
 
Simon Schama, a political pundit, 
offered little to that arena, counting on 
polished credentials, it appeared to me, 
instead of solid information, but stopped 
the show nevertheless with a recitation 
a literary document of the highest 
consequence we’ve all heard but never 
quite properly placed, during otherwise
more conventional closing arguments
 
despite strong opposition to my 
perspective from the site’s comment 
section, I thought “No man is an island“ 
is on this issue not a bad at all place to 
start
 
 
Richard 
 
 
              ________________
 
 
 
 

No man is an island, entire of itself; every man is a piece of the continent, a part of the main; if a clod be washed away by the sea, Europe is the less, as well as if a promontory were, as well as if a manor of thy friend’s or of thine own were; any man’s death diminishes me, because I am involved in mankind, and therefore never send to know for whom the bell tolls; it tolls for thee.

              
                                                                                       John Donne
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March 12, 2016

“The Afternoon of a Faun” – Vaslav Nijinsky‏

800px-Bakst_Nizhinsky

                           Program for “L’après-midi d’un faune”  (1912)

                                                       Léon Bakst
 
                                                          _______
 
 
though the reference to Pan is not direct
in the title of Nijinsky‘s choreographic 
rendition of Debussy‘s 1894 symphonic
classic, itself a musical transposition
of Stéphane Mallarmé‘s 1876 poem, 
“L’après-midi d’un faune“, or, in English, 
connections are unmistakably implicit, 
not only in the story which is told, but 
also in the elements of the dance, which 
borrows heavily from Grecian urns, their 
static, angular poses
 
also Mallarmé makes specific allusions to
Syrinx herself, among other nymphs, in his 
seminal work, not to mention to the deity’s
eponymous flute
 
the only change to the original production 
dancers, here, Rudolf Nureyev performs 
with the Joffrey Ballet, where Vaslav
Nijinsky, the choreographer himself, 
danced with Sergei Diaghilev‘s Ballets
Russes in the show that made history, 
the sets and costumes by Léon Bakst 
remain also unchanged, this is what the 
audience saw May 12, 1912, at the very  
 
the piece shocked even irreverent Paris,
of course, for its overt and unapologetic
eroticism, it‘ll probably even shock you, 
still
 
I thought, this is what happened to Berlin 
after the First World War, a reconstructed
chthonic* resurgence at the death of an 
old order, the Age of Aquarius after the 
nuclear scare, “Hair“
 
famously, Auguste Rodin loved it
 
 
Richard
 
* chthonic: of what makes you snort, grunt,
   instinctive forces, the ones which make  
   a young man’s fancy turn to, well, love 
 
   or worse
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November 26, 2015

“Suite Française” (2014)

"Madonna and Child Pentaptych" - Luca di Tommè “Madonna and Child Pentaptych“

Luca di Tommè

__________

“Suite française“, had it not been for
its musical associations, would’ve
been called a “quintette”

a suite is, of course, a series of five
dance movements, a sarabande, a
minuet, a gigue, for instance, most
commonly with reference to Bach’s
Baroque masterpieces

which is to say that without its dance
implications, a suite would’ve been
called simply a sonata with five
movements, or a duet, trio, quartet,
and so forth, depending on the
participating instruments

in fiction, a sequence of five books
equals a quintet, see Durrell’s
“Avignon Quintet“, for instance

in art, five panels are called a
pentaptych, see above

five books had been intended for her
“Suite française“, but in 1942 their
author, Irène Némirovsky, was arrested
for being Jewish, and died later at
Auschwitz, she’d completed only two
of her intended manuscripts, a tragic
account of day-to-day life during the
Second World War

these texts were only discovered by her
daughters in 1998, who then had them
published in 2002, in just one volume
called “Suite française“

the superb movie came out last year

it’s a whiff of another era, a
recollection of things past

also a timely consideration of the
flawed foundations of any occupation,
I thought

Richard

psst: incidentally, in French, capital
letters are eschewed – gesundheit –
after the first initial, therefore
the French title, “Suite française“,
sports a lower case f

the film, “Suite Française“ uses
the English construction

 

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September 1, 2015

what’s happening in Poland

"The Kiss" - Gustav Klimt

“The Kiss“ (1907-08)

Gustav Klimt

_______

last night, most unexpectedly,
someone I know sent me this, I
wondered if it was because of
the music, the message, or the
performance, consequently I
assumed everything

Mateusz Ziółko won the Voice
of Poland contest in 2013, it’s
fun, despite the language
barrier – the adjudication being
all in Polish – to watch also,
during the evaluation, the judge
in blue fall apart, come entirely
undone, be unabashedly smitten,
from nearly the very first note of
this riveting audition, then spend
the rest of the show trying to get
herself back together again

much as I did, in fact, without
a camera

quiver too, enjoy

Richard

 

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August 26, 2015

“Let’s Face the Music and Dance”‏

"Hot Jazz" - Frank Kline

“Hot Jazz“ (1940)

Frank Kline

_______

having watched a superb interpretation
of this classic Nat King Cole number on
“So You Think You Can Dance” recently,
a show I havent missed since it started,
I went looking for a performance of the
song I could sink my teeth into, and
Fred and Ginger, however wonderful,
could not give me the immediacy I was
intent on discovering, I needed words,
not action, “Let’s Face the Music and
Dance” from the heart

though I’d heard of Diana Krall, I hadn’t
anywhere yet identified her, if ever I’d
even heard her

she took my breath away, knocked my
socks off, I want to go to Rio, where
she sang this song, just click

once I’d heard this piece on free Internet
video, I ran, didn’t just walk, albeit on the
comfort of my own sofa, to iTunes and
bought the whole show for what turned
out to be essentially a song, $4.99
Canadian, wow

turned out I could’ve got it for free as
well right there by running instead to
Google, had I not been so impetuous,
smitten

“Live in Rio“ is a revelation, and I don’t
even like jazz, but I liked this show
enough to make me want to fly to Rio,
make my own Bossa Nova, maybe even
meet my own Ipaneman

though Diana Krall, incidentally lives
right here in Vancouver, she says

note, in passing, the connections to
Classical music, you’ll want to count
tenuti, for instance, and rubati,
accelerandi and rallentandi, while
you’re at it

note also the Classical imperatives,
tonality, tempo, and repetition, which,
you’ll find, haven’t much changed in
the 21st Century, though rhythm is a
lot more fluid, flexible, now, not so
rigid

the group is a variation on the string
quartet, now comprising double bass,
guitar, percussion, and piano, with
voice thrown in

an orchestral back up makes us ready
for a concerto, where here we have a
set of independent pieces held
together, however solidly, by mere
mood

and, of course, Diana Krall’s vocal
and interpretive magic

listen, be smitten

Richard

 

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August 23, 2015

“Il Silenzio” – Nini Rosso‏

the Yser Memorial - Nieuwpoort, Holland

the Yser Memorial

Nieuwpoort, Holland

___________

the year before last when my mom and I
were in Belgium, we stayed at a wonderful
bed and breakfast, Ter Brugge, in a place
called Jabbeke, a village near Bruges, our
intended sightseeing destination, cause
I’d read in the prospectus that they served
fresh eggs from their very own chickens in
the morning, and where there turned out to
be fresh fruit also from their very own
orchards

not to mention the hearty, convivial
welcome in the manner of the countryside –
the restaurant across the street, five stars
nevertheless, however improbable in so
nestled and remote an area, even let us
bring back cash instead of the unaccepted
credit card we were proffering, and wouldn’t
accept a compensatory tip when the next
day I returned to oblige

try that in your own urban back yard

more companionable still were our hosts,
Staf and Annemie, who’d faultlessly drive
us several kilometres away to the bus stop
every morning to the city, and pick us up
across the street there every night, so
we could spend, without impracticality,
each day in Bruges

and every morning we’d meet up with a
couple from England as we waited, who
were staying in a trailer park nearby,
and who’d trek to Ypres by bus to honour
their countrymen who’d died there

somehow we never thought, my mom
and I, of going to either Ypres or
Passchendaele, despite our, especially
her, particular interest

we learned from them that every day,
every day, however improbably, since
the end of the First World War, there is
a commemoration to honour the fallen
soldiers

today I learned that in a cemetery near
Maastricht in Holland, every single fallen
soldier there has been adopted by a family
who’ve been minding their graves ever
since

makes one wonder about our own
beloved

on Liberation Day each year, May 5th,
throughout Holland, there is a formal
commemoration at the end of which,
since 1965 when it was commissioned,
someone plays “Il Silenzio“

listen

Richard

 

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