A Few Things Self Has Learned Since Arriving in India

January 28, 2012 at 4:05 pm (Lists, Places, Surprises, Weather)
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Self is amazed to discover that India reminds her so much of the Philippines:

Rest Stop on the way to Kasauli

People are the same everywhere:

Hindu deity Ganesh on driver's dashboard (Reminds self of the dashboards of Filipino jeepneys, draped with Santo Niño replicas)

At the Red Mosque in Old New Delhi, right after the Call to Prayer ended (People hadn't yet folded up their prayer mats. It was such an indescribable thrill to hear the call of the muezzin over a loudspeaker)

Here are my traveling companions: Sarah K is on the left, and Mrinilani is on the right.

Self must make sure to wear a scarf, wherever she goes.  No telling when the yen will strike to enter a Hindu or Muslim temple.

India has "tuk-tuks" -- just like in Bangkok

New Delhi was blessedly cool:  the tour guide Mrinalini engaged told self that October to February were the best times to visit because of the cool weather.  Self thanks her lucky stars that she decided to try out India in January.  (Earlier, a couple of people told her, it was much colder.  Yes, she is lucky)

Stay tuned, dear blog readers.  Stay tuned.

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“A Short, Dark Young Man”

January 26, 2012 at 12:45 am (Traveling)
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New Delhi, here comes self!

After numerous bumblings, ditherings, late-night confabulations (with self, in her head), and much badgering of Newark Continental Baggage Office (“I need my bag!  I forgot my medication inside!  I won’t survive the long flight to New Delhi!), she is finally, finally “ready”.  She has spritzed Chanel perfume (from a tester in the Duty Free store), and applied Estee Lauder lipstick, again from a tester.

Mrinalini’s last e-mail:

“A short, dark young man named Anand should be waiting just outside the green gate outside the Nothing to Declare exit …”

Stay tuned.

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“Justified” Season 3, Episode 2

January 25, 2012 at 6:37 am (television)
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Someone ought to tell Denzel that story.

– Chief Deputy Art Mullen

This episode seems to be focused mainly on the Chief Deputy (Yay!)  Nick Searcy is wonderful.  Self is simply thrilled when Chief Deputy Art Mullen tells a perpetrator :  “Get out, you son of a bitch!”  His accent is spot-on (Self has never been to the south, but she still declares that Deputy Chief Mullen’s accent as “authentic.”  Self, when will this ever end ???)

Adding further to the fabulous-ness of this episode is the presence of Carla Giugino (in a black suit with a red blouse).  And — oh my — she is tough!  Watch her take down a low-life in a pencil skirt and heels!

Self thinks this season of “Justified” is beginning so strong.  Episode 2 is on a whole other level of fine.

A character gets whacked pretty early on.  The incident occurs in broad daylight, in a very public place.  The sound of the report is loud (even though assassin muffles by shooting through a pillow)

OK, where are all the other people in that Public Place?  If a man sprawls on the ground after being shot (but not killed), you’d think someone might notice.

Missing in Action in this episode:  Ava and Tim Gutterson

Though Ava does put in an appearance, close to the end.

Erica Taziel is present, playing tough for the first time.  That’s twice now that self has used “tough” to describe the women in this episode.  Which just goes to show:  all the women in the “Justified” universe are “tough.”  For instance, last season’s 14-year-old-with-the-heart-shaped face, who successfully deflected a pervert all by herself.  And last season’s Evil Incarnate, Mags Bennett.  And Ava.  Heck, even Winona is tough!  And all the tough women are thin, and they can all get away with wearing the Mother of All Pencil Skirts.  (In fact, now that self reflects, has there ever been a woman on this show who is NOT tough?  Methinks not!)

There is a new Villain, who does a masterful job of cutting a beef carcass with a very very very and self means VERY sharp knife!

Stay tuned, dear blog readers.  Stay tuned.

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Amazing Drew

January 24, 2012 at 6:18 pm (Good Ideas, Lists)
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We met at the Virginia Center for the Creative Arts.  Since then, he’s become self’s partner in crime, the one who hopes to set one of self’s stories to music, someday.  Can’cha just see it?

MARIFE:  An Opera

Libretto by Marianne V________

Music composed by Drew Hemenger

On now, at the Metropolitan Opera House

Reservations HIGHLY recommended

What impresses self about Drew is his incredible output. This despite holding down a full-time (administrative) job.  One of his pieces was performed at Symphony Space for the 9/11 Tenth Anniversary Commemmoration.

So, here’s what’s up with Drew for the month of February. The first event is in New York, the second is in University of Wisconsin at Milwaukee:

  • Saturday, Feb. 4, 8 p.m.

Tenri Cultural Institute of New York
“Four Places in New York,” a piece for four-hand piano (part of Mark Peloquin’s Keyed Up Music Project)
Tickets: $20, reservations recommended

  • Saturday, Feb. 24, 7:30 p.m.

University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee
Soprano Adrienne Danrich will enchant audiences with “An Evening in the Harlem Renaissance,” which includes Drew’s jazz-influenced songs inspired by the iconic Harlem Renaissance poet Langston Hughes

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The Calendar: February and March 2012

January 24, 2012 at 7:31 am (Good Ideas, Lists, television)
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Self lives always in the future.  Always, always.  It’s her bugaboo:  she is always anticipating (or dreading).  The only relief is through writing.

Her 2012 “Zen Mind” calendar for the month of February has the illustration of a hanging scroll.  It’s one of those virtuoso performances of pen and ink:  a long, heavy black smear, calligraphy on either side.  The title of the painting:  “Nanten’s Staff,”  by Nakahara Nantenbo (1839 – 1925)  After she learns the title, self can’t help but marvel at how evocative a single stroke of heavy black ink can be.

Events listed in the calendar for February and March:

  • February 1:  Imbolc (Pagan/Wiccan)
  • February 7:  Full Moon
  • February 12:  Start of “Random Acts of Kindness” week
  • Feb. 21:  Start of Mardi Gras
  • Feb. 22:  Ash Wednesday
  • Mar. 8:  International Women’s Day.  Also, Full Moon
  • March 11:  Daylight saving time begins.
  • March 20:  Ostara (Pagan/ Wiccan), Spring Equinox
  • Mar. 21:  Naw-Ruz (Bahai’i and Persian New Year)

The husband found self another episode of “Revenge” on cable.  This one was Episode 4.  It begins with a Tyler aiming a gun at the head of Emily Thorne (aka Amanda Clark), from point-blank range.  Then, cut to:  “Two Days Earlier.” (HA HA HAAA!)  A very thin and pasty-looking Gabriel Mann began the episode in a beach chair.  He ended it tied to a chair in his own house.  Fabulous, simply fabulous.

Bags are packed for India.  Her visa is already stamped in her passport, awaiting the scrutiny of an Indian Immigration Official.  Self has probably gained 5 lbs. just in the past week, from nervous snacking.

Stay tuned, dear blog readers.  Stay tuned.

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Sun Tzu Now: Robert Greene’s THE 48 LAWS OF POWER

January 22, 2012 at 8:23 am (Authors, Books)

Reputation is a treasure to be carefully collected and hoarded.  Especially when you are first establishing it, you must protect it strictly, anticipating all attacks on it.  Once it is solid, do not let yourself get angry or defensive at the slanderous comments of your enemies –  that reveals insecurity, not confidence in your reputation.  Take the high road instead, and never appear desperate in your self-defense.  On the other hand, an attack on another man’s reputation is a potent weapon, particularly when you have less power than he does.  He has much more to lose in such a battle, and your own thus-far small reputation gives him a small target when he tries to return your fire.

–  Robert Greene, The 48 Laws of Power, p. 42

Now self understands the attraction of the NEGATIVE ATTACK AD in political campaigns.

Robert Greene is the author of such books as The 33 Strategies of War and The Art of Seduction.  The “complete amoral series” –  Be Ruthless, Reign Supreme –  is available in paperback from Penguin.

Stay tuned.

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Today, at the de Young: MASTERS OF VENICE

January 22, 2012 at 2:17 am (Sundays, Surprises, Weather)
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Today, self and the husband went to see the “Masters of Venice” exhibit at the de Young, there through Feb. 12.  The day was radiant (if a bit chilly).  There had been a storm just the night before (Our trellises were knocked down). The paths to Stowe Lake were muddy and littered with debris.  Clumps of (apparently dead) earthworms lined the path leading to the museum’s main entrance.

Here are some things that self learned from the exhibit:

  • The paintings, 50 in all, were amassed by the Habsburgs.
  • The museum in which they were housed was in Vienna.
  • The voice introducing the audio for the exhibit was that of John Buchanan, the Museum Director who sadly passed away in December.
  • Many of the subjects were women, which seemed contradictory:  Women in Renaissance Venetian society (self learned from the exhibit audio) were viewed as distinctly subservient. Yet they seemed an endless source of inspiration for the (male) artists.  Therefore, who were these women? Biblical subjects, like Judith who cut off the head of Holofernes. Figures from ancient mythology.  Quite a few were nude, and all had meaty hips and thighs and exceedingly tiny breasts. Self wonders what the women of Venetian Renaissance Society thought about these naked women in the paintings. The audio mentioned that several could possibly have been courtesans. One of these possible courtesans was depicted with great branches of laurel leaves framing her head, one breast coyly exposed. The subject’s face was so at odds with her deshabille. It was a great portrait, by a painter self had never heard of: Giorgione.

There was Andrea Mantegna’s painting of Saint Sebastian, pierced by arrows. Self had seen copies of this painting in books. She expected it to be large, befitting the subject. But it was surprisingly small. The saint’s body was surprisingly robust, the skin like alabaster. An arrow pierced his chin and went through his forehead, but the face was not disfigured. The expression was not what self expected (Perhaps she expected something akin to Bernini’s Medusa, the face in a moment of transformation.) The audio remarked on the extraordinary three-dimensionality of the saint’s feet.

She wished there had been audio for Titian’s “The Entombment of Christ.”

Another of her favorites, for which there was audio, was Tintoretto’s “The Flagellation of Christ” :  the figures of the men beating Christ were so ferocious, their arms flexed, caught in the moment just before their blows connected with the bound form between them.  And another thing:  Christ was not the ascetic, suffering figure self was used to seeing from his depictions on the cross. This Christ figure was monumental, greatly muscled.

From the Museum store, self bought a pair of dessert plates, on sale for $13.99!  The design was of a painting by Bordone, “Allegory of Mars, Venus and Cupid.”  Here’s a close-up:

Bordone's "Allegory of Mars, Venus and Cupid," c. 1560

Later in the afternoon, after self was back in Redwood City, she heard on the car radio that Gngrich had beaten Romney in South Carolina, by double digits.

Stay tuned, dear blog readers. Stay tuned.

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Bernini’s MEDUSA at the Legion of Honor, and Thoughts on Ridley Scott’s ALIEN

January 20, 2012 at 9:19 pm (Good Ideas, Movies)
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So many exhibits, so little time!

It seems like forever that self’s been wanting to go see Bernini’s Medusa, which has been on loan to the Legion of Honor from Rome’s Musei Capitolini (and is leaving shortly!).  Yet another legacy from the wonderful John Buchanan, who put in the pipeline so many great exhibits at the Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco.

Leafing through the museum’s Fall 2011 magazine, self sees, in close-up, a picture of this magnificent sculpture.

How curious:  last night, self and the husband watched “Alien,” and this time around (only her nth viewing of this classic), self was particularly struck by the tight close-ups of Ripley’s face when she is in the space pod, escaping from the Nostromo.  There’s a lot of shaky cam work (Ridley Scott must have been among the first to use this technique), but the focus is entirely on Ripley’s face.

There are so many ways Scott could have chosen to portray that moment.  He could have shown the engines thrusting, or the pod moving through space.  He could have shown Ripley in action, busily pressing buttons or what not.  But no.  In that scene, he showed only Sigourney Weaver’s face, her open mouth, her closed eyes, her projection of pain and exhaustion (everything shaking horribly, and the image becoming very blurred at times).  And looking at the picture of the Medusa in the Fine Arts Museums magazine, it is something of the same expression!

This is from the museum magazine:

Her hair is turning into writhing snakes which, according to Ovid, was a punishment from Minerva for having had an affair with Neptune, god of the sea.  The punishment also made Medusa an instrument of death by turning anyone who looked upon her to stone . . .   Bernini’s depiction does not describe the incident but rather the agony of Medusa’s initial dramatic transformation.  Her face is contorted with pain and anxiety and her mouth is open as if crying out.

What is remarkable about Bernini’s interpretation of this ancient mythological creature is that it conveys passion, emotion, and the humanity of the moment, rather than the monstrous and horrific aspects of Medusa treated by artists and sculptors hitherto.

Self wishes she could “capture” an image from somewhere.

Stay tuned, dear blog readers.  Stay tuned.

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Cold, Gray Thursday (January 2012)

January 19, 2012 at 8:34 pm (Eavesdropping, television, The New York Times, Weather)
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Self feels in no way inclined to step out of doors. Good thing her current Netflix rental, “The Conspirator,” is pretty good (James McAvoy, Robin Wright). She was going to go to German Haus Staudt in downtown to get sauerkraut to go with the corned beef simmering in the crockpot, and also drop by Peet’s for more French Roast. But that can wait.

It’s Sinulog Time in the Philippines. She was there last January. Oh what a difference a year makes.  A year ago, she remembers one of her Bacolod nephews returning from a smaller version of the Sinulog, in Kabankalan. Now he works for Qatar Airlines.

The mail thumped into the box a few minutes ago. The cover of Sports Illustrated is our very own 49ers. Self views the cover with mixed feelings. On the one hand, she loves what Alex Smith and the rest of the 49ers are doing. On the other hand, she clearly remembers telling the husband, “Whoever’s on the cover of the next Sports Illustrated will lose.” And you know, she successfully called the game for the 49ers last weekend!

Anyhoo, fie with the gloomy thoughts! Self is at the moment still reading last Sunday’s New York Times. After several days, she has slowly worked her way to the Art & Leisure section, and has paused to peruse an article on a new show, “Revenge,” which the Times critic Alessandra Stanley has called one of the Top 10 Shows of 2011.

It’s set in the Hamptons (What? Another show set in the Hamptons? When will it all end?) and one of the main characters is played by a tall, skinny, blonde actor named Gabriel Mann. The role is supposed to be that of a high-tech billionaire.

Self doesn’t recognize him from the Times picture, but the article cites a previous acting credit as being the Bourne movies, and she thinks, she thinks he just might be the guy who plays the assistant to one of the Treadstone bad guys (“Danny”), the one who gets off-ed near the start of Bourne II (a hunch later confirmed)

In “Revenge,” he plays, according to Times writer Megan Angelo, “the Eleanor Rigby of tech billionaires: brilliant, prickly, and palpably alone.”

What? Surely Ms. Angelo could have thought of a better parallel. Eleanor Rigby is the LAST thing on self’s mind when she looks at a picture of Gabriel Mann. But, to return to the matter at hand –

Ms. Angelo asks Mann who the models for his character are. Mr. Mann modestly declares that “there were definitely some names thrown at me, like Zuckerberg, but nobody’s going to do that better than Jesse Esienberg in The Social Network. The only description for Nolan in the script was that he’s a very bad dresser. (For the audition) I put on a red windbreaker and every other ugly, ill-fitting thing I could dig out.”

Angelo: There’s something unsettling about him onscreen — magnetic, but unsettling.

Mann: … Nolan just snakes his way through these events. I wanted him to be unreadable.

Angelo: Nolan’s a loner, and the Hamptons is a strange place to be a loner.

Mann: It’s an interesting dichotomy. He has built this castle made of money that separates him from everybody else. He doesn’t have social connections. People meet him purely because of his money. What does that do to a person over time?

Which is indeed a very interesting question, Mr. Mann.

*     *     *     *

(Several hours later)

Self inveigled the husband to search for an episode of “Revenge” on Play on Demand.  He dredged up Episode 6.  Wow!  That is indeed the most crazy, cheesy, entertainingly absorbing soap self has seen on network TV since “Dallas”!!!  She almost bust a gut seeing Gabriel Mann’s blonde, Beatle haircut!  Is he playing metro-sexual?  She loves the bitterness around his mouth.

Stay tuned, dear blog readers. Stay tuned.

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Prompted by Previews of “Extremely Loud, Incredibly Close”

January 18, 2012 at 11:02 pm (Authors, Eavesdropping, Good Ideas, Lists, Memoirs, Movies, Women Writers, Writing)
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While self was waiting for “Justified” Season 3, Episode 1 to come on, she caught the preview of a movie called “Extremely Loud, Incredibly Close,” which has Tom Hanks playing a father who is caught in his office in one of the towers, on that terrible day.

It so happens that self is on a closet-cleaning binge.  At the back of one of her closet drawers, she found newspapers from that week: The New York Times of Sept. 12, Sept. 13, and Sept. 14. She uncreased the folds, and contemplated.

A month ago, she tried to write a story about 9/11, the same story she’s been trying to write for 10 years. She finally chopped it to four pages and sent it out. She happened to send it to Wigleaf, together with “Stonehenge/Pacifica,” and they chose the latter piece. But self still has hope that the other piece will find a home. It’s called “Wavering,” and it’s about a man whose wife saved his life that day, but not in the way you’d expect.

So, she takes a look at the Poets & Writers magazine, the one with Joan Didion on the cover. P & W calls her “America’s Most Resilient Writer.” Self wonders whether Didion herself would appreciate the appellation. Why “Most Resilient”? Why not just “The Best”? But perhaps it is a tribute, to be a “resilient” writer. Self supposes it must be, for writing is a tough, tough business. For every “Writer Under 40″ who gets into The New Yorker, there are thousands, thousands who end up being lawyers, program assistants, nurses, teachers.

Self remarked to the husband, after watching the preview of “Extremely Loud, Incredibly Close” :  “Of all the places in the world that the terrorists could have chosen for their strike, they ended up choosing the one city that probably has more writers per square foot than any other city in the world.”

Is it chance? Fate? Who knows. That one event has spawned circles and concentric circles of angst, despair, neurosis that will last decades. Perhaps, even, centuries.

Self has read some good 9/11 writing (And some really terrible 9/11 writing). Among the good, Claire Messud’s novel, The Emperor’s Children. As well as Will Self’s short essay in his collection, Psychogeography. As well as Colum McCann’s short piece, “Dessert,” in The New Yorker issue that commemmorated the 10th anniversary of 9/11.  McCann’s essay and the nonfiction book 102 Mintues:  The Untold Story of the Fight to Survive Inside the Twin Towers have touched her more than anything.

Here, in Poets & Writers, are some more 9/11 literature, recommended by a Pennsylvania reader who wrote a Letter to the Editor:

  • Rebecca McClanahan’s “And We Shall Be Changed:  New York City, September 2001″ (Kenyon Review, Summer/Fall 2003)
  • Donald Morrill’s The Untouched Minutes, a memoir “written almost exclusively in the third person” (University of Nebraska Press, 2004)
  • David Foster Wallace’s “The View From Mrs. Thompson’s,” an essay in the Oct. 25, 2001 issue of Rolling Stone
  • Mary Cappello’s “Moscow 9/11″ in Raritan, Summer 2002
  • Art Spiegelman’s graphic memoir In the Shadow of No Towers (Pantheon Books, 2004)

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