Born Jewish as Abraham Schwarz, aka Moses Pinkeles in Hungury. Studies dramatic arts and was in trouble with the police and fled the country. He converted to Christianity in London and became a missionary in Canada. He turned Bristish as Tribich Lincoln and became a member of the parliament.
In the years leading up to the outbreak of the First World War he was involved in a variety of failed commercial endeavours, living for a time in Bucharest, hoping to make money in the oil industry. Back in London with no money, he offered his services to the British government as a spy. When he was rejected he went to Holland and made contact with the Germans, who employed him as a double-agent.
Returning to England, he narrowly escaped arrest, leaving for the United States in 1915, where he made contact with the German military attaché, Franz von Papen. Papen was instructed by Berlin to have nothing to do with him, whereupon Trebitsch sold his "story" to the New York World Magazine, which published under the banner headline Revelation of I. T. T. Lincoln, Former Member of Parliament Who Became a Spy.
The British government, anxious to avoid any embarrassment, employed the Pinkerton agency to track down the renegade. He was returned to England – not on a charge of espionage, which was not covered by the Anglo-American extradition treaty, but of fraud, far more apt in the circumstances. He served three years in Parkhurst Prison on the Isle of Wight, and was released and deported in 1919.
A penniless refugee, Trebitsch-Lincoln worked his way bit by bit into the extreme right-wing and militarist fringe in Weimar Germany, making the acquaintance of Wolfgang Kapp and Erich Ludendorff among others. In 1920, following the Kapp Putsch, he was appointed press censor to the new government. In this capacity he met Adolf Hitler, who flew in from Munich the day before the Putsch collapsed.
With the fall of Kapp, Trebitsch fled south from Munich to Vienna to Budapest, intriguing all along the way, linking up with whole variety of fringe political factions, such as a loose alliance of monarchists and reactionaries from all over Europe known as the White International. Entrusted with the organisation's archives, he promptly sold the information to the secret services of various governments. Tried and acquitted on a charge of high treason in Austria, he was deported yet again, ending up in China, where he took up employment under three different warlords including Wu Peifu.
Supposedly after a mystic experience in the late 1920s, Trebitsch converted to Buddhism, becoming a monk. In 1931 he rose to the rank of abbot, establishing his own monastery in Shanghai. All initiates were required to hand over their possessions to Abbot Chao Kung,(Ch. 照空 Zhao Kong) as he now called himself, who also spent his time seducing nuns.
In 1937 he transferred his loyalties yet again, this time to the Japanese, producing anti-British propaganda on their behalf. Chinese sources say the opposite, that he wrote numerous letters and articles for the European press condemning Japanese imperial aggression in China. After the outbreak of the Second World War, he also made contact with the Nazis, offering to broadcast for them and to raise up all the Buddhists of the East against any remaining British influence in the area. The chief of the Gestapo in the Far East, SS Colonel Joseph Mesinger, urged that this scheme receive serious attention. It was even seriously suggested that Trebitsch be allowed to accompany German agents to Tibet to implement the scheme.
Heinrich Himmler was enthusiastic, as was Rudolf Hess, but it all came to nothing after the latter flew to Scotland in May 1941. After this, Hitler put an end to all crackpot, pseudo-mystical schemes. Even so, Trebitsch continued his work for the German and Japanese security services in Shanghai until his death in 1943.
http://www.nytimes.com/1988/05/08/books/on-the-trail-of-trebitsch-lincoln-triple-agent.html?sec=&pagewanted=all
Saturday, June 19, 2010
Thé Dansant à la Coupole
In this lazy afternoon, I don't know why la Coupole came to my mind. In general, whatever places that Hemingway frequented became tourist traps these days. We heard about the Thé Dansant in the Sunday afternoons so we went.
The average age in the ball room was 70 so we looked like parachuted from space. There was no band so we waltzed with recorded music. Many of the well dressed ladies just came and sat here - maybe to stay in touch of the days when their dance partners were still alive.
We went to the counter and ordered some over charged coffee. Sitting next to us was a young man who looked really familiar. He was looking at us as well, obviously thinking where he met us. Almost at the same time both parties realized that he was waiting for our table in a Moroccan restaurant the night before. He was a beautiful young man, as unusual as us appearing in such a place. We exchanged a few forgettable words and off we went.
Later on I heard that the ladies there would pick up boys and pay them to faire le menage naked at market price of 100 franc francais per hour. This is absolutely better than waiting on tables.
The average age in the ball room was 70 so we looked like parachuted from space. There was no band so we waltzed with recorded music. Many of the well dressed ladies just came and sat here - maybe to stay in touch of the days when their dance partners were still alive.
We went to the counter and ordered some over charged coffee. Sitting next to us was a young man who looked really familiar. He was looking at us as well, obviously thinking where he met us. Almost at the same time both parties realized that he was waiting for our table in a Moroccan restaurant the night before. He was a beautiful young man, as unusual as us appearing in such a place. We exchanged a few forgettable words and off we went.
Later on I heard that the ladies there would pick up boys and pay them to faire le menage naked at market price of 100 franc francais per hour. This is absolutely better than waiting on tables.
Monday, June 14, 2010
Leo Castelli's New York Story - New York Times June 3 2010
Most art dealers, by definition, sell pictures and make money and enter the history books only as footnotes. But Leo Castelli, who opened a gallery in New York in 1957 and became the leading dealer of Pop Art and early Minimalism, deserves to be remembered in full-size type. A trim, courtly émigré who had worked as a banker in prewar Europe, he was fluent in at least five languages and able to extol a Warhol soup can or a Richard Serra lead-pipe sculpture even in Romanian, which had tangible benefits. His achievement was to globalize American art in an age when Europeans still thought that “made in the U.S.A.” was a label best reserved for washing machines.
One never knew what lay behind the smiling mask, the easy-seeming urbanity. Annie Cohen-Solal, in her lively and detail-laden “Leo and His Circle,” provides the widest glimpse so far. He was no stranger to desperation. He fled France soon after the Nazis marched in, but his parents did not escape. They died heartbreaking deaths in Budapest, hounded by Hungary’s fascist Arrow Cross Party. Castelli’s life story has traditionally been presented as an art-world fable about an elegant Italian man in nicely cut suits who had the look of a little prince as he stood in his gallery, welcoming visitors with a kiss on both cheeks and describing everything as fan-TAS-tico. But this biography reminds us that America’s cultural dominance is inseparable from the historical nightmares that scattered the Jewish population of Europe into safe exile in New York and elsewhere.
Castelli, who was loath to discuss his past or acknowledge his religion, began life in 1907 as Leo Krausz, the son of a prosperous Hungarian banker. Trieste, the city of his birth, was then part of the Austro-Hungarian Empire, but it was annexed by Italy after World War I; with the rise of Fascism, citizens were required to adopt Italian surnames. So the Krausz clan took the name Castelli (his mother’s maiden name), and the future dealer learned firsthand about the frightening malleability of identity. National boundaries can be erased overnight, and even your name can be taken away. By the 1930s, the one unalterable piece of his identity, his Jewishness, had been twisted under evil circumstances into a reason for his extinction.
He was, in other words, an Old World figure whose dearest wish was answered in the New World. Finally, he could assimilate and take proud citizenship somewhere — i.e., inside the unrestricted borders of the American art scene, which at the time was staging its own repudiation of Europe. These were the heroic years when New York was toppling Paris as the capital of art, and Castelli assisted in the upset by opening his gallery in time to provide the first-ever glimpse of paintings of Coke bottles and cartoon girls, of Liz and Marilyn and Elvis — brightly fetching, accessible images whose rascally audacity gave establishment critics like Hilton Kramer a case of permanent heartburn and only enhanced Castelli’s love for his adopted homeland.
You cannot say he was shady. In terms of his business practices, Castelli emerges from Cohen-Solal’s book as a gentleman dealer who understood that an artist’s worth does not reside in his sales figures. He had a touching regard for the achievements of artists, or at least of his artists, conferring on their shaggy-haired heads every blessing his profession had to offer. He gave Jasper Johns and Frank Stella their first one-man shows. He spoke about Roy Lichtenstein and Donald Judd as if their legacy were roughly tantamount to that of Rembrandt.
Did he have a great eye? Probably not, but he certainly had the good sense to listen to people who knew more than he did, and the good fortune to be sent to Bucharest as a young insurance agent. There, in 1933, he met Ileana Schapira, a 17-year-old Romanian heiress whose taste was genuinely rarefied and extreme. He married her that year, and eventually she became the legendary art dealer Ileana Sonnabend. “Leo had no idea, no vision of his own,” Robert Storr, the critic and dean of the Yale School of Art, tells the author, not implausibly. Castelli, he feels, was “a go-between with an exceptional gift for public relations.” Once, on a visit to Bruce Nauman’s studio for an advance peek at the artist’s latest homemade video, Castelli fell asleep.
He owed a substantial debt to his inordinately wealthy father-in-law, Mihai Schapira, who bankrolled Castelli’s first gallery in Paris and kindly dragged him along when the family fled to America. Arriving here in 1941, Castelli hardly seemed destined for great things, and you can even see him as a pioneer of the slacker life. He lived on the top floor of his father-in-law’s elegant town house, at 4 East 77th Street, and worked for the Romanian’s garment company. For a decade he managed a knitwear factory. He was almost 50 years old when he finally opened the Castelli Gallery — in his living room. Visitors who climbed the four flights in the Schapira town house to see the debut exhibition found two enormous works hanging in the entranceway: a Jackson Pollock drip painting and a Cubist-style view of the Eiffel Tower by the French painter Robert Delaunay — in other words, a face-off between American culture and French culture, a contest in which Castelli had already decided the victor.
By then his marriage was in ruins, perhaps because he was not built for monogamy. His amatory conquests were so numerous that even his biographer appears to lose interest in cataloging them. After the divorce from Ileana came the inevitable second and third marriages, but Castelli and his first wife remained quaintly entwined through the years. His SoHo gallery, which opened in 1971 amid deserved fanfare, occupied the second floor at 420 West Broadway — one flight below Sonnabend’s gallery. In their later years (he died in 1999), they talked regularly and at last settled into the kind of untroubled companionship that had eluded them during their marriage.
For all its interesting disclosures, “Leo and His Circle” is compromised by careless writing and a breezy indifference to humble facts. The book is long on hyperbole and short on insight. The author deposits exclamation points at the end of too many otherwise unsurprising sentences, as if she were composing advertising copy for Champagne. “Nineteen fifty-eight: to all appearances a banner year!”
Deborah Solomon, who writes the “Questions For” column in The Times Magazine, is the author of “Utopia Parkway: The Life and Work of Joseph Cornell” and a forthcoming biography of Norman Rockwell.
LEO AND HIS CIRCLE
The Life of Leo Castelli
By Annie Cohen-Solal
Translated by Mark Polizzotti with the author
Illustrated. 540 pp. Alfred A. Knopf. $35.
One never knew what lay behind the smiling mask, the easy-seeming urbanity. Annie Cohen-Solal, in her lively and detail-laden “Leo and His Circle,” provides the widest glimpse so far. He was no stranger to desperation. He fled France soon after the Nazis marched in, but his parents did not escape. They died heartbreaking deaths in Budapest, hounded by Hungary’s fascist Arrow Cross Party. Castelli’s life story has traditionally been presented as an art-world fable about an elegant Italian man in nicely cut suits who had the look of a little prince as he stood in his gallery, welcoming visitors with a kiss on both cheeks and describing everything as fan-TAS-tico. But this biography reminds us that America’s cultural dominance is inseparable from the historical nightmares that scattered the Jewish population of Europe into safe exile in New York and elsewhere.
Castelli, who was loath to discuss his past or acknowledge his religion, began life in 1907 as Leo Krausz, the son of a prosperous Hungarian banker. Trieste, the city of his birth, was then part of the Austro-Hungarian Empire, but it was annexed by Italy after World War I; with the rise of Fascism, citizens were required to adopt Italian surnames. So the Krausz clan took the name Castelli (his mother’s maiden name), and the future dealer learned firsthand about the frightening malleability of identity. National boundaries can be erased overnight, and even your name can be taken away. By the 1930s, the one unalterable piece of his identity, his Jewishness, had been twisted under evil circumstances into a reason for his extinction.
He was, in other words, an Old World figure whose dearest wish was answered in the New World. Finally, he could assimilate and take proud citizenship somewhere — i.e., inside the unrestricted borders of the American art scene, which at the time was staging its own repudiation of Europe. These were the heroic years when New York was toppling Paris as the capital of art, and Castelli assisted in the upset by opening his gallery in time to provide the first-ever glimpse of paintings of Coke bottles and cartoon girls, of Liz and Marilyn and Elvis — brightly fetching, accessible images whose rascally audacity gave establishment critics like Hilton Kramer a case of permanent heartburn and only enhanced Castelli’s love for his adopted homeland.
You cannot say he was shady. In terms of his business practices, Castelli emerges from Cohen-Solal’s book as a gentleman dealer who understood that an artist’s worth does not reside in his sales figures. He had a touching regard for the achievements of artists, or at least of his artists, conferring on their shaggy-haired heads every blessing his profession had to offer. He gave Jasper Johns and Frank Stella their first one-man shows. He spoke about Roy Lichtenstein and Donald Judd as if their legacy were roughly tantamount to that of Rembrandt.
Did he have a great eye? Probably not, but he certainly had the good sense to listen to people who knew more than he did, and the good fortune to be sent to Bucharest as a young insurance agent. There, in 1933, he met Ileana Schapira, a 17-year-old Romanian heiress whose taste was genuinely rarefied and extreme. He married her that year, and eventually she became the legendary art dealer Ileana Sonnabend. “Leo had no idea, no vision of his own,” Robert Storr, the critic and dean of the Yale School of Art, tells the author, not implausibly. Castelli, he feels, was “a go-between with an exceptional gift for public relations.” Once, on a visit to Bruce Nauman’s studio for an advance peek at the artist’s latest homemade video, Castelli fell asleep.
He owed a substantial debt to his inordinately wealthy father-in-law, Mihai Schapira, who bankrolled Castelli’s first gallery in Paris and kindly dragged him along when the family fled to America. Arriving here in 1941, Castelli hardly seemed destined for great things, and you can even see him as a pioneer of the slacker life. He lived on the top floor of his father-in-law’s elegant town house, at 4 East 77th Street, and worked for the Romanian’s garment company. For a decade he managed a knitwear factory. He was almost 50 years old when he finally opened the Castelli Gallery — in his living room. Visitors who climbed the four flights in the Schapira town house to see the debut exhibition found two enormous works hanging in the entranceway: a Jackson Pollock drip painting and a Cubist-style view of the Eiffel Tower by the French painter Robert Delaunay — in other words, a face-off between American culture and French culture, a contest in which Castelli had already decided the victor.
By then his marriage was in ruins, perhaps because he was not built for monogamy. His amatory conquests were so numerous that even his biographer appears to lose interest in cataloging them. After the divorce from Ileana came the inevitable second and third marriages, but Castelli and his first wife remained quaintly entwined through the years. His SoHo gallery, which opened in 1971 amid deserved fanfare, occupied the second floor at 420 West Broadway — one flight below Sonnabend’s gallery. In their later years (he died in 1999), they talked regularly and at last settled into the kind of untroubled companionship that had eluded them during their marriage.
For all its interesting disclosures, “Leo and His Circle” is compromised by careless writing and a breezy indifference to humble facts. The book is long on hyperbole and short on insight. The author deposits exclamation points at the end of too many otherwise unsurprising sentences, as if she were composing advertising copy for Champagne. “Nineteen fifty-eight: to all appearances a banner year!”
Deborah Solomon, who writes the “Questions For” column in The Times Magazine, is the author of “Utopia Parkway: The Life and Work of Joseph Cornell” and a forthcoming biography of Norman Rockwell.
LEO AND HIS CIRCLE
The Life of Leo Castelli
By Annie Cohen-Solal
Translated by Mark Polizzotti with the author
Illustrated. 540 pp. Alfred A. Knopf. $35.
Saturday, June 5, 2010
La Bayadere - The temple dancer
Opera Garnier. Paris. Le premier juin, 2010
A supernatural dramatic plot, an exotic land of illusion and fantasy, opulent and extravagant decor and costumes. And the shade appears one by one - in the simple grand pas classic and they go on endlessly. The ghosts dance elegantly in the kingdom of shades. Fortunately there is after life to comfort the hopelessly living.
A supernatural dramatic plot, an exotic land of illusion and fantasy, opulent and extravagant decor and costumes. And the shade appears one by one - in the simple grand pas classic and they go on endlessly. The ghosts dance elegantly in the kingdom of shades. Fortunately there is after life to comfort the hopelessly living.
Gone with the bird shit
A mad fool sits under a tree and is talking to the moon.
"You see, people make plans to fool themselves: They know what they want to do, but they don't do it now; They know what they are going to do will not make them eventually happy, but still they want to do it; They are lonely, but they pretend that they are the big swinging dicks that don't get into the sentimental things; They don't get any talent but want people to worship them; They are into all sorts of vanity fairs - les hotels particuliers, maitraisses et amants, champagne et tout et tout... " And the fool has difficulties to continue.
The moon emitted some extremely bright light - not sure in agreement or disagreement. The birds woke up in the trees and dumped some shit on the fool's head.
The fool found inspiration. "Et tout ca, will be gone with the bird shit".
"You see, people make plans to fool themselves: They know what they want to do, but they don't do it now; They know what they are going to do will not make them eventually happy, but still they want to do it; They are lonely, but they pretend that they are the big swinging dicks that don't get into the sentimental things; They don't get any talent but want people to worship them; They are into all sorts of vanity fairs - les hotels particuliers, maitraisses et amants, champagne et tout et tout... " And the fool has difficulties to continue.
The moon emitted some extremely bright light - not sure in agreement or disagreement. The birds woke up in the trees and dumped some shit on the fool's head.
The fool found inspiration. "Et tout ca, will be gone with the bird shit".
The Cincinnati Kid
Gets down to what it's all about, doesn't it? Making the wrong move at the right time.
A little hoodlum, hustler or whatever you call the character in that neighborhood, he says few words but each word said is to the point; he smiles rarely but when he does it disarms you. Always seems to be in thoughts and really not into anything. Poised, calm, full of nothing and charm.
A little hoodlum, hustler or whatever you call the character in that neighborhood, he says few words but each word said is to the point; he smiles rarely but when he does it disarms you. Always seems to be in thoughts and really not into anything. Poised, calm, full of nothing and charm.
Monday, May 31, 2010
Écaille de la fontaine
le 31 mai 2010, Paris
The air is filled with the flowers from les platanes and the sun is still there at 8 pm. Spring is in Paris despite the chilly temperature.
Flaner – the best exercise in Paris and the precursor to anything unpredictable. So I was wondering in the streets and found a great restaurant. But after asking two neighborhood guys, Helas, it was closed. They pointed out that nearby at the Place de Gaillon there were two gastronomy restaurants and one of them belongs to Gerard Depardieu.
Place de la Gaillon is a lovely little square with two high end restaurants. But right across the street, there was this homey little restaurant with painted red windows and menu on the wall and it was recommended by Michelin. The waitress has a lovely smile so I chose this one.
The guy manning the oster bar liked me and gave me une langustine de plus. The plateau d’Ecaille was simply copieux et delicieux. I was conquered by my food, my glasses of wine and the time just being alone and enjoying myself. I even offered a stranger some of my huitres. These simple earthly happy moments that make life worth living. R, who would share art, travel, sex, food and surprises with me, thourouly, totally, fully as you?
I saw the waiters running out all the time with trays of seafood and running back with hot food. I found out that Depardieu has two restaurants, this little one serves the seafood to the luxurious one, the other one cooks plats chauds for this one – at the end, the food is the same and price is half here!
Vive la France and Depardieu – great actor and marketer.
The air is filled with the flowers from les platanes and the sun is still there at 8 pm. Spring is in Paris despite the chilly temperature.
Flaner – the best exercise in Paris and the precursor to anything unpredictable. So I was wondering in the streets and found a great restaurant. But after asking two neighborhood guys, Helas, it was closed. They pointed out that nearby at the Place de Gaillon there were two gastronomy restaurants and one of them belongs to Gerard Depardieu.
Place de la Gaillon is a lovely little square with two high end restaurants. But right across the street, there was this homey little restaurant with painted red windows and menu on the wall and it was recommended by Michelin. The waitress has a lovely smile so I chose this one.
The guy manning the oster bar liked me and gave me une langustine de plus. The plateau d’Ecaille was simply copieux et delicieux. I was conquered by my food, my glasses of wine and the time just being alone and enjoying myself. I even offered a stranger some of my huitres. These simple earthly happy moments that make life worth living. R, who would share art, travel, sex, food and surprises with me, thourouly, totally, fully as you?
I saw the waiters running out all the time with trays of seafood and running back with hot food. I found out that Depardieu has two restaurants, this little one serves the seafood to the luxurious one, the other one cooks plats chauds for this one – at the end, the food is the same and price is half here!
Vive la France and Depardieu – great actor and marketer.
Sunday, May 23, 2010
The outcast and the Indian wedding
The wedding started at 9 am. Hands were perfumed by sandalwood, hair sprayed by rose water and scarlet dot made in between the eyes.
"This is the first uncle, the daughter of the second uncle, the aunt who suffered two strokes, the brother of the bride..." within minutes I got all confused "They are all mad at me, because I am not married". Thus is the introduction of R.
The priest that was specially trained and well paid to perform the wedding ceremony sat down. Trumpet started to blow out those high pitch tones and drum beats got more and more intense. Incenses are burned to blur all senses.
The whole wedding was bathed in a warm orange-ish hue: shinny dark skin tones, gorgeous hand woven saris, the gold covered bride, the jumpy flame that could made saris catch fire, plenty of flowers and even the sound of the trumpet has that orange color.
The ceremony was performed on the stage, the guests either watched or minded their own business. Part 1 was dedicated to the groom, part 2 to the bride, part 3 to the couple with their parents. Each long enough to exhaust everyone who was part of it. At the highlight, everyone threw rice mixed with jasmine to bless the couple. Then the whole crowd proceeded to the legal part: sign the contract, change the ring, deal was sealed - i.e. breaking the deal could cost more than the lavish wedding.
Then everyone runs for the food. R and I went upstairs for the non-vegetarian part. Instead of waiting in line, we went to the lounge to have a beer. "A single woman sits in a bar to have a beer is never heard of in India, even the prostitutes don't do that." Well, at least I outperformed the prostitutes. "I lived in Shanghai for almost three years and came back to Singapore to get married. Once a woman becomes a wife, she just changes! My marriage lasted 3 months..." "Did you go through this kind of ceremony?" I asked "Thank God no!".
The line was gone so we went for food. A runs in, red with anger, shouted: "You put me in a very embarrassing situation! I tried to keep seats for you and you just disappeared!" And then he run off as quickly as a drum beat, full of fury.
R and I went downstairs, A was sitting among housewives and crying babies holding two seats for us - ultimate results of similar weddings in the past. A boy was picking up jasmine flowers from the floor. I thought that he would collect them, but after he gathered a handful, he threw them in the air again.
"This is the first uncle, the daughter of the second uncle, the aunt who suffered two strokes, the brother of the bride..." within minutes I got all confused "They are all mad at me, because I am not married". Thus is the introduction of R.
The priest that was specially trained and well paid to perform the wedding ceremony sat down. Trumpet started to blow out those high pitch tones and drum beats got more and more intense. Incenses are burned to blur all senses.
The whole wedding was bathed in a warm orange-ish hue: shinny dark skin tones, gorgeous hand woven saris, the gold covered bride, the jumpy flame that could made saris catch fire, plenty of flowers and even the sound of the trumpet has that orange color.
The ceremony was performed on the stage, the guests either watched or minded their own business. Part 1 was dedicated to the groom, part 2 to the bride, part 3 to the couple with their parents. Each long enough to exhaust everyone who was part of it. At the highlight, everyone threw rice mixed with jasmine to bless the couple. Then the whole crowd proceeded to the legal part: sign the contract, change the ring, deal was sealed - i.e. breaking the deal could cost more than the lavish wedding.
Then everyone runs for the food. R and I went upstairs for the non-vegetarian part. Instead of waiting in line, we went to the lounge to have a beer. "A single woman sits in a bar to have a beer is never heard of in India, even the prostitutes don't do that." Well, at least I outperformed the prostitutes. "I lived in Shanghai for almost three years and came back to Singapore to get married. Once a woman becomes a wife, she just changes! My marriage lasted 3 months..." "Did you go through this kind of ceremony?" I asked "Thank God no!".
The line was gone so we went for food. A runs in, red with anger, shouted: "You put me in a very embarrassing situation! I tried to keep seats for you and you just disappeared!" And then he run off as quickly as a drum beat, full of fury.
R and I went downstairs, A was sitting among housewives and crying babies holding two seats for us - ultimate results of similar weddings in the past. A boy was picking up jasmine flowers from the floor. I thought that he would collect them, but after he gathered a handful, he threw them in the air again.
Monday, April 26, 2010
Wednesday, April 21, 2010
Le Sacre du Printemps and the chosen one - Coco and Igor
The first time I heard le Sacre du Printemps was in New York, part of my husband's classic music appreciation exercise. We went to Avery Fisher Hall and after the show went to the Empire Hotel (torn down or moved) opposite Lincoln Center. I remembered the dark velvet curtains at the hotel bar. We met a former high rank executive of Pfizer who just underwent a throat surgery due to heavy smoking. He could no longer talk so he took the option of heavy drinking.
Then par hazard I saw the ballet in a long haul airplane - contrast to Nicolas Roerich's colorful costumes, it was a group of faceless and colorless individuals. Too chic. It was the movie that truly carved the music in my mind with it's power of dissonances and asymmetries. Listening to him is like to appreciate Picasso. What a comparison to the delightful Tchaikovsky violin concerto which is the hallmark of beautiful music!
So, what happened in the mind of the chosen one, the lucky one and the doomed one when she was chosen? If I were her, I would be dancing and eying the village elder, strangle him or kick him in the head, make it an efficient sacrifice of two to God - if that helps.
Then par hazard I saw the ballet in a long haul airplane - contrast to Nicolas Roerich's colorful costumes, it was a group of faceless and colorless individuals. Too chic. It was the movie that truly carved the music in my mind with it's power of dissonances and asymmetries. Listening to him is like to appreciate Picasso. What a comparison to the delightful Tchaikovsky violin concerto which is the hallmark of beautiful music!
So, what happened in the mind of the chosen one, the lucky one and the doomed one when she was chosen? If I were her, I would be dancing and eying the village elder, strangle him or kick him in the head, make it an efficient sacrifice of two to God - if that helps.
Saturday, April 3, 2010
Moscow does not believe in tears
Girls are out, braving the spring cold with short skirts. Vodka is poured. Warm it up - we can't do anything to the cold, but we can do something to our body and to our mind. Don’t expect it to be so good. Don’t expect it to be so bad either. You are in Russia. In the roughest roughness there might be the finest fineness or, vice versa!
Moscow tried and will always try. Moscow failed many time but one thing still holds: Moscow does not believe in tears. Cheers!
Moscow tried and will always try. Moscow failed many time but one thing still holds: Moscow does not believe in tears. Cheers!
Sketches of Russia
The land is covered by snow. The snow is so white that it looks blue. Everything is frozen. Napoleon failed, revolutions staged and ideologies born and dead. Dr Zhivago’s mother got buried, into this bluish fridge, like the Tsars family. Who said that there is no equality?
The snow covered land extends to the horizon, to the faintest blue. The lighter the color, the further the distance. The mountains look at discarded skeletons. The rivers look like a snapshot of rivers on a map – with its stand-still streams meaning nothing but a sign. The desert ignores all other existence – because to a great stretch it is the only existence.
A road, with nobody and nothing on it, cut through the snow. It seems that someone just tried to wake up the earth with a giant whip, a straight strike, so deep and so painful. The road leads to more harsh, dry and rough land.
All of a sudden, a tiny village appeared, like a few bricks accidentally dropped in the middle of nowhere. This is what all the journey is worth for.
The snow covered land extends to the horizon, to the faintest blue. The lighter the color, the further the distance. The mountains look at discarded skeletons. The rivers look like a snapshot of rivers on a map – with its stand-still streams meaning nothing but a sign. The desert ignores all other existence – because to a great stretch it is the only existence.
A road, with nobody and nothing on it, cut through the snow. It seems that someone just tried to wake up the earth with a giant whip, a straight strike, so deep and so painful. The road leads to more harsh, dry and rough land.
All of a sudden, a tiny village appeared, like a few bricks accidentally dropped in the middle of nowhere. This is what all the journey is worth for.
Friday, March 26, 2010
The squirrel and the lion
Once upon a time a squirrel wants to become a lion.
He goes to the lion and asks: "I want to be a lion. What shall I do?"
The lion says: "You need to go hunting for meat."
The squirrel goes back home and catches a bird. But he has no appetite for the bird. When hunger kicks in, he gathers 5 nuts. He eats 3 and hides 2 and goes to sleep.
The next day he wakes up and feels dreams unfulfilled. He goes to the lion again.
"How can I become a lion."? Asks the squirrel.
The lion grabs the squirrel and swallows it.
He goes to the lion and asks: "I want to be a lion. What shall I do?"
The lion says: "You need to go hunting for meat."
The squirrel goes back home and catches a bird. But he has no appetite for the bird. When hunger kicks in, he gathers 5 nuts. He eats 3 and hides 2 and goes to sleep.
The next day he wakes up and feels dreams unfulfilled. He goes to the lion again.
"How can I become a lion."? Asks the squirrel.
The lion grabs the squirrel and swallows it.
Monday, March 22, 2010
Lover
A lover is a cloud in the twilight,
surprising
beautiful
ever-changing.
It shows off its gold lining,
while casting a shadow.
The moment you marvel it's existence,
to vanish is it's destiny.
surprising
beautiful
ever-changing.
It shows off its gold lining,
while casting a shadow.
The moment you marvel it's existence,
to vanish is it's destiny.
Friday, March 19, 2010
Mumbai safari
This is a city that honors four things: Bollywood, Politicians, Industrial Tycoons and Cricket Players. All the rest means nothing. It is almost a crime getting into these luxury hotels as poverty is just next door, so striking. and alarming.
There is construction. There are too many cars. The metro line is being built. The unfinished highway is suspending overhead like a shipwreck.
Hope is like dust falling everywhere, despite what you think.
There is construction. There are too many cars. The metro line is being built. The unfinished highway is suspending overhead like a shipwreck.
Hope is like dust falling everywhere, despite what you think.
Sunday, February 28, 2010
Saigon and the forgettables
Saigon has totally forgotten its past and is rushing to a happy future - at least the people think. Why not? The war, the dead, the dramas and tragedies - isn't time the best cure-it-all elixir?
Today is R's birthday - this is something that he definately hates. But anyway counting the meaningless numbers is for the pittiful who are alive.
Today is R's birthday - this is something that he definately hates. But anyway counting the meaningless numbers is for the pittiful who are alive.
Saturday, February 27, 2010
To Last
TO LAST
To last is to live
To last is to live
Non-conforming
Neither compromising
But in peace
To my heart’s content
And to say at the moment I cease to last:
“I am heading to eternity”
Thursday, February 25, 2010
Reminiscence of Xiamen
Feb 25 2010. Singapore. Trip to Xiamen in Jan 2010
I made a trip briefly to Xiamen. The town has changed beyond recognition like all the towns in China. I overlooked at the JiMei bridge in the airplane and thought about my "big brother".
I met him in a ball room dance event in this German architect school in Shanghai when I was 18. Obviously he fell in love with me but the more he was after me, the more I was pushed away. At the end, the guy says:"OK, why don't you become my younger sister as I don't have any sister at home." And that was the deal.
That summer the big brother invited me to Xiamen where he found a job as a junior architect in the state-owned construction firm. That was my first trip on my own - a 20 hour train ride with standing place only. But I was so excited that the same day I arrived I went to see the Island Gu Lang Yu and was almost carried away by the waves, physically. 20 years later when I visited it again something still struck me as this place has a different soul -although it got much more touristic.
So life was good. By day, I helped him collecting data for the construction of the JiMei bridge. Sometimes some data was missing and guy just made it up - I am glad that the Jimei bridge hasn't collapsed yet. At night we went everywhere by bike. In many afternoons he would sneak out to go to the sea with me and tried to teach me how to swim. One day the tide was too low and the sun was a bit too strong so we hid in the show of a big boat. We were both wearing swimming suits and through his little swim trunk, I detected that the little bird got really excited and stood straight up. Curious and absolutely inexperienced, I looked at it with great interest. He was so embarrased that he jumped into the sea and swam so far that I was afraid that he would be shot by the Taiwanese soldiers.
During the whole summer I was staying in his little dorm and he stayed with his friends. The last night of my stay, he claimed that he lost the key to his friend's apartment so he had no where to go. I did not get the hint and spent half day looking for his key. And that evening, he looked at me with tears in his eyes and left without a word.
About 15 years later I got his call when I was living in New York. He said that he found my phone number through some friends. He had a family and the daughter entered middle school. He got promoted as the head of the contruction company handling billion dollar construction deals. Life was ok until a few months ago when he was almost dead due to hipatitis B. Now he is back to life and he thought that it would be good to reconnect and only wants to focus on the important things in life, including calling me.
I took down his phone number. I called him before coming to Xiamen but the number is no longer valid. The construction company got privatized and there was no trace of it.
So I lost my big brother in Xiamen.
I made a trip briefly to Xiamen. The town has changed beyond recognition like all the towns in China. I overlooked at the JiMei bridge in the airplane and thought about my "big brother".
I met him in a ball room dance event in this German architect school in Shanghai when I was 18. Obviously he fell in love with me but the more he was after me, the more I was pushed away. At the end, the guy says:"OK, why don't you become my younger sister as I don't have any sister at home." And that was the deal.
That summer the big brother invited me to Xiamen where he found a job as a junior architect in the state-owned construction firm. That was my first trip on my own - a 20 hour train ride with standing place only. But I was so excited that the same day I arrived I went to see the Island Gu Lang Yu and was almost carried away by the waves, physically. 20 years later when I visited it again something still struck me as this place has a different soul -although it got much more touristic.
So life was good. By day, I helped him collecting data for the construction of the JiMei bridge. Sometimes some data was missing and guy just made it up - I am glad that the Jimei bridge hasn't collapsed yet. At night we went everywhere by bike. In many afternoons he would sneak out to go to the sea with me and tried to teach me how to swim. One day the tide was too low and the sun was a bit too strong so we hid in the show of a big boat. We were both wearing swimming suits and through his little swim trunk, I detected that the little bird got really excited and stood straight up. Curious and absolutely inexperienced, I looked at it with great interest. He was so embarrased that he jumped into the sea and swam so far that I was afraid that he would be shot by the Taiwanese soldiers.
During the whole summer I was staying in his little dorm and he stayed with his friends. The last night of my stay, he claimed that he lost the key to his friend's apartment so he had no where to go. I did not get the hint and spent half day looking for his key. And that evening, he looked at me with tears in his eyes and left without a word.
About 15 years later I got his call when I was living in New York. He said that he found my phone number through some friends. He had a family and the daughter entered middle school. He got promoted as the head of the contruction company handling billion dollar construction deals. Life was ok until a few months ago when he was almost dead due to hipatitis B. Now he is back to life and he thought that it would be good to reconnect and only wants to focus on the important things in life, including calling me.
I took down his phone number. I called him before coming to Xiamen but the number is no longer valid. The construction company got privatized and there was no trace of it.
So I lost my big brother in Xiamen.
Steve McQueen
Feb 25, 2010. Singapore. Saw 2.5 McQueen movies "7 Mousquetaires" "Bullit" and "Le Mans" during the long flight to Paris.
Here is a guy who can ride horses, shoot double guns, drive fast cars, play cool cops and seduce women in a coffee shop without saying a word - just a smile and the next scene is she being naked in his bed. Wow!
I was bored by the car racing scenes in "le Mans" until this French actress asked McQueen a question after her boyfriend was seriously injured: "What is the meaning of driving faster than the others?" And McQueen's answer was pretty philosophical: "Racing is life, everything before and after that is waiting".
So with these smart words, the guy is unbeatable.
Here is a guy who can ride horses, shoot double guns, drive fast cars, play cool cops and seduce women in a coffee shop without saying a word - just a smile and the next scene is she being naked in his bed. Wow!
I was bored by the car racing scenes in "le Mans" until this French actress asked McQueen a question after her boyfriend was seriously injured: "What is the meaning of driving faster than the others?" And McQueen's answer was pretty philosophical: "Racing is life, everything before and after that is waiting".
So with these smart words, the guy is unbeatable.
Sunday, January 10, 2010
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