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On Love
Love, sings Carmen in Bizet's opera, is a gypsy child who has never recognized any law. Take guard against him, though it will do no good. Any of us may become his helpless, fated victim, and the old cards of the fortune-teller will alone declare our destinies. Passion leads nearly always to suffering, madness and death. Even the most respectable may grow ardent and reckless, paying no heed to consequences. Who cares about anything else when the sex is hot and sweaty and feverishly intense? There is a cost, though. When jealousy suddenly pierces us like a knife, every affair risks ending up a blood wedding. Needless to say, Carmen isn't French. Prosper Merimée, who wrote the short novel upon which the opera is based, set his tale of passion in Spain, not France. Everyone knew then, as now, that sun-baked Mediterranean countries were the places for erotic fatality. Little wonder that Thomas Mann's character Gustav von Aschenbach succumbed to the charms of Tadzio in Ven...
Speeeeeeeed reeeeeeeeeeeeeeading Despite becoming the subject of more books than she probably ever read, it is Marilyn Monroe who most accurately expresses my ideal reading state. In the song Lazy, she invokes a luxuriously languid day in which she stretches out, yawning, under a "honey lake" of a sky, "With a great big valise full of books to read / Where it's peaceful / And I'm quarantined… being laaaaaaaa-zzzyyyy." And yet, for too many of us, reading has become a rushed affair. No honey lake skies open up as we gobble down the latest John Grisham or Jonathan Franzen. Books must be polished off before we reach our train station, before the book club next meets, or before they are due back to the library. And there are so many prize-winning, shortlisted andshockingly-pipped-at-the-post masterpieces on which we are expected to have opinions that bibliophiles seem to exist in a perpetual state of guilt over what remains unread or partially digested. Bu...
The 10 greatest rock'n'roll myths 1: 'Mama' Cass choking on a sandwich When 'Mama' Cass Elliot died in her London flat in 1974 at the age of 32, a hasty postmortem suggested she had choked on her own vomit while chomping a sandwich in bed. At 5' 5" and 240 pounds, it was easy to believe that - like a female version of Monty Python's Mr Creosote - Elliot had simply gambled on one mouthful too many. Not so. The coroner's report after her death concluded that Cass died of massive heart failure, brought on by obesity and the strains of crash dieting. Though a sandwich may well have been found at her bedside, the autopsy revealed no evidence of food in her trachea. Tragically, it appears she died peckish. 2: Marilyn Manson starring in 'The Wonder Years' This fuels every parent's fear that the most innocuous geek-child can go stone bad. Did the young Brian Warner (aka Mr Manson) play Paul Pfeiffer, goofy pal of Kevin Arnold, in the sch...
WRONG ABOUT JAPAN It is rare, and refreshing, for a book’s title to admit that its aim has failed. But when the author is Peter Carey, the Australia-born, New York resident novelist, two-time Booker Prize winner, stylistic virtuoso and master of the assumed voice, we are put on guard. Was he really wrong about Japan, which he visited with his twelve-year-old son Charley in 2002? If so, why tell us? Or is his title a writer’s ruse, to persuade us to read on? Read on. As he relates, Carey has in recent years made many trips to see his translator in Japan, where his books have found a wide audience. Inevitably his writer’s curiosity was caught by manga , “random sketches”, the ubiquitous comic books sold, scanned, and left like newspapers on train seats – even in these tense economic times. Japanese buy, flip through and discard some two billion manga a year. Manga range from syrupy adventures of saucer-eyed children – Eastern equivalents of The Wind in the Willows – to comics for chil...
The French were so appalled by the vulgarity of Shakespeare’s plays that it took them 300 years to come near to an accurate translation. The item of Desdemona’s on which the plot of Othello hinges could not be mentioned on stage because mouchoir was too coarse a word to be uttered — or heard — in the Comédie Française. It was not until 1829 that Alfred de Vigny first risked the M-word, but that still left the question of the strawberries with which it was decorated, and fraise was considered an even lower word. The handkerchief was thus referred to as being decorated with “flowers” until well into the 20th century. SHAKESPEARE GOES TO PARIS: How the Bard Conquered France
Six decades ago, not long after being hired by Harold Ross as a copy editor at The New Yorker , a shy young woman, an Oberlin graduate, set to work on a manuscript by James Thurber and soon came across the word “raunchy.” She had never heard of the word and thought it was a mistake. “Raunchy” became “paunchy.” Thurber’s displeasure was such that the young woman barely escaped firing. Later, according to his biographer Harrison Kinney, Thurber wrote that “facetiously” was the only word in English that had all six vowels in order. What about “abstemiously”? the copy editor replied. Thurber, who was not easily impressed, was finally compelled to ask, “ Who is Eleanor Gould? ”
Mustang Sallies Can America's wild horses survive another four years of Bush? Since 1971, wild horses and burros have been federally protected by the Wild Free-Roaming Horse and Burro Protection Act, a pitched battle piece of legislation won in 1971 by Velma Johnston, aka Wild Horse Annie. (Wild Horse Annie was an intrepid Nevada character who, after seeing blood spilling out of a truck that was hauling mustangs to the slaughterhouse, campaigned for the act.) Legend had it that, apart from the war in Vietnam, Congress received more mail about protecting wild horses than about any other issue in its history. Now the trucks that caught Wild Horse Annie's attention may be revving their engines again, thanks to a stealth rider attached in November to a federal spending bill. The new law, pushed by ranching interests, Western senators, and Bush's Department of the Interior, probably condemns thousands of wild horses to the slaughterhouse—where they're likely to be made in...
And after you realized Hitler was dead? Well, there was perfect silence. We waited. We waited maybe 20 minutes. But Linge was curious. I was curious. I still don't remember whether it was Linge or Günsche who first opened the door to Hitler's rooms, but one of the two. I was really curious and came forward a few steps. Then somebody opened the second door -- I still don't know who it was, probably Linge. And it was then, as the second door opened, I saw Hitler, dead, lying on a chair. Eva [Braun] on the couch completely clothed. In a dark dress and white, white skin. She was lying back. [...] Right. I'd like to talk a little bit about the new movie portrayal of those last days in the bunker. Have you seen "Downfall"? Oh, yeah, I've seen it. [Laughs heartily.] Dramatic operetta. It's all Americanized. All that yelling and screaming; it wasn't like that down there in the bunker. The reality -- it was a death bunker. Everyone whispered do...
The large print giveth... There is a crisis in literature. Readers have stopped reading, drawn instead to other perhaps more modish forms of entertainment. Sales are down, authors are despondent, salons are closing and literary lunches have become drab affairs. But US publishers have come to the rescue. Literature's woes, they have decided, lie in the smallness of the print. "Many people over the ripe old age of 40 are starting to have trouble reading, and reading mass market books has become very difficult," Jane Friedman, president and chief executive officer of HarperCollins told the Associated Press. The answer is obvious: publishers are to make books bigger, thereby making space for larger print on the page and solving in one swoop the malaise affecting literature. Maeve Binchey, Nora Roberts, Stuart Woods and Robin Cook (no, not that one) will be the first to benefit from the new supersized literature as Penguin launches its Premium range in the US this summer....
Cold In late December I received a call from the White House Office of Presidential Personnel asking if I would be part of a small American delegation representing the president and the nation at the 60th anniversary of the liberation of Auschwitz. The dates fell smack at the beginning of the semester. I am loath to miss classes. Nonetheless, I decided that this merited the absence, and my dean agreed. The delegation, which was being led by Vice President Dick Cheney, included Elie Wiesel; U.S. Rep. Tom Lantos and his wife, Annette, both Holocaust survivors; Fred Schwartz, who had spearheaded the rebuilding of a synagogue in the town of Auschwitz; Feliks Bruks, a Polish American who had been imprisoned by the Nazis in three concentration camps; and me. When I asked the White House official why I had been included, she explained that it was because of my work, especially my legal travails, exposing Holocaust deniers. So that was how I found myself in the distinguis...
Happy Valentine's Day! This year, say it with words: a carefully chosen poem can spark tender feelings in your chosen valentine. But who to go for - Sappho or Marvell, Yeats or Shakespeare? Just answer a few simple questions about your valentine, and we'll find an appropriate poem to touch their heart. Take the Quiz :-)
Midnight. A knock at the door. Open it? Better had. Three heavy cats, mean and bad. They offer protection. I ask, 'What for?' The Boss-cat snarls, 'You know the score. Listen man and listen good If you wanna stay in the neighbourhood, Pay your dues or the toms will call And wail each night on the backyard wall. Mangle the flowers, and as for the lawn a smelly minefield awaits you at dawn.' These guys meant business without a doubt Three cans of tuna, I handed them out. They then disappeared like bats into hell Those bad, bad cats from the CPL. Roger McGough [ Video with the author ]
Healthier in lungs, poorer in spirit "You could extend the adult/smoker theory a bit to understand some of Shakespeare's characters on the basis of who might or might not smoke. Lady Macbeth definitely would ('Out, damned spot!'); Macbeth wouldn't. Polonius wouldn't even allow smoking in the family chambers, but his daughter Ophelia might sneak a few puffs each day in back of the castle; and of course Hamlet wouldn't be able either to enjoy the habit or quit. Iago would smoke and like it; Desdemona would smoke on the sly but never with Othello, who - poor dear - must have had terrible asthma. Shakespeare himself? Undoubtedly a pipe-smoker."
When there is talk of 1945, I remember that in the summer of that year my aunt, who miraculously made it through the Warsaw Uprising, brought her son, Andrzej, to visit us in the countryside. He was born during the uprising. Today he is a man in late middle-age, and when I look at him I think how long ago it all was! Since then, generations have been born in Europe who know nothing of what war is. And yet those who lived through it should bear witness. Bear witness in the name of those who fell next to them, and often on top of them; bear witness to the camps, to the extermination of the Jews, to the destruction of Warsaw and of Wroclaw. Is this easy? No. We who went through the war know how difficult it is to convey the truth about it to those for whom that experience is, happily, unfamiliar. We know how language fails us, how often we feel helpless, how the experience is, finally, incommunicable.
More from Ryszard Kapuscinski and
Touch my hand
It’s only me, listen
I’m here.
Come to stand
In sultry fields
With you.
And now
Old dummy day
I know
Is over this way.
I’m laughing
Saw you gonna kiss me
You see
Yeah as I said.
One day she won’t
A lonely bird
Alone.
Judgement day
Saw the world it’s gone
Unheard.
Sold the sea
A lot how it feels to me.
I hate the word it’s sad to see
I take your weight
And your heart fades away
Today a renegade
To lay in woods
By the pheasants.
I mean it
You don’t
Force on my head
Kill our nightmare.
A lonely bird, a lonely bird
A lonely bird, a lonely bird
A lonely bird, alone.
Colour me
Cover me in the colour that reminds you
Solemnly.
Could make the same mistake
And you would never know
That I am, that I am
Alone, now.
Something, something
Tells me that you
Have something
On, all of us now
You’re heaven
Taking ov...
"The shocking nature of the Brontës' novels quickly faded, but the overwrought images solidified, often conflating the writers' personalities with simplistic views of their heroines': Charlotte must be the proper Jane Eyre and Emily the wild woman roaming the heaths of Wuthering Heights (in her soul if not her actions). During the Victorian era, the prim Charlotte's popularity was highest among the sisters, but in the 20th century she lost ground to the rebellious Emily."
The NYTimes on The Women Behind the Myths
CARTELES DE LA GUERRA 1936 - 1939
El cartelismo tuvo una época de especial florecimiento en los años treinta en Europa como medio para transmitir mensajes e ideas, así como las tendencias artísticas del momento. En España, con la proclamación de la Segunda República, un auténtico ejército de pintores, dibujantes, diseñadores y grafistas al servicio de la causa republicana apostó por un cartelismo de vanguardia que adquirió un valor excepcional.
Los artistas siguieron la senda de la cartelística de la Primera Guerra Mundial, acrecentando la efectividad de los mensajes y recurriendo a la imaginación para ampliar los motivos tradicionales (alistamiento, cautela ante el espionaje enemigo, símbolos políticos), pero también llamadas a la educación, a la higiene, advertencia ante los abusos que proliferan en las situaciones de guerra, etc.
La Fundación Pablo Iglesias, en su sede de la Universidad de Alcalá de Henares, conserva más de dos mil carteles de propaganda que se han ...
Word power The isle is full of noises , says Caliban, by way of challenge. It is also full of sights. The writer's job is to use words so skilfully that what is out there - actual, but actually unseen - should be seen, fixed and preserved. Great literature allows us to quote reality. This is Seamus Heaney on the noise and feel of a spade hitting an obstacle: "The plate scrabs field-stones / and a tremor blunts in the shaft / at small come-uppances meeting / the driven edge." This is Kipling on the noise of the bell at Kyoto in Japan: "A knuckle rapped lightly on the lip of the bell - it was not more than five feet from the ground - made the great monster breathe heavily." (...) "Behold a bunnia's shop. He sells rice and chillies and dried fish and wooden scoops made of bamboo. The front of his shop is very solid. It is made of half-inch battens nailed side by side. Not one of the battens is broken; and each one is foursquare perfectly. Feeling ashamed o...
Let's imagine that there was a writer who took as his subject World War II. And let's suppose that because of his ability to amass and cite journals, transcripts, paperwork and all manner of documents, he gained a reputation as a meticulous researcher. Now let's say that the conclusion the writer drew from all of his research was an unshakable conviction that World War II never happened. It was, he insists, a massive fraud, and he declares under oath, "No documents whatever show that World War II had ever happened."
Now let's allow things to get curiouser and curiouser. Read on from Salon (there's a Free Day Pass to click on, it's a simple and quick procedure, I wish all online content would have this option instead of asking us to subscribe :-(
According to Mort Rosenblum's thorough investigation of the world of chocolate, even some of the most exclusive names rely too much on wax and care more about their gift boxes than their taste.
Reading about food generally leaves me with a new appreciation for whatever cuisine is under discussion, even if it's a temptation from which I wish to be delivered. "Chocolate," however, left me feeling that there's less of a there there than I'd imagined.
Rosenblum bounces from South America and Africa to California and New York to Europe; he also bounces among genres: consumer guide here, history there, with liberal dollops of sociology and medical lore along the way.
Some of the "issues" surrounding chocolate turn out, in this book, to be no big deal after all. Remember the buzz about how chocolate was produced by child slave labor in Africa? Not to worry, Rosenblum says; there are children working for no pay on their families' cacao plant...
Digitally manipulating images, then and now GONE IN AN INSTANT: Nikolai Yezhov was once a trusted adviser of Stalin. But when he became Stalin's enemy, his image was removed from public record. These photos are part of 'Stories From Russia,' a current exhibition about the falsification of photos at the Photographers' Gallery in London. From the Christian Science Monitor
How to play the French service game ... and win
The French have a saying 'le client est roi' - the customer is king. But we all know what they did to their royal family. The guillotined head of Louis XVI bounced across the Place de la Concorde as a few thousand Parisians laughed at it - and those chuckling spectators were the ancestors of today's French waiters.
The magic words that will make a difference ... A few magic words can turn getting served in a French caf¿ from embarrassment to delight. Garçon!
One to forget. No one shouts 'garçon!' in a French cafe unless they don't want to get served. To attract the attention of a waiter or waitress just raise your arm and call out 's'il vous plait' . Express
If you like espresso, you can ask for 'un café noir' or 'un petit café', but 'un express' is what the waiters call it. Use this word and they'll think, 'This person has been in a French cafe before...