Tuesday, January 5, 2010
Tuesday, December 29, 2009
Cuban song and diplomacy
Cuban musician Carlos Varela performed in the Cannon House Office Building in Washington, D.C.
Through Music, a Quiet Diplomacy
December 29, 2009
Trying to Sway America’s Cuba Policy With Song
By GINGER THOMPSON
WASHINGTON — When one of Cuba’s best-known musicians landed in the United States, his first appearance was not onstage, but on Capitol Hill.
Carlos Varela, often referred to as Cuba’s Bob Dylan, had come to remix an album with his good friend Jackson Browne. But he also hoped to help reshape relations between the United States and his homeland.
So before going to Hollywood to work on the album, he stopped in Washington early this month for meetings with legislators and a lunch with a senior White House official. Later he held a jam session in the House Budget Committee meeting room.
Almost everywhere Mr. Varela, 46, went during his weeks here, including at universities and policy institutes, small talk about music gave way to pressing, albeit polite, questions on policy.
“I don’t represent any government or political party,” he said. “But perhaps that’s why governments and politicians might be willing to listen to what I have to say.”
The singer and songwriter, making his first trip to the United States in 11 years, is part of a movement by artists, scholars and businessmen to change United States policy toward Cuba from the bottom up. Nearly a year after President Obama took office promising to open a new era of engagement with Cuba, the two governments seem stuck in the same old stalemate, with Washington demanding that its Communist neighbor adopt democratic reforms, and Havana railing about American interference.
Tensions resurfaced Dec. 5 when Cuba detained a United States government contractor who had traveled to Havana without proper authorization to hand out communications equipment to dissident groups.
Still, even while jousting continues at the highest levels of government, the Obama administration has quietly expanded cultural and academic exchanges as a way of reaching out directly to Cuban people. Many of those who participate try to avoid politics.
“We are all about the music,” Robert Bell, the singer and bass player of Kool and the Gang, told The Associated Press before the band took the stage Dec. 20 in Havana. “We don’t come as politicians, we come as musicians.”
Others see such exchanges as chances to fill a political vacuum.
“Everyone who has gone to Cuba comes out questioning our policy because what they see there is nothing like what they have been told by American politicians,” said Andy Spahn, a political consultant to Steven Spielberg and others, who hosted a party for Mr. Varela and has taken celebrity clients to Havana.
Stephen Rivers, a celebrity public relations consultant who has made numerous trips to Cuba, said, “There’s so much fiction surrounding our relationship.” He described Kevin Costner’s being mobbed by Cuban fans during a 2001 visit as evidence that the island was hardly cut off from American culture.
“The truth is, we are much more isolated from them than they are from us,” he said.
In September, hundreds of thousands of Cubans gathered in Revolution Square in Havana for a “Peace Without Borders” concert led by the Colombian-born singer Juanes. The concert, which featured a number of American musicians, was organized with significant logistical and licensing assistance from the Obama administration.
Before the event, polls showed that more than half of the Cuban-American community in Miami, led by those who fled repression on the island, viewed the concert as an affront. Afterward, more than half expressed a favorable view of the event.
“Juanes opened the door for change,” wrote Sergio Pino, a businessman and a powerful voice in the Cuban exile community who was once a staunch supporter of the trade embargo against Cuba, in a letter to The Miami Herald. “It is time to rethink our strategy.”
Also in September, Cuban environmental officials, previously denied visas to attend conferences in the United States, were invited to Washington to discuss conservation issues relating to the Gulf of Mexico. In October, a group of environmental experts from the United States went to Havana to continue the talks.
“I know people are complaining that President Obama has not made any changes toward Cuba, but from where I sit, there’s been remarkable change,” said Daniel Whittle of the Environmental Defense Fund, which organized the trip.
Despite its decades-old embargo against Cuba, the United States has long been the largest foreign supplier of food to the island. Mr. Obama lifted Bush administration restrictions to make it easier for American farmers to do business with Cuba. In November, dozens of them attended the Havana Trade Fair.
Then in early December, Mr. Varela arrived in Washington. It was his first United States visit since 1998; he was denied a visa in 2004 by the Bush administration, which routinely denied visas to Cuban artists and academics as part of an effort to topple the government by isolating it.
In a meeting with Representative Howard L. Berman, the California Democrat who is chairman of the House Foreign Affairs Committee, Mr. Varela suggested a different approach.
“There are some Cuban politicians who use the isolation to their benefit,” Mr. Varela said. “But I do not believe that anyone in Cuba could stand in the way if the United States decided to open relations. If the United States did that, the change in Cuba would be unstoppable.”
Using music to bring together opposing sides in one of this country’s longest-running foreign policy debates might seem like a pie-in-the-sky idea inside the Capital Beltway.
Before the Juanes concert in September, Mr. Obama told a reporter from Univision that while such events did not hurt the United States’ relations from Cuba, “I wouldn’t overstate the degree that it helps.”
Mr. Varela, whose trip to the United States was sponsored by a nonprofit political organization called the Center for Democracy in the Americas, said he was not naïve about the magnitude and complexity of the tensions between the United States and Cuba.
His life has been marked by the highs and lows of the Cuban revolution. The government gave him a world-class education in music and theater, but refuses to broadcast many of his songs, which have veiled critiques of the Communist leadership.
Over the years, politics has cost him a band (members defected in Spain in 1997), a brother (he left Cuba 12 years ago) and perhaps a chance for greater international acclaim.
The fact, for example, that his lyrics have never landed him in jail, like many Cuban political dissidents, has contributed to suspicions among some Cuban-Americans that he is a Cuban agent.
Music, he said, is not going to bring a rapid end to 50 years of political conflict. But, he said, in the absence of meaningful diplomatic exchanges, musicians can serve as more than celebrities.
“Music is not going to move governments,” he said. “But it might move people. And people can move governments.”
Through Music, a Quiet Diplomacy
December 29, 2009
Trying to Sway America’s Cuba Policy With Song
By GINGER THOMPSON
WASHINGTON — When one of Cuba’s best-known musicians landed in the United States, his first appearance was not onstage, but on Capitol Hill.
Carlos Varela, often referred to as Cuba’s Bob Dylan, had come to remix an album with his good friend Jackson Browne. But he also hoped to help reshape relations between the United States and his homeland.
So before going to Hollywood to work on the album, he stopped in Washington early this month for meetings with legislators and a lunch with a senior White House official. Later he held a jam session in the House Budget Committee meeting room.
Almost everywhere Mr. Varela, 46, went during his weeks here, including at universities and policy institutes, small talk about music gave way to pressing, albeit polite, questions on policy.
“I don’t represent any government or political party,” he said. “But perhaps that’s why governments and politicians might be willing to listen to what I have to say.”
The singer and songwriter, making his first trip to the United States in 11 years, is part of a movement by artists, scholars and businessmen to change United States policy toward Cuba from the bottom up. Nearly a year after President Obama took office promising to open a new era of engagement with Cuba, the two governments seem stuck in the same old stalemate, with Washington demanding that its Communist neighbor adopt democratic reforms, and Havana railing about American interference.
Tensions resurfaced Dec. 5 when Cuba detained a United States government contractor who had traveled to Havana without proper authorization to hand out communications equipment to dissident groups.
Still, even while jousting continues at the highest levels of government, the Obama administration has quietly expanded cultural and academic exchanges as a way of reaching out directly to Cuban people. Many of those who participate try to avoid politics.
“We are all about the music,” Robert Bell, the singer and bass player of Kool and the Gang, told The Associated Press before the band took the stage Dec. 20 in Havana. “We don’t come as politicians, we come as musicians.”
Others see such exchanges as chances to fill a political vacuum.
“Everyone who has gone to Cuba comes out questioning our policy because what they see there is nothing like what they have been told by American politicians,” said Andy Spahn, a political consultant to Steven Spielberg and others, who hosted a party for Mr. Varela and has taken celebrity clients to Havana.
Stephen Rivers, a celebrity public relations consultant who has made numerous trips to Cuba, said, “There’s so much fiction surrounding our relationship.” He described Kevin Costner’s being mobbed by Cuban fans during a 2001 visit as evidence that the island was hardly cut off from American culture.
“The truth is, we are much more isolated from them than they are from us,” he said.
In September, hundreds of thousands of Cubans gathered in Revolution Square in Havana for a “Peace Without Borders” concert led by the Colombian-born singer Juanes. The concert, which featured a number of American musicians, was organized with significant logistical and licensing assistance from the Obama administration.
Before the event, polls showed that more than half of the Cuban-American community in Miami, led by those who fled repression on the island, viewed the concert as an affront. Afterward, more than half expressed a favorable view of the event.
“Juanes opened the door for change,” wrote Sergio Pino, a businessman and a powerful voice in the Cuban exile community who was once a staunch supporter of the trade embargo against Cuba, in a letter to The Miami Herald. “It is time to rethink our strategy.”
Also in September, Cuban environmental officials, previously denied visas to attend conferences in the United States, were invited to Washington to discuss conservation issues relating to the Gulf of Mexico. In October, a group of environmental experts from the United States went to Havana to continue the talks.
“I know people are complaining that President Obama has not made any changes toward Cuba, but from where I sit, there’s been remarkable change,” said Daniel Whittle of the Environmental Defense Fund, which organized the trip.
Despite its decades-old embargo against Cuba, the United States has long been the largest foreign supplier of food to the island. Mr. Obama lifted Bush administration restrictions to make it easier for American farmers to do business with Cuba. In November, dozens of them attended the Havana Trade Fair.
Then in early December, Mr. Varela arrived in Washington. It was his first United States visit since 1998; he was denied a visa in 2004 by the Bush administration, which routinely denied visas to Cuban artists and academics as part of an effort to topple the government by isolating it.
In a meeting with Representative Howard L. Berman, the California Democrat who is chairman of the House Foreign Affairs Committee, Mr. Varela suggested a different approach.
“There are some Cuban politicians who use the isolation to their benefit,” Mr. Varela said. “But I do not believe that anyone in Cuba could stand in the way if the United States decided to open relations. If the United States did that, the change in Cuba would be unstoppable.”
Using music to bring together opposing sides in one of this country’s longest-running foreign policy debates might seem like a pie-in-the-sky idea inside the Capital Beltway.
Before the Juanes concert in September, Mr. Obama told a reporter from Univision that while such events did not hurt the United States’ relations from Cuba, “I wouldn’t overstate the degree that it helps.”
Mr. Varela, whose trip to the United States was sponsored by a nonprofit political organization called the Center for Democracy in the Americas, said he was not naïve about the magnitude and complexity of the tensions between the United States and Cuba.
His life has been marked by the highs and lows of the Cuban revolution. The government gave him a world-class education in music and theater, but refuses to broadcast many of his songs, which have veiled critiques of the Communist leadership.
Over the years, politics has cost him a band (members defected in Spain in 1997), a brother (he left Cuba 12 years ago) and perhaps a chance for greater international acclaim.
The fact, for example, that his lyrics have never landed him in jail, like many Cuban political dissidents, has contributed to suspicions among some Cuban-Americans that he is a Cuban agent.
Music, he said, is not going to bring a rapid end to 50 years of political conflict. But, he said, in the absence of meaningful diplomatic exchanges, musicians can serve as more than celebrities.
“Music is not going to move governments,” he said. “But it might move people. And people can move governments.”
Monday, December 28, 2009
Definin' the Blues
“As much as a method of music making, blues were a medium of language. ” Read the full excerpt from 'Barrelhouse Words: A Blues Dialect Dictionary'
On top of everything else, Mr. Calt's book answers a question that has vexed me at odd moments for the past four decades. No sooner did I open "Barrelhouse Words" for the first time than I turned to page 164, where I found this admirably concise definition of "monkey woman": "An overly obliging or compliant female." Now I can die happy.
Sunday, November 29, 2009
Ella rediscovered
Herman Leonard Photography L.L.C./CTSimages.com - A Herman Leonard photograph of Ella Fitzgerald performing at the New York nightclub Downbeat in 1948. Watching rapturously are Duke Ellington, center, and Benny Goodman, in glasses behind Ellington.
Ella is one of those few people who is instantly recognizable, and who needs but one name. Her voice is unique.
Verve has just released “Twelve Nights in Hollywood,” a four-CD boxed set of Ella Fitzgerald singing 76 songs at the Crescendo, a small jazz club in Los Angeles, in 1961 and ’62 — and none of it has ever been released until now.
These aren’t bootlegs; the CDs were mastered from the original tapes, which were produced by Norman Granz, Verve’s founder and Fitzgerald’s longtime manager.
The story in the Times has full audio stream of three songs; well worthwhile listening. I shall look into having HWPL buy the CD set when I get back from Mexico.
There’s nothing rare about a joyous Ella Fitzgerald recording; the woman exuded joy in nearly every note she sang. Yet the level on these sessions soared higher and plumbed deeper.
Why these tapes stayed locked in the vault for nearly half a century — and what it took to set them free — is a tale of a producer’s neglect, a jazz sleuth’s obsession and a string of happy coincidences.
Norman Granz was recording Ella a lot that year. The tapes were vaulted after a dozen of them were issued in an LP, and did not do well. For a quarter century the tapes were forgotten.
Then, in 1988, Phil Schaap, a dogged jazz scholar well known for excavating long-lost treasures from studio archives, was contracted by PolyGram (which had recently bought Verve) to compile a discography of all the recordings — issued and unissued — that Fitzgerald ever made for the label.
Our intrepid Mister Schaap.
Early on in the task, riffling through PolyGram’s vast tape facility, then in Edison, N.J., Mr. Schaap unearthed the never-released tapes of a 40th-birthday concert that Fitzgerald recorded at the Teatro Sistina in Rome on April 25, 1958. He urged PolyGram’s executives to release them. When they did, as an album called “Ella in Rome,” on the concert’s 30th anniversary, it soared to No. 1 on Billboard’s jazz chart. Stephen Holden, in The New York Times, hailed it as “a treasure for the ages.”
It was soon after this triumph that Mr. Schaap came across the tapes from the Crescendo Club — not just the tracks that Granz had picked for “Ella in Hollywood,” which was long out of print, but the other reels, which nobody had unspooled for nearly three decades. Mr. Schaap listened to all of them and thought that here was another trove of hidden jewels.
Max Roach always spoke very highly of Phil Schaap and his historiographical efforts.
But by this time Verve was busy producing CD reissues of Fitzgerald hits. There was no appetite for sifting through what appeared to be the rejects of an old flop. And there things stood until late last year, when Mr. Seidel was re-reading a biography of Fitzgerald by Stuart Nicholson. In the back of the book was an expanded version of Mr. Schaap’s discography — 61 pages long — as commissioned by the author.
Mr. Schaap has listened to hundreds of Granz recordings over the decades, including the released master takes and the unreleased alternate takes. Granz, he said, was “a great man of profound vision,” but as a record producer, he “infrequently dwelled at length on what takes should be issued.”
Dan Morgenstern, director of the Institute of Jazz Studies and a former good friend of Granz, agrees. “Norman was maybe the most lavish record producer there ever was,” he said, but he was often “unconcerned or careless” when it came to preparing and issuing the albums. (Granz died in 2001.)
Herman Leonard, the great photographer, once took a picture of Duke Ellington sitting at a front-row table in a small New York nightclub, beaming at Fitzgerald while she sang. More than any other album, “Twelve Nights in Hollywood” gives us an idea of what Ellington was smiling at.
Ella is one of those few people who is instantly recognizable, and who needs but one name. Her voice is unique.
Verve has just released “Twelve Nights in Hollywood,” a four-CD boxed set of Ella Fitzgerald singing 76 songs at the Crescendo, a small jazz club in Los Angeles, in 1961 and ’62 — and none of it has ever been released until now.
These aren’t bootlegs; the CDs were mastered from the original tapes, which were produced by Norman Granz, Verve’s founder and Fitzgerald’s longtime manager.
The story in the Times has full audio stream of three songs; well worthwhile listening. I shall look into having HWPL buy the CD set when I get back from Mexico.
There’s nothing rare about a joyous Ella Fitzgerald recording; the woman exuded joy in nearly every note she sang. Yet the level on these sessions soared higher and plumbed deeper.
Why these tapes stayed locked in the vault for nearly half a century — and what it took to set them free — is a tale of a producer’s neglect, a jazz sleuth’s obsession and a string of happy coincidences.
Norman Granz was recording Ella a lot that year. The tapes were vaulted after a dozen of them were issued in an LP, and did not do well. For a quarter century the tapes were forgotten.
Then, in 1988, Phil Schaap, a dogged jazz scholar well known for excavating long-lost treasures from studio archives, was contracted by PolyGram (which had recently bought Verve) to compile a discography of all the recordings — issued and unissued — that Fitzgerald ever made for the label.
Our intrepid Mister Schaap.
Early on in the task, riffling through PolyGram’s vast tape facility, then in Edison, N.J., Mr. Schaap unearthed the never-released tapes of a 40th-birthday concert that Fitzgerald recorded at the Teatro Sistina in Rome on April 25, 1958. He urged PolyGram’s executives to release them. When they did, as an album called “Ella in Rome,” on the concert’s 30th anniversary, it soared to No. 1 on Billboard’s jazz chart. Stephen Holden, in The New York Times, hailed it as “a treasure for the ages.”
It was soon after this triumph that Mr. Schaap came across the tapes from the Crescendo Club — not just the tracks that Granz had picked for “Ella in Hollywood,” which was long out of print, but the other reels, which nobody had unspooled for nearly three decades. Mr. Schaap listened to all of them and thought that here was another trove of hidden jewels.
Max Roach always spoke very highly of Phil Schaap and his historiographical efforts.
But by this time Verve was busy producing CD reissues of Fitzgerald hits. There was no appetite for sifting through what appeared to be the rejects of an old flop. And there things stood until late last year, when Mr. Seidel was re-reading a biography of Fitzgerald by Stuart Nicholson. In the back of the book was an expanded version of Mr. Schaap’s discography — 61 pages long — as commissioned by the author.
Mr. Schaap has listened to hundreds of Granz recordings over the decades, including the released master takes and the unreleased alternate takes. Granz, he said, was “a great man of profound vision,” but as a record producer, he “infrequently dwelled at length on what takes should be issued.”
Dan Morgenstern, director of the Institute of Jazz Studies and a former good friend of Granz, agrees. “Norman was maybe the most lavish record producer there ever was,” he said, but he was often “unconcerned or careless” when it came to preparing and issuing the albums. (Granz died in 2001.)
Herman Leonard, the great photographer, once took a picture of Duke Ellington sitting at a front-row table in a small New York nightclub, beaming at Fitzgerald while she sang. More than any other album, “Twelve Nights in Hollywood” gives us an idea of what Ellington was smiling at.
Saturday, November 28, 2009
Salsero reborn
Rubén Blades, Panama's former tourism minister, at an Upper West Side restaurant on Monday.
Video: Rubén Blades with Calle 13 (YouTube)
Video: Rubén Blades with Calle 13 (YouTube)
Wednesday, November 25, 2009
Federico Garcia Lorca - Ode to Walt Whitman
In reading Ian Gibson's biography, Federico García Lorca : a life, I came across metnion of a Lorca poem, Ode to Walt Whitman.
Federico Garcia Lorca - Ode to Walt Whitman
By the East River and the Bronx
boys were singing, exposing their waists
with the wheel, with oil, leather, and the hammer.
Ninety thousand miners taking silver from the rocks
and children drawing stairs and perspectives.
But none of them could sleep,
none of them wanted to be the river,
none of them loved the huge leaves
or the shoreline's blue tongue.
By the East River and the Queensboro
boys were battling with industry
and the Jews sold to the river faun
the rose of circumcision,
and over bridges and rooftops, the mouth of the sky emptied
herds of bison driven by the wind.
But none of them paused,
none of them wanted to be a cloud,
none of them looked for ferns
or the yellow wheel of a tambourine.
As soon as the moon rises
the pulleys will spin to alter the sky;
a border of needles will besiege memory
and the coffins will bear away those who don't work.
New York, mire,
New York, mire and death.
What angel is hidden in your cheek?
Whose perfect voice will sing the truths of wheat?
Who, the terrible dream of your stained anemones?
Not for a moment, Walt Whitman, lovely old man,
have I failed to see your beard full of butterflies,
nor your corduroy shoulders frayed by the moon,
nor your thighs pure as Apollo's,
nor your voice like a column of ash,
old man, beautiful as the mist,
you moaned like a bird
with its sex pierced by a needle.
Enemy of the satyr,
enemy of the vine,
and lover of bodies beneath rough cloth...
Not for a moment, virile beauty,
who among mountains of coal, billboards, and railroads,
dreamed of becoming a river and sleeping like a river
with that comrade who would place in your breast
the small ache of an ignorant leopard.
Not for a moment, Adam of blood, Macho,
man alone at sea, Walt Whitman, lovely old man,
because on penthouse roofs,
gathered at bars,
emerging in bunches from the sewers,
trembling between the legs of chauffeurs,
or spinning on dance floors wet with absinthe,
the faggots, Walt Whitman, point you out.
He's one, too! That's right! And they land
on your luminous chaste beard,
blonds from the north, blacks from the sands,
crowds of howls and gestures,
like cats or like snakes,
the faggots, Walt Whitman, the faggots,
clouded with tears, flesh for the whip,
the boot, or the teeth of the lion tamers.
He's one, too! That's right! Stained fingers
point to the shore of your dream
when a friend eats your apple
with a slight taste of gasoline
and the sun sings in the navels
of boys who play under bridges.
But you didn't look for scratched eyes,
nor the darkest swamp where someone submerges children,
nor frozen saliva,
nor the curves slit open like a toad's belly
that the faggots wear in cars and on terraces
while the moon lashes them on the street corners of terror.
You looked for a naked body like a river.
Bull and dream who would join wheel with seaweed,
father of your agony, camellia of your death,
who would groan in the blaze of your hidden equator.
Because it's all right if a man doesn't look for his delight
in tomorrow morning's jungle of blood.
The sky has shores where life is avoided
and there are bodies that shouldn't repeat themselves in the dawn.
Agony, agony, dream, ferment, and dream.
This is the world, my friend, agony, agony.
Bodies decompose beneath the city clocks,
war passes by in tears, followed by a million gray rats,
the rich give their mistresses
small illuminated dying things,
and life is neither noble, nor good, nor sacred.
Man is able, if he wishes, to guide his desire
through a vein of coral or a heavenly naked body.
Tomorrow, loves will become stones, and Time
a breeze that drowses in the branches.
That's why I don't raise my voice, old Walt Whitman,
against the little boy who writes
the name of a girl on his pillow,
nor against the boy who dresses as a bride
in the darkness of the wardrobe,
nor against the solitary men in casinos
who drink prostitution's water with revulsion,
nor against the men with that green look in their eyes
who love other men and burn their lips in silence.
But yes against you, urban faggots,
tumescent flesh and unclean thoughts.
Mothers of mud. Harpies. Sleepless enemies
of the love that bestows crowns of joy.
Always against you, who give boys
drops of foul death with bitter poison.
Always against you,
Fairies of North America,
Pájaros of Havana,
Jotos of Mexico,
Sarasas of Cádiz,
Apios of Seville,
Cancos of Madrid,
Floras of Alicante,
Adelaidas of Portugal.
Faggots of the world, murderers of doves!
Slaves of women. Their bedroom bitches.
Opening in public squares like feverish fans
or ambushed in rigid hemlock landscapes.
No quarter given! Death
spills from your eyes
and gathers gray flowers at the mire's edge.
No quarter given! Attention!
Let the confused, the pure,
the classical, the celebrated, the supplicants
close the doors of the bacchanal to you.
And you, lovely Walt Whitman, stay asleep on the Hudson's banks
with your beard toward the pole, openhanded.
Soft clay or snow, your tongue calls for
comrades to keep watch over your unbodied gazelle.
Sleep on, nothing remains.
Dancing walls stir the prairies
and America drowns itself in machinery and lament.
I want the powerful air from the deepest night
to blow away flowers and inscriptions from the arch where you sleep,
and a black child to inform the gold-craving whites
that the kingdom of grain has arrived.
Federico Garcia Lorca - Ode to Walt Whitman
By the East River and the Bronx
boys were singing, exposing their waists
with the wheel, with oil, leather, and the hammer.
Ninety thousand miners taking silver from the rocks
and children drawing stairs and perspectives.
But none of them could sleep,
none of them wanted to be the river,
none of them loved the huge leaves
or the shoreline's blue tongue.
By the East River and the Queensboro
boys were battling with industry
and the Jews sold to the river faun
the rose of circumcision,
and over bridges and rooftops, the mouth of the sky emptied
herds of bison driven by the wind.
But none of them paused,
none of them wanted to be a cloud,
none of them looked for ferns
or the yellow wheel of a tambourine.
As soon as the moon rises
the pulleys will spin to alter the sky;
a border of needles will besiege memory
and the coffins will bear away those who don't work.
New York, mire,
New York, mire and death.
What angel is hidden in your cheek?
Whose perfect voice will sing the truths of wheat?
Who, the terrible dream of your stained anemones?
Not for a moment, Walt Whitman, lovely old man,
have I failed to see your beard full of butterflies,
nor your corduroy shoulders frayed by the moon,
nor your thighs pure as Apollo's,
nor your voice like a column of ash,
old man, beautiful as the mist,
you moaned like a bird
with its sex pierced by a needle.
Enemy of the satyr,
enemy of the vine,
and lover of bodies beneath rough cloth...
Not for a moment, virile beauty,
who among mountains of coal, billboards, and railroads,
dreamed of becoming a river and sleeping like a river
with that comrade who would place in your breast
the small ache of an ignorant leopard.
Not for a moment, Adam of blood, Macho,
man alone at sea, Walt Whitman, lovely old man,
because on penthouse roofs,
gathered at bars,
emerging in bunches from the sewers,
trembling between the legs of chauffeurs,
or spinning on dance floors wet with absinthe,
the faggots, Walt Whitman, point you out.
He's one, too! That's right! And they land
on your luminous chaste beard,
blonds from the north, blacks from the sands,
crowds of howls and gestures,
like cats or like snakes,
the faggots, Walt Whitman, the faggots,
clouded with tears, flesh for the whip,
the boot, or the teeth of the lion tamers.
He's one, too! That's right! Stained fingers
point to the shore of your dream
when a friend eats your apple
with a slight taste of gasoline
and the sun sings in the navels
of boys who play under bridges.
But you didn't look for scratched eyes,
nor the darkest swamp where someone submerges children,
nor frozen saliva,
nor the curves slit open like a toad's belly
that the faggots wear in cars and on terraces
while the moon lashes them on the street corners of terror.
You looked for a naked body like a river.
Bull and dream who would join wheel with seaweed,
father of your agony, camellia of your death,
who would groan in the blaze of your hidden equator.
Because it's all right if a man doesn't look for his delight
in tomorrow morning's jungle of blood.
The sky has shores where life is avoided
and there are bodies that shouldn't repeat themselves in the dawn.
Agony, agony, dream, ferment, and dream.
This is the world, my friend, agony, agony.
Bodies decompose beneath the city clocks,
war passes by in tears, followed by a million gray rats,
the rich give their mistresses
small illuminated dying things,
and life is neither noble, nor good, nor sacred.
Man is able, if he wishes, to guide his desire
through a vein of coral or a heavenly naked body.
Tomorrow, loves will become stones, and Time
a breeze that drowses in the branches.
That's why I don't raise my voice, old Walt Whitman,
against the little boy who writes
the name of a girl on his pillow,
nor against the boy who dresses as a bride
in the darkness of the wardrobe,
nor against the solitary men in casinos
who drink prostitution's water with revulsion,
nor against the men with that green look in their eyes
who love other men and burn their lips in silence.
But yes against you, urban faggots,
tumescent flesh and unclean thoughts.
Mothers of mud. Harpies. Sleepless enemies
of the love that bestows crowns of joy.
Always against you, who give boys
drops of foul death with bitter poison.
Always against you,
Fairies of North America,
Pájaros of Havana,
Jotos of Mexico,
Sarasas of Cádiz,
Apios of Seville,
Cancos of Madrid,
Floras of Alicante,
Adelaidas of Portugal.
Faggots of the world, murderers of doves!
Slaves of women. Their bedroom bitches.
Opening in public squares like feverish fans
or ambushed in rigid hemlock landscapes.
No quarter given! Death
spills from your eyes
and gathers gray flowers at the mire's edge.
No quarter given! Attention!
Let the confused, the pure,
the classical, the celebrated, the supplicants
close the doors of the bacchanal to you.
And you, lovely Walt Whitman, stay asleep on the Hudson's banks
with your beard toward the pole, openhanded.
Soft clay or snow, your tongue calls for
comrades to keep watch over your unbodied gazelle.
Sleep on, nothing remains.
Dancing walls stir the prairies
and America drowns itself in machinery and lament.
I want the powerful air from the deepest night
to blow away flowers and inscriptions from the arch where you sleep,
and a black child to inform the gold-craving whites
that the kingdom of grain has arrived.
Friday, November 20, 2009
Jeanne-Claude: 1935-2009
* REMEMBRANCES
* NOVEMBER 20, 2009
Part of a Creative Powerhouse Behind Ephemeral Artworks
By STEPHEN MILLER and KELLY CROW
With her husband, Christo, Jeanne-Claude was part of an inseparable artistic duo that produced some of the world's most well-known and monumental works of art.
Jeanne-Claude, who died Nov. 18 in New York City at age 74 after suffering a brain aneurysm, created landmark public displays using textiles, including the 18-foot-high, 24-mile-long "Running Fence" in California and "Surrounded Islands" in which the couple installed giant lily pad-like structures in Florida's Biscayne Bay with 6.4 million square feet of bright-pink fabric. Their 2005 creation, "The Gates," a series of 7,503 orange nylon panels erected for 16 days in New York's Central Park, drew crowds in the middle of winter.
One of their most notable works was the 1995 wrapping of the Reichstag, the seat of the German Parliament in Berlin, in silvery fabric, a project the couple had contemplated for more than two decades. The logistical headaches were so large, Jeanne-Claude once said, that it turned her husband's hair gray and hers red.
Forceful and outspoken, Jeanne-Claude was fond of telling interviewers that there were only three things the couple never did together: fly in an airplane (they took separate flights); make sketches (Christo's job); and manage their taxes (Jeanne-Claude's job). Adding to the vision of two artists merging their creativity was the fact they shared the same birthday.
Jeanne-Claude took the lead in raising funds for projects through the sale of Christo's sketches and other materials to collectors and museums. Such self-financing of large projects is rare in the art world, but the couple said they feared relying on sponsors would compromise their artistic freedom, said their longtime lawyer, Scott Hodes.
Jeanne-Claude avoided galleries, selling directly to collectors. When funds were scarce, she would offer prospective buyers a discount for cash upfront.
To finance a project, Jeanne-Claude told The Wall Street Journal in 1984, "I'll sell almost anything but our son."
Christo often said Jeanne-Claude's contributions to their work went beyond finance and logistics; the basic conception of "Surrounded Islands," he insisted, was hers.
Jeanne-Claude de Guillebon was born June 13, 1935, in Casablanca, Morocco, where her father was stationed as a general in the French military. She attended schools in France, Switzerland and Tunisia before moving to Paris. In 1958, she met Christo when he was commissioned to paint a portrait of Jeanne-Claude's mother. According to the couple's Web site, "By the time Christo had done an impressionist portrait, a classical portrait and a Cubist portrait of the mother, Christo and Jeanne-Claude were in love."
Soon, she was collaborating on works such as installations of large stacks of oil barrels in Cologne, Germany, and Paris. She personally took charge of wrapping a fountain and medieval tower in Spoleto, Italy, in 1968, at the same moment Christo wrapped an art museum in Bern, Switzerland.
Two years ago, the Smithsonian American Art Museum bought a trove of drawings and photographs documenting the "Running Fence" project that will be exhibited next spring as "Christo and Jeanne-Claude: Remembering the Running Fence."
George Gurney, the museum's deputy chief curator, said, "She couldn't draw, but she collaborated aesthetically on every other decision. It was always a joint endeavor."
The couple never flew together so that in the event of a crash the surviving partner could complete their projects, according to Mr. Hodes. Christo is determined to go ahead with "Over the River," a fabric roof over a six-mile stretch of a river in Colorado, Mr. Hodes said.
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