Until tomorrow
Monthly Archives: June 2008
The Treasure Ships of China
Go see the exhibit at the National Geographic Society on the 15th century Treasure Ships of China, including routes, artifacts, biographies, histories and fantastic models. Visually, this is a great exhibit, as is the adjoining photography exhibit showing contemporary photos of Chinese Buddhist martial arts. Beautiful photos.
Alan Moorehead’s “The Fatal Impact” – a Re-Read
I have read four Alan Moorehead books over the years, “The White Nile”, “The Blue Nile”, “The Voyage of the Beagle” and “The Fatal Impact”. I picked up my copy of “The Fatal Impact” a few days ago, and decided to re-read it. It is the story of the opening of the south Pacific – with sections on Tahiti, Australia and Antarctica.
When I first read the book, ten or fifteen years ago, I was enthralled, knowing virtually nothing about the voyages of Captain James Cook, very little about the first convict-settlers in Australia, and even less about whaling and sealing off the coast of Antarctica in the 19th century.
Re-reading it, I am aware of some other things. Moorehead’s prose is not very good. He is basically cribbing from journals of the early travelers, with little apparent original thought involved. And he speaks of the natives of Tahiti, Australia, Tasmania and New Zealand in extremely condescending terms (using words he would not use in 2008; he wrote the book in 1966).
I loved the other three books, and thought about looking at them again, as well. But now I wonder. Should I let sleeping books lie?
The Mysteries of Stock Value
In the last post, I told you (as if you wouldn’t have already assumed) that Asian art is normally a mystery to me.
Now, the secret will be really be out. So is stock value.
The Wall Street Journal today says that the aggregate stock value of General Motors Corp. is $7.8 billion, and that the aggregate stock value of Toyota Motor Corp. is $154 billion.
Understanding that Toyota has been on the rise, and GM on the decline, and understanding that Toyota is about to surpass GM in sales in the U.S., I still don’t understand how the company can be worth 20 times what GM is worth.
I assume that there is not a factor of 20 in asset value, although I guess it is possible. I would be surprised if GM has 20 times the debt of Toyota, although I guess it is possible.
I conclude (based on nothing) that the value is all in speculation as to future success of the companies. And, perhaps, that is the best indication of value after all, although it is an indication of value is remarkably unstable.
The Mysteries of Asia (2 cents)
Any visit to Asian art exhibits leave me unsatisfied, because there is so much that I simply don’t know, and never will. But the special exhibits now at the Sackler and the Freer transcended my limitations.
For example, the ceramic exhibit “Taking Shape” includes about 200 (out of a collection of 800 amassed by two private collectors) ceramic pots and vessels from southeast Asia (Laos, Cambodia, Vietnam, Thailand). I didn’t focus on any one piece; I am not capable of that. But the presentation of the collection (so many in each display, almost looking like a terrarium) is striking. The designers of the exhibit are the winners here.
Then, there is an exhibit of Chinese art based on literary themes. It is not a big exhibit – maybe 20 pieces, and of course the literary themes are unfamiliar to me. But the stories are alluring: such as the story (I think non-fictional) of the scholar/poet’s daughter who, 2000 years ago, at the end of the Han dynasty, was captured by the conquerers, made a mistress of their king, and bore him two sons. Twelve years later, a treaty was signed which permitted her to go home to her people, but her sons had to stay with their father. She had no choice in the matter, but she was apparently very unhappy at leaving her children, and wrote a series of poems bemoaning her fate, called “Eighteen Songs of a Nomad Flute”. These poems have been illustrated over the centuries, as has another story about an inebriated bureaucrat named Bi Zhuo, who was so drunk that he wound up in his neighbor’s house drinking his neighbor’s beverages. He was arrested, and then freed. He invited his neighbor for a drink.
Then, there is Yellow Mountain (or Mountain), formerly Black Mountain (or Mountains), site of ancient Buddhist monasteries, and considered both beautiful and spiritual. Contemporary black and white photographer Wang Wusheng’s stunning photos (he has a gallery in Shanghai), and 17th century ink drawing by a well known artist named Hongren, and others, are interposed.
Finally, when the Moghuls conquered India in the 17th century (to rule until displaced by the British in the middle of the 19th century), they celebrated the Persian years of their history by compiling books of calligraphy, detailed drawings of famous personages, daily or court events, and religious scenes, all with beautiful borders, in books. Many of these books now repose in Dublin in the Chester Beatty Library, and are in Washington on display. The work (color, layout, etc.) is well worth looking at.
Gilberto Gil: Grand Central Concert
I couldn’t understand it. The 1500 seat Lisner Auditorium at George Washington University was almost entirely sold out for the Gilberto Gil concert tonight. Gil was in good form, playing with his six piece Broadband. The audience clearly was enthralled. But throughout the almost two hour concert, people were coming in late, leaving their seats (often with cell phones in hand), and returning to their seats. I have never seen that in a concert before. It was as if everyone had overlooked the need to go to the bathroom before they took their seats.
The concert itself was quite good, even if the decibel level was about twice as high as it needed to be. But this is always the case, isn’t it? I had not seen Gil before, had read about him a few times, and did not know what to expect. What I got was a loud mix of Brazilian and other music, often merged together. Much of it was successful; some things (like “The Girl from Ipanema” played with a slow reggae beat) were not. Much of the music was written by Gil; this was, I thought, the best.
It was a typical Washington audience for an Afro-Brazilian musician of his stature. Anglos like myself (I count any Caucasian who only speaks English as an Anglo, even if you are Jewish or Italian or what have you), African-Americans (now how would I know that? I guess I should say “blacks”, but I am not sure that is PC here), and Brazilians (presumably of all colors). But we all looked like we could be good friends (which I believe is probably the case), and enjoyed the music equally.
There were a lot of heads bobbing, and shoulders moving, and hands clapping throughout the show. Along, of course, with people moving in and out. Towards the end, a number of people (all young women, I believe) moved to the aisles and starting moving a little bit more freely. Then, before you knew it, 1400 people were on their feet for the last 15 minutes or so. I thought I was in Gulliver’s version of the 9:30 Club.
It was a great send off for Gil, whom I believe is ending his US tour with this concert. To see so many of his landsmen enjoy his music so much was clearly something he appreciated, as did the Broadband members. And Gil, who is going to turn 66 on Thursday, sang and moved for almost two hours. OK, so his movement is not quite Chuck Berry, but whose is? And his voice is very, very strong.
A good time seemed to be had by all.
Afghanistan: USSR: Scotland (2 cents)
What do they have in common? Probably a number of things but, for now, what is important is that each played a part in my Saturday.
Afghanistan. First, the exhibit at the National Gallery (“Afghanistan: Hidden Treasures from the Kabul Museum”) is definitely worth seeing. It is not a particularly large exhibit, but it tells a number of interesting stories. First (and this will remind you of Geraldine Brooks’ “People of the Book”, perhaps), it is the story of museum employees, sensing danger ahead, moving artifacts from the museum (at their own risk) and hiding them. The museum is destroyed. No one knows about the hidden works of art. Except for those who hid them and, as it turns out, they hid them in the presidential palace. This in and of itself is an interesting story, told in part through a brief film.
More than this, however, is the quality of the items. Items of gold, of ivory, of glass, of alabaster. They come from three separate and quite diverse archeological sites in northern Afghanistan, and they include Bronze age pieces that are almost 3000 years old, and pieces from the time of Greek occupation, more than 2000 years ago. Some are from tombs, some from public buildings, some whose precise origin is unknown. And they show influence of Greece and the west, and India and the east. And often the same pieces show both.
USSR. We saw the movie “Carnival Night”, a 1956 Soviet movie about the talented employees of the Palace of Culture who wanted to use all of the talents to put together a News Years Eve spectacular, only to be told by their boss that they are not to be frivolous, but are to be educational. They go out of their way to keep to their original plans and bamboozle their director. Apparently this movie is shown every New Years in Russia. I am surprised I had never heard of it. it’s a delight.
Scotland. I read David Daitches’ “Two Worlds”, the story of the youth of the English/Scottish literary critic, who grew up in Edinburgh, where his father was a prominent rabbi. An engaging book that shows how much things change and how much they don’t, and how much location influences life, and how much it doesn’t.
Gobble D. Gook
We went to see Anne Washburn’s “The Internationalist” at the Studio Theatre last night. A young American goes on a business trip to a foreign country (supposedly Eastern European, although I couldn’t tell that from the play) and finds that, although everyone he meets speaks English (either unaccented, or with assorted accents), he does not speak their language, and that is what they speak most of the time. So, he goes around for two acts wondering what the hell is going on.
Iz forgunz blowpryt z krnov grazn. Iz grumblotz’r ivn ochsenddermurtikhausn k’rumbot med ulkot.
That’s my review of this play. I will sign it not with my usual nom de plum, but with my alternative. Gobble D. Gook.
Sidewalk Solicitation and Jews for Jesus (3 cents)
I do not like any form of sidewalk solicitation. I don’t like Greenpeace to do it. I hate when the Democratic National Committee does it. And I don’t like it when high school students are trying to raise money for their band to go to Tuscaloosa (or any such place).
But I have a special negative place in my heart when Jews for Jesus does it. Why this is, I am not sure. Intellectually, I don’t care what Jews for Jesus does or doesn’t do. I don’t give them a second thought. They are irrelevant to me….except when they solicit on the street. And then, I have to hold myself back from yelling at them to go away, from sticking my tongue out at them, and from stepping on their feet. I don’t view them as a threat, and it is clearly a visceral reaction.
This morning, I had a two block walk to the camera shop and this young lady in a very unattractive orange Jews for Jesus t-shirt tried to give me some sort of booklet. I looked at her scornfully and walked on, excessively annoyed, as usual.
On my way back to the office, I decided to stop for a while and watch her in action. I saw perhaps 50 people walk by her. No one took a brochure. About 1/3 of the people appeared to have no reaction, about 1/3 of the people went out of their way to appear to have no reaction, and about 1/3 of the people visibly sneered like I did. The J for J lady did not seem deterred; she was on a mission, I guess. (What that mission is, I am not sure.)
So what is the appropriate reaction, when you are accosted by such a person.
In other words, what would Jesus do?
Not Planning a Trip to Italy, but if I were…..
I don’t think I would stay at Villa Feltrinelli on Lake Garda. Now I am not being critical of the hotel: I am being critical of the strange review written by Laura Landro in Friday’s Wall Street Journal. [You may ask why I reading a review of a hotel in Italy when I have no plans to go to Italy, and suggest that I get a life. I will not stoop to answer that question.]
According to Landro:
1. Rates start at about $1700 per night through September.
2. Rose petals are sprinkled in the toilet.
3. They open champagne bottles with a sword.
4. This is the building where Mussolini was kept prisoner before his execution (Landra calls it his ‘death’).
5. It is a two hour drive from the airport.
6. Some rooms have a view looking over the front driveway.
7. The ‘junior suite’ was a single (albeit it, very nicely furnished) room
8. They looked at an actual suite in a separate building and found it “wasn’t as nicely furnished and felt dark and a bit isolated”.
9. The lakeside boat house room goes for $6,170 per night.
10. There isn’t much to do there, but you get a kayak. And there is tennis and golf nearby (not on site).
11. They hiked in the hills “but the map provided by the hotel was hard to follow” and they wound up at a construction site by mistake and had to come back walking along a main road with trucks and cars zooming by.
12. The young wait staff was anxious to talk about Italian soccer teams.
They also said that the hotel public rooms were beautiful, they liked the food (including the edible flowers for dessert) and you could get a massage poolside.
But items 1-12 took about about 75% of the article. At least.
What grade did Landro give Villa Feltrinelli? An A+.
Huh?
Arthur Thinks (He Thinks) 