japonisme

reading the past

2009-12-02T19:24:00.000-08:00

we've looked at magazines here several times, but rarely looked into. often the people we've seen on the covers wear japanese clothes, or carry parasols, or lean against a painted screen. these all feature all japanese people. why are they on these particular covers? and what being talked about inside. i can answer a bit of that, here and there....

truth is, there's more i don't know, or even understand, than i do. i'll just set out some stuff i found. the magazine success (below) is summed up by the magazine reviewer in the craftsman. "Success contains many good things, chief of which is Hosmer Whitfield's 'Why Japan Must Win.' There is a graphic picture of the Mikado and his influence, showing him to be an enlightened and progressive monarch, in the very front rank of the world's rulers. 2

also in that issue one would find this quote from, in a piece about child labor. "Juliet Wilbor Tomkins writes, 'A great deal has been said about the immorality resulting from factory life. Perhaps there has been more or less exaggeration on this point, or, rather, a failure to make honest comparison with the morality of these same people when not employed in factories. Yet there is no denying that the indiscriminate herding of men and girls does not prompt modesty and virtue. I know a ramshackle old building in New York in which the top floor is used by a manufacturer of electrical shoes. On the floor beneath is a laundry, separated from the street by three long flights of stairs, which are utterly dark except for the gas jets insisted on by the authorities.

At half-past five, every afternoon, the shoe men come trooping down just as the laundry girls are let out. tired with the hardest kind of work, and flushed and warm with the long day in a steaming, enervating atmosphere. And night after night the gas jets are mysteriously put out, so that all flock down together in pitch blackness. When you are tempted to believe that the evils of child labor are exaggerated, think what they are to a girl when she is too young to protect or even to understand herself. Terrible things have been begun on those stairs, yes, and happened there: and they are not the only dark flights of stairs in the New York factories. No one knows who turns the lights out: it may be, — heaven help them! — the girls themselves.

The managers could easily find a way to prevent it, and they give glib promises; but they do not really care. It is the public at large that has to care, to demand better protection for its children. I have seen other conditions so wrong and so openly offensive to decency that they could scarcely be believed; and they persisted until an inspector, in righteous rage, stood on the spot while reform was inaugurated. Filth, with not even a pretense of privacy.— how long can immature modesty stand that unharmed?'" 3

wondering about the illustration on the cover: does that cover both subjects, or just the one on japan? is this a father teaching a child -- to work? to know? or is child labor slightly different when you're talking about asians? what about these other covers? why was an asian woman chosen for an easter issue? (eastern issue?) we see two covers with japanese women with children on their backs, at a time when i'm sure that was never even imagined here. we then have women working, and playing; at least readers were given images that passed docility.

a description of the issue of fortune reads: "July 1933 complete issue of Fortune magazine, profusely illustrated in color and black and white, 124 pages, 14 x 11 1/2 inches, color pictorial paper wrappers as issued. Light soiling to cover (including spot at lower left) otherwise very good condition. Interesting articles include: "The Reign of Meiji ...forty-five amazing years during which Japan jumped out of the feudal age into the industrial present"; article on silver with double page decorative color map by C. H. Appleton "Silver World Production and Consumption." The article on the Owens-Illinois company includes a black and white diagram by Richard Edes Harrison showing the bottle making process. The color cover illustration of a Japanese weaver is by Bertha Lum, whose Japanese woodblock prints are most sought after." 4

1 in his book on the actress margaret anglin, john levay writes (click to read):

i'm left with the predictable it was the best of times, it was the worst of times. like all times. seeing those things that haven't changed is balanced by learning of some things that have. and i'll repeat: i can understand the contents, meanings, contexts, and nuances, to the same degree as understanding literature in translation. not that that stops me from reading them.

many of these great scans can be found on a very cool new(ish) site: Galactic Central!

reviewing the reviewer: Peter Schjeldahl

2009-11-27T17:07:00.000-08:00

schjeldahl's way with a word every bit equals matisse's with a brush. one ogles, awed. as i amble through his 2005 review of hilary spurling's “Matisse the Master: The Conquest of Colour 1909-1954” in the new yorker, maybe you'll agree.

"[His] art, whose glory was maintained and renewed in many phases until the artist’s death, in 1954: preternatural color, yielding line, boldness and subtlety, incessant surprise. Anyone who doesn’t love it must have a low opinion of joy. "

"this book completes the job of giving us a living individual, as familiar as someone we have long known, who regularly touched the spiritual core of Western modernity with a paintbrush.... I don’t think it is possible to be more intelligent in any pursuit, or more serious and original, and with such suddenness, than Matisse was when he represented a reaching arm in “Dance I” (1909), or the goldfish that he painted as slivers of redness in a series of still-lifes in 1912. How can intellectual potency be claimed for an artist whose specialty, by his own declared ambition, was easeful visual bliss?"

"His immense notoriety, which had been confirmed in 1905-06 by “Le Bonheur de Vivre,” a fractured fantasia that seemed to trash every possible norm of pictorial order and painterly finesse, was regularly exciting near-riots of derision in the public. (“My Arcadia,” Matisse called the picture, which established his career’s dizzying keynote: calm intensity or, perhaps, intense calm.) His huge-hipped, sinuous “Blue Nude,” of 1907, discomfited even Picasso, who complained, “If he wants to make a woman, let him make a woman. If he wants to make a design, let him make a design. This is between the two.”

"Matisse told his students, One must always search for the desire of the line, where it wishes to enter, where to die away.... Colors enter the world through Matisse like harmonies through Mozart. Gertrude Stein (unlike her sister-in-law Sarah Stein, Matisse’s first major collector) enjoyed ridiculing him, reporting with satisfaction, Spurling says, that her French cook served M. Matisse fried eggs for dinner instead of an omelette because, as a Frenchman, he would understand that it showed less respect."

"[Matisse] shielded his art from politics under all circumstances—he created the reverberant domestic idyll “The Piano Lesson” (my favorite twentieth-century painting) in the summer of 1916, while death swaggered at Verdun. But there seems to be no gainsaying his at least passive solidarity with the Resistance."

"Among Matisse’s students was Olga Meerson, a Russian Jew who had studied with Wassily Kandinsky in Munich and, already possessed of an elegant style,... Spurling writes, She personified the pride, courage and resilience that he responded to all his life at the deepest instinctual level in his female models. She also epitomized a period type of 'self-reliant single girl,' an obsessive subject for Matisse in those years, which Spurling locates between the earlier heroines of Henry James and the later solitaries of Jean Rhys. Matisse’s 1911 portrait of Meerson shows a primly dressed and posed, tremblingly sensitive woman slashed with two fierce black arcs—plunging from neck to thigh, and from armpit to buttock,” which resist any explanation aside from their sheerly formal éclat."

"The Nice odalisques, who loll on chairs or chaises amid flowers, fruits, and sumptuous fabrics. Indubitably erotic, the pictures diffuse arousal. Their sensuality never fixates on a breast or a thigh but dilates to every square inch of canvas. Such is the character of Matisse’s formal radicalism, early and late: distributed energy, suspended gesture, deferred climax. Might the tension have been so precious to him, as the engine of what gave his life meaning, that its only end could be exhaustion? It may count that, according to Matisse, he never ate even the fresh food that he used for still-lifes—including oysters, from a restaurant in Nice, that were returned in time for the lunch crowd." I

both evan in his comments and thomas in his discussion of brunellleschi suggest various bits of evidence of the japanese influence's journey taking the next steps to modernism -- saying more and more with less and less. cubism (a name allegedly coined by matisse), art deco, bauhaus: simplify, simplify, simplify. in matisse's work we see his plunge into shape, and color, and even abstraction.

don't miss his lovely green triangles across from each other above.

2009-11-25T17:35:00.000-08:00

connect the dots

2009-11-24T17:29:00.000-08:00

how do you choose what to wear? are garments always costumes, assuring that you will be taken by others as the role you wish to fill? there are those who suggest that every single item of clothing is a choice communicated, down to the last nuance, and a statement made, down to the last whisper.

me, i am driven by color. and cotton. and though i believe i have no consciousness of what is fashionable whatsoever, there remains something of great importance about it all.

i can remember the white empire-waisted sheath that i wore for high- school graduation. it had a black cummerbund with white polka dots. i was, and still am, quite delighted that i could find an enameled bracelet that was white with black polka dots to match.

several times here we've discussed the volumes of identity revealed in various cultures by hairdo, or costume, detail, or grand gesture. if it was true then, it must be true now. something as 'simple' as a woman's fingernails might immediately brand her as 'one of us' or not.

do you want it to be true for you? do you communicate through appearances consciously? might you be kidding yourself, telling a different story entirely than the one you believe you're telling? how is your identity spelled out by your clothes?

i have come to believe that identity, appearance, opinion are, for most of us, invisibly malleable -- we think what we think, wear what we wear, even know ourselves to be who we think we are... to fit into the group of our life. it could be dangerous not to.

to be born 'outside the box' changes the perception of this, but does not wholly negate its pull. we like to think we create ourselves out of free will, but if that were true best friends wouldn't dress alike, nobody would call to ask what to wear to the party.

that old song, 'you've got to be taught how to hate,' well, you've got to be taught everything else too. how can something so unimportant be the most important thing of all?

smoke...? mirrors...?

2009-11-22T12:52:00.000-08:00

IKEBANA

To prepare the body,
aim for the translucent perfection
you find in the sliced shavings
of a pickled turnip.
In order for this to happen,
you must avoid the sun,
protect the face
under a paper parasol
until it is bruised white
like the skin of lilies.
Use white soap
from a blue porcelain
dish for this.

Restrict yourself.
Eat the whites of things:
tender bamboo shoots,
the veins of the young iris,
the clouded eye of a fish.

Then wrap
the body,
as if it were a perfumed gift,
in pieces of silk
held together with invisible threads
like a kite, weighing no more
than a handful of crushed chrysanthemums.
Light enough to float in the wind.
You want the effect
of koi moving through water.

When the light leaves
the room, twist lilacs
into the lacquered hair
piled high like a complicated shrine.
There should be tiny bells
inserted somewhere
in the web of hair
to imitate crickets

singing in a hidden grove.

Reveal the nape of the neck,
your beauty spot.
Hold the arrangement.
If your spine slacks
and you feel faint,
remember the hand-picked flower
set in the front alcove,
which, just this morning,
you so skillfully wired into place.

How poised it is!
Petal and leaf
curving like a fan,
the stem snipped and wedged
into the metal base—
to appear like a spontaneous accident.

Cathy Song

A WORK OF ARTIFICE

The bonsai tree
in the attractive pot
could have grown eighty feet tall
on the side of a mountain
till split by lightning.

But a gardener
carefully pruned it.
It is nine inches high.
Every day as he
whittles back the branches
the gardener croons,
It is your nature

to be small and cozy,
domestic and weak;
how lucky, little tree,
to have a pot to grow in.
With living creatures
one must begin very early
to dwarf their growth:
the bound feet,
the crippled brain,
the hair in curlers,
the hands you
love to touch.

Marge Piercy

and where's the line
between copy and inspire?
just which flower is the poppy of desire?
who's the who to whom you must be true?
once you've lost it, how can you find you?

be of good cheer

2009-11-19T08:03:00.001-08:00

CHEER

Like the waxwings in the juniper,
a dozen at a time, divid- ed, paired,
passing the berries back and forth, and by night- fall, wobb- ling, piping, wounded with joy.

Or a party of redwings grazing what
falls—blossom and seed,
nutmeat and fruit—
made light in the head and
cut by the light,
swept from the ground,
carried downwind, taken....

It's called wing-rowing, the wing- burdened arms unbending, yielding, striking a balance,
walking the white
invisible line drawn
just ahead in the air,
first sign the slur,

the liquid notes too liquid, the heart in
the mouth melodious, too close, which starts
the chanting, the crooning, the long lyric
silences, the song of our undoing.

It's called side-step, head- forward, raised- crown, flap-
and-glide- flight aggression, though courtship is
the object, affection the compulsion,
love the overspill — the body nodding,

still standing, ready to fly straight out of
itself—or its bill-tilt, wing-flash, topple-
over; wing-droop, bowing, tail-flick and drift; back-ruffle, wingspread,
quiver and soar.

Someone is troubled,
someone is trying,
in earnest, to explain;
to speak without
swallowing the tongue; to find the perfect
word among so few or the too many—

to sing like the thrush from
the deepest part
of the understory, territorial,
carnal, thorn-at-the-throat,
or flutelike
in order to make
one sobering sound.

Sound of the breath
blown over the bottle,
sound of the reveler
home at dawn, light of
the sun a warbler yellow,
the sun in song-flight, lopsided-pose.
Be of good-cheer,

my father says, lifting his glass to greet a morning in which he's awake to be with the birds: or up all night in the sleep of the world, alive again, singing.

Stanley Plumly

Stanley Plumly, "Cheer" from Now That My Father Lies Down Beside Me: New and Selected Poems. Copyright © 2000 by Stanley Plumly.

Our Mothers Depart

2009-11-16T19:53:00.000-08:00

OUR MOTHERS DEPART

Our mothers depart from us,
gently depart
On tiptoe,
but we sleep soundly,
stuffed with food,
and fail to notice this dread hour.
Our mothers do not leave us suddenly,
no —
it only seems so 'sudden.'

Slowly they depart, and strangely,
with short steps down the stairs of years.
One year, remembering nervously,
we make a fuss to mark their birthday,
but this belated zeal
will save neither their souls
nor ours.

They withdraw ever further,
withdraw even further.
Roused from sleep,
we stretch toward them,
but our hands suddenly beat the air —
a wall of glass has grown up there!
We were too late.
The dread hour had struck,
Suppressing tears, we watch our mothers,
in columns quiet and austere,
departing from us.

Yevgeny Yevtushenko

(my mother died almost two years ago.
i have not cried. we weren't friends.
but how i loved her, as a child.
the more she pulled away from me
the more i craved her.)

why?

2009-11-13T19:04:00.000-08:00

WHY DO YOU PAINT?

(a google-found poem)

Why do you paint on stained glass?

Why do You Paint Your Car?

Why do you paint the bottom of a boat?

Why do you paint fantasy?

Why do you paint the bottom part of trees white?

Why do you paint your dead with red ochre?

Why do you paint wood?

Why do you paint contemporary/abstract art?

Why do you paint a canoe black?

Why do you paint naked people?

Why do you paint the barrels?

Why do You Paint Your Car?

Why do you paint?

For exactly the same reason I breathe.

That’s not an answer.

There isn’t any answer.

How long hasn’t there been any answer?

As long as I can remember.

And how long have you written?

As long as I can remember.

I mean poetry.

So do I.

E. E. Cummings

"on the level"?

2009-11-07T15:07:00.000-08:00

we've looked at various possible explanations for why eastern and western art are different in the ways they are... we've looked at writing, we've looked at religion, we've looked at topography, we've looked at trees, and today we'll look at some attitude differences that may explain some effects.

what i found myself wondering about were the qualities of directness and indirectness in the two cultures -- could they have an effect on the art?

here's something i found that i thought was very interesting:

Some cul- tures, such as in the Australia, US, Germany and Britain, generally value a direct style of communication. They like to “get down to business,” “cut to the chase,” and “get to the point”. They do not feel offended or shamed by the kind of direct statements that might be considered offensive in indirect cultures such as in Asia.

In fact, when things are not stated directly, people from direct cultures (such as Australian co-workers) can become confused and frustrated, and might not understand the message at all. They are used to communicating with people whose maxims are “say what you mean, and mean what you say” and “let your ‘yes’ be ‘yes’ and your ‘no’ be ‘no.’” In these cultures, being direct is how people show respect.

In cultures that use an indirect communication style, such as India, China, Japan, and other Asian cultures, it is very common to encounter situations where people communicate in a way that would not cause someone to lose face. Thus, communication happens indirectly.

Messages are subtly implied rather than explicitly stated, and people are accustomed to reading between the lines for the message. Words such as “perhaps” and “maybe” are often code for “no,” since saying “no” could risk shaming someone. In these cul- tures, being indirect is how people show respect.

Those from indirect cul- tures think of their own style as polite and face-saving, and sometimes see direct communication as rude, blunt and overly aggressive. Those from direct cultures think of their style as open and honest, and sometimes think of indirect communication as “beating around the bush” and a sign that the communicator is trying to be difficult, shifty, or maddeningly vague.

this is all in the context of training people in different parts of the world, who must interact every day, how to do it.

Akio Morita (co-founder of SONY) once said that when Westerners “ask questions or express an opinion, they want to know right away whether the other party agrees or opposes them. So in English, ‘yes’ or ‘no’ comes first.

We Japanese prefer to save the ‘yes’ or ‘no’ for last. Particularly when the answer is ‘no,’ we put off saying that as long as possible, and they find that exasperating.”

Each of us intrinsically feels that our style is the “right” style, and the other is the “wrong” style – but in the end, it’s not a matter of right or wrong, but of getting on the same wavelength. ☆

so what do you think? might these very different communication styles be part of why, in so much of japanese art, things, people, landscapes, veer, gracefully sidestep, rather than approaching the viewer 'head on.'

can this also explain the works' simplicity or asymmetrical nature? and does it even explain these glorious diagonals or is the argument 'far fetched'? since you and i are likely to never come 'face-to-face,' we are not likely to see 'eye-to-eye.' nor shall we 'butt heads.'

i can face that.

bamboozled?

2009-11-02T12:17:00.000-08:00

as a quiet, ubiquitous symbol, the bamboo has featured in japonisme wherever it occurred. whether it's pictured, or used, or imitated (silver bamboo handles, for example), it has become an instant communication of the east.

it's interesting, however, to look into its usage in japan itself. where it's found, or wherever i was able to find it anyway, wasn't necessarily where i had expected.

yes, it can be found on kimono textiles, and on crafts, like the inro.

in the west there were few instances of crafts where it wasn't used. it's irresistible because it's so graceful, so simple, so emblematic of all that we had accepted the east to be.

in japanese prints, however, there seem to be unexplained limits to it's usage: we will see it, again, as a pattern on kimono.

and, as we've seen before, one might find bamboo in a book of style suggestions.

we will also see it as part of a kabuki backdrop, and it's always used to geographically
place tigers.

but, it seems, and as far as i could find, picturing bamboo groves or forests almost never existed until late in the 19th century. this one hokusai image is the only one i could find. compare their frequency to that of pines.

the yoshida's, father and son, loved them, as did many other artists on into the twentieth century. i can not only find no reason for this, but not even any mention of it.

now this is not to suggest that the bamboo is not beloved in japan. in fact, The sound of the wind in this bamboo forest has been voted as one of 'one hundred must-be-preserved sounds of Japan' by the Japanese government. 1

but although hiroshige did use bamboo's wonderful verticality to accompany the flight of a bird (a sparrow), as did others, the forests and groves were rarely seen.

as 'meaningless,' and quite lovely decoration, though, it could be found in droves throughout europe and the americas.

may we be reassured that these appearances reflected our passion for the illusions we'd formed of japan?

and if so, were these illusions perpetrated by the japanese themselves, or by us?

and, at last, does it matter at all? fashion is as fluid as the wind; listen, you can hear it now. it's a sound which must be protected.

instead, gratitude is a fine option. thank you to tiffany. thank you to rookwood. gratitude to habert-dys. thank you to heintz.

translation is an odd art. what appears to be literal can really only be approx- imate, romanticized, inspirational.

which is quite acceptable.

that old devil moon • part 3 • (the halloween suite -- fin)

2009-10-30T22:11:00.000-07:00

the blog as mask • (halloween suite)

2009-10-28T21:29:00.000-07:00

THE POEM AS MASK

Orpheus

When I wrote of the women in their dances and wildness,
it was a mask,

on their mountain, gold-hunting, singing, in orgy,
it was a mask;
when I wrote of the god,
fragmented, exiled from himself, his life, the love
gone down with song,
it was myself, split open, unable to speak, in exile from myself.

There is no mountain, there is no god, there is memory
of my torn life, myself split open in sleep, the rescued child
beside me among the doctors, and a word
of rescue from the great eyes.

No more masks!
No more mythologies!

Now, for the first time,
the god lifts his hand,
the fragments join in me with their own music.

Muriel Rukeyser

From Muriel Rukeyser:
Selected Poems by Muriel Rukeyser
Copyright © 2004 by William Rukeyser.

how in youth we create identities, or we wait for them to be revealed to us. we shop for them in things, in clothing, in reflections in store windows.

at last the search is done and we have our story. now if only we can live up to it.

then one day we are old and realize that we never found a thing, we just found masks to suit a daily life, and then became them.

when we are old, we realize our own folly.

charade • (halloween suite)

2009-10-27T12:38:00.000-07:00

When we played our charade
We were like children posing

Playing at games, acting out names
Guessing the parts we played

Oh what a hit we made
We came on next to closing

Best on the bill, lovers until
Love left the masquerade

Fate seemed to pull the strings
I turned and you were gone

While from the darkened wings
The music box played on

Sad little serenade
Song of my heart's composing

I hear it still, I always will
Best on the bill
Charade

Mercer & Mancini

who are you • (halloween suite)

2009-10-25T10:39:00.000-07:00

Who are you?
Who, who, who, who?
Who are you?
Who, who, who, who?
Who are you?
Who, who, who, who?
Who are you?
Who, who, who, who?

I woke up in a Soho doorway
A policeman knew my name
He said "You can go sleep at home tonight
If you can get up and walk away"

I staggered back to the underground
And the breeze blew back my hair
I remember throwin' punches around
And preachin' from my chair

Well, who are you? (Who are you? Who, who, who, who?)
I really wanna know (Who are you? Who, who, who, who?)
Tell me, who are you? (Who are you? Who, who, who, who?)
'Cause I really wanna know (Who are you? Who, who, who, who?)

I took the tube back out of town
Back to the Rollin' Pin
I felt a little like a dying clown
With a streak of Rin Tin Tin

I stretched back and I hiccupped
And looked back on my busy day
Eleven hours in the Tin Pan
God, there's got to be another way

Who are you?
Ooh wa ooh wa ooh wa ooh wa ...
Who are you?
Who, who, who, who?
Who are you?
Who, who, who, who?
Who are you?
Who, who, who, who?
Who are you?
Who, who, who, who?

I know there's a place you walked
Where love falls from the trees
My heart is like a broken cup
I only feel right on my knees

I spit out like a sewer hole
Yet still receive your kiss
How can I measure up to anyone now
After such a love as this?

Who are you?
Who, who, who, who?
Who are you?
Who, who, who, who?
Who are you?
Who, who, who, who?
Who are you?
Who, who, who, who?

(note to those helpful readers who've suggested i code my posts so the images open in separate windows so that the music is uninterrupted-- i have tried this at least twice now, and both time have lost the entire post, or major parts of it! this has never happened otherwise!)

and don't miss

that old devil moon • part two • (halloween suite)

2009-10-23T17:48:00.001-07:00

MINNIE THE MOOCHER

with Cab Calloway and Betty Boop

Folks, here's the story 'bout Minnie the Moocher
She was a red hot
hoochie-coocher
She was the roughest, toughest frail
Minnie had a heart
as big as a wha-a-le

Hodee-hodee-hodee-ho
Hidee-Hidee-Hidee-hi
Heedey-hee-dee-hee-dee hee
Hodee-hodee-hodee-ho

She messed around with a bloke named Smoky
She loved him though he was cokey
He took her down to Chinatown
Where he showed her how to kick the gong around

Hidee-Hidee-Hidee-hi
Wooooooh
Heedey-hee-dee-hee-dee hee
Hidee-hidee-hidee-ho

She had a dream that
the King of Sweden
He gave her things
that she was needin'
He built her a home built
of gold and steel
A diamond car
with platinum wheels

hidee-hidee-hidee-hidee-hidee-hidee-hi
hodee-hodee-hodee-hodee-hodee-hodee-ho
scoodley-woo-scoodley-woo-scoodley-woodley-woodley-woo
zit-dit-dit-dit-dittle-but-dut-duttleoo-skit-dit-skittle-but-dit-zoy

He gave her his townhouse and his racing horses
Each meal she ate was
a dozen courses
She had a million dollars worth of nickels and dimes
She sat around and count them all a million times

Hidee-Hidee-Hidee-hi
Hodee-hodee-hodee-ho
Heedey-hee-dee-hee-dee hee
Hidee-hidee-hidee-ho

Now Min and Smokie,
they started jaggin'
They got a free ride in a wagon
She gave him money to pay her bail
But he left her flat in the county jail

Whoooa, yeaaaah
Hey de he de he he
Whoa Whoa

Poor Min met old
Deacon Lowdown
He preached to her that she ought to slow down
But Minnie wiggled
her jelly roll
And Deacon Lowdown yelled, "Lord save my soul!"

Hi de hi de hi de hi
Ho de ho de ho de ho
Skiddley doodley doodly do
Skiddly diddly day

They took her where
they put the crazies
Now poor Min's kicking
up those daisies
You've heard my story
this is her song
She was just a good gal,
but they done her wrong

Hi de hi de hi de hi
Skooby de be do
He de he de he de he
Whoa, Whoa Whoa

Poor Min, Poor Min, Poor Min.

that old devil moon • (halloween suite)

2009-10-22T13:18:00.001-07:00

RENEWING THE ASHEN SCRIPTURES

You brush leaves from a stranger
sleeping beside your gate

and welcome him to your estate,
with its sunny fields and barns.

He admires your bins of wing nuts,
your fine linens and deep well.

You show off your net strung between trees
for capturing sunlight,
your ponds and goldfish.

In the storeroom, you offer him dates and grain,
purified water, buckwheat, and dry ginger.

Take what you need. Rest.
The stranger answers: Follow me.

I will show you where the trail begins
to the encampment of souls in the forest.

You follow him across muddy fields,
past the ox swishing its tail,
tethered to a tree,

past the pond where stocked fish peer through surface clouds.
At the forest edge, you push through brambles and ivy.

You stuff your ears with moss to mute the abacus of trees
and press through spindly pines into thick woods.

Everywhere God goads you
with green ignorance.
The souls of trees shout, Speak! Speak!

One of the moon's thirty names will save you.
You forget your hunger,
the Names of God,
the alef-beit.

Emily Warn

Shadow Architect
Copper Canyon Press
• 1

waltz, tango, quickstep, rumba, cha-cha, mambo, samba, swing

2009-10-15T13:13:00.000-07:00

...The only change in the creative process I've seen with the dance poems comes with the luxury of writing within a framework -- each dance has a distinct feel, an embedded cadence that will suggest a certain shape or silhouette on the page.... "Fox Trot Fridays" was the first in the group; it wrote itself rather quickly.

After that felicitous birth, I imagined writing a poem about each type of ballroom dance -- waltz, tango, quickstep, rumba, cha-cha, mambo, samba, swing, even paso doble. And then, of course, I couldn't write a word, because I was trying to write about dance, not get inside the dance.

When I began to appreciate the technical intricacies of each style -- not just the pattern "quick- quick with a / heel-ball-toe" but the rise upon tiptoe that occurs between the slow count and the first quick in fox-trot, for example, or the gradual lowering from tiptoe that one executes in the second half of the third beat in the waltz -- only then did "American Smooth" [her most recent book] start to shimmer into being.

My scaffolding was to provide a humble description of the dance technique -- what each part of the body should be doing, measured out precisely, without emotion -- in the hopes of finding the poem's true desire, to achieve flight of consciousness, a lifting of the spirit as well as of the human form. 1

THE MUSICIAN TALKS
ABOUT "PROCESS"

(after Anthony 'Spoons' Plough)

I learned the spoons from
my grandfather, who was blind.

Every day he'd go into the woods
'cause that was his thing.
He met all kinds of creatures,
birds and squirrels,
and while he was feeding them
he'd play the spoons,
and after they finished
they'd stay and listen.

When I go into Philly
on a Saturday night,
I don't need nothing but
my spoons and the music.
Laid out on my knees
they look so quiet,
but when I pick them up
I can play to anything:
a dripping faucet,
a tambourine,
fish shining in a creek.

A funny thing:
When my grandfather died,
every creature sang.
And when the men went out
to get him, they kept singing.
They sung for two days,
all the birds, all the animals.
That's when I left the South.

Rita Dove

© 1999 Rita Dove from On the Bus With Rosa Parks pub Norton

also see more combs!

meow • (halloween suite)

2009-10-13T15:27:00.002-07:00

THE GARDEN BY MOONLIGHT

A black cat among roses,
Phlox, lilac-misted under a first-quarter moon,
The sweet smells of heliotrope
and night-scented stock.

The garden is very still,
It is dazed with moonlight,
Contented with perfume,
Dreaming the opium dreams of its folded poppies.

Firefly lights open and vanish
High as the tip buds
of the golden glow
Low as the sweet alyssum
flowers at my feet.
Moon-shimmer on
leaves and trellises,
Moon-spikes shafting
through the snow ball bush.

Only the little faces of the ladies’ delight are alert and staring,
Only the cat, padding between the roses,
Shakes a branch and breaks
the chequered pattern
As water is broken by the falling of a leaf.

Then you come,
And you are quiet like the garden,
And white
like the alyssum flowers,
And beautiful as the silent sparks of the fireflies.

Ah, Beloved, do you see those orange lilies?
They knew my mother,
But who belonging to me will they know
When I am gone.

Amy Lowell

for Indigenous Peoples Day

2009-10-12T14:07:00.000-07:00

MY COUNTRY 'TIS OF THY PEOPLE YOU'RE DYING

Now that your big eyes have finally opened
Now that you're wondering how must they feel
Meaning them that you've chased across America's movie screens
Now that you're wondering how can it be real
That the ones you've called colorful, noble and proud
In your school propaganda
They starve in their splendor
You've asked for my comment I simply will render

My country 'tis of thy people you're dying

Now that the longhouses breed superstition
You force us to send our toddlers away
To your schools where they're taught to despise their traditions
You forbid them their languages, then further say
That American history really began
When Columbus set sail out of Europe, then stress
That the nation of leeches that conquered this land
Are the biggest and bravest and boldest and best
And yet where in your history books is the tale
Of the genocide basic to this country's birth
Of the preachers who lied, how the Bill of Rights failed
How a nation of patriots returned to their earth
And where will it tell of the Liberty Bell
As it rang with a thud Over Kinzua mud
And of brave Uncle Sam in Alaska this year

My country 'tis of thy people you're dying

Hear how the bargain was made for the West
With her shivering children in zero degrees
Blankets for your land, so the treaties attest
Oh well, blankets for land is a bargain indeed
And the blankets were those Uncle Sam had collected
From smallpox-diseased dying soldiers that day
And the tribes were wiped out and the history books censored
A hundred years of your statesmen have felt it's better this way
And yet a few of the conquered have somehow survived
Their blood runs the redder though genes have paled
From the Gran Canyon's caverns to craven sad hills
The wounded, the losers, the robbed sing their tale
From Los Angeles County to upstate New York
The white nation fattens while others grow lean
Oh the tricked and evicted they know what I mean

My country 'tis of thy people you're dying

The past it just crumbled, the future just threatens
Our life blood shut up in your chemical tanks
And now here you come, bill of sale in your hands
And surprise in your eyes that we're lacking in thanks
For the blessings of civilization you've brought us
The lessons you've taught us, the ruin you've wrought us
Oh see what our trust in America's brought us

My country 'tis of thy people you're dying

Now that the pride of the sires receives charity
Now that we're harmless and safe behind laws
Now that my life's to be known as your "heritage"
Now that even the graves have been robbed
Now that our own chosen way is a novelty
Hands on our hearts we salute you your victory
Choke on your blue white and scarlet hypocrisy
Pitying the blindness that you've never seen
That the eagles of war whose wings lent you glory
They were never no more than carrion crows
Pushed the wrens from their nest, stole their eggs, changed their story
The mockingbird sings it, it's all that he knows
"Ah what can I do?" say a powerless few
With a lump in your throat and a tear in your eye
Can't you see that their poverty's profiting you

My country 'tis of thy people you're dying

Buffy Sainte-Marie on Rainbow Quest with Pete Seeger (Episode 38)

i put a spell on you • (halloween suite)

2009-10-10T15:00:00.000-07:00

MY FATHER IS A RETIRED MAGICIAN

(for ifa, p.t., & bisa)

my father is a retired magician
which accounts for my irregular behavior
everythin comes
outta magic hats
or bottles wit no bottoms
& parakeets
are as easy to get as a
couple a rabbits
or 3 fifty cent pieces/ 1958

my daddy retired from
magic & took
up another trade cuz
this friend of mine
from the 3rd grade
asked to be made white
on the spot

what cd any self-respectin colored american magician
do wit such a outlandish request/ cept
put all them razzamatazz hocus pocus zippity-do-dah
thingamajigs away cuz
colored chirren believin in magic
waz becomin politically
dangerous for the race
& waznt nobody gonna be made white
on the spot just
from a clap of my daddy's hands

& the reason i'm so peculiar's
cuz i been studyin up on my daddy's technique
& everythin i do is magic these days
& it's very colored
very now you see it/ now you
dont mess wit me
i come from a family of retired
sorcerers/ active houngans
& pennyante fortune tellers
wit 41 million spirits critturs & celestial bodies
on our side

i'll listen to yr problems
help wit yr career yr lover
yr wanderin spouse
make yr grandma's stay in heaven
more gratifyin
ease yr mother thru menopause &
show yr son
how to clean his room

YES YES YES 3 wishes
is all you get
scarlet ribbons for yr hair
benwa balls via hong kong
a miniature of machu picchu

all things are possible
but aint no colored magician in her right mind
gonna make you white
i mean
this is blk magic
you lookin at
& i'm fixin you up good/
fixin you up good n colored
& you gonna be colored all yr life
& you gonna love it/ bein colored/ all yr life/ colored & love it
love it/ bein colored/

Spell #7 from Upnorth-Outwest Geechee
Jibara Quik Magic Trance
Manual for Technologically Stressed
Third World People

Ntozake Shange

c copyright ntozake shange 2009

My friend from Asia has powers and magic, he plucks a blue leaf from the young blue-gum
And gazing upon it,
gathering and quieting
The God in his mind, creates an ocean more real than the ocean, the salt, the actual
Appalling presence,
the power of the waters.
He believes that nothing is real except as we make it.

I humbler have found in my blood
Bred west of Caucasus a harder mysticism.

Multitude stands in my mind
but I think that
the ocean in the bone vault is only
The bone vault's ocean:
out there is the ocean's;
The water is the water,
the cliff is the rock,
come shocks and flashes of reality.
The mind Passes, the eye closes,
the spirit is a passage;
The beauty of things was born before eyes and sufficient to itself;
the heart-breaking beauty
Will remain when there is no heart to break for it.

Robinson Jeffers

turning mother goose • (halloween suite)

2009-10-03T12:44:00.000-07:00

three dames walk into a bar: a witch, a hag, and mother goose. 'aha!' cries the bartender -- 'it's the triplets!' am i the only one it took so long to figure this out?

the elements of cats, brooms, and good old age appear so often in illustrations of all three, that one becomes confused just trying to get it straight.

"The existence of demons and the efficacy of witchcraft were accepted facts throughout the world in 1692. The Puritans of Salem Village were certain of the devil's hand in every incident of evil they suffered, from petty misfortune to apalling tragedy. Witches and agents of 'the ould deluder' Satan delivered to the people of the commonwealth all manner of torments: deadly epidemics of smallpox; murderous raids by Indians; and ignorant children."

The Witches of Salem were hanged. This was less painful than the burning of witches in Europe. They thought the burning of a witch was the only way to release the evil, since the Devil would be forced to exit the melting body through the smoke.

Witchcraft in Massachusetts singled out:

• spinsters
• barren women
• the ugly
• the extremely successful
• the independent
• the reclusive
• the litigious
• the willful. 1

i can assure you, i am every single one of these (well, maybe not litigious), and i suppose i am also, now, old -- or at least to the degree these other women are. and while i have no goose, i do have a cat.

would you need more proof?

let's look at that list once more: every single item challenges authority (usually male). if one is any of these she must be punished or laughed at or belittled: silenced.

to live the quiet, solitary life, free and in constant communication with the birds and spiders and fish, and the cat, to tend the garden, read a book, answer to no one....

There was an old woman
tossed up in a basket
Seventeen times
as high as the moon;
Where she was going
I couldn't but ask it,
For in her hand
she carried a broom.

"Old woman, old woman,
old woman," quoth I,
"O whither, O whither,
O whither, so high?"
"To brush the cobwebs
off the sky!"
"Shall I go with thee?"
"Aye, by and by."
•

Old Mother Goose,
When she wanted to wander,
Would ride through the air
On a very fine gander.

Jack's mother came in,
And caught the goose soon,
And mounting its back,
Flew up to the moon.

•

The words of the original Old Mother Goose Nursery Rhyme can be interpreted to find a darker meaning to the identity of ' Mother Goose'! The title ' Mother Goose ' probably originates from the 1600's -- the time of the great witch hunts. Comparisons can be made between the Mother Goose in the above children's poem and the popular conception of a witch during this era!

• Witches were able to fly (the broomstick has been replaced by a goose).
• A witch was often portrayed as an old crone (with no man to defend her
against accusations of witchcraft).
• Witches are closely associated
with living alone.
• Witches were known to a have 'familiars,' most often cats but also owls. 2

so who am i now? from east or north? good witch, bad witch, in-between? & i know it doesn't matter. i'm a happy old woman, with cat, with garden, of modest means and expectations, will the iris open, will the spider catch the fly?

An Index to the Panama Pacific International Exposition

2009-09-27T18:05:00.000-07:00

California's Magazine.
Pan-Pacific Expo edition

University of Colorado Digital Sheet Music Collection

PPIE Clickable Map!

San Francisco Memories: The PPIE

PPIE 'Official Program' Guidebook

The Virtual Museum of the City of San Francisco: PPIE

DONALD G. LARSON COLLECTION ON INTERNATIONAL

EXPOSITIONS AND FAIRS

The Herbst Theatre Brangwyn Murals

Panama-Pacific from CALISPHERE

The Evanescent City

Artists from the Fair

San Francisco Bay Area Postcard Club: PPIE

The International studio, Volume 59: Women @ the PPIE

Found sf

Remnants of a Dream: a search for the Jeweled City's relics.

California Historical Society: the PPIE Orange Crate

Books About California: Panama Pacific Exposition

PPIE @ archive.org

The dream city: its art in story and symbolism

PPIE @ googlebooks

History of the Palace of Fine Arts

San Francisco Historical Photograph Collection

PPIE: San Francisco’s Finest World’s Fair

Presidio of San Francisco: PPIE

the panama-pacific, that is! • part 4

2009-09-26T17:50:00.000-07:00

just gaze for a moment at this spot which really existed for a few short months, about a hundred years ago, as its city still reeled from its earthquake and fire, and while the rest of the world warred on.

can you imagine? wonderland indeed.

you've come to see the murals and the french painters, and now see the statues. there are more statues at this fair than you can look at in a week and a half, and that is just the beginning.

you can see the bathing beauties,

then fifteen minutes later you can go listen to john philip sousa and his band play a march.

you can visit, with- out leaving the fair, yellowstone, the grand canyon, or even mt fuji.

perhaps you're curious about panama itself -- well then visit there -- or maybe china, or samoa, or, other nations far and near.

or maybe, after visiting the national parks, and then japan, you decide to visit hawaii, as you've just heard hawiian music for the first time and you couldn't keep your those hips from swingin' to one of the many new songs introduced at the fair (even irving berlin had one) that then went on to make it big all over the world.

but the palace of fine arts keeps drawing you; you see some japonisme,

but maybe less than you had expected, given what you'd seen in europe just one year ago.

you love being introduced to tonalism and now that you have spent more than a week in san francisco with it's cover of fog all day, even in the summertime!, you understand why the tonalists use such muted colors.

and since you loved her husband's mural, you are thrilled to learn his wife's a painter too.

lots of etchings are exhibited, but nothing like the won- drous work from nabis or any of the other new-century art trends that you'd seen overseas.

and what they did show was usually without color and sometimes even appeared to have travelled back in time while the rest of the world moved forward. were the american judges classically trained and old-fashioned?

why were so few of the prints and paintings so far less colorful and free as the murals. certainly not that guerin guy.

and yet, is there any way to say that this has not been a dream with sincere magic? has not your heart been lifted and your mind eased and entertained?

and in the end you are grateful, very grateful, for all the colors
of the jewel city.

(tomorrow more references than you can shake a stick at)

the panama-pacific, that is! • part 3

2009-09-23T17:36:00.001-07:00

Aside from the construction of the $50,000 pipe organ, which, after the Exposition, will be placed permanently in the Civic Auditorium, the two most important musical items found on the schedule of Exposition enterprises are the engagements of Camille Saint-Saens and the Boston Symphony Orchestra.

The former, who maintained that "Beethoven is the greatest, the only real, artist, because he upheld the idea of universal brotherhood," is perhaps better fitted than any living composer to write special music for the Exposition.

This he has done, -- writing two compositions in fact; and their presentation has been an outstanding feature. "Hail, California," was dedicated to the Exposition. Scored for an orchestra of eighty, a military band of sixty, a chorus of 300 voices, pipe organ and piano, its first presentation was an event.

The Saint-Saens Symphony in C minor (No. 3) Opus 78, composed many years ago, has become a classic during the life-time of its creator. It was one of the wonders of the Boston Symphony programmes played in Festival Hall. Its yield of immediate pleasure and its reassurance for the works of Saint-Saens to be heard later, grew from the fact that it was scored for orchestra and pipe organ, and in this massive tonal web the genius of the composer to write in magnificent size was overwhelm- ingly evident, thus forecasting the splendors of "Hail, California."

The French Pavilion is a dignified and impressive structure, as those who recall the Legion of Honor Palace in Paris will understand. The entrance to the court is a triumphal arch flanked by double rows of Ionic columns on either side, with figures of Fame as spandrels. The arch is connected by lateral peristyles with the wings of the pavilion, the attics of which are adorned with has reliefs.

Ionic colonnades extend along the sides of the court to the principal front of the building, which is decorated with six Corinthian columns, forming a portico for the main entrance. The portal opens on a stage, above which a great central hall, flanked by lesser halls, extends back through the palace.

More notable than the building itself, or its priceless contents, is the fact that these are here. That, in the midst of war and its demands, France should still find time for the ideal, and for this beautiful tribute to the long-standing friendship between the two countries, is a demonstration of French spirit and of French culture that will not escape the attention of any thoughtful American. For France herself, as it has well been said, her appearance here means as much as a victory on the battlefield.

But the glory of the building is in its exhibits. France poured out the treasures of the Louvre, the Luxembourg and the National Museum to adorn this pavilion. Fine as is the exhibit in the French section of the Palace of Fine Arts, the best pictures and Sculptures are shown here. In the Court of Honor stands the masterpiece of the master sculptor of modern times, "The Thinker," by Auguste Rodin. (p. 158.) In the galleries are his "John the Baptist" and other important bronzes.

Vast, unique and of the greatest interest is Theodore Riviere's wonderful group in bronze representing a triumphant band of desert soldiers dragging captive the Moroccan pretender, secured in an iron cage. There, too, are splendid paintings by Monet, Meissonier, Detaille, de Neuvilie, and many other French artists approved by time. **

(these all are actual pieces shown in that exhibit, accompanied by the music played there, described by someone who visited there. and this is just the teensiest fraction of just one country's offerings, just france. and the world was there. bibliography to follow.)

the panama-pacific, that is! • part 2

2009-09-22T15:35:00.000-07:00

All other Expositions have been almost colorless. This is the first to make use of the natural colors of sea and sky, of hill and tree, and to lay upon all its grounds and buildings tints that harmonize with these. Jules Guerin, the master colorist, was the artist who used the Exposition as a canvas on which to spread glorious hues. Guerin decided, first, that the basic material of the buildings should be an imitation of the travertine of ancient Roman palaces. On this delicate old ivory background he laid a simple series of warm, yet quiet, Oriental hues, which, in their adaptation to the material of construction and to the architecture, as well as in their exquisite harmony with the natural setting, breeds a vast respect for his art.

The color scheme covers everything, from the domes of the buildings down to the sand in the driveways and the uniforms of the Exposition guards. The walls, the flags and pennants that wave over the buildings, the shields and other emblems of heraldry that hide the sources of light, draw their hues from Guerin's plan.

The flowers of the garden conform to it, the statuary is tinted in accordance with it, and even the painters whose mural pictures adorn the courts and arches and the Fine Arts Rotunda were obliged to use his color series. The result gives such life and beauty and individuality to this Exposition as no other ever had. 1

It's a shame Mathews' superb talent should have been employed only in one panel. His "Victorious Spirit," a rich and noble composition, has certain enduring qualities which are not to be found in a single one of any of the others. Simply taken as a decoration, his picture is most effective by its richness of color,

It seems hardly possible to do adequate justice to the very unusual genius of Frank Brangwyn, who charms thousands of Exposition visitors with his eight panels, representing the Four Elements, in the Court of Abundance.

Nature is represented, in all the fecundity of the earth. Only in our wildest dreams, and only in the advertisements of California farm lands and orchards, do such grapes, pumpkins, pears, and apples exist.

The picture to the left shows the grape-treaders, in the old- fashioned and un- hygienic practice of crushing grapes by dancing on them in enormous vats. Others are seen gathering and delivering more grapes. As in the other picture, showing the harvest of fruit, more people are shown. Brangwyn never hesitates to use great numbers of people, which seem to give him no trouble whatever in their modeling and characterization.

Following on to the right, "Fire," represented as the primitive fire and as industrial fire, in two pictures, continues the scheme. That group of squatting woodmen carefully nursing a little fire is almost comical, with their extended cheeks, and one can almost feel the effort of their lungs in the strained anatomy of their backs. There does not seem to be anything too difficult for Brangwyn. "Industrial Fire" is interesting from the decorative note of many pieces of pottery in the foreground. They seem to have come from the kiln which muscular men are attending.

"Water" is unusually graceful and delicate in its vertical arrange- ment of trees and the curve of the fountain stream, coming from the side of a hill. Women, children, and men have congregated, taking their turn in filling all sorts of vessels, some carried on their heads, some in their arms. Brangwyn's clever treatment of zoölogical and botanical detail is well shown in flowers in the foreground, such as foxglove and freesia, and the graceful forms of a pair of pinkish flamingoes. In the other panel of the same subject, a group of men on the shore are hauling in their nets.

The last of the four, "Air," represents this element in two totally different ways; the one on the left gives the more tender, gentle movement of this element, in the suggestion of the scent of the bowmen screened by trees, moving toward their prospective prey, while the other very bold composition is of a windmill turned away from the destructive power of an impending windstorm. In the foreground people are rushed along by gusts of wind, while children, unaware of the impending storm, are flying kites. 2

(interesting, isn't it, to hear commentary from the moment, opinionated as it may be. the brangwyn murals still exist at san francisco's herbst theater. updates to follow. bibliography to follow.)