Black History: Do We Know It?

Was it last year that Hollywood was chastised for nominating mostly white actors for awards?  The media also berated Tinseltown was making too few movies about Americans of non-white races.  The U.S. movie industry hastened to prove it is not biassed...at least it would seem so by looking at the selection of the movies currently playing in the theater near you.  You can choose from Fences, I Am Not Your Negro, Moonlight, Loving and Hidden Figures and there are also Australian Lion and British A United Kingdom whose protagonists also are non-white. Movie theaters also may be doing their part to show these movies in honor of Black History Month. It is worth watching how long the trend will last.

I generally avoid Hollywood movies, but the subject of Hidden Figures had enough appeal to attract even a foreign movie junkie like me.  And it was not disappointing. Although formulaic like most Hollywood movies, it featured such charming characters that you could not but enjoy spending two hours in their company, cheering their victories. And perhaps more importantly, the movie sparked an interest in the real and fascinating history behind it.

The history of racism in the United States is much like the history of ethnic hatreds around the world.  In the civilized countries it is regulated by law and therefore less obvious, but it is always there, always present, simmering under the surface, waiting to bubble up.  Still, there have always and everywhere been people who are not racist, as we are reminded by Loving and A United Kingdom.

Filmmaker Kari Barber

Though I enjoyed Hidden Figures, the most fascinating black-themed movie I've seen this month is not one commercially made for entertainment, but a documentary that resulted from years of painstaking research, travel, interviewing and recording.  It is focused on the valiant efforts to save the remaining all-black towns in Oklahoma. I was lucky to see the film, titled Struggle and Hope thanks to my friendship with the filmmaker Kari Barber, an Oklahoma-born journalist, now a professor at the University of Nevada in Reno.

Few people know that Oklahoma once had at least 50 all-black towns and it hoped to become an all-black state. Even an Oklahoma-born journalist like Barber did not learn about it until later in life when she saw a blurb in a playbill for the Oklahoma musical, staged by Washington's Arena Theater.  "That part of history was not taught at schools," she told me. So Barber took interest and researched Oklahoma's black heritage.  She visited the remaining all-black towns and was amazed with what she learned. Only a dozen of those historic black towns remain today, some of them with no more than 25 residents who are struggling to survive.  They are building museums, organizing black rodeos and concerts, and raising funds online to pay their communities' debts and keep the towns on the map. A lot of time and effort without any guarantee of success.  Is it worth it? "I don't ever want to say that I was born and raised somewhere in the town that does not exist any more," said one woman in historic all-black town of Tallahassee in Oklahoma.  So yes, it is worth it if you are fighting to preserve your identity.

The Oklahoma land rush of 1889

Thanks to Barber's dedication, the project Struggle and Hope resulted in a series of web videos and finally a feature-length documentary summarizing the main themes. The film was launched in February in Oklahoma and will make a tour of independent film festivals in the United States and Europe where, I suspect, it will get more attention than here.  Europeans, who fell in love with the Wild West by watching Hollywood westerns and reading Zane Grey's books, will be interested in the real story behind the fiction they were fed during their youth. 

Oklahoma Rancher featured in Struggle and Hope

As the saying goes, history is written by the victors.  Most of the U.S. history books expound on the American War of Independence, the excellence of our "founding fathers", the Constitution, the Civil War, the abolition of slavery, the Civil Rights Movement and various steps in the fight to eliminate segregation. Only en passant do they mention that Jefferson, a principal writer of the Declaration of Independence, owned slaves and that his grand thoughts on liberty probably did not include them.

In recent years, more curious scholars have come up with less than shiny details about our great ancestors. Jefferson, it appears had a relationship with a black slave after the death of his wife, and had at least one child with her.  Very likely more, but he never acknowledged any.

One of the best history books that I have read in recent years is Nancy Isenberg's White Trash. Refreshingly, American people, including the poorest, play the main role in this book while the victors, the leaders and the wealthy only have supporting roles.  I'll let you read the book and make your own judgement, but one of the remarks that really opened my eyes had to do with the poor white people's attitude toward African Americans.  Isenberg or someone she quotes in the book noted that the most disadvantaged white people, those at the bottom rung of the social hierarchy, those often called "white trash," could accept their destiny a lot easier if they had someone else to look down on. In the past, they could look down on black slaves, today many choose to look down on non-white immigrants.

Oklahoma's Cowboy

Also recently, historians have pointed out that there have been all-black U.S. military battalions whose bravery in various battles has never been adequately recognized, and that there have been wealthy, accomplished and successful black businessmen in fields other than basketball, football and entertainment.  Stories about the role of other racial groups in the U.S. history also have begun emerging. But most textbooks still would have you believe that all the progress in this country has been achieved by the white race. African Americans are portrayed mostly as descendants of slaves whose whole heritage is nothing but fight against racism and discrimination.  

"There's so much that has been left out," said Barber. "There are so many stories that have not been told and, really, when we tell these stories, it makes us a richer country and it makes us appreciate and understand each other better." Barber hopes her film will inspire others to make books and movies that explore parts of the U.S. history that are missing from the textbooks.

Many of the movies shown this month do exactly that.  The question is whether there will be more of them after February ends.  I also wonder if any future remake of the classical Oklahoma musical will feature black cowboys.

http://www.voanews.com/a/3727900.html

Made in .... at home

Winter in Washington is really dull, especially from mid-January till mid-March. This year, the new administration will try to generate some energy into Washington's dreary winter with its inauguration spectacle, but who can get really excited about the Mormon Tabernacle Choir? Or any of the million-dollar balls? Except for being more glitzy, these crowded "galas" are about as stimulating as rehearsed American weddings. However, at least some goings-on stand out from the ordinary as the winter sets in.

Ford Motor Company created some sizzle this week when it announced it is scrapping the plan to build a new plant in Mexico and is expanding business at home. Although the move is carefully calculated and Ford is doing nothing to hurt its profits (its Mexico production continues as usual in an older Mexico plant ) the management gave some credit to the President-elect Donald Trump, for pressuring companies to keep jobs in the United States. Trump has since targeted more carmakers, but other U.S. companies making their goods in China, Mexico and elsewhere, are weighing the pros and cons of following Ford's suit. Even Apple is said to be looking into how much it would cost to move the production of its cell phones from China to the United States.

Attempts to promote local businesses are not new. In the past decades, the United States has seen a nationwide boom of farmers' markets selling locally grown produce. I found my first decent American tomato in one of those. And then there was American Apparel, formed in 1989, that branded its clothes as made in the U.S.A. But small farmers produce little and don't make significant profits and American Apparel went bankrupt in 2015, in part due to its relatively high labor costs. In my opinion, the bigger reason is that its garments are so unappealing there is no incentive to buy them when you can get more attractive and cheaper stuff at H&M or Zara. Whatever the reason, that company is not a role model to follow. 

Slogan "Made in the USA" could not save American Apparel

Regardless, the latest reports say Amazon now wants to buy the failing U.S. clothier. The question is why. The online retailer already is expected to surpass Macy's as the top U.S. garment seller in 2017. One reason may be to gain Trump's support (Amazon's founder Jeff Bezos has locked horns with Trump in the past) and another could be to appeal to the currently fashionable patriotic sentiment. American Apparel employs about 4,000 people and boasts of producing sweatshop free garments.  Buying an American Apparel T-shirt is akin to choosing a steak that is labeled as coming from a humanely raised cow.

But perhaps more importantly, Amazon is expanding from e-commerce into brick-and-mortar stores, with food and other goods, even books. (Ironically, the company that forced bookstores around the country to close is now opening its own). Most people like to try clothes before buying them and American Apparel already has retail stores throughout the country. If Amazon can rebuild the brand's image, it may be worth taking on its losses.

The United States is not alone in seeking ways to produce things close to home, although the trend is far from widespread. I was surprised recently by an article about Italian designer Brunello Cucinelli whose garments I remembered for their luxurious fabrics, sleek design and unaffordable prices. And they were unaffordable even in now-defunct discount stores such as Loehmann's and Filene's Basement, where I became familiar with the brand. 

Cucinelli vest on sale for $1,500, 40% off the original price

The article describes Italy's "king of cashmere" as someone who strives for quality not just in his products, but in the working lives of his employees. His business empire is based in the medieval village of Solomeo in the idyllic hills of central Italy. Cucinelli imports cashmere from China and Mongolia, but all his manufacturing is done in Italy. His factories are no sweatshops either. They are fitted with floor-to-ceiling windows so workers can enjoy the view.

“I don’t think it’s time wasted watching a bird in the sky when you are in the middle of sewing a button. On the contrary, nothing could be more beautiful,” he said in an interview. His workers get a 90-minute lunch break, go home at 5:30 PM and are not expected to check their office mail once they get home.

“Today in the world, we work too much. We are too connected and I don’t think that’s fair. I find that if I make you work too much, it’s like I’m stealing part of your soul,” said Cucinelli. Hmmm... Is something like that possible in the United States?  I am not sure any of my bosses care for the health of my soul.

Cucinelli Factory, Solomeo, Italy

Like American Apparel's employees, Cucinelli's are paid more than the industry's norm. But his business is thriving.  He has spent much of his profits in his village, helping renovate a 13th century castle and build a theatre, a library and an art school. According to the report, his brand has quadrupled in size in the past decade and his investors are not complaining either.

Cucinelli said it is important to return dignity to workers in western countries who feel they have been forgotten. The rise of Donald Trump and Brexit testify to the widespread dissatisfaction among Western workforces. But just giving them a job is not enough. 

"We cannot have companies that earn incredible amounts and our workers earning tiny sums to work 12 hours a day staring at a wall under an electric lamp. We have to put dignity back at the heart of our economic activity."

One of the main reasons for promoting local businesses is to improve the quality of life of local populations. As Cucinelli demonstrates, if you live where you work, you have a vested interest in making improvements in your community.  The luxury clothes designer is able to secure better living for his staff and contribute to his hometown by selling his high quality garments at extremely high prices. Not everyone can do that, but much can be learned from Cucinelli.

Trump won his way to the White House in large part by promising to keep manufacturing jobs in the United States. Companies such as Ford in Michigan and Carrier in Indiana have made small moves in that direction to see how it goes. But small moves are better than none. Michael Gilligan, a Ford employee in Dearborn said, "at least we get 500 to 700 jobs extra and we need that in our state, terribly."

By acquiring American Apparel, Amazon could save about 4,000 U.S. manufacturing jobs. But Amazon is a multinational company, and notoriously a harsh place to work.  Its employees have complained of being exploited - too often to be ignored.  If it does acquire American Apparel, Amazon would do well to invest in a fashion designer who can do better than H&M or Zara so its financial losses are not recuperated by exploiting the workforce.

L'amour de loin - et de près

If you like Pelleas et Melisande and Le roi Arthus, you will like L'Amour de loin, a turn-of-the century opera by Finnish composer Kaija Saariaho, which finally premiered at the Metropolitan Opera this season.  First seen at the Salzburg Festival in 2000 and two years later in Santa Fe, New Mexico, the story of a medieval troubadour in love with a woman he has never seen can easily be transported in today's era of virtual reality.

Robert Lepage's production, featuring ribbons with LED lights stretched across the stage to create a stylized version of the sea surface, was perfectly suited to contemporary music expression and overall feel of the work. Alas, they dressed Eric Owens in some sort of "princely" garb and stuck a lute in his hands to make him look more like a Latin American dictator than either a medieval prince or a modern day lover.

The production has been described as mesmerizing and dazzling, but I must admit that it was a little déjà vu for me. I also suspect that I would have enjoyed the radio broadcast more than I did the video simulcast. Except for Owens that is. If there ever was a person miscast for an operatic role both in looks and in sound, it was Owens in the role of Jaufré Rudel, a 12-th century troubadour from France.

We all remember the big hoopla about Deborah Voigt losing her signature role in a London production of Ariadne auf Naxos because of her size. The producers said they had envisioned an Ariadne in a mini skirt and our Debbie did not fit the image. The U.S. media screamed foul, but Voigt seemed to understand. Movie and theater directors audition hundreds of actors before choosing the one they deem best suited for the role. Why should opera be different? If we only needed the right voice, we could just have concert performances and do away with acting and sets.

Countess Clémence of Tripoli, the pilgrim and Prince Jaufré Rudel are the only characters in L'amour de loin, but there is also an excellent chorus à la grecque

With Owens, it's not just the size that's wrong- it's the whole persona. He was a powerful Alberich (Der Ring des Nibleungen) convincing, though not perfect Stephen Kumalo (Lost in the Stars) and an OK Orestes (Elektra). But a medieval prince he ain't, either to the eye or to the ear. On Saturday, Owens sounded more wobbly than I had ever heard him and his French was simply atrocious. There, I said it. Hence, I think he would have ruined the radio broadcast for me as well as the video simulcast. With the abundance of French baritones in today's operatic world, and Canadian Phillip Addis who sang the role recently, one wonders who decided on Owens for this production. 

Susanna Phillips, on the other hand, was well chosen and convincing as the countess d'Outremer.  Her  scaly dress made her look like a siren most of the time. Maybe it was intentional.

Saariaho’s opera has been described as “transfixing," "lushly beautiful," "groundbreaking," "haunting" and "elegiac," among other things. The libretto by Lebanese-born Amin Maalouf is simple: Prince Jaufré, a troubadour (based on a 12-th century character) in Aquitaine is tired of earthly pleasures and seeks something more transcendental. He finds it in his own imagination of a beautiful noble woman, Countess Clémence of Tripoli, described to him by a pilgrim. Clémence spent her infancy in Toulouse, and yearns to return there. From their respective shores, Jaufré and Clémence yearn for idealized images of something that may be different in reality.

Half-way across the sea on the way to meet his beloved, Jaufré gets cold feet and tells the pilgrim, "The sun shines beautifully from afar, but it burns you if you get close." The premise is reminiscent of a popular Serbian poem Strepnja by Desanka Maksimović in which she says that "joy is beautiful only while you wait for it" and that "everything shines like a star only from a distance."  She implores her lover not to come closer so she would not be disappointed. In this respect, Maalouf's story is almost identical to the Serbian poem. 

But while Maksimović wisely stops there, L'Amour de loin becomes cloyingly sentimental in its search for a conclusion and eventually veers off into religion. Jaufré becomes deathly ill during the sea voyage and dies upon meeting his dream woman. Dies happy - we are made to believe. She is brokenhearted, but says she will find consolation in loving from afar because after all, we love God from afar. Do we need that message? For me the story would have been more convincing and the opera more meaningful if the lovers had never met and continued to yearn for each other sight unseen. Or if they did meet only to realize they were idolizing a non-existing person. 

L'Amour the loin with its 21st century music and the Met's hi-tech production would be better matched with a contemporary story in which two people fall for each other (as many do these days) through the Internet. In some cases they later meet in person and really get to love each other. In others, one side has criminal intentions and the story ends tragically. But most people who "fall in love" online are simply disappointed when they meet the other party in person, and they politely tell each other good-bye. Eric Owens would fit perfectly in one such story.

Very often, real life stories are much more inspiring than the fictional ones.

Take for example American astronaut John Glenn, who died on Thursday, and his wife Annie. They knew each other since they were children. When they married (and naturally before that) she stuttered so badly that she would not go shopping except in places where she could pick up what she needed from the shelves.  Glenn was first a war hero, then after his 1962 flight into orbit became a world celebrity, and later a senator. He even ran for president in 1984. So for most of their married life he was a man of fame and power and she was low-profile. But he was a devoted husband and, as far as we know, the glory did not tempt him to stray from his wife.  

Annie underwent a successful treatment for her affliction when she was over 50 years of age. Until she was ready to step into the limelight, Glenn was fiercely protective of her.  The Washington Post on Friday quoted him as telling Annie after his return from the space, “Look, if you don’t want the vice president or the TV networks or anybody else to come into the house, then that’s it as far as I’m concerned.” 

“They are not coming in and I will back you up all the way and you tell them that! I don’t want (Lyndon) Johnson or any of the rest of them to put so much as one toe inside our house,” he said in a phone call upon landing.

They were married for 73 years. What a great love story! Forget L'Amour de loin.

*****
A clip from the Met's production:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XkhaI6Nv-8Y

Tristan und Isolde by Mariusz Treliński

Mariusz Treliński was movie-star good looking when I met him in the Kennedy Center foyer ahead of his first U.S. appearance in 2001. The acclaimed Polish film director had attracted the attention of then-Washington Opera director Placido Domingo with his innovative production of Puccini's Madama Butterfly in Poland and Domingo invited him to stage it in the U.S. That event changed Treliński's life forever. Since then he has directed operas in several major U.S. cities, and many others in various countries. His operatic journey has culminated with the production of Wagner's Tristan und Isolde for the opening of the Metropolitan Opera's new season.

Treliński's Butterfly was the first truly exciting opera production I had seen in Washington and, I thought, one with uniquely central European uncluttered esthetic. Although it is my least favorite opera, that one production of it remains memorable thanks to Treliński's genius.

In our interview that October of 2001, he told me (surprise, surprise) that the role of the opera director today is to make an old art form attractive to contemporary audiences, while retaining the original spirit of the work. He achieved that by making simple effects highly symbolic. Instead of recreating the early 20th century Nagasaki, he used lights to create images of shimmering water, boats silhouetted against the setting sun, the flow of Butterfly's blood. There were very few props. The stage was almost always bare, but never less than striking.

In a hitherto uncustomary prologue to the opening scene, three Polish mimes tiptoed over the dark and silent stage making grand theatrical movements at a slow pace as if performing some macabre dance. One of them slashed the air with a long knife. It was clear from their ominous expressions there will be no happy ending to the story.

The mimes reappeared throughout the opera in different roles - as servants, thieves, ghosts or spirits depicting Butterfly's moods - their movements and expressions reminiscent of the traditional Japanese kabuki theater. Similarly, Goro moved around the stage in bows and squats like an oversized sneaky cat with gestures and facial expressions that conveyed his shrewd and manipulative character better than words.

In the last highly symbolic scene the sky turned bright orange-red due to the eclipse of the sun. For Butterfly, the sun was gone with Pinkerton, said Treliński. "Butterfly sacrificed everything for the man she loved because she saw him as God. And that was her sin," he said. "Her excessive love for a man violated the first of the Ten Commandments."

The success of that production was such that Treliński got invited to return to Washington with his next creative endeavor, Andrea Chenier - also a very symbolic rendition, but in my view less focused and less memorable than his Butterfly. From the first act showing the nobility wrapped up in their cocoons (which I liked), the scene changed to something like an American country fair (which I didn't like), and the rest I forgot.

Treliński reappeared in the U.S. a few years later with productions of La Bohème and Don Giovanni that were not well received, and then I heard nothing of him, until he reappeared in New York in last season's spell-binding Met productions of Iolanta and Bluebird's Castle. The double bill performance made it crystal clear that during a decade and a half since his Butterfly in Washington, the Polish director had moved on. In his hands and Anna Netrebko's interpretation, the usually kitschy and pathetic princess Iolanta became a passionate young girl striving for independence and awareness. But it was in Bluebird's Castle, that Trelinski and his designer Boris Kudlička really outdid themselves. The double bill production was described as film noir, and seeing it in a movie theater as I did, was probably more impressive than seeing the live performance on account of the copious use of cinematic effects. Treliński believes that fairy tales always contain deeper levels and he is a master of unveiling them. He said he wanted the fairy-tale women to become real - the characters we can identify with. Both pieces were spectacularly successful, although for me Bluebird remains especially unique and unforgettable. It created a sense for the audience of being in a nightmare together with the performers. 

No wonder the Met snatched the talented Pole again for this season and this time with an offer he could not refuse. What can be more flattering for an opera director than an  invitation to present his vision of Tristan und Isolde and in no less than one of the world's top opera houses.

Photo: Ken Howard for the MetropolitanOpera

This time around the reviews were not unanimously complimentary. Some critics thought the modern warship setting and various video projections were unnecessary and distracting. One reviewer particularly hated references to Tristan's early loss of parents. None of this bothered me. I found Trelinski's contemporary setting as acceptable as any, and in an opera without too much action, an occasional appearance of Tristan's father's ghost, or some image from his childhood did not take away anything from the beauty of the music or from the central theme. The military costumes were not a novelty either. In fact, I was surprised to find this production of Wagner's work a lot less revolutionary than expected from such an innovator as Trelinski.

Still, his interpretation did reveal at least one new layer of Tristan for me. While for years I watched the opera as a great love story, this Saturday at a movie theater I saw it for the first time as an opera about death. Partly, it must have been due to the dark setting which highlighted all the talk about hating daylight and embracing night, and seeking relief in the blackness of the netherworld. But I am sure the shift in my perception was a great deal due to the protagonists who in this performance were anything but lovers. I have never been Nina Stemme's fan and no amount of imagination or goodwill on my part could turn Stuart Skelton into Tristan. To make matters worse, there was zero chemistry between the two. The only interpreters worth sitting through four hours of this opera were Ekaterina Gubanova, a convincing and lovable Brangäne - the best I've ever seen - and René Pape as dignified King Marke. Gubanova also never looked better. Neil Cooper's Melot was noteworthy, although less so.

Tristan und Isolde may be about death, but it is still primarily about star-crossed lovers - definitely not about their companions and relatives, and so despite Trelinski's effort and overall decent singing, this production fell flat.

Georgia O'Keeffe in London

A Facebook photo by a friend from London alerted me to a major Georgia O'Keeffe exhibit in London's Tate Gallery.  Advertisements call it "a unique opportunity to discover one of the greatest American female artists, since there are currently no works by O’Keeffe in public collections in the UK." My friend, an acclaimed contemporary painter, said the photographs of O'Keeffe made by her husband Alfred Stieglitz were more interesting to him than her paintings. I was not surprised.  When I first learned about O'Keeffe, I though her gigantic paintings of flowers were like blown-up photographs suitable for posters in kitschy home decor.  On a trip to the Southwest in the 1990s, I was primarily interested in visiting Apache and Navajo reservations. O'Keeffe's home, her ranch and her museum in New Mexico, were items to see en passant. 

I was particularly intrigued by Abiquiu, an ancient Indian pueblo settled in the 18th century by the Spaniards. The original settlement, named after its church Santa Rosa de Lima de Abiquiu, was created as a buffer zone between the Spaniards under the Mexican government and hostile Indian tribes further north. The present day Abiquiu, named Santo Tomas Apostel de Abiquiu, was built 5 kilometers away on the site of the ancient Tewa pueblo to house captive and orphaned Indians from various Nomadic tribes. They were Christianized and taught Spanish, even intermarried with Spaniards, and soon forgot their origins if they had ever known them. After a wild Indian raid, the Santa Rosa settlement was deserted and the remaining residents joined their neighbors at Santo Tomas. Since then, Abiquiu has been populated by the descendants of those those Indians and Spaniards, a uniquely New Mexican ethnic strain, called Genizaros (derived from the word janissaries, the name for elite infantry units in the medieval Ottoman army). When Georgia O'Keeffe moved there in the 1940s she was the only out-of-state resident in the small adobe village.

The historic Abiquiu took some time and effort to find, and when I arrived at its gates after a bumpy ride on a winding dirt road, I felt like an intruder.  There was an iron entrance gate, barely ajar, and the sign above it said something like: you are entering the historic Abiquiu, please be quiet. Maybe these were not the exact words, but it felt like the message was "turn around and go back where you came from".  I could imagine the gate being locked at night. There were no directions to Georgia O'Keeffe's house and no tourists wondering around. Abiquiu was like a ghost city. I entered the first open door I saw off the main plaza, which took me into the Galería de Don Cacahuate.  At my "anybody there" shout the owner came up from the back - a local wood carver Leopold Garcia, a bearded guy with a raspy voice, looking to be in his early 40s.  As luck would have it, he was a real font of information about Abiquiu and its most famous resident. 

"My father used to be the chauffeur to Georgia O'Keeffe. My grandfather did all the construction work for Georgia O'Keeffe. I grew up around Georgia O'Keeffe. She visited our house a lot," Garcia told me.  I could believe that. Garcia's gallery and his home were right across the street from O'Keffee's home, which turned out to be closed when I was there. 

So what was she like? "A lot of people in the village liked her," said Garcia. "A lot of people didn't, because she was an outsider and she kept to herself like I do." Hmm... does this have anything to do with the unusual welcome sign at the village gate? Garcia became a little defensive.  "How would you feel if strange people came to your house and peered inside through your windows?"  OK, OK, I understand. The historic Abiquiu village is a small community of people who have lived there for generations like a family, on privately owned land. Their isolation on a hilltop off Highway 84 was somewhat disturbed by the arrival of the East Coast celebrity. According to some biographers, O'Keeffe never learned Spanish and because of her black robes, a walking stick and wild animal skulls she collected and painted, many called her "la bruja", the witch. But the Genizaros of Abiquiu have traditionally accepted and sheltered newcomers, especially those in need, like other displaced Americans (they just don't like tourists), and so they lived in peace with the late artist.

St Tomas Apostle Church in Abiquiu, NM

Despite her fame, it is not O'Keefe that comes to mind when I think of Abiquiu.  It is instead its oldest resident, the mythical Don Cacahuate, or Mr. Peanut of the woodcarver's gallery name. According to New Mexican folk history, Don Cacahuate was born in Santa Rosa de Lima de Abiquiu on the banks of the Chama River and was among those who moved to the Indian pueblo of Santo Tomas Apostel de Abiquiu in the mid-17-hundreds. According to legend, he still lives there today. (Maybe that's why the villagers don't want you to peer through their windows).

Don Cacahuate is a typical Abiquiu Genizaro, but also a respected and influential leader in village affairs. His wife, Dona Lagrima a Causa de Cebola (Mrs. Teadrop Caused by Onion) is a model of domestic industry in the Hispano-Indian mold of northern New Mexico. The Cacahuates live and grow with their village and their times. So when New Mexico came under Anglo-American rule in 1846, the exemplary don showed no resistance to the newcomers because the village badly needed protection from nomadic raiders. Language was the only major cause of misunderstanding between the Spanish-speaking residents and the English-speaking rulers. In order to foster cooperation with the curious strangers and serve as a good role model to villagers, Don Cacahuate decided to give his newly born son an English name. He picked the one he most often heard the Anglo-Americans call each other - Sonofabitch.

Very little is known, however, as to how Don Cacahuate reacted when the famous American painter bought a home in Abiquiu. Garcia said she was good with local children even though she did not have any of her own. She also helped pay for some improvements in the village. So it is likely that she was in good graces with a community elder such as Don Cacahuate.

Strange as it may seem, it's the folk tale character that warmed me up to O'Keeffe and made me pay more attention to her work. I have found since then that there is more to it than the oversized flowers. But it is also clear that O'Keeffe is a quintessentially American artist, one whose work does not immediately impress a European art connoisseur. So it does not surprise me that there are "no works by O’Keeffe in public collections in the UK." Ironically, the Tate calls her one of the great American "female painters", a label she would surely hate.

O'Keeffe wanted nothing to do with the feminist movement and always stressed that she was a painter - not a female painter. As time goes by, her star refuses to dim and her name is getting big enough to attract crowds in galleries worldwide. No doubt many institutions and art collectors  (or should I say art investors?) would like to buy a piece of her art. It is questionable though whether American owners would sell any. The Georgia O'Keefe's Museum in Santa Fe has attracted 3 million visitors since it opened in 1997, and a good chunk of northern New Mexico, where she also had a ranch, is now called Georgia O'Keeffe Country. People still travel to the southwestern U.S. for its spectacular vistas and its unique Indian pueblos, but many are attracted by just one famous name, and I am afraid it's not Don Cacahuate, much that I would like it to be.

The Age of Vulgarity

A friend from Zagreb forwarded me a blog written by a famous Croatian author and blogger, known for her astute, even if somewhat one-sided social commentaries, but more famous in and out of Croatia for her extremely vulgar language and primitive style. She is popular among the ordinary as well as educated people, who praise her expression as honest, straightforward and accessible. Yet, my friend sent this writer's latest blog as an example of how low the society has sunk when such crude scribbling attracts the widest following, while decent magazines and newspapers fold up one after another.

When we were growing up, one of the must-have books in every middle-class Croatian family was the one widely known as Bonton, regardless of what its real title was. From that book we learned how to behave at dinner table or in the office, how to dress for casual or formal occasions and in general how to be polite. Proper manners were an expression of respect for people around us. The bonton (originating from the French le bon ton) instructed that under no circumstances can you yawn in public, use rude language in a conversation, boast about your success and possessions, or insult other people. It advised that you should not shout to another person across the table or across the street, or laugh in a way that makes other people wince. Arriving to a theater dressed in casual clothes was unthinkable. In other words, bonton required a degree of control over your speech and behavior, and if you slipped, you were embarrassed and apologetic. Even more finesse was required in written expression.

Slowly and imperceptibly the bonton disappeared from our lives and if anyone still has the book, it's a rare antiquity. It is hard to tell when exactly the "modern" Croatian literature began introducing some of the street language into writing. At first the crudity was sparsely used for the sake of "authenticity". But writers soon began competing in their striving for "authenticity" and the trend has ballooned to such proportions that today no piece of fiction can earn serious regard unless it contains descriptions of bodily functions in the most disgusting terms and imagery that makes you vomit unless you have a very tough stomach. Since literature is supposed to reflect real life, readers have embraced it as normal, realistic and colorful. If they haven't, they would not admit it at gunpoint for fear of being labeled as prudish, backward or (godforbid) uncultured. An egregious example of such literature in Croatia is Miljenko Jergović's award-winning novel Dvori od oraha (The Walnut House), which opens up with a scene in which a sick old woman screeches in a foul language, wallows in her own excrement and causes mayhem in her home - a description of which needs to be read in the original for the full impact. Jergović has been enthroned as Croatia's top contemporary novelist, according to some critics destined for the Nobel Prize in literature. His rival Ivan Aralica responded with a novel eloquently titled Fukara (a vulgar term for low-class, semi-criminal population segment), with much less success. I haven't read the book, but can only assume that he was not able to beat Jergović in vulgarity.

Don't get me wrong; I am not criticizing real-life imagery in literature, or the use of explicit language. I am balking at the application of the ugliest, derogatory terms, used only for their shock value.  Like cayenne pepper, vulgarity can be spicy in small doses. Too much of it kills the flavor. In daily communication dirty words and terms intended to cause disgust are used rarely and most often anonymously (like in reader comments to political articles). Peppering fiction liberally with filthy  language implies that such discourse is widespread and common, which is completely untrue in most societies.

The spread of vulgarity is not a Croatian phenomenon, I hasten to assure my friend in Zagreb, who is an arbiter of elegance and good taste. Just look at our presidential candidates, and the public response to them! The naked "statues" of Donald Trump that recently showed up in several U.S. cities are the epitome of poor taste. They were meant to humiliate Trump, but they really humiliate those who came up with the idea, those who gleefully leered at the ugliness, and those who spread the images all over the social media. Trump does not need to be humiliated more than he has already humiliated himself, multiple times, before the statues were out, by calling his rival "crooked" Hillary, liar and co-founder of a terrorist group. What man uses such foul words to degrade a woman? He could have conveyed the same thoughts in a civilized idiom. Men still have too much power over women to be permitted to dispense with manners when dealing with them. But knowing what language would have the most impact on voters he seeks to attract, Trump opted to act low-class.

The kind of communication that was once reserved for gang members, pimps and riff raff is now mainstream and acceptable. It's interesting that in the country where certain words are completely banned lest they should offend someone; in the country that's polemicizing about the correctness of a football team's name, it is perfectly OK to sling mud at political opponents and other enemies, while decent manners are expendable.

I work in a place where people yawn with their mouth wide open and so loudly that you can hear them from one end of the office to the other (about the width of a street block), they shout to one another from several cubicles apart over the heads of co-workers who are trying to focus on their task, and they can pierce your ears at any given moment with screeching or howling laughter. The dress code is so unconventional that the clothes are often just one step away from the pajamas.

None of this is considered to be rude. Rudeness is if you dare to point out that such behavior bothers you. Some time ago, I took the Metro home from a theater performance. While I was reading the playbill and contemplating various interpretations I had just seen, a group of teenage girls entered the train and dispersed around to the remaining free seats. They yelled to one another across the carriage and over the passengers' heads and (naturally) no one complained. Neither did I until one girl sitting behind me shouted right into my ear. I turned around and asked quietly: "Are you hard of hearing?" There were several seconds of "dead air" - deafening silence - while the shocked girl wondered if she heard me right. The others, noting her distress from the distance shouted: "What sheee said?" When the outraged girl explained, a pandemonium ensued that would be hard to describe. The girls, who happened to be black, took my remark to be an insult to their race. Their anger knew no bounds. Furious screams - "We ain't slaves no more" and "I hate white people" - remain indelible in my memory.  The upheaval did not stop until the screamers had to exit. Sorry girls, but it was your noise that bothered me, not the color of your skin.

The decline of decorum and absence of shame in public domain today know no bounds. I am still trying to discern why a group of Olympic medalists would want to vandalize toilets in a hosting country. And why a judo player would refuse to shake hands with his opponent. And why a married politician, caught texting pictures of his genitals to various women, would want to run for office again.

Vulgarity was understandably attractive when it was limited to certain circles and represented "forbidden fruit" to mainstream society.  In small doses it added zest to art, literature and casual conversation. But now that it has reached a point where it threatens to occupy the Oval Office, what's forbidden about it? I am keeping my fingers crossed that the day is near when elegance in word and manner becomes the new tantalizing apple that everyone wants to pluck.
*****

http://www.nytimes.com/2016/05/26/fashion/office-fashion-uniforms.html?_r=0

All You Need to Know About Hacking

As the FBI is investigating a possible damage to the Democratic Party following what is widely believed to be a Russian hacking attempt on the the Democratic National Committee’s computers, I am investigating an unusual "interest" in my blog  -  in Russia. Several times in the past year or so, the statistics page on my blog showed a disproportionate number of "views" from Russia, at one point 700 in a week.  At first I thought: wow, these people really like culture, because that's mostly what I write about. But after the DNC hacking scandal, I paid a little more attention, and noticed that the most targeted blogs were the most popular ones, not the latest ones. So I suspected hacking. Really, why would anyone in Russia be interested in my review of the Santa Fe summer opera program from two years ago? Or even in my opinion on Philip Glass?  I do not write about Russia or any topic that might be of particular interest to the Russians.  So the question is what could they be looking for?

Greg Virgin, President & CEO of Redjack,
Network Security Company

I got some light on the issue from local network security expert Greg Virgin (anyone surprised he looks so young?) who analyzed my blog and found, among other things, that I was getting hits from Iraq, which never showed up in my traffic-sources page, and that "22% of the US connections are legitimate, the rest are illegitimate."

Greg explained that "illegitimate" doesn’t mean it's hacking, but that it is not legitimate search engine activity. "People spamming your site. You couldn’t imagine what your inbox would look like if you didn’t have the built-in spam blocking you get from most mail providers."

Hmmm.... so hacking is what we need to worry about, spamming not so much.  More answers from Virgin: 

1. Why do people hack ? 

The popular phrase coined more than 15 years ago is “for fun and profit.”

On the “good” side, there is a community of people who do it just for fun, another for research and development and “white hats” who do it so they can report vulnerabilities to individuals and organizations before they are exploited.

Then you have your “black hat” hackers who use hacking in criminal endeavors. This is usually who people are talking about when they discuss hackers. This group takes quite a few forms, from organized crime, nation states, organizations like Anonymous, and people working alone. They tend to make their $ off of extortion and theft of data. Most common is corporate espionage and identity theft.

2. What are some of the most egregious examples of successful hacking?
I am very concerned wit the fraud campaigns aimed at our elderly population. Both the fraud and the population are growing. I have met an FBI agent who does nothing but chase criminals around the world who are doing this to our parents and grandparents.

Typically these are spam campaigns that play off of personal information and the victim’s lack of understanding of technology. An email is sent, usually based on information openly harvested from the Internet, claiming to be a family member needing help, requesting a visit to a site or a payment. These are incredibly successful campaigns and aren’t getting enough attention.

I don’t have a lot of data to cite because the data isn’t being published too widely. I trust my sources though.

3. Who are the hackers?
Well, there is a big community of white hat “ethical hackers” out there doing research and following the rules. Then you’ve got your “gray hats” doing the same thing the white hats are doing only they are openly publishing people’s private vulnerabilities publicly or taking control of a jeep because they think it’s funny.

Then you’ve got your individuals who are, most likely, trying to steal credit card numbers or site credentials and sell them. Or otherwise profit from them.

Then you’ve got your organized groups:

“Hactivists” - Groups like Anonymous trying to affect social change (which is often very misguided)
Organized crime groups - there are some famous ones in Eastern Europe
Intelligence agencies - US, Russia, China are very prominent right now

4. What countries have the most hackers and why?
I don’t think we can say who has the most hackers. Historically, attacks are launched from China, Russia, Netherlands, and Brazil, as well as US Universities. This is because they are large and powerful networks built on government funds without a whole lot of attention to security or hygiene.

5. Are various Facebook games part of hacking? I am talking about various quizzes, such as Which country should you live in, What were you in your previous life, What nationality you look like, and similar.

Those are more about ad revenues than anything else. Historically, you don’t want to be clicking around pornographic sites without really good security. There are other “shady” parts of the Internet where you can get your browser hacked. For the most part, our paranoia about sharing personal information with sites like those are actually overblown. Sites that mine your personal information for profit, like Google, aren’t directly exploiting you. I’m still against a lot of that activity though.

Everyone should remove flash from their browser and use Firefox or Chrome.

6. How can you tell if your Facebook, Google, e-mail, Twitter or any other account is hacked?
That’s really tough. Typically someone finds out for us. Check your accounts for unusual activity I guess...

7. What can you do to prevent it?
Sign up for 2-factor authentication on every site you login to, and maybe stop using the ones that don’t support it.  See https://twofactorauth.org

If you get a text message confirmation when you try to sign into your Facebook from a computer you don’t usually use, you’re doing it right.

Greg Virgin is the founder and president of Redjack, a network security company providing analyses and solutions for protecting your internet space, based in Silver Spring, Maryland. More at   http://www.redjack.com

At Las Vegas annual hacking conference (August 4-7) hundreds of vendors hawked products to those worried about being hacked

While I am still digesting the basic information, the news on hacking developments are cropping up by the hour:

https://www.wired.com/2016/08/oh-good-new-hack-can-unlock-100-million-volkswagens/

http://www.businessinsider.com/hacking-conferences-paranoia-2016-8

I am trying not to get paranoid or I won't be able to do Christmas shopping online.

We Live In a Connected World

If you find yourself despairing over daily reports of mass shootings, bombing attacks, mass migration, global warming and other disasters - take a deep breath and relax. The world is not as bad as it seems even though it is hard to believe. Obama last week reminded us, as he usually does in his calm and reassuring manner, that we have never lived in a world that's more peaceful, prosperous and connected than today. Scoff all you want, but hard facts and statistics prove him right.

Last Friday, I went to see a movie knowing it would be terrible as all summer movies are. But after a lovely dinner and a couple of creative cocktails at True Food in Northern Virginia's Mosaic District, it was still too hot to drive home, so my friend and I headed for a late night movie at Angelika Pop Up  (why does it have such a weird name?). Per my friend's  suggestion (I had none since one summer movie is as bad as another for me) the pick was Absolutely Fabulous, an absolutely hideous British movie - a depressing comedy about two aging women. I knew it was too much to hope that it might contain dry British humor of a bygone era. Today, movies are made to appeal to audiences worldwide and humor is notoriously hard to translate. Hence no subtlety. What goes for "funny" today is uncontrolled burlesque with an unending chain of slapstick gags in unrealistic settings, overblown confusion, preposterous plots and nightmarish situations. Joanna Lumley, who was unforgettable in a cameo performance in Me Before You, was too much of a good thing in Mandie Fletcher's AbFab.

Jennifer Saunders and Joanna Lumley in 'Absolutely Fabulous: The Movie.'

While this was to be expected from a movie comedy, it was more than a little disappointing to get a repeat experience the very next evening at Wolf Trap. The revival of Florian Gassmann's L'opera seria at the Barns turned the 18th century opera into a modern-day burlesque, i.e. something overblown and tiresome. Gassmann and his libretist Ranieri de' Calzabigi made a parody of Metastasian opera, with a score that pokes fun at the conventions of the genre: flowery passages, high drama, exaggerated emotions. But the Wolf Trap Opera's creative team led by Matthew Ozawa turned what was supposed to be light satire into a wild rollercoaster ride, which not everyone enjoyed.

The plot is relatively familiar (we've seen it in the much more famous Ariadne auf Naxos): a theater company is staging a fictional opera (a serious one) titled L'Oranzebe, featuring a conquering hero, a captured princess, and a rival princess. But it has a large enough number of characters to make a never-before-seen opera hard to follow. There are stereotype prima donnas, fighting for the producer's attention and their mothers rooting for their respective daughters. There is an equally puffed-up tenor and there is a composer, a librettist, a prompter and a manager - all with ridiculous names.  The insecure composer is Sospiro (Sigh); the light-headed librettist is Delirio (that one does not need a translation); the bankrupt impresario is Fallito (Failed); the leading tenor is Ritornello (a Baroque music feature); and the three sopranos are Stonatrilla (Out-of-Tune), Smorfiosa (Simpering), and Porporina (Purple-faced).

Composer, tenor and diva in Wolf Trap's production of L'opera seria

The first two acts are set in modern costume and deal with developments leading to the opening night. Act III is the opera within the opera, presented in an over-the-top Baroque style - dresses with wide hoops (making me realize how well those panniers hid oversized hips and unshapely legs; a man could have a nasty surprise on his wedding night), huge powdered wigs, plumed hats and fans as well as the oriental garb and a cardboard elephant on the "conquered" side.

The "performance" is interrupted by loud booing and heckling from the disgruntled audience – played by members of the production strategically planted around the auditorium. When a pandemonium erupts and the opera singers flee, the dancing master pacifies the audience with a balet perfromance. On the sidelines, performers and producers bicker and gossip until Sospiro barges in with the news that the manager is bankrupt and no one will get paid.

The Wolf Trap Opera is to be commended for the innovative programs, originality of productions and fresh voices offered every summer. In Saturday's performance all the singers were appealing although my personal favorites were Alasdair Kent as Ritornello, Amy Owens as Porporina and Christian Zaremba as Passagallo.  An especially remarkable novelty for me was the first Middle Eastern name I've ever seen in a local opera production: Mohammed Badawi portraying Young Indian Prince.

L'opera seria had all of the Wolf Trap company's signature traits, and it was mostly fun to watch. But in the end, the overblown parody became predictably tiresome. The humor would have been much more effective with fewer well placed gags than a multitude of forced ones. Gassmann's opera has been described as "gently satirical, but never cynical" and as having "a warmth that speaks to us." Ozawa took the opportunity to ridicule operatic drama to the extreme. His production reflects what many Americans (and others) today feel about opera - that it is too far removed from reality and silly. One could hope that people in the profession would feel differently. But I've heard today's sopranos say they don't understand Aida's decision to die with her lover in a tomb or Butterfly's to give up her child and commit suicide. The general attitude is: why don't they move on? Not to mention the ridicule heaped on the plot of Il trovatore, especially the mother throwing the wrong child in the fire. Small wonder the best interpretations of these masterpieces remain in the past when singers identified with their roles and believed in them. 

But as always, there is hope. The Middle East is soon to get its first opera written in Arabic and on Middle Eastern themes. Maroun Rahi, composer, conductor and founder of Opera Lebanon decided to offer the local audience something more original than Carmen or La boheme and he teamed up with librettist Antoine Maalouf to create an opera written specifically for the Arabic language. Rahi says it will be a turning point in the Arabic culture.

John Owens for VOA, Antar and Abla

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=27K-jZIVhao

http://www.operalebanon.org/opera/antar-abla

The work, Antar and Abla, is based on an ancient Arabic poem about love, honor and treachery - all good opera material. Local performers are likely to identify with their roles better than with characters in a western opera. Rahi hopes the first of its kind opera will eventually reach major international stages. In this new connected world his wish will likely get fulfilled.