I found myself mysteriously attracted by the pigment
in this kind of red…
You can give it a number,don it a code, paint it on nails,
wear it on lips or eyelids,
stamp it on paper under a fingertip, or bury it in your memory…
It will still be the same kind of red, will it not?
Take a closer look at the wall on the stage in this picture of beautiful Angela Gheorghiu.
It seems to be the same kind of red, doesn’t it?
Listen to “Love is Blindness”
on an album in this colour.
Can you hear the same kind of red?
Feel your heart beat. Is it the same kind of red pumping in your chest?
What does time smell like?
In a world devoid of senses, let the tip of your tongue taste fear.
What kind of red does it taste like?
When one by one, the senses leave you, what is left?
Imagine dying in a world without senses. It seems a cruel fantasy, doesn’t it?
Imagine being born without senses. What kind of reality does this spell?
Whether imagined or excruciatingly real, as it sometimes is, living with or without senses has the same kind of answer. Love. One and the same.
Feel it, savour it, nourish it, absorb it into your lungs, wash your body in its aura, dive in its seas, relax in its softness, fade away in its grace.
Today, on what is deemed to be the international Day of Poetry, I happened to have a meeting with one of my students, Mariusz Walczak, who translated to me from Polish an interview with Zadie Smith taken after the Czeslaw Milosz Literature Festival, and published in the first issue of the book magazine “Ksiazki” in July, last year.
Zadie Smith and Alina Alens (Photo by Tomasz Wiech)
While discussing the questions, answers and several inevitable translation issues as we went through the interview, I was brought back to the meeting with Romanian writer Gabriela Adamesteanu in Krakow 7 days ago, on the occasion of the release of her novel, “Dimineata pierduta”, in Polish translation “Stracony Poranek”, albeit across three languages – Polish, English, and Romanian -, a linguistic reality I am by now familiar with, by force of circumstance.
Both authors happened to be, in 2011 and last week, at their second visit to the city of Krakow. As a temporary city resident since late 2006, I was fortunate to meet them both, exchange a few words, and offer each of them a copy of my book of poems “The Incomplete Fantasy We Call Love”.
To paraphrase Zadie Smith – via Mariusz’s translation that I am grateful for , Thank you, Mariusz!, we live in a world that favours non-fiction/ the things that actually happen(ed), over fiction/ the things that occur(ed) in an author’s imagination, a world in which people have lost their patience for being guided into fictional worlds of sorts – all except, maybe, some educated elites within the contemporary reading public. Is it a stretch of the imagination to say that living in one’s head as a self-exploring writer nowadays is more than a risky business, verging on a kind of self-imposed social isolation?
Asked what type of literature she prefers to write, Zadie Smith gives a two-fold answer, saying that she writes articles, essays and reviews requested by various publications for practical reasons and with immediate results, whereas writing a novel is a much more unpredictable endeavour. That is because while writing a novel a writer can dive in and disappear for what can sometimes end up to be years. Gabriela Adamesteanu is, in her turn, well-known for her non-fictional review and article writing in the Romanian cultural press. When asked if her non-fiction writing sometimes blends into her fiction, she asserted that, even though the research for certain articles could work to the advantage of something she writes, the fictional worlds stand alone, uniquely anchored in the imagination, no palpable reality strings attached.
The greater part of the interview with Zadie Smith, as well as the greater part of the meeting with Gabriela Adamesteanu, rested in a talk on different aspects and qualities of literary speech, in other words, on the mechanics of the dialogue that the literary characters engage in. According to Zadie Smith, there are three categories of writers when it comes to the art of dialogue, which she does not see as an outdated strategy for building characters: there are writers like J. D. Salinger, who write sparkling, natural dialogues with ease and perfect intuition, writers whose characters tend to sound like themselves (in terms of humour, tone, concepts, phrasing and the like), which lends them a certain artificial quality, like the School of Saul Bellow, and writers like John Updike, for whom dialogue is nothing complicated, and who tend to always preserve and observe a certain thesis behind their characters’ speech. Each category of characters created by these three types of writers is different, some being kept willingly diverse, others remaining homogenous. In the case of Gabriela Adamesteanu, the characters of her novel released in Polish translation last week refuse to remain homogenous, and their language, the main topic of that and many other literary meetings, we were told, spanned the Romanian social hierarchy from its very top to its very bottom, in a manner that has made it such a daring challenge for any translator, and so true to the reality of the Romania of the inter- and post-war period, that the author herself confessed that when she thought of her book being one day translated into another language, that possibility was as far from reality (as she saw it) as astronomically possible.
In writing the text of the five scenes of the play “Born A Foreigner” for the Talking About Borders international drama competition, over two weeks before December 21st, 2011 – coincidentally a year before the Mayans predicted end of the world, I myself was confronted with the challenge of creating strong, independent characters with voices of their own, while prserving the intended meaning of their sentences. The most challenging character voice in the play was Wido’s, as he is a character whose English, the original language the play was written and meant to be acted in, is not very good, so that the risks involved in illustrating his linguistic limitations proved very high. “Is the character’s language that bad, or does this author have no clue about how to write?” became the question. As “Born a Foreigner” was written as a play, I decided to use correct language and, instead of inserting pauses and mistakes, I (subsequently) added introductory notes in which I advise the actor playing Wido to improvise and reduce the language of the character as he sees fit:
ACTORS’ NOTES:The language used by Wido, Alta, and Nomura in order to communicate is not their mother tongue. The original language of the play is English, which Alta and Nomura have a good knowledge of. Wido’s knowledge of this language (or the language the play is translated in), on the other hand, is more limited than the other two characters’. Therefore, the actor playing Wido’s part has to make use of pauses, hesitations, or mistakes and insert involuntary linguistic inaccuracies while communicating. The texts of the two scenes of Act 1 include the lines that Wido would have used if he had spoken English (or the language the play is translated in) well. Each of Wido’s lines is subject to alteration. As a result, Alta and Nomura’s lines may also undergo changes. Wido’s linguistic difficulties remain consistent throughout the play, throughout Act 1 and Act 4, respectively. In spite of language mistakes, the general impression conveyed by the two scenes of Act 1 is one of apparently successful communication.
Clever trick? Lazy writer who makes life hard for the actor who happens to play Wido and the director who happens to direct the play? May the audience decide. I am ready for any outcome, as I assume each of the writers passing through Krakow might be, should they decide to have their words performed on stage. When Gabriela Adamesteanu’s “Wasted Morning” was put on stage in 1987 by Catalina Buzoianu, it became a cultural centre of interest at a time when the Ceaușescu regime had entered its more repressive phase. I promise to be back with impressions from the first performance of “Born A foreigner”, in Poland or elsewhere there are still skin colour lessons to be learnt. For now, I am just passing through, from winter into spring, from circles of silence into other circles of silence, in this border-line fictional world of the blogosphere.
“The Caliph’s loneliness persisted despite the procession of virgins who filled his bed and were sacrificed each day. And because he never had anyone with whom to share his unhappiness, he kept his disillusionments secret.”
(Voices of the desert, p. 34)
Trapped by the eye of the camera, the eyes of her viewers, and her own sensuous beauty, Marilyn. Only the eyes visible, the livelihood of her tales the most valued of her talents, Scheherazade. Two different destinies, two different paths, exquisitely recreated in Simon Curtis’ movie, My Week with Marylin (2011), and in the literary rendition of Scheherezade, Voices of the Desert (2004), by Nelida Pinon.
Reality and myth confront one another and often clash with repercussion in both directions – that of the authentic ego (that can be touched) and the one created and maintained as an alter ego by the simple act of gazing or ear lending, most often in completely different ways, the image, legend or myth assuming a more pervasive aura than the human being behind it. Human physical frailty is key, as neither image – the one enticing viewers on the screen and the one enticing the Caliph from under the veil – can give measure to the two women’s complex nature.
“People always see Marilyn Monroe. As soon as they realize I’m not her, they run.” (quoted from the movie)
“Her heart is not always bound to the tales she relates. Her desire is to one day resume life outside the palace walls, to be free of the burden of storytelling.” (Voices of the Desert, p. 24)
It is through such rifts that personal discontent and suffering well up – even though each of thewomen do their best to keep them hidden from the world. And yet – fortunately, or, at times, less so -, their instinctive talents prevail in spite of physical adversity. In order to keep their image alive, each woman sacrifices something. With Marilyn, it is her need to be loved and find fulfillment as a mother and wife. Scheherezade, on the other hand, for whom the “Caliph’s cruelty shines before [her] eyes” (p. 30), wants nothing more than to stop the chain of cruelties he inflicts on women at the cost of her own life and, in storytelling, at the cost of her own individuality.
“[T]o lend credibility to her task, she tries to free herself of the signs of her individuality. Her deeper being is not at issue.” (p. 30)
Throughout the shooting of “The Prince and the Showgirl”, Marilyn struggles with the character she has to play, unable to perform any lines until she herself can find them credible. She, too, has to lose herself in the character she plays, abandon human subjectivity to an icon figure. Added to the daily delays and the constant need for repetition, her desire for perfection in performing prompts Sir Lawrence Olivier to confide in Colin Clark that “directing a movie is the best job ever created, but [that] Marilyn has cured [him] of ever wanting to do it again.” As Colin Clark tells Marilyn in a previous scene, “It’s agony because he’s a great actor who wants to be a film star, and you’re a film star who wants to be a great actress. This film won’t help either of you.”
On the human side, working with Marilyn did not help turn back time, either, in spite of Sir Lawrence Olivier’s hopes – and his own wife’s worst fears. However, when each return to acting – in plays and movies -, they prove to be more stunning than ever before.
In her turn, Scheherezade “felt distressed by the pressure of her talent. She didn’t care about praise[.] This did not stop her on certain occasions from swelling with pride, only to regret at once the arrogance that could poison her.” One way to alleviate this oppression and calm herself came from “the ancient practice of hiding lightly scented messages beneath the colorful pillows scattered about the house” (p. 25), notes that her sister, Dinazarda, tried to find and decipher, to no avail.
“As a whole, the notes, because of their cryptic nature, meant nothing. They were but papyrus, useful only for Scheherezade to elaborate some story ready to blossom under her wit.” (p. 26)
Telling stories hidden behind a veil and personifying female sensuality with innate talent. Could they be two sides of the same coin? And what should we call it?
My thoughts right now point to entrapment, or the burden of talent in a ungrateful world that enjoys talent in its multifarious forms, but fails to acknowledge it for its worth to society.
I’ll let you know if I find more coins in the drained fountain of our ages.
* * *
“After his decision to sacrifice the young women of the kingdom in order to satisfy his hatred of the Sultana, the Caliph had felt safe. He had found a means of assuring the court that he was immune to woman, to that being with a body as sinuous as the lines of the Tigris and Euphrates, in whose veins he had found milk, honey, poison. But despite protecting himself, he had weakened before females and continued taking them into his bed as a necessary evil. That entity, full of meanings and ambivalence, at once beautiful and wicked, remained to him an indecipherable mystery, to which he had access only in the shadow of night, when, bewildered, he touched the smooth skin that evoked exhudations in his body.” (Voices of the Desert, p. 34)
Recommended movies on the topic: Ten Tiny Love Stories (2002), Of Love and Other Demons (2009), Cherie (2009), My Week With Marilyn (2011), and so many others…
The brilliant son of Colombian writer Gabriel García Márquez and Mercedes Barcha Pardo, Rodrigo Garcia, wrote and directed Ten Tiny Love Stories (2001), a movie that takes the art of monologue beyond the screen.
The words move away from the page, as you can, yourselves, witness in the fragments below.
…I immediately thought it was kind of silly for him to be crying in a movie. It was a red flag for me. Immediately I said to myself, be careful with Ben, he’s sentimental. Sentimental people are ruled by their feelings and incapable of anything. So I thought that the whole thing would go nowhere. But then, when he proposed to me, I had already forgotten the whole thing, and I said yes and we got married. It’s funny… Whenever I start out with someone, I fill my head up with expectations. Later, when it’s all over, I can’t, for the life of me, remember what it was that I was hoping for. I mean, I remember stuff… but I can’t remember who I was… The whole relationship is like this weird terrain, barren mostly, with two or three things sticking out of it that I recognise. Two or three things sticking out like… warts that have shrivelled and died.”
…………………………………………………..
Epilogue of the Tenth Monologue
……………………………………………………
“People, things, places, they can just wash away, and what’s left is a sense of peacefulness and the feeling that we’re all alone, and that’s OK, and that that’s a relief, too. It’s a relief to know that the wind will blow us away, leaving nothing, not even a trace, and it’s good to be nothing and it’s good to have nothing. If only we wanted nothing while we were here…”
………………………………………………………
Earlier, the Same Tenth Monologue
……………………………………………………….
“By the time I met Roy I’ve already been through a good number of boyfriends and I was only 27. Some people would say too many, but how many is too many, and what’s a boyfriend anyway? Boys I kissed but didn’t sleep with?”
OR HOW I CAME ACROSS THE MOTTO FOR MY PLAY (one of potential others)
AND WHAT HAPPENS AFTER THE PLAY WAS WRITTEN AND THE DIE WAS CAST
*
In December last year, not so long ago, I finished writing Born a Foreigner, a play currently submitted to the Talking About Bordersinternational drama competition. The term in the title has an interesting history. The complexity of its meaning goes far beyond the five acts of the play I wrote, which is why I hope to dedicate it a few other posts here at a later time.
Ever since I finished writing this play – or, rather, ever since I initially thought I had finally wrapped it up – I have been haunted by its immaterial yet-not-so-ghostly corpora and had to revisit it on more than a few occasions.
In the world of metaphors that life often swerves me into I picked up – or thought I did – character lines or responses, and continued to make associations that led me to the next set of inevitable post scriptum revelations; in short, as the tormented author (and now emerging dramatist) that I prove to be, I continued to keep the flame burning, which continued to sparkle more ideas about the treatment of the subject, brought forth a dedication, plus the thought of extended notations and directions for the opening of the majority of acts. Last night I found the motto (the first of possibly more) for Born a Foreigner, which I’d like to share with you here. It comes fromConstantin Brancusi(1876 – 1957), one of my favourite artists of all time. Here it goes:
There are no foreigners in art.
I may not have come across this quote scribbled down a while ago if I hadn’t written a post on Florentijn Bruning’sMona Lisason my poetry blog yesterday, which starts with another quote from Brancusi, his definition of art. Clickhereto read it.
The acclaimed music producer Ashish Mahchanda, founder oftheFlying Carpet Productioncompany in Mumbai, whom I met in my trip to India in 2010 and with whom I share the day of birth and a timeless sense of friendship, believes that even after a song seems finished, one should always take about two weeks’ time to revisit it for potential changes and overall improvements. In the case of Born A Foreigner, which is entering its first post scriptum month, there are still improvements to be made, from its layout to the note additions before some acts, or to the plethora of questions, and who knows, maybe even more mottoes to be uncovered.
*
As for the parallels, here is a recent one I drew between the scene discussing the dead zone in The Good Wife (created by Michelle King and Robert King, episode 2, series 3, 2012):
The Good Wife: ‘Mr Branch, what is the death zone? ‘
Mr Branch: ‘The death zone? In mountaineering parlance it’s the altitude above 26,000 feet where oxygen is insufficient to sustain life.
The Good Wife: ’It’s also a place where perceptions were not to be fully trusted?’
Mr Branch: ‘Sometimes.’
The Good Wife: [...] And an absence of oxygen would increase the likelihood of untrustworthy perceptions?
Mr Branch: ’Yes.’
The Good Wife: ‘So, when you say that you … we have to take your word for it, and yet your words could be coloured by your oxygen-deprived perception.’
Mr Branch: ’I believe… that follows.’
The Good Wife: Your Honour, I would like to make a motion at this time to dismiss this law suit. [...] There is too much inherent uncertainty here. This is a case built on perception, and the death zone makes those perceptions essentially suspect.
*
and the scene discussing the death zones in Born A Foreigner:
NOMURA: “[...] sometimes the strong cannot withstand the weak. [...] Massive fishing, pollution and an increase in water temperature have led to lower oxygen levels, creating what scientists call a dead zone. As you can very well imagine, very few species can survive in these toxic zones where the sewage and run off can only provide nutrients for the zooplankton…
ALTAandWIDO,in unison: “The giant jellyfish!”
NOMURA: “Indeed! The jellyfish can thrive in the dead zones, feeding on zooplankton, which is their favourite food.” She takes a sip from her tea and places the cup on the table.
WIDO: “Are there many such dead zones on Earth?”
ALTA: “My question, precisely.”
NOMURA: “There are currently hundreds of dead zones in the world’s oceans. None of them were spared. My father also tried to find a possible solution. He studied the reproduction process and the various stages in the development of jellyfish. He noticed that any increase in light and temperature increased their breeding rate. Unfortunately, he died before he could complete his research.
She stares out somewhere in the distance for a while and then goes on.
Other scientists have tried to reduce the number of jellyfish by means of force. They sent out large ships to spot them, equipped with huge nets with metal cables that were meant to shred entire groups of giant jellyfish.
One entrance carries the glittering sign, “Kunst macht frei” (art makes you free). The pun is not arbitrary. The museum, designed by Italian architect Claudio Nardi, has been built on the site of Oskar Schindler’s factory in the city’s post-industrial Zablocie district, retaining one of the original walls and adapting six other buildings. The History Museum’s Story of Nazi Occupation is also on-site.
There are glass floors, complex walkways, slanting roofs with skylights. The warehouse atmosphere (which, in the basement, can feel like an underground car park) is broken up by cubby holes, intimate film rooms, video-boxes and a lively mix of genres. •Ulica Lipowa 4, +48 12 263 40 00, mocak.com.pl/en, £1.90 (free on Tues), children under seven free. Open Tues-Sun 11am-7pm
Ulica Kanonicza
Photograph: James Howard
My favourite street in Krakow, a cobbled lane of 14th-century townhouses leading to the Wawel Castle, is beautiful by day or night. There’s the Kawiarnia Literacka (Literary Cafe) at No 1, an old-school subterranean cafe and a former haunt of writers during communist times. Next door is the Cricot Theatre, Tadeusz Kantor’s avantgarde theatre (tinyurl.com/cricottheatre). Walk among the eerie machines and mannequins of this subversive director’s work. At No 11, you’ll find Bona: Books and Coffee, with a selection of Polish books translated into English (bonamedia.pl). Before you reach the castle, don’t forget the house where Pope John Paul II lived when he was Archbishop of Krakow (1951-67).
The Jewish district of Kazimierz
No-BoNo-Bo (Ulica Meiselsa 24, restauracja-nobo.pl) is a new 50s-style cafe-diner with film posters, good coffee, daily specials from 17zl (£3.30) and a wide-ranging menu including breakfasts both English and Polish. Next door you’ll find the delightful Mleczarnia, a former Jewish milk bar, with an interior of gramophones and candelabras and sepia photographs. There’s a lovely garden opposite, one of the best spots in the city when the chestnut and cherry trees are in full bloom.
Ulica Józefa, Kazimierz
Love Krove. Photograph: glodnawrazen.com.pl.
This is a fascinating street of antique shops (starocie) and offbeat boutiques including, No 20, Butik (ideafix.pl), which features only Polish designers. At No 8 Love Krove (facebook.com/lovekrove) is an almost unbearably trendy burger joint for hungry hipsters. Choose from a dozen burgers (£3.20-£6), and squeeze between the brightly coloured furnishings, the chunky spectacles and those angular hair-dos-and-don’ts. Still, it’s a first for Krakow.
For cafe-bars, find a cushioned nook in the small, rambling rooms of Eszewaria (No 9), or cross the road to sister bar Esze (No 18), my retreat of choice, with its low-slung armchairs, old sofas and lamps, drums as tables, swing-seats at the bar, and a real fireplace and smoking room. There’s Fairtrade coffee, and – a trend at the moment – unpasteurised Polish beers such as Perla and Ciechan.
Warning: Ulica Józefa Nos 8-13 (including Eszewaria) will close in the not-too-distant future as the buildings are owned by the church and they want to build … a hotel!
Accommodation
Hotel CopernicusSodispar (sodispar.pl) is a friendly agency renting basic twin-bed studios for 150zl (£30) or luxury apartments for up to 10 people for 490zl (£98). Its old town flats are on the best streets, within walking distance of the main square, and for my zloty, the best value for kipping in Krakow. Repeat guests are rewarded with a 20% discount, and the website carries last-minute offers.
For those looking to the stars, the Hotel Copernicus (Ulica Kanonicza 16, hotel.com.pl, doubles from £85) is a consummately stylish hotel named after the Polish mathematician-astronomer Mikolaj Kopernik, who studied in the city. The Copernicus is the sister hotel of the Stary (staryhotel.com, doubles from £175), where the England team will be staying, but offers a much quieter spot beneath Wawel Castle, a suite with a restored 15th-century fresco and a dining room with a 16th-century wooden ceiling, plus 29 sophisticated rooms of dark oak and leather. A swimming pool in the medieval cellar completes the elegance.
Podgórze
Pódgoerze Bridge. Photograph: James Howard
Podgórze is a working-class area being revitalised by bohos fleeing the tourist-flooded centre and Jewish district. The recent Laetus Bernatek footbridge (named after a local monk) has opened up previously dark and dangerous areas both sides of the river.
Drukarnia (Ulica Nadwislanska 1, drukarniaclub.pl/english.htm) is a happening venue, ideal for enjoying sunsets over the River Wisla. The cafe-club has a basement for concerts and DJ nights, a saloon-style smoking room and a smarter side with velvet seats, a long bar and huge windows on the river.
A tower block behind sports work by the famous Italian graffiti artist Blu. Back on the other side of the bridge, there’s Cocon gay club (Ulica Gazowa 21); the owner, Janusz, once worked for Radio Free Europe.
Underneath Cocon, you’ll find the Teatr Nowy (teatrnowy.com.pl) patronised by the transsexual MP Anna Grodzka, and currently running an adaptation of Michal Witkowski’s Lovetown, a funny and ribald look at gay life in Poland. Round the corner, there are two new cafes as you approach the bridge from the city side: Mostowy Art Cafe (Ulica Mostowa 8) is a large and elegant gallery cafe, while Po Drodze (“on the way”), next door, offers a cosy old kitchen feel in which you can take your coffee with a vodka shot.
Restaurants and bakeries
Pod Baranem, Krakow
Though Wentzl (Rynek Glowny 19, restauracja.wentzl.pl/eng/indexeng.html) is still prospering after more than 200 years of superior dining, my current favourite is Pod Baranem (Ulica Sw. Gertrudy 21, podbaranem.com/english.html), a father-and-son-run enterprise, frequented by Polish presidents, painters and poets, who sit beneath paintings by the leading contemporary artist Edward Dwurnik. It’s quiet and low-lit, serving the very highest quality Polish food: hunter’s stew, homemade pork sausages, pork jelly, venison pâté with Cumberland sauce. Also try piernik ginger cake with coffee butter and cherry vodka, followed by a shot of homemade walnut vodka. What’s more, the male-only staff have all attended waiters’ school, making the service attentive and friendly – a rare treat in Poland. The lunch menu is a mere 18zl (less than £4) an evening meal from around £10 per head plus drinks.
Krakow chatter is of the Gessler Restaurant, a new sensation at the otherwise outmoded Hotel Francuski (Ulica Pijarska 13). A famous Warsaw TV chef, Adam Gessler, has moved to the city to revitalise this old hotel’s kitchen. The results have been dramatic, turning a previously empty restaurant into a spot very popular with those in the know, not surprising at 20zl (£4, double that for evening) a pop for a lunch menu of, for example, pea soup, veal cutlet and dessert.
Krakow is a ciasto-miasto, a cake city. Cupcake Corner (Ulica Bracka 4,cupcakecorner.pl) has daily variations of coffee and cupcakes, from carrot to liquorice. The Michalscy Cukiernia (michalscy.pl) cake shops are probably best value and you can find them all over the city, serving up the calorie-clocking Polish delicacies of szarlotkaapple cake, sernik cheesecake and 10cm-tall towers of pink cream sandwiched in flaky pastry.
Festivals
Zadie Smith, Milosz festival. Photograph: Tomasz Wiech
Small wonder the city is applying for status as a Unesco City of Literature. Krakow hosts the Milosz Festival in May (milosz365.eu), and the Conrad Festival in November (conradfestival.pl/en). Milosz is one of the city’s two Nobel prize winners for literature, whereas Joseph Conrad spent his childhood years in the city.
Ambasada Sledzia (“The Herring Embassy”, Ulica Stolarska 8-10,tinyurl.com/ambasada) is so named as it’s opposite the American Embassy, so you get a 24-hour police guard to go with your drinking. Non-pasteurised Kasztelan beer, a glass of wine and a shot of vodka are all at 4zl (80p). “Polish tapas” means cheap sandwiches and soups, plus herring in oil, sour cream or beetroot. Herring is known to go well with vodka, hence the Polish saying, “a fish likes to swim”.
The bar-club Rozrywki Trzy (Ulica Mikolajska 3, tinyurl.com/rozrywki), run by the owners of the legendary Piekny Pies (piekny-pies.pl), has an underground dancefloor, and hosts gigs and film nights.
Adventurous types should seek out Literki (“letters”, Ulica Berka Joselewicka 21), down a dark side street a 10-minute walk from the centre, and behind a metal door, with a roster stretching from jazz jams to “dubstep & grime” nights. You have to keep your ear to the ground to find out what’s going on in this place.
Walks and wanderings
The Planty. Photograph: Alamy
You must walk the chestnut-lined strip of gardens, known as Planty, that circles the city alongside the old walls. It’s a lovely walk all year round and a great way to see local history and people alike. In the centre, wander along Sw. Marka and Sw. Tomasza streets, browsing small galleries (Sw. Tomasza 22, galeriafotografii.eu), antiquarian bookshops and many fine churches, before heading to one of Krakow’s best-kept secrets, the roof-cafe of the Music Academy (Sw. Tomasza 43) for unrivalled views of the city. Only don’t tell anyone I told you.
James Hopkin is the author of Winter Under Water and the award-winning short story Even the Crows Say Krakow (Picador, £1.99,tinyurl.com/eventhecrows). His Dalmatian trilogy of short stories will be broadcast on BBC Radio 4 on 1, 8 and 15 January at 7.45pm.
The purple rain falls in October. I sweep it from the drive with my bamboo brush,
bending low, scraping the hard bristles across the tarmac. It takes me all day and the job is never done. I like it that way. Otherwise, I’d be sitting in my hut, watching the gate, waiting to open it when the boss arrives. Or his wife. Or the ayah coming with the girls from school. So to fill the hours, I sweep up the purple rain. And it falls again before I reach the end of this winding stretch of tarmac that has been my place of work for 15 years. So I start again, retracing my steps, my old, red flip-flops slapping the tarmac.
Until today. Today was different and yet some things stayed the same. I felt the same hostile eyes on me as I arrived for my shift before dawn. The other guards on the street don’t like me. I hear their whispers, though they think these old ears don’t work anymore.
“There goes that useless Luo,” they say. “He thinks he owns the place, but look at the holes in his trousers, look at the shoes. Who hires a Luo as a guard? A boy for a man’s job!”
These other guards in their smart uniforms and shiny, black boots are Kikuyu. I come from the west, from the wet, green lands near Lake Victoria. Obamaland. But it’s not that simple either. I came to Nairobi in 1970, when I was just 20. This tough city that forgives no one has been my home for 40 years. It is the home of my wife and my four children. They come with me to the village sometimes but the older ones less and less. The village has lost its power: it ebbed away with each death. First my father, then my mother, my brother, my sister, my aunt. There is not much reason to go there now. And it is expensive.
But here I will always be a Luo. They know it, just as I know them as Kikuyu. I can’t explain it. It’s not as easy as saying someone has big lips or a big nose or narrow eyes. It’s there though.
“Habari yako mzee,” calls the new guard with the wide, white smile that says here is a young man who is yet to discover real pain.
He is polite and maybe a little silly. He does not join in with the others when they gossip about me. This will cause him problems later but maybe he will not be here long. Guards come and go a lot. Sometimes he brings me hot chai, especially when it rains and the water leaks through the roof of my hut. I built that shelter myself, piling logs and wood on top of each other beside the gate, adding cardboard to plug the holes and keep out the cold wind that rushes through the trees before the rain, telling us to get ready and sending leaves spinning to earth, spinning onto my drive, giving me something to do.
Nobody ever told me to sweep the drive. Not my boss now, or the men before him. I just do it. I like to keep the place neat. I was always a tidy boy, helping my mother sweep the yard outside our hut near Kisumu.
“Sweeping the leaves again,” the other guards jeer.
They sit on the kerb, in the shade, gossiping like women, whispering like naughty children. I have no time for such talk. Especially not when those purple flowers from the jacaranda keep falling, speckling the drive, my drive.
Today, the girls came from school early. It is half-term. Tomorrow, the family is going to the coast. Their father is a banker, a fair man. He always thanks me, pays me regularly, and gives me a good Christmas bonus. He sometimes gives me shoes and clothes that he no longer wants. I give them to my two boys. My boss is more generous than some of the Kenyans around here. The mzungus sometimes make better bosses.
My previous boss was a mzungu, an aid worker from Sweden. He stayed for three years and his wife used to bring me food. The whites still feel guilty. Even the ones from countries that had nothing to do with Africa’s past. Maybe they should. I don’t know. I can’t imagine what it is like to be them. I don’t really want to. I’ve spent my adult life working for people I don’t understand, people I can’t understand. Even my Kenyan boss now. He is as remote from me as the Swedish aid worker with the comfortable-looking sandals and the cheery wave.
The eldest girl, Chrystal, got out of the car to help me shut the gate. She does that whenever it is not raining. She is six and chatty and reminds me of my youngest, as she was. She is now 19, but there is something in Chrystal’s cheeky smile and curious eyes that pulls those memories of Achieng back from wherever we put our past lives.
“Can I help you sweep mzee?” Chrystal asks.
“Sawa, okay.”
I like the way she calls me mzee, carefully, respectfully. I give her the brush. She grabs the handle and the sharp bristles scrape on the pitted tarmac. The jacaranda flowers run from her strokes. She puffs, her little face frowning. She is a good girl.
“This is hard work,” she moans.
Her little sister, Nadia, joins us. She is only three and is the friendliest of the whole family. She greets me by name.
“Omondi, hello.”
She fights her sister for the brush and I have to separate them or they will poke each other with the sharp bristles.
“Give it to your sister, Chrystal. Let her have a turn,” I say quietly.
“Why? She always gets everything. It’s not fair!” Chrystal flings the brush down and stomps off to the house.
Nadia picks it up, looks at me with those soft eyes, and says seriously, “Chrystal is naughty. Not sharing.”
She tries to sweep the purple rain but the brush is nearly as big as her and she trips over the bristles. She laughs as she sits where she fell, grabbing handfuls of the flowers and throwing them in the air. The ayah calls her for lunch.
“Kwaheri,” she sings, running up the drive.
“Kwaheri,” I reply. And, to be sure, “Goodbye.”
I know she does not speak Swahili with her parents. Her mother is Rwandan.
I eat my ugali in my hut, balling the paste between my fingers before popping it in my mouth. It looks like the guard with the big smile has gone home. The three large Kikuyus from the houses nearby have eaten and are stretched flat on the soft grass beside the road. They are not talking now. It is too hot, and with lunch out of the way and no one expected home, it is time for a nap. I will not lie down myself. My hut is inside the gate and I would never lie on the children’s lawn. I may be old and frail and a joke in this neighbourhood but I have my dignity. And I do not want to hear any jeers today about lazy Luos. I doze as I sit on the worn armchair that the Swedish boss gave me after he saw me sitting on a bottle crate. The chair used to be red, I think, but like everything in the hut now it is a kind of brown.
After lunch, the girls come out again. They bring their bicycles down the drive. They are going to cycle in the street. Here in the compound, they can do that. It’s a luxury in Nairobi where most roads have no paths. You would have to be crazy to cycle on the road itself, with the matatus roaring past, swerving at top speed, overtaking on corners, their passengers staring out the dirty windows like they don’t care or won’t care or have been numbed by the blaring music.
I used to cycle here when I first arrived though. I got a job delivering crates of eggs to the market stalls around Mathare. I would pile the crates high on the back of the squeaky bicycle I rented from a cousin’s friend. The tower reached above my head and wobbled so much that I was always fighting the sway to stay upright. The hills nearly killed me. My legs would be on fire, my shoulders aching, but I would cycle all day. I needed the money. I was married already and my son was a year old. One day, I hit a pothole when I swerved to keep out of the way of a four-by-four and the bike toppled over. I lost all the eggs in the top crate but no other egg was broken. I had to pay for the lost eggs but, as my wife said, it could have been much worse. Things can always be worse. That’s what I have learned and that knowledge is what will eventually dim the smile of my young friend with the hot chai.
The girls’ ayah comes with them. Chrystal cycles away quickly, heading up to the end of the street, her legs pedaling furiously, as if she is trying to get away from something. Nadia tries to keep up, screaming at her sister to wait. The ayah, Mary, and I laugh. We stand together at the gate and talk about our families, using Swahili and English but separate words. We don’t use Sheng, that mish-mash of both languages that my children speak. Mary thinks it is vulgar and I am too old to learn another language. She does not speak my language, nor I hers. She is a Kamba from Embu, up north.
“How is your husband now?” I ask.
“He is much better, thank God,” she says, frowning. “The doctor said typhoid. I am not surprised. It is the second time this year. I tell him not to drink from the tap in his master’s yard but he won’t listen.” She sniffs angrily. “Maybe he will listen now.”
Her husband is a driver for an Indian businessman. He works in Gigiri, up near the United Nations and the American embassy. He is young, like Mary, maybe only in his early thirties. They have three children, all under seven. Mary is a tall woman, very thin and she frowns a lot. Her husband does not earn much, but he works long hours. He comes here sometimes to pass messages to Mary. He is silent and withdrawn and each time he looks thinner. He is often ill.
“Thankfully Madame gave me some money for the doctor. Otherwise, how could we manage? With the children at home for half-term, I have to pay my sister to look after them,” Mary says, shaking her head.
She fell silent. She was twisting her hands around and around. I only then noticed how nervous she was. She was still frowning, even though we had stopped talking. Suddenly, she turned on her heel.
“I left a cake in the oven,” she called, as she hurried away. “Keep an eye on the girls for a minute, will you?”
Chrystal was cycling back down the hill that leads to my gate, away from the main entrance. The askaris weren’t standing inside as usual. Maybe they were in their guard hut, a solid, brick building on the right-hand side of the iron gate. Nadia was frantically pedaling down the hill, trying to catch up with her sister, still shouting. Chrystal shot past me, laughing madly, and got off her bike at the gate. She took off her helmet and shook out her braids.
I moved forward. I was afraid Nadia was going to fall. She was speeding down the hill, wobbling dangerously but laughing too. And now I noticed something else. Where were the guards from our street? They had left the grass but they were not sitting on the kerb as usual. Maybe they were inside their gates. But all of them? That’s when I saw the car. It took me only a second to understand what was going on.
The black car screeched to a halt at the top of the hill. I had never seen it before and I know every car in this compound. Two men jumped out of the back, one each side. The engine was still roaring, the men were running down the hill towards Nadia. She was only feet from me now.
“Nadia, come here,” I yelled, anger and fear poisoning my voice.
But she just sat on the bike. She had never heard me yell. I had never yelled at her.
“Chrystal, inside!”
I could hear Chrystal’s bike falling and hoped she was running to the house, but I did not dare take my eyes off Nadia. Her face quivered, she looked like she was going to cry but she hadn’t turned round yet. She had not seen the men behind her, running and waving the blades gripped in their fists.
“Move, old man!” one of them shouted. “This has nothing to do with you.”
The other man, a teenager really, grabbed Nadia off her bike. She started screaming but still no one came. I stood in the road, too old, too scared, as they carried her up the hill towards the snorting car. Now, she was calling my name, screaming “Omondi, Omondi! One little hand was stretched towards me. I started to move but I was slow. I began to run. One of my flip-flops broke. It had been going to for a while. I kicked it away.
“Get back old man. You have no business here.”
It was the older man, his head covered in a dirty wool cap, his eyes squinting in the early afternoon sun. His teeth were cracked and dirty and his nose looked broken. I had reached the crest of the hill. I was just feet from the car. They had thrown Nadia into the back seat. She was sitting there, shaking, crying but not saying anything now. The teenager sat beside her, one hand on her lap to keep her down and the other holding the knife.
“Come on, let’s go!” he yelled.
“What do you want with the child?” I said, hoping someone would come.
But waspish thoughts were buzzing in the back of my mind. Where were all the guards? Why had Mary gone inside? How had these men got past the main gate? The askaris were either tied up, beaten, dead or in on it.
“Don’t take her. She’s frightened. She’s just a baby. What are you going to do with her? How will you care for her?”
“We won’t have to. If your boss wants her back, he’ll pay, and fast. We won’t hurt her. But he’d better pay.”
Suddenly, I was outraged. Who was this young thug to speak to me like this, to seize that beautiful child, to still her laughter and teach her such fear? I might be old and poor but I was not completely useless. I was an elder. I would demand my share of respect.
I stepped forward, trying to push past him to Nadia. He grabbed my arm and pushed me back but I came again. This time, his right hand flashed forward and I felt a warm wetness on my stomach. And pain. I staggered.
“Go!” he shouted, falling into the passenger seat.
They roared up to the main gate. Another man, not one of our guards, came out of the hut, opened the gate and jumped into the car too. He was carrying a gun. How had I not heard the shots? Maybe they did not shoot the guards, maybe they just scared them. The gun probably didn’t even work.
Blood was seeping from between my fingers now. I staggered again but headed down the hill. I passed Nadia’s bicycle. It had fallen over when the man pulled her off. My broken flip-flop was on the grass. There was no one around but I felt eyes on me as I stumbled, blood dripping onto my one flip-flop and onto the road. I left my mark on those stones. I had to get back to the house. I had to see Chrystal, I had to be ready for when the police came, and my boss and his poor Rwandan wife who had come to Kenya for a better life but whose heart was about to be broken.
The gate was still open. I started up the drive. My brush was lying where I dropped it when the girls came out to play. I bent down to pick it up. That’s when I fell, dropping to my knees like the old man I am.
I lie here now, looking at the sky. I think I hear voices but I know they do not speak to me. There is no time left for speech. Nadia’s voice is in my head. “Omondi, Omondi!”
I want to answer but I can’t seem to get my mouth to work. I cannot move but this does not bother me too much. The purple rain is falling, falling onto my face.
♥Happy Birthday!-s feel as joyous everywhere on this planet.
Breaking bread anywhere in the world comes just as easy.
Fred Wesley’s♥
♥concert at the Jewish Festival on July 2nd inspired me to dedicate his song to all of you who sent me their best wishes on my birthday this Saturday!♥
Zadie Smith and Alina Alens (Photo by Tomasz Wiech)
“The language itself can contain your ideas,”
so WRITE;
even if you may “feel like a stranger in the act of writing,”
and you won’t meet your old writing self half-way along the page.
You’ll be amazed at the capacities you will discover in the act of writing.
READ;
you might not know it yet, but an age of “novel nausea” or the years-of-less-and-less-time for reading might catch up with you sooner than you think…
So WRITE
to be read by strangers – they may turn out to be some of your best readers;
BE FREE,
embrace freedom in your way of life and at the same time respect the language you’re writing in - staying true to your language in today’s world is, as you may agree, a “radical act.”
SHARE YOUR IDEAS WITH NO SHAME,
don’t be afraid to be perceived by others as a “friend of failure,”
author of the literary guide to Kraków and the Małopolska region,
Przewodnik literacki
po Krakowie i województwie małopolskim (WAM 2010)
I invite you to read below the interview she gave for the Karnet monthly, onCzesław Miłosz’s Kraków:
Barbara Fijał: In your book, you name nearly a thousand men of letters associated with Kraków and Małopolska. A very special place among them is assumed by Czesław Miłosz, whose name – next to that of Stanisław Lem – crops up most often. Was it a conscious decision or is it just that while writing about literary Kraków one simply cannot leave out the person of Miłosz, who lived in Kraków for just 10 years?
Ewa Zamorska-Przyłuska: My decisions about including an author or a place in the guidebook usually had their own “solid” reasons, the ranking of the person or a venue on the map being among the most important ones. Yet those decisions also had certain undertones based on nuances and personal preferences. Czesław Miłosz owes his multifaceted presence in the book not only to his unquestioned position in the world of literature, but – possibly even to a greater degree – to the fact that I still find him intriguing, somebody who does not leave me in peace, and who in different periods of my life I must rediscover anew, even if only in small snippets. The measure of time, whether only a decade or an entire lifetime, is of no consequence here. The game is played at another scale whose name is intensity.
B F: Miłosz was already living in Kraków in 1945.
E Z-P: He was, but it may be worthwhile mentioning his earlier encounters with Kraków first. When he saw our city before the second world war, he found it charming. In 1941, when he arrived here with Jerzy Andrzejewski from the ruins of Warsaw and visited the café in the architecturally perfect and modern Dom Plastyków – the “House of Artists” designed by Adolf Szyszko-Bohusz, at ul. Łobzowska 3, the city brought Paris to his mind…
Early in 1945, the poet reached Kraków, freshly liberated by the Red Army, and moved with his wife Janina to the Dom Literatów providing accommodation to assorted men of letters at ul. Krupnicza 22, from where he soon moved to ul. św. Tomasza 26, to a large louse-ridden flat which he occupied together with Tadeusz and Zofia Breza. He had the quarters assigned to him by a political officer of the Polish Army, a true éminence grise and writer, Adam Ważyk, who – as a “Lublin man”, closely associated with the new powers that be – had opportunities in this city that were next to infinite. Miłosz resided in Kraków for less than a year, witnessing not only the new order, but also the poverty and suffering of the people who he met e.g. around the railway station.
To get to know the places associated with the poet at this time, you need to visit the headquarters of Film Polski at ul. Lea 5 (today’s Mikro cinema), where he wrote the script for Unvanquished City (Robinson Warszawski) together with Jerzy Andrzejewski. In The Captive Mind (Zniewolony umysł, 1953) you can find a staggering description of the view from its window onto the courtyard of the Regional Security Office (UB) where the soldiers of the clandestine army were held captive.
Ul. Wielopole 1 is the address of Dziennik Polski, where Miłosz published his regular column under the nom de plume czmił. He knew Jerzy Putrament, the editor-in-chief of the daily, very well from his Vilnius days. Miłosz also published in Twórczość and Odrodzenie, which were housed in the Feniks building at ul. Basztowa 15, and in Przekrój weekly which at that time was based both at ul. Wielopole 1 and at ul. Starowiślna 4. As he wrote in a tribute to Kazimierz Wyka, Professor at the Jagiellonian University, editor-in-chief of Twórczość, and activist of the Polish Writers’ Union (ZLP), “friendship with him sweetened my time in Kraków, where I found myself much like many others (…). If not for the delegation to a foreign post, I would probably have stayed at ul. św. Tomasza in between Wyka and Jerzy Turowicz, with whom I left the galley proofs of my volume entitled Ocalenie (Rescue) in 1945. When I come to think about it today, I believe that having such friends is a sufficient reason to take root in Kraków, even though how I would have behaved in the Stalinist period, I dare not pronounce.” (2000).
In December, Miłosz left for New York as a diplomat, saying his farewells to Poland in 1951 to become an émigré for a long period of time. In 1959, Czesław’s father, Aleksander, died and was buried in the Rakowice Cemetery (quarter LXIII, row 11, grave 18). It was not until June 1981 that the poet was welcomed back to Kraków as winner of the Nobel Prize.
Return visits to Kraków since the late 1980s are separate subject…
B F: Was our city frequently present in the writing of the Nobel Prize Winner? What is the Kraków that emerges from his works?
E Z-P: Kraków was certainly not one of the foremost themes of Miłosz, even though it plays an important role e.g. in A Poetical Treatise (Traktat poetycki, 1957), where it is identified with the culture of the Młoda Polska – Young Poland movement. One may not gloss over the image in Powrót do Krakowa w roku 1880 (1984) either, devoted to someone hardly known today, Julian Klaczko, a man from Vilnius who settled in Kraków. Miłosz mentions “the little town in a hollow by Cathedral Hill / with the graves of the kings”. Another work (W Krakowie, 2001) reads: “on the border of this world and the other, in Kraków. / Pitter-patter on the worn out marbles of the churches, / Generation after generation. It is here that I’ve understood / Something of the customs of my sisters and brothers”. Kraków does not fascinate Miłosz as an urban organism or structure. Perhaps it used to be more of a pretext than the goal of poetic expeditions that went far beyond the borders of the city… Yet, as Ewa Bieńkowska wrote after his death, “it happened thus that Kraków proved the place of Miłosz’s last reconciliations and his last thanksgivings”. Which is the very measure of the intensity I mentioned earlier in this interview.
B F: What, then, could incline the poet to choosing this very city when he decided to return to Poland in 1993?
E Z-P: In the interview he gave to Bronisław Maj in the same year 1993, when he was still living at Berkeley, Miłosz very clearly put a finger on it thus: “I like Kraków very much. I enjoy Kraków, as it is truly a university city, yet in a size that is still human. Moreover I finished growing up in Vilnius, and in many respects Kraków reminds me of my university in Vilnius. The walking of the same few streets every day has its charm. It has, and there are plenty of things going on within these few streets. It is very important, and it is plainly seen, especially in contrast with those cities where nothing happens for tens of miles – in music, poetry, literature, science: no cultural events… (…). Moreover: the beauty of your city also means a lot. Old stones, architecture…”. Miłosz emphasised that his relations with Kraków are of precisely a spiritual character – still in this fragment, we see that the physical “substance” of the city is what crops up second in Miłosz, after the description of its “function”. Already when he arrived to be granted the honorary doctorate of the Jagiellonian University in 1989, Miłosz was believed to have asked that they should find him a home (obligatorily within the garden ring of Planty), since he might soon settle down in Kraków – the city he considered the most attractive. And indeed, together with his wife, Carol, they ended up living close to Planty, yet on the outside of its ring. It was his favourite place for walks.
B F: You have mentioned a few places that Miłosz was connected to – the house at ul. św. Tomasza, the flat in Krupnicza, and another one at Bogusławskiego… Did he take any special liking to any spot in Kraków, did he make his mark on one particular place?
E Z-P: I believe this would be the apartment at ul. Bogusławskiego 6, on the first floor. Even as late as the 1990s, he would come here in the spring to return to California in autumn, yet at 90, he remained here for good. And in that apartment he died on 14th August 2004. I recently read the talks between him and Agnieszka Kosińska, the poet’s secretary from 1996 until his death. In her memoirs, she fills up the space of the city with an exceptionally subtle, modest, and at the same time highly realistic tale full of expression and temper about Miłosz. Moreover, the readers are also familiar with a colourful account by Jerzy Illg, who got the apartment ready for the arrival of the Miłosz couple… Yet the testimony of Kosińska about how Miłosz filled this space with his presence seems to me, particularly acute.
B F: Miłosz’s Kraków is more than just places, it is primarily people – the writers he was associated with, and the magazines and newspapers where he published his poems. Could you talk about this side of Miłosz’s life in Kraków?
E Z-P: It is generally known that the poet remained on friendly terms with the milieu of Znak, the Catholic monthly and Tygodnik Powszechny the Catholic weekly – Jerzy Turowicz was among his chief friends. The realm of closest friends included Wisława Szymborska, Professor Teresa Walas and Professor Aleksander Fiut, Marek Skwarnicki, and the late Professor Jan Błoński, whom he visited in the district of Kliny. The publisher of the vast majority of the Nobel Prize Winner’s writings is the Znak Publishing House, which – together with Wydawnictwo Literackie – coedits his “collected works”. In 1992, the Biblioteka “NaGłosu” series (documenting the legendary NaGłos “spoken magazine” of the 1980s – editor’s note) published a small volume of his Haiku translations. In addition Miłosz was also published in Kraków by Dekada Literacka.
In the last period of the poet’s life, his health was in the care of Professor Andrzej Szczeklik. And let me stop at this, as I want to keep a distance from matters of “living people” remaining closer to “stones” – as I perceive myself as primarily writing a literary guide to the city…
Cz. Miłosz and J. Błoński, photo Błońscy Family
B F: And a very special location for the end – Skałka – the Church “on the Rock”. It is here that Czesław Miłosz was buried on 27th August 2004. Did he visit this place, while still alive?
E Z-P: Yes, he did, Miłosz visited Skałka in the summer of 1941, having visited Kazimierz Wyka in Krzeszowice. An exceptional story, highly significant and complex. Andrzejewski mentions it – though without revealing the name of his friend anathematised by Communist Poland – in his foreword to Joseph Conrad’s Lord Jim, as the decision to emigrate undertaken by the great 19th-century prose writer and, by the way, one of the Kraków protagonists of A Poetical Treatise(Traktat poetycki), he associated with the impulse to which he and Miłosz yielded when they “began to withdraw from Skałka in silence, first slowly, nearly on tiptoes, and then speeding up their pace the further away they went…”. Andrzejewski’s text is so interesting and important that I would not like to make a summary of it here, as it would certainly lead to trivialising of its senses. Although I quote fragments of it in the guidebook, I do encourage you to reach for the 1956 edition of Lord Jim so that you can read this episode in its natural context.
“… goddess Mumbadevi['s name], Mumbabai, Mumbai – may well have become the city’s.
But then, the Portuguese named the place Bom Bahia for its harbour, and not for the goddess of the pomfret folk…
The Portuguese were the first invaders, using the harbour to shelter their merchant ships and their men-of-war; but then, one day in 1633, an East India Company Officer named Methwold saw a vision. This vision – a dream of a British Bombay, fortified, defending India’s West against all comers – was a notion of such force that it set time in motion. History churned ahead; Methwold died; and in 1660, Charles II of England was betrothed to Catherine of the Portuegese House of Braganza. [...] It was her marriage dowry which brought Bombay into British hands. [...] After that, it wasn’t long until September 21st, 1668, when the Company at last got its hands on the island… and then off they went, with their Fort and land-reclamation, and before you could blink there was a city here, Bombay, of which the old tune sang:
Prima in Indis,
Gateway to India,
Star of the East
With her face to the West.
Salman Rushdie,
Midnight’s Children (1981), pp. 121-122
“The first thing I noticed about Bombay, on that first day, was the smell of the different air. I could smel it before I saw or heard anything of India, even as I walked along the umbilical corridor that connected the plane to the airport. I was excited and delighted by it, in that first Bombay minute, [...] but I didn’t and couldn’t recognise it. I know now it’s the sweet, sweating smell of hope, which is the opposite of hate; and it’s the sour, stifled smell of greed, which is the opposite of love. It’s the smell of gods, demons, empires, and civilisations in ressurection and decay. [...] It smells of the stir and sleep and waste of sixty million animals, more than half of them humans and rats. It smells of heartbreak, and the struggle to live , and of the crucial failures and loves that produce our courage. [...] the worst good smell in the world [...] But when I return to Bombay, now, it’s my first sense of the city – that smell, above all things – that welcomes me and tells me I’ve come home.
The next thing I noticed was the heat. I stood in airport queues, not five minutes from the conditioned air of the plane, and my clothes clung to sudden sweat. [...] Each breath was an angry little victory. I came to know that it never stops, the jungle sweat, because the heat that makes it, night and day, is a wet heat. The choking humidity makes amphibians of us all, in Bombay, breathing water in air; you learn to live with it, and you learn to like it, or you leave.
Then there were the people. Assamese, Jats, and Punjabis; people from Rajasthan, Bengal, and Tamil Nadu; from Pushkar, Cochin, and Konarak; warrior caste, Brahmin, and untouchable; Hindu, Muslim, Christian, Buddhist, Parsee, Jain, Animist; fair skin and dark, green eyes and golden brown and black; every different face and form of that extravagant variety, that incomparable beauty, India. “
Atma Anur, Ed Degenaro and Steve Zerlin at the Rock 'N' Funk 'N' Roll Workshop
with internationally renowned guitarist and composer Prasanna as its president is India’s first music college to offer a range of programs in contemporary jazz, rock and world music. SAM is now offering a 2 day ROCK workshop: November 13-14, 2010.
With World class faculty, the SAM facility is complete with the latest gear, lecture halls, ensemble rooms, labs, practice rooms, recital halls, library, media center, recreation facilities, ultramodern residential facilities among others. With an excellent faculty to student ratio , SAM is spread over a vast 4 acre campus which makes learning a truly unforgettable experience.
The faculty for the workshop is:
ED DEGENARO (GUITAR)
BURN UNIT WITH ED
One of today’s most versatile guitar shredders and SAM faculty Ed Degenaro will offer a two-day workshop on Nov 13 and 14 at SAM.
What will Ed’s workshop cover?
* General musicianship and Modern guitar techniques – Getting the right sound, Non- diatonic ideas in shredding, creative improvisation, harmonics, two handed fret tapping, sweep picking, alternate picking, economy picking, legato picking, slapping, effects, Arpeggios, chords and scales and their super imposition in modern rock guitar styles.
* Stylistic Approaches of Shred Masters – Pentatonics of Eric Johnson, Wide interval legato and one note per string ideas of Shawn lane, Harmonic minor scale as used by Yngwie Malmsteen, Tapping and other approaches of Steve Vai and Joe Satriani.
BASS BALL with STEVE ZERLIN
STEVE ZERLIN – (BASS)
What will Steve’s workshop cover?
* Deepen your pocket, while fattening your groove. Time is of the essence.
* How to use syncopated dead notes amidst the bass line to create rhythmic motion.
* Finger style and slapping techniques.
* Great bass lines created by great artists such as Jaco Pastorius, Marcus Miller, Victor Wooten, James Jamerson, Bootsy Collins, Larry Graham, Paul McCartney, need i go on…..
* All workshop participants will play in a group setting applying these skills.
DEEP GROOVES WITH ATMA ANUR
ATMA ANUR – (DRUMS)
Some of what will Atma’s workshop cover?
* ATMA ( Having being part of Cacophony, Journey, Richie Kotzen, David Bowie, and many more!)
* He joins this hard hitting trio to shed some light on various topics, including: the history of rock grooves, chop building, double bass drum playing.
* How to orchestrate drum parts for hard and melodic rock.
* * *
Who is this workshop for?
This workshop is for all musicians who are interested in taking their Rock, Metal or Fusion playing to the next level by woodshedding for a weekend with the masters. Applicants must have strong playing skills in Rock, Metal or Fusion genres. Applicants will be judged on the basis of the application form and a demo that reflects their guitar playing. It could be a CD mailed to us or online links such as You tube, My space etc.
How much does the workshop cost?
The fee for the workshop is Rs. 6,000 which includes shared accommodations in our brand new apartments and 3 buffet style meals a day. Students will have wi-fi in the apartment rooms and the entire SAM facility. Students will also have access to our practice rooms, ensemble rooms, library, media center etc.
What facilities will be provided?
Students will have access to high quality hand made Mesa Boogie Express, Lone Star, Transatlantic and Mark V guitar amps,Orange Bass Amps, PDP, Dixon Drum sets, 10 ensemble rooms equipped with guitar amps, bass amps, drum kits, upright/.digital pianos and PA system, a large recital hall with a Kawai Grand Piano for performances, numerous practice rooms and practice huts, a library equipped with hundreds of books and instructional DVDs, a media center and best of all a quiet place tucked far away from civilization to shred as loud as you want day or night!
FAQ
1) Where is the workshop held?
This fully residential workshop will be held in MARG Swarnabhoomi, about 80 kms from Chennai, and 38 kms from Mahabalipuram and 60 kms from Pondicherry.
2) Who is the workshop for?
The workshop is for intermediate to advanced musicians.
3) I am not a professional musician. Can I attend the workshop?
Yes. The workshop is for any musician – professional, semi-professional or amateur who wishes to improve his or her performing skills.
4) Do you have any minimum qualifications for selection?
Yes. We expect applicants to have at least reasonable performance skills to make it worthwhile and fun for everyone.
5) Is there a selection process?
Yes. We will screen the applicants on the basis of the application form and online links/MP3s.
6) Do I need to be able to read/write music to attend?
No. We understand that a large percentage of guitar players, bass players and drummers don’t necessarily read or write music. Each of the faculty members is adept at reading and writing music, so if you have those skills and would like to improve them, this is a good opportunity.
7) How do I pay the fees?
As a special Diwali gesture, SAM is offering the workshop to all musicians at an incredible Rs 6000/- including food and accommodation.
Wolf’s Lair the winners of Chennai Live 104.8FM BAND HUNT have been granted a free workshop. There’s a special price for all Chennai Live 104.8FM BAND HUNT participants.
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End Note:
The 10th and the 11th editions of “The Cultural me, Cultural You” show will be dedicated to the SAM faculty, music and activities.
In view of this fact, they will be delayed by a week unless otherwise announced.
“Tamaso Maa Jyothir Gamaya.” May God bless us all with all that is Good in Life.
KEEP SMILING
KARTHICK
Carnatic music concepts written down by Karthick himself in a student's copybook
At SAM, the Swarnabhoomi Academy of Music, India’s first professional college of contemporary music, it’s no wonder that Dr. S. Karthick, leader of the heArtbeat Ensemble, extraordinary Indian percussion teacher and performer, holds a special place in everybody’s hearts and in everybody’s finger-tip rhythm.
More insights into Karthick’s thinking and teaching of the mathematics of rhythmical patterns at this coming Sunday’s edition of “Cultural you, Cultural me.”
On September 30th, you are invited to CafeHU, the cafe within the building of the Hungarian Cultural Institute (Warszawa ul. Moniuszki 10) from 6pm, for a book reading.
I am looking forward to introducing my poetry book, The Incomplete Fantasy We Call Love,
to friends and readers in Warsaw. This is event is free of charge and will take place in English.
The book will be available at the venue. I will be happy to take your questions and sign out copies for the people interested!
You could even get Atma Anur’s autograph, as he will also be present and will lend his warm voice to some of the poems in my book.
I would also like to announce the premiere of my song, “Maine,”from the upcoming album, Back to Myself,
during the Cross Culture Festival in Warsaw, on October 1st, at the show in Cafe Kulturalna (starting at 9pm).
You are invited to the first part of the 8th “Cultural me, Cultural you” show, this Sunday evening, from 9pm (+1GMT), on radioWid. Special music and a special guest: Atma Anur, the inside story. We will be discussing, among others, beginnings and experience, music and musicians, art and culture, similar and different attitudes in approaching music. Stay tuned & don’t forget to shine!
During my recent stay in Romania I started reading Europolis. As time came for me to leave, I had to drop the book unfinished. Too bad for the check in, too good for the imagination. The pen name adopted by the Romanian author (1877 – 1933), Jean Bart, used to wear a 17-century naval commander’s hat. Its owner, the son of a fisherman, had grown up to be an admiral in the service of Louis XIV and an inspiration for many tales of courage on land and at sea.
Eugeniu Botez, a Romanian sailing out under a French flag, writing about the Danube and the civilization of the country of his birth.
Europolis is his posthumously published and oustandingly cosmopolitan novel which I recommend sailing out to, from the Danube port of Sulina into the waters of the Black Sea and beyond. Excerpts from Europolishere.
This coming Sunday at 9pm(+1GMT), tune in to radioWiD (with a click on Sluchaj teraz/Listen now)
With a “holiday” delay of one week, Cultural me, Cultural you has reached its 7th edition. You are all invited to log in & listen to the interviews I took during this year’s International Summer Jazz Academy (ISJA), from the 11th to the 22nd of July, in Krakow.
Music, inspiration, improvisation, performing and teaching are some of the topics I came across in my talks with Grzegorz Motyka, founder and director of the Krakow School of Jazz and Contemporary Music, jazz guitarist, director of the annual Krakow Jazz Festival of the Old & Young, ISJA staff member & organiser since 1999, and Magda Cebulska (who was kind enough to contribute as Mr. Motyka’s interpreter during this interview),
Gary Wittner, guitarist, composer & professor at University of Southern Maine School of Music, who taught History of Jazz at the Summer Jazz Academy,
ISJA 2010 – Curtis Johnson at the Teachers’ Show in Piec Art
Curtis Johnson, alto saxophone player and experienced professor at the West Virginia University, and Agata Pisko Schaberl, certified Speech Level Singing voice instructor and singer.
ISJA 2010 – Agata Pisko-Schaberl and the vocalists she taught
On the playlist: Marcus Miller with People Make the World Go ‘Round’ and ‘Jazz in the House’, Alens and two fragments from the ISJA teachers’ concert at Piec Art (Jimi Hendrix, ‘Little Wing’).
All the literary, creative & artistic materials & documents used on this site are licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 3.0 Unported License, unless otherwise specified.
Take a clo
, Thank you, Mariusz!, we live in a world that favours non-fiction/ the things that actually happen(ed), over fiction/ the things that occur(ed) in an author’s imagination, a world in which people have lost their patience for being guided into fictional worlds of sorts – all except, maybe, some educated elites within the contemporary reading public. Is it a stretch of the imagination to say that living in one’s head as a self-exploring writer nowadays is more than a risky business, verging on a kind of self-imposed social isolation?
Gabriela Adamesteanu is, in her turn, well-known for her non-fictional review and article writing in the Romanian cultural press. When asked if her non-fiction writing sometimes blends into her fiction, she asserted that, even though the research for certain articles could work to the advantage of something she writes, the fictional worlds stand alone, uniquely anchored in the imagination, no palpable reality strings attached.
“Her heart is not always bound to the tales she relates. Her desire is to one day resume life outside the palace walls, to be free of the burden of storytelling.” (Voices of the Desert, p. 24)
Photograph: James Howard
No-BoNo-Bo (Ulica Meiselsa 24, restauracja-nobo.pl) is a new 50s-style cafe-diner with film posters, good coffee, daily specials from 17zl (£3.30) and a wide-ranging menu including breakfasts both English and Polish. Next door you’ll find the delightful Mleczarnia, a former Jewish milk bar, with an interior of gramophones and candelabras and sepia photographs. There’s a lovely garden opposite, one of the best spots in the city when the chestnut and cherry trees are in full bloom.
Hotel CopernicusSodispar (sodispar.pl) is a friendly agency renting basic twin-bed studios for 150zl (£30) or luxury apartments for up to 10 people for 490zl (£98). Its old town flats are on the best streets, within walking distance of the main square, and for my zloty, the best value for kipping in Krakow. Repeat guests are rewarded with a 20% discount, and the website carries last-minute offers.
Pódgoerze Bridge. Photograph: James Howard
Pod Baranem, Krakow
Ambasada Sledzia
day and the job is never done. I like it that way. Otherwise, I’d be sitting in my hut, watching the gate, waiting to open it when the boss arrives. Or his wife. Or the ayah coming with the girls from school. So to fill the hours, I sweep up the purple rain. And it falls again before I reach the end of this winding stretch of tarmac that has been my place of work for 15 years. So I start again, retracing my steps, my old, red flip-flops slapping the tarmac.
Today, the girls came from school early. It is half-term. Tomorrow, the family is going to the coast. Their father is a banker, a fair man. He always thanks me, pays me regularly, and gives me a good Christmas bonus. He sometimes gives me shoes and clothes that he no longer wants. I give them to my two boys. My boss is more generous than some of the Kenyans around here. The mzungus sometimes make better bosses.
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