'Genius: Picasso' (2018)

Genius: Picasso (National Geographic), 2018.  An impressively epic ten-part mini-series, Picasso provides a good introduction and overview, with crafty historical context. Its ensemble approach works, though it took me a while to acclimate to the chronological jumping back and forth. Very worthwhile. 

Picasso actors include: Alex Rich and Antonio Banderas as Picasso (younger and older, respectively); Samantha Colley (Dora Maar); Clémence Poésy (Françoise Gilot);  Sofia Doniantes (Olga Stepanovna Khokhlova); Aisling Franciosi (Fernande Olivier); Poppy Delevingne (Marie-Thérèse Walter); Valentina Bellè (Jacqueline Roque); Tracee Chimo (Getrude Stein), Simon Buret (Jean Coctaue); Andrew Buchan (Henri Matisse); Kerr Logan (Georges Braque); T.R. Knight (Max Jacob); Seth Gabel (Guillaume Apollinaire). 

Picasso is clearly based at least in part on various memoirs. Françoise Gilot's observations jump out in particular. At the time of this post she's still alive -- and ninety-six years old.   

Dora Maar (1907-1997), the coolest of them all. 

Today's Rune: Warrior. 

María Paz Moreno's 'Madrid: A Culinary History' (2018)

María Paz Moreno, Madrid: A Culinary History (Big City Food Biography Series). Lanham, Maryland: Rowman & Littlefield, 2018.

"Matrice, Mayrit, Magerit, Madrid. The city's many names over the centuries bear witness to its long history and rich cultural heritage. Madrid has seen a fascinating succession of peoples come and go, from prehistoric inhabitants to Iberians, Celts, Greeks, Romans, Visigoths, Moors, and Christians." (page 7).

"'[M]uch of what we think of today as being typically Spanish were, in fact, the staples of the Roman diet. Bread, cheese, olives, and olive oil, wine, and roasted meat . . . were the standard fare of the Roman soldiers in Hispania.'" (page 13).

Jewish and Islamic cuisine has survived, also, despite the expulsions from 1492 onward. "[T]he use of mint and spices such as saffron - an essential ingredient to paella, the iconic Spanish dish -- cinnamon, cumin, coriander, and caraway is common in many Spanish recipes and reflects a distinctly Arab touch." (page 22).

Moreno's progression through Madrid's food history is fascinating and hunger-inducing. She discusses cookbooks written over the centuries, tabernas, fondas, tapas, the impact of war, mercados, recipes and various eateries and marketplaces that are still operating after one or two hundred years - astonishing. 

The Big City Food Biography Series looks to be rewarding in the spirit of Anthony Bourdain. There's already a baker's dozen of these either already available or soon to be published, ranging from food biographies of New Orleans, San Francisco, New York City and Paris to upcoming tomes on Tapei and Seattle. 

P.S. "María Paz Moreno es poeta, ensayista y crítica literaria." See her website here.

Today's Rune: Strength. 

Gwynne Edwards' 'Lorca: Living in the Theatre' (2003). Part II

Gwynne Edwards, Lorca: Living in the Theatre. London and Chicago: Peter Owen, 2003.

The Public / El público (1930) -- first professional production, 1987, Madrid: 

"[T]he effect was a remarkably ghostlike setting, the characters existing in some disembodied world, and this was further heightened by the angles of lighting, which often illuminated only the sides of faces or created elongated shadows -- a mysterious, haunting, inner world, the darkened corner of the mind's recesses" (page 57).

When Five Years Pass / Así que pasen cinco años (1931): "Lorca was, for a variety of reasons, highly conscious of the passing of time and the inevitable consequences of this" (page 68). 

"' A great hand's taken her. / It must be the hand of God. / Don't bury me!'" (page 72).

". . . Lorca's play is much more sophisticated and polished than the Buñuel-Dalí film [Un Chien andalou, 1929], however much praise has been lavished on the latter. It [When Five Years Pass] illustrates Lorca's notion of a work of art as a journey, in this case a journey from day-dream and fantasy to bitter disillusionment. And in that respect it also has a coherence and a sense of the author's controlling hand which is at odds with [André] Breton's definition of Surrealism as spontaneous expression, free from the control of reason" (page 75).

Quoting Jan Fairley on the Edinburgh Fringe Festival production of When Five Years Pass in 1989: "Friends and phantoms intermingle so that there is no distinction between reality and fantasy. We are drawn into a constantly shifting present which re-plays itself through the past" (pages 82-83).

Blood Wedding / Bodas de sangre (1931): 

". . . Lorca was acutely conscious, through personal experience and cultural background, that the individual finds himself in an uncomprehending universe and at the mercy of a hostile fate in the face of which his deepest aspirations come to nothing and very often prove to be the source of his own downfall.  His vision is, of course, pessimistic, suggesting a world without hope, but in that sense it is typical of the twentieth century and places Lorca firmly alongside such dramatists as [Eugene] O'Neill, Arthur Miller and Samuel Beckett" (page 112).   

Today's Rune: Initiation.

Gwynne Edwards' 'Lorca: Living in the Theatre' (2003). Part I

Gwynne Edwards, Lorca: Living in the Theatre. London and Chicago: Peter Owen, 2003.

I have found this to be very helpful as a guide to plays by Federico García Lorca (1898-1936), and for a serious delving into Spanish and modern theatre in general. Of course, written plays go back to the ancient Greeks and are a hallmark of literacy. Ancient theatrical performances foreshadow cinema, television, YouTube and God knows what else that's coming in the future. Maybe time travel.

In Lorca: Living in the Theatre, Edwards focuses on six major plays, each given its own chapter. They are:

The Public / El público (1930)
When Five Years Pass / Así que pasen cinco años (1931)
Blood Wedding / Bodas de sangre (1931) 
Yerma (1934)
Doña Rosita the Spinster / Doña Rosita la soltera o El lenguaje de las flores (1935)
The House of Bernarda Alba / La casa de Bernarda Alba (1936)

The Public was so far ahead of its time that Lorca quipped even then: "This is for the theatre years from now." It was not performed until the 1970s; professionally, not until the 1980s (see pages 42-43 and 55+).

Edwards gives a brief overview of Lorca's formative time spent at the Residencia de Estudiantes (pages 44-46), which sounds like an ideal place to soak up and exchange new ideas and energies. World class lecturers came through (from Albert Einstein to H. G. Wells) and fellow students included the likes of Luis Buñuel (1900-1983) and Salvador Dalí (1904-1989).  

Edwards thereby discusses Lorca's "magpie approach in all his work" (page 47) -- meaning he drew from eclectic sources and styles, including Surrealism and Classical Theatre, visual art, dance, Gypsy and Arabic music and poetry, cinema and Catholicism. He was on fire!  

(To be continued). 

Today's Rune: Strength. 

Televisión Española: 'El Ministerio del Tiempo' / 'The Ministry of Time:' Season One, Episode 5 (2015)

Now on Netflix, Televisión Española's El Ministerio del Tiempo / The Ministry of Time. My mother and one of my sisters have been watching this, and now I'm into it!

Season One, Episode 5 (2015):  Cualquier tiempo pasado / Every Past Time. In this episode, members of the Ministry of Time go back to the Spanish Civil War (1937) and to 1981, and another one goes back to around the turn of the twentieth century to meet a young Picasso, in three different attempts to attain or forge a receipt for Picasso's Guernica, which another time traveler is trying to thwart in 1981. 

A fun series, perfect for anyone wanting to learn about Spanish culture, history and language. (English subtitles included).

The secret Ministry of Time has multiple portals and can access Spain's past -- but only inside Spain. People are recruited from various ages, then cross-trained for time travel.

Imagine the possibilities!  The active viewer has to engage -- and use critical thinking. It's mind-expanding on multiple fronts!

A woman from the 1800s must consider the different attitudes and social mores of the 21st century, and, then, say, go to the 16th century, and come back again. A soldier from 16th century Flanders muses over changes in technology, communications, transportation, and gender roles. The viewer must empathize to grok these different and changing viewpoints. 

On the sly, certain people go back in time to "fix" personal memories. But if they do anything drastic, the present may be changed (enigmas of time, paradox, anomaly).

Painter Diego Velázquez (1599-1660) badly wants to meet Pablo Picasso (1881-1973). They do meet, and discuss Francisco Goya (1746-1828), among other things. Keepin' it real -- a real cool time!

All aboard for funtime!  

Today's Rune: Harvest. 

Federico García Lorca, 'Poet in Spain' (2017): Part II

The center of Granada, Spain: Plaza de la Trinidad, summer of 2015

Continuing with Sarah Arvio's new Spanish-to-English translations in the bilingual Federico García Lorca, Poet in Spain (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 2017). Part I can be found by this link.

From "Falseta:"

"Gente con el corazón / en la cabeza,"    (page 150)

"Folks with their hearts / in their heads" (page 151)

From "San Miguel / Granada:"

"Vienen manolas comiendo / semillas de girasloes, 

los culos grandes y ocultos / como planetas de cobre." (page 210)

"Flashy gals from Madrid / munch flower seeds

their big secret rumps / like coppery planets"   (page 211)

[Nota bene: "culos" = "asses"].

From "San Rafael / Córdoba:"

"vendedores de tabaco / huyen por el  roto muro."    (page 212)

"All the tobacco hawkers / flee through the broken wall" (page 213)

From "El poeta pide a su amor que le escriba" / "The Poet Asks His Love to Write to Him:"

"Corazón interior no necesita / la miel helada que la luna vierte." (page 338)

"An inner heart does not need / the icy honey spilled by the moon (page 339)

I also dig Arvio's translation of Lorca's play, Bodas de sangre / Blood Wedding (1932) which helped me better grok the Moon (pages 452-453) and the "Mendiga / Beggar" (pages 454+).

Repeating from Part I about this book: Fun and fascinating in the sun, under the moon or even by electric light, it is. 

Today's Rune: Protection.

Federico García Lorca, 'Poet in Spain' (2017): Part I

¡Ved qué locura! ~ Isn't it wild? Last night, I finished reading Sarah Arvio's new Spanish-to-English translations in the bilingual Federico García Lorca, Poet in Spain (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 2017). Spanish is on the left of the main body of text, English on the right. Fun and fascinating in the sun or under the moon or even by electric light, it is. 

Arvio has chosen representative samples of Lorca's Spanish poetry and his play, Bodas de sangre / Blood Wedding (1932). His New York City poems are not included.

Things that popped out at me follow. He makes it seems so simple.

Imagery in"Claro de reloj" / "Space in the Clock" -- "where the stars / struck the twelve floating / black numbers" (page 3).

First and last line of "Pan:" 
"¡Ved qué locura!" that Arvio translates as "How wild!" (pages 12-13). Machine translation: "See what madness!"

From "Serentata:"
Lolita lava su cuerp / con agua salobre y nardos (page 24) =
Lolita washes her body / with white nard and brine" (page 25).

What, pray tell (I thought upon first reading), is nardos / nard in this context? Apparently, Spikenard, incidentally a part of the heraldry of Pope Francis, a flowering plant that has a Phoenician trace as "Indian narde," originating in the Himalayas. 

Nardostachys jatamansi / Nard

Lorca likes the word and the image.  

From "Segungo aniversario" / "Second Anniversary:"

"Oh you alone  wandering / in the last room of the night" (pages 48-49).

This is cool, from "Nocturnos de la ventna" / "Window Nocturnes:"

"Los instantes heridos / por el reloj . . . pasaban" 
"The moments wounded / by the clock -- went by --"   (pages 70-71). 

I'll aim to wrap this up in the next post.

Today's Rune: The Mystery Rune. Illustration of nardo: Joseph Dalton Hooker (1817-1911) - Curtis's Botanical Magazine, Vol. 107, series 3, number 37, table 6564. Wiki Commons. 

  

'The Secret Life of Salvador Dalí' (1942): Early In Spain

The Secret Life of Salvador Dalí, translated into English by Haakon Chevalier. New York: Dial Press, 1942. Since reprinted by various publishers. 

Dalí's (1904-1989) innately bizarre way of seeing things is all here, but to my surprise, so is a consistent sort of Catholicism. There's a lot of depth in this book. Dalí was a strange person, and an interesting one.

Childhood and young adulthood are conjured in a way that feels accurate -- we tend to forget how precocious and weird children can be on the inside. Dalí remembers, maybe even with more than a touch of obsessive compulsion.

Dalí as a kid, not quite an adolescent:

 . . . I determined the methodical distribution of the events of my future days, for with my avidity for all things, resulting from my new and bubbling vitality, I felt that I needed a minimum of order so as not to destroy my enthusiasm in contradictory and simultaneous desires. For I now wanted to take frenzied advantage of everything all at once, to be everywhere at the same moment. I understood very quickly that with the disorder in which I went about wanting to enjoy and bite and touch everything I would in the end not be able to taste or savor anything at all and that the more I clutched at pleasure, attempting to profit by the gluttonous economy of a single gesture, the more this pleasure would slip and escape from my too avid hands.

And so he chose to adopt "a jesuitical and meticulous program . . . strictly and severely exacting." (Chapter Five: "True Childhood Memories.")  

And on he will go, to Madrid, and Paris and New York City, and eventually back to Spain, and even recently in the news. 

It'll take a few posts to complete the job.

Today's Rune: Flow. 

Héctor García and Francesc Miralles. 'Ikigai: The Japanese Secret to a Long and Happy Life' (2016), Part III

Héctor García and Francesc Miralles. Ikigai: The Japanese Secret to a Long and Happy Life. Translated by Heather Cleary. New York: Penguin, 2016. Originally published as Ikigai: Los secretos de Japón para una vida larga y feliz (Medicinas complementarias). Urano, 2016. Part the Third.

From the previous post, let's continue with Shoma Morita (1874-1938).  Another one of his techniques was to utilize "Naikan meditation."  In thinking about interpersonal relationships, a person would be asked to meditate on questions such as, "what have I" given and received from a specific person in their life, and most importantly, "What problems have I caused" this other person?

"Through these reflections, we stop identifying others as the cause of our problems and deepen our own sense of responsibility." (page 50). Existentialism redux!

The authors also devote chapters to:

Flow (and microflow), pages [55]-86;

Words of Wisdom from people mostly over 110 years of age, pages [89]-99;

Hanging out with 100+ year old people in Ogimi, Okinawa, pages [103]-132;

Blue Zones, radio taiso, yoga, tai chi, imitating clouds, qigong, shiatsu and breathing, pages [135]-161;

Resilence -- "Fall seven times, rise eight," page [165] -- wabi-sabi and tchi-go ichi-e -- "[t]his moment exists only now and won't come again," page 172 -- and building redundancies, pages [165]-179;

And an epilogue ("give thanks," page 185) with notes and further reading ideas. 

Today's Rune: Warrior. 

Héctor García and Francesc Miralles. 'Ikigai: The Japanese Secret to a Long and Happy Life' (2016), Part II

Héctor García and Francesc Miralles. Ikigai: The Japanese Secret to a Long and Happy Life. Translated by Heather Cleary. New York: Penguin, 2016. Originally published as Ikigai: Los secretos de Japón para una vida larga y feliz (Medicinas complementarias). Urano, 2016. Part the Second.

Next we turn to Viktor Frankl (1905-1997), survivor of the Holocaust, psychologist, and interesting thinker. Frankl, whose wife, mother and brother all died in Nazi death camps, asks via his logotherapy approach, "Why do you not commit suicide?" (page [37]).

If you can answer that to your own satisfaction, you probably have found a reason or reasons to want to live, even in a foul world.

Frankl employs a great deal of existentialism to his method of psychology. He "believed that our health depends on that natural tension that comes from comparing what we've accomplished so far with what we'd like to achieve in the future . . . a challenge we can strive to meet by applying all the skills at our disposal." (page 40).

Purpose = Ikigai, "reason for getting out of bed."  (page 41).

The authors then delve into the Zen Buddhist psychotherapeutic methods of Shoma Morita (1874-1938).  

Morita's approach is holistic. He has his charges spending time with themselves, and then doing. "[T]heir feelings will change as a result of their actions." (page 46). 

"Discover your life's purpose. We can't control our emotions, but we can take charge of our actions every day." (page 48).

There's a lot more to explore about Morita therapy, but let's just say that poets and philosophers would dig it, after an initial rebellion.

Today's Rune: Protection.   

Héctor García and Francesc Miralles. 'Ikigai: The Japanese Secret to a Long and Happy Life' (2016), Part I

Héctor García and Francesc Miralles. Ikigai: The Japanese Secret to a Long and Happy Life. Translated by Heather Cleary. New York: Penguin, 2016. Originally published as Ikigai: Los secretos de Japón para una vida larga y feliz (Medicinas complementarias). Urano, 2016.

I love books that delve into philosophies of life. This is another in a slew of such, and fun it is -- a quick, easy read, too. And, as usual in these offerings, there are useful insights that make it worth the effort.

The authors take an eclectic approach. They suggest not being a dummy on auto-pilot. Push the envelope. Learn new things every day. Explore, investigate and observe. Carry about with active curiosity. "Presented with new information, the brain creates new connections and is revitalized. This is why it is so important to expose yourself to change, even if stepping outside your comfort zone means feeling a bit of anxiety." (page 21).

This keeps mind and body active, and also makes time feel slower and more drawn-out: more musing, less rush. Why? Because the brain has to "take more time" to process the new tidbits of observation. 

Another suggestion: be less overtly emotional in response to the storms of life (what Carl von Clausewitz called "friction"). 

"A stoic attitude -- serenity in the face of a setback . . . lowers anxiety and stress levels and stabilises [stabilizes] behavior. This can be seen in the greater life expectancies of certain cultures with unhurried, deliberate lifestyles." (page 31) 

I concur completely with both approaches, which are complimentary: be a curious, open-minded seeker, and don't lose your toast over things that you can't control. 

In the next post, we'll consider the authors' suggestions in how to employ Viktor Frankl's concept of logotherapy to strengthen one's life. Interesting stuff.

Today's Rune: Breakthrough. 

Russell Martin: 'Picasso's War' (2002)

Russell Martin, Picasso's War: The Destruction of Guernica, and the Masterpiece That Changed the World. New York: Dutton, 2002.

The way it's organized:
Prologue
The Spanish Dead
Remembering the Bullring
Images Spilling from Fingers
Save Spain!
A Wearable Pair of Boots
Exiles
The Last Refugee
Guernica in Gernika
Epilogue

Highly absorbing book, providing background, context, a detailed account of artistic creation, setting, display, impact, rescue, and ongoing installation.

We see why Picasso was moved to perform his artistic duties on behalf of the Spanish Republic, then under attack by Nazi and fascist-backed brutes from 1936 until 1939. Martin shows how Picasso's response to the German-Italian air assault against Guernica on April 26, 1937 led to the creation of his Guernica masterpiece.  

A vivid account of the bombing, how word of it spread (and was also denied by the usual suspects), and how Picasso's work was displayed at the Spanish Pavilion at the Paris Expo, the Exposition Internationale des Arts et Techniques dans la Vie Moderne (International Exposition of Art and Technology in Modern Life) that ran later in 1937. At this utterly surreal expo, giant German Nazi architecture ranged against Soviet symbols, even as German and Italian military forces and equipment faced off against Soviet equipment and advisers in the ongoing Spanish Civil War. 

Most of Europe would be engulfed in the Second World War before the decade of the 1930s was out, but only after Spain was left to burn to the ground.     

Picasso's War includes still-current debates over modern Spanish life, identity and policy. The aspirations of people in the Basque region and Catalonia are notably included. 

Since 1992, Madrid has been hosting Guernica in the Museo Nacional Centro de Arte Reina Sofía; but not without a fight and the creation of a proposed alternate venue at the Guggenheim Museum Bilbao in Basque country. 

I've seen the original Guernica at the Reina Sofía in Madrid and the huge tapestry copy at United Nations headquarters in New York City.  Now I'd like to visit Balboa and, of course, sacred Guernica (Gernika), both in Euskadi, Basque country. 

Here is the author's tribute to his teacher-friend and mentor Angel Vilalta: "Angel continually demonstrated that the best kinds of men were inquisitive and energetic, courageous yet compassionate, attuned to the breadth of the world's worries and pleasures but also equally focused on family and friends." (page 187). 

Today's Rune: Growth. 

Joris Ivens: 'The Spanish Earth' (1937)

The film footage alone makes The Spanish Earth (1937), Joris Ivens' 52 minute film shot during the Spanish Civil War (1936-1939), a priceless work. Ivens (1898-1989) was assisted by film editor Helen van Dongen (1909-2006); both were Dutch.

The intent of this charged documentary was to garner American support for the Spanish Republic, then under violent assault by Nazi (Hitler and German) and fascist (Mussolini and Italian) forces fighting alongside Francisco Franco's Spanish rebels.

Several prominent American writers assisted with writing, narration and distribution. These included: Archibald Macleish (who became the Librarian of Congress in 1939), Lillian Hellman, John Dos Passos, Ernest Hemingway and Orson Welles.

There are multiple versions of The Spanish Earth, each with a different narrator. I've only seen the one narrated by Orson Welles. Because Welles' voice was considered "too cultured" for the average American, Hemingway did another, gruffer version. In French, Jean Renoir delivered yet another variation. 

The script for the narration is so-so, and the music intrusive and horrid about 80% of the time, but overall the film is wild and absorbing.

The defenses of Madrid. Doors from blasted buildings are put to use as support for trenches and earthworks.

Battle for Madrid. Fierce fighting right inside the city. Similarly stark imagery will reappear in Stanley Kubrick's Paths of Glory (1957) and Full Metal Jacket (1987) as "the Anthill" and Huế.

In 1937, the majority of the people of Barcelona and Madrid fought on the same side against fascism. It's sad to see, eighty years later and more than forty years after Franco's death, Catalonia and Madrid at loggerheads. But such is life.  

Today's Rune: Gateway. 

Richard Rhodes: 'Hell and Good Company' (2015)

Richard Rhodes, Hell and Good Company: The Spanish Civil War and the World It Made (New York: Simon & Schuster, 2015).  

This is another well-written book about the endlessly absorbing Spanish Civil War (1936-1939). Rhodes interweaves personal accounts (of nurses, doctors, artists, officers) with technical observations (types of equipment, processes, construction of air raid shelters) in a winning combination, because he also manages to keep the book fairly short.

"War is chaotic. People come and go. I decided to pin my narrative not to the people but to the chronology of the war itself, starting at the beginning and marching through to the end." (page xvii).

Lots of people make their way in and out of and then back into the narrative as the war moves along. Many have poignant arcs, such as that of Patience Darton and Robert Aaquist: "Love made a space for them, but love doesn't conquer all." (page 221).

There are tales of Pablo Picasso, Ernest Hemingway, Martha Gellhorn, John Dos Passos, André Malraux, Joan Miró, and much about medical efforts and hospitals. Nearly one in five doctors in the anti-fascist International Brigades were women (page 187).

Rhodes favors the side of the Republic defending against the fascist and Nazi-backed Nationalists, and he shows greatest sympathy where it seems most appropriate. The Spanish people are given their due, but this is mostly a collective story told from the outside in, mostly through the words of international participants or semi-omnisciently.

I like the specificity of detail that Rhodes delves into from time to time. I've learned new things about the war. Not only about the heroism of the various medical corps, but more about the Germans sent by Hitler, too: "The Condor Legion deployed to Spain by ship . . . consisted initially of thirty-seven officers, 3,786 men, and ninety-two factory-new aircraft, including three squadrons of Junkers-52 bombers, three squadrons of Heinkel 51 biplane fighters, two squadrons of Heinkel 45 and Heinkel 70 reconnaissance bombers, and a seaplane squadron . . . Hitler also sent tank companies, antitank platoons, signals units, and submarines to bolster Franco's forces. Mussolini contributed not only planes, tanks, and submarines but also tens of thousands of infantry." (page 29).

One of the legacies of the Spanish Civil War is in the use of air power to bomb civilian targets en masse, with ruthless repetition -- a terrible legacy, indeed, especially when one side gains air supremacy against a virtually helpless enemy stuck on or under the ground. 

Today's Rune: Movement.