Discoveries: Arts and Culture

The Asia Foundation sponsored a talk by Professor Terzi, major Bamiyan archaeologist.  I had met Debra Salter who is the American whose academic affiliation is the University in Vienna. His daughter who has formed the Afghan  archaeological association is encouraging publications of his books in English.  Dr Terzi has lived for some time in Paris, and speaks French and France supports the archaeology in Aghanistan.   

Ch 29 The Shore  THE FOLDING CLIFFS, W.S. Merwin.  1998  A story of 19th c Hawaii (The minister)He asked her about things that happened before she was born...and about times that she had forgotten and she answered him as well as she could...but when he read back to her what he had written about them/it sounded like a story about somebody else/more than like what she remembered of what happened/but she could not think how to tell him that it had been/not like that and would never have belonged in those words...the story is all that we have when things are over/the story begins as an echo of what went before but then it is only the story we are listening to...

  Georgia O'Keefe as Lady of the Lily, published in The New Yorker    Meant to be  a self portrait of Stieglitz(the large maple leaf) and O'Keefe the small lavender oak leaf in his care. 

The show was curated to show how O'Keefe went from literal representation to abstraction.  The most stunning example was her Jack in the Pulpit, which she painted several times, at Lake George, each time abstracting some element, until in the end all that remains is a filament of light and the jack.              She eschewed the Freudian interpretations of her "sexualized" flowers, and returned to more literal still lifes, like her many paintings of apples, and trees and leaves at Lake George.  Stieglitz's studio for developing his photos at Lake George        This was one of the more unusual examples.  It is always amazing that new discoveries can be found when O'Keefe's oeuvre has been so examined, but this exhibition reassess placing all the emphasis on her late period in New Mexico, which in the last phase of her life, won her so much acclaim, and shows how significant the more tha...

Prince Albert II addressing questions by President, Commonwealth Club SF Prince Albert II of Monaco son of Princess Grace, bn in Philadelphia.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2tE0Yiq0tU4&list=PLQ7A49bWFwYCjDuLIjfAPl7xURo-CjWbJ World Premiere of " Tears" to Steve Reich's music choreographed by Val Canipaoli .   Inspiration:  "When we try to pick out anything by itself, we find it hitched to everything else in the universe."   John Muir.   http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rXGXETqXkrY&list=PLQ7A49bWFwYCjDuLIjfAPl7xURo-CjWbJ and: Alexi Ratmansky's "From Foreign Lands ", expertly choreographed.  AR worked with Bolshoi, and is now with ABT, New York City.  The most beautiful piece, and yet with a light touch and contemporary vibration.  Astonishes! and Wayne McGregor's " Borderlands" which was totally stupifying, in its precision and manifestation of the angst and spirit of the new age...had us on the edge of our seats, which is what is about: lines...and inspiration in Hoffman's" Homage to the Square".    Brilliant. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2t...

This young cellist won the MacArthur prize. She plays the cello in an absolutely "liquid" manner; I do not know when I have heard a more beautiful Hayden! Symphony No. 6 in D major Le Matin,(1761)-- the four times of day were given as a subject, which resulted in four quartets like structures.  This oone opens with a sunrise.   --  followed by Alisa's  solo in Cello Concerto No. 1 in C Major (1765) This lesser known cello concerto is brilliant!  The program was followed by Rimsky-Korsakov's "Scheherazade, Opus 35 (1888)  All was conducted by elegant Rafael Fruhbeck de Burgos, who is a real maestro!  What was gracious is his quieting of the orchestra to allow the solo to shine. 

This symposia was an extension of the Interweaving exhibition held at the Metropolitan Museum of Art Fall 2013, sponsored by the Textile Society of which I am a member and the De Young Museum.  Sofia Sanabrais, PHD, independent scholar,  Mexican?  pointed to the time when Manila was a major world trading port, and to a time when Mexico wanted trade, due to a silver route opening.   Her research concerns the cultural and artistic exchanges between Asia and colonial Latin America(governe d by Spain)   and a little of Portugal. She was very professional and effective in showing how Mexicans(Spanish artists) adapted the style and medium of Japanese screens to represent their own history, their own plants and so on, and showed examples of such screens in museums  from Mexico City and Spain.    Karen Kramer Russell, Curator, Native American Art and Culture Peabody Essex Museum (PEM) reviewed the exhibition and critiqued it:   “Shapeshfiting...

Tang lady polo players

Heard Helen Grimaud play Brahms Piano Concerto No. 1 in D minor Opus 15 (1858)  What a complex work!   Everyone remembers that Brahms was a protege, so to speak of Robert Schumann, and fell in love with Clara Schumann, though each stayed loyal to their spouses.  Robert Schumann unfortunately died early on, in an asylum.  Clara and Brahms remained friends all through their lives. The D Minor sonata was born in these years and shows the strains and stresses and complex emotions of this period. It started life as a symphony "idea" and then a concerto for two pianos and then this final version.  The premieres in Hamburg and Leipzig were not promising; the emotional directness was overwhelming for the audiences.

Poems of the Thirties: 393  Pear Blossom and cherry blossom aim at me, Their strength is crumbling but they never miss. Stars in clusters of blossoms, leaves with stars -- what twin power is there?  On what branch does truth blossom? It fires into the air with flower or strength. Its air-white full blossom-bludgeons put it to death. And the twin scent's sweetness is unwelcoming, It contents, it reaches out, it is mingled, it is sudden . -- translated by Clarence Brown, Princeton. With the ongoing Sochi Winter games reminding me of Russia, and with the plum blossoms in full flower, along with calla lilies, and my orchids in sunny(though rainy, now) California, I opened the book to this poem, and it resonates.  I stayed near Mandelstram's house museum in St. Petersburg, which is not far from the Marinsky Ballet, which I also wanted to attend.  His life is celebrated in his widow's autobiography, HOPE AGAINST HOPE  He died in a transit camp in 1...

Forgotten Modern: California Houses 1940-1970 - Page 119books.google.com/books?isbn=1586858580Alan Hess - 2007 - ‎Preview I enjoyed the split level (aka Frank Lloyd Style architecture; as I come from the Midwest, his home in Wisconsin, and grew up with his architecture, I see an analogy in the West Coast architecture),  As we enjoyed some lovely Sterling wine from the Michael Graves designed vineyard, in Napa, I kept admiring the house's design, from its windows overlooking the bay to the open-ness and flowing quality of the interior...with niches for comfort.  We enjoyed a lovely Indian dinner, leg of lamb, and Pomfret fish, accompanied by the most elegant fluffy Basmati rice, with homemade Chala bread and lentils, as well as yoghurt -- delicious-- finishing with a custard crème and brandy!   My host was a neuro surgeon and his wife who live a block from me.  I discovered the house on my property was once owned by the Campbell soup heirs.  ...

The Goldfinch, by Carel Fabritius, The Maurithuis, the Hague.  (recently at the Frick in NYC, and seen by myself, at the De Young in San Francisco.     What is remarkable, is that I read a poem by Osip Mandelstam, translated by Clarence Brown, in the new book which arrived yesterday, with a cover graced by this painting, which has just  caused unceasing lines of visitors and 30,000 new memberships at the Frick in New York.  The painting has now gone to Bologna, Italy. I saw it at the De Young in San Francisco, and while everyone was lining up to see Vermeer's "Girl with a Pearl", this is the painting that captured my heart.  I kept a post card of it next to my desk, for more than a year, and then I had to buy Donna Tartt's book by the same title, as the painting is in the story; I am currently reading it and have yet to see how it plays a role...beyond falling into the bag of the little boy who is our primary subject in this lively tale expert...

I met Philip Glass when my husband bought me an interview with him for my birthday!  Very creative of my husband.  Little did he know the result.  Philip Glass gave me his telephone number and address in the village and invited me to visit him anytime. But why would I visit him?  Anyway, as a result of the sympatico interview, the director of NAP, which Philip Glass supported invited me to do an interview on his cable tv show, sponsored in part by NEH.   As a result, I did 10 cable tv shows, scripting and writing, and then videotaping, and working with an editor to create 10 shows for my program:  "There and Here:  the far and near". the goal of cultural understanding by looking at cultures on their ground and at them on our ground in America.  It was highly successful. So now I am 67 and he is 77   Voila!  

the orchid which has revived...a South American species grown in Salinas.  A hybrid.  

I decided to see Martha Graham's dance company as I had not seen them perform in years.  Martha Graham felt dance could enable dancers to find sense of fulfillment through dancing itself.    Her favorite quote was from St. John Perse:   “ You have so little time to be born to the instant”. I would agree with her; movement training has helped me immeasurably.  I remember taking ballet in graduate school "to keep my sanity", and the Hungarian dance master remembered me some years later at an Alumni Board luncheon, and when I asked him, how he recalled me among so many dancers(most professional ballet bound, such as Graham's company, the Toronto ballet and others)-- he replied, "I never forget a body."  I felt very complimented.  I used to be loyal to Graham , as she and her company came to the University of Wisconsin for a summer residency, and I used to go watch them rehearse in the dancing school.  UW Madison offered the only Phd in d...

  Berkeley Rep.   Anton   Chekov . a play adapted from two short stories by Anton Chekhov, “Man in a Case” and “About Love”...Adapted and directed by Paul Lazar and Annie Barson. Baryshnikov   definitely brings the same genius to acting.   The program reminds me that he was a principle dancer of the Kirov when he defected and joined the ABT.   I saw him in NYC when he was all the rage in 1976   He had come in 1974 and worked with George Balanchine and Jerome Robbins.   In 1980 he became Artistic director of ABT.   From 1990-2002, he was director and dancer with the White Oak Dance Project which he founded with choreographer Mark Morris.   In 2005 he opened the Baryshikov Arts Center (BAC) a creative home for artists to develop their work.     As far as his acting goes, Baryshnikov  won an Oscar nomination for “The Turning Point”, and starred in “White Nights”, as well as tv shows, including 3 Emmy award ...