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Amsterdam Bed-In 40 Years On: Memories and Reflections

They say that Twitter helps you find ideas. With regards to this post, Twitter helped me find the most of it… starting with a reminder about the famous Amsterdam bed-in at the Hilton Hotel staged by John Lennon and Yoko Ono between 25 and 31 of March, 1969. Although a seasoned Beatlomaniac myself, I have forgotten about the 40th anniversary. But then someone reminded me of it.

It was Joel Warady from Chicago with whom I share both professional activity (marketing, see Joel Warady Group website) and the passion for the Grand Four from Liverpool. His first tweet was a mere mention of the 40th anniversary, but he also mentioned that at The Hilton Hotel in Amsterdam there was a plaque on the room’s door. I was curious, so I asked if one could actually see the room. Joel’s answer was positive… and next I was asking him if he would be willing to answer a few questions. The Q&A exchange happened at Facebook, so in a nutshell here is an example of harnessing the potential of some Social Networks to do the work.

So, off to Joel 🙂 And many thanks to him for agreeing to answer the questions.


Joel Warady: This was the room where John asked for peace…

JD: Let’s start with your visit to Amsterdam. Did you deliberately choose to stay at The Hilton?

JW: I tend to go to Amsterdam for work purposes, and in 2007 I decided to stay at The Hilton. I didn’t actually think that it was there that John and Yoko had staged their bed-in. But once I arrived, I recognised it straight away and asked some questions. The front desk person was the one who confirmed it, and told me that if I wanted to see the room, the General Manager would be happy to show it to me.

JD: You mentioned there was a plaque at the room commemorating the bed-in. So, you got to see it – what was the impression?

JW: I did have a chance to see the room. I saw it many times before in the clips, but it was still very inspiring to physically be there. It was very cool, it felt historical, but also a bit sad. I was thinking that this was the room where John asked for peace, but then remembering that he was shot in an act of violence… it really got to me.

JD: Do you remember your reaction to the news on December 8, 1980?

JW: When I first heard that John was killed, I was in my car, driving in the suburbs of Chicago. Ironically, I was selling life insurance at the time, and when I heard he had been killed, I pulled off the road, and cried.

JD: John seems to be an important figure for you… am I right?

JW: John’s humour was always what made me smile the most. While I enjoyed his singing, his personality was what made it for me.

JS: And what about the Beatles, then? I notice on Facebook you list them among your favourite artists.

JW: Beatles did mean a lot for me. I’m old enough to remember their US introduction, but still young enough to introduce their music to younger coworkers. Even today when I hear certain Beatles songs, I tear up thinking of when I first heard the song. It also saddens me to hear John’s and George’s voices on certain songs, knowing that they both are gone.

JS: Do you have a favourite song?

JW: This would be a tough one! Obviously, there are so many… but if I have to choose one, it is ‘If I Fell‘ from A Hard Day’s Night album.

JS: As everyone knows, we the fans love going to our stars’ concerts, visiting the places where they lived or worked, collect memorabilia. What about yourself – have you seen the Beatles perform? Or went to Penny Lane, perhaps?

JW: Well, here is what really sad: although I’ve been to the UK over 70 times, I still didn’t get to visit Liverpool or Abbey Road. I do keep promising myself to do so, of course. At the same time, I have visited the site in Soho where they had their store. The same goes for those sites in London where I know they used to be in their early days, I love going there. I’ve never seen them live, but a few years ago I went to see Paul in concert, and that was awe-inspiring. Seriously, it was one of the best concerts I’ve ever attended.

The Significance of the Amsterdam Bed-In

The 40th anniversary of the Bed-In (commemorated in The Ballad of John and Yoko) was highlighted in the media, as well as marked by a special exhibition organised by Yoko Ono and The John Lennon Estate. The exhibition at The Hilton this year showcased John’s art work, posthumously fulfilling his dream to achieve recognition as a visual artist. On a personal note, I own what must be one of those collections of coloured prints that Yoko produced to popularise John’s work. To quote John Lennon Arts Projects,

Lennon’s style as an artist has been written about extensively, and consisted of two main techniques: quick sketching and the art of sumi ink drawing, which involves the use of a fine sable brush with very black ink and water. This Oriental art technique leaves very little room for error; the consistency of the water and ink has to be carefully controlled, and the brushstrokes must suit the consistency of the ink. Quick sketching was also well suited to Lennon, as he could draw extremely fast; many of his quick sketches were made in one continuous movement in which he did not lift his pencil from the paper, thereby creating an entire complex image with a single line.

Of course, for all of us who in one way or another were influenced by Lennon’s work, and by The Beatles in general, there will be those who are more or less immune to their charms. Michael Archer of The Guardian, for instance, attempts to explain the significance of the bed-in, but ends up speculating more about the phonetic similarity between Lennon’s “peace” and Ono’s “piece”, as she called her own artwork (now, of course, “piece” as a term has been so much appropriated by artists and art critics alike, it is probably impossible to appreciate the 1969 pun in its own terms). He also puts the bed-in in the context of the Vietnam war and compares it to the Grosvenor Square demonstration of 1968. What he forgets to mention, however, that 1968 was generally the year of protests (May’68 in Paris was fittingly commemorated in Bertolucci’s Dreamers); these happened in many countries, and the Vietnam war wasn’t the only cause. Lennon wasn’t too idealistic, after all, and certainly didn’t expect the world leaders to stop fighting to watch him and Yoko possibly having sex. The bed-in was an attempt to seize the moment, to get the world come to the Amsterdam Hilton and to “give peace a chance”. To quote one of the commentators on Archer’s article:

I was in NYC the night John Lennon was shot. Driving by the Dakota the next day on the way out of town was one of the saddest experiences in my life. In some ways, it has seemed to me that that day was a turning point in our civilisation and that everything went downhill since then… I still miss John Lennon for his music also, of course, but the world today could certainly use more of his wit, wisdom, and sarcasm. A special thanks to Yoko for keeping John’s memory alive…

P.S. I was hoping to add more “value” to Joel’s interview, as I found a video on YouTube (a Social Media channel, by the way) of Hans Schiffers, a Dutch journalist, interviewing Hans Boskamp at The Hilton Hotel. The video went online in February 2009. I tried to connect with Hans via YouTube mail, but was far less successful. My attempts at securing help of other Dutch speakers I knew, sadly, failed, but the readers of this post who know Dutch are very welcome to participate. You can leave comments or email me with the transcript. Either way, it will be quoted, and a full credit will be given to you.

You can also view a series of bed-in clips at Mojo4Music.

Slavoj Žižek on (Mis)Uses of Violence at the Leeds University

They say that the tickets to Slavoj Žižek ‘s lectures sell out almost as quickly as those to the pop stars’ concerts. The lecture at the University of Leeds on 18th of March was free, and the temptation to go and see and listen to one of the leading philosophers of today was too strong to resist. As a result, I know now that I can arrange an ad hoc trip from Manchester to Leeds (with an overnight stay) in less than half a day.

Thankfully, this knowledge wasn’t the only outcome of my trip to Leeds. I saw Prof Žižek on TV previously, but this was a different experience. It’s been a long while since I attended a proper University lecture, the “full house” one where you have to look for a seat (consider that I came directly from work, with a small suitcase) and where the staff, students and members of the public all sit together, occupying every available space – including the steps. In this sense going to Žižek’s lecture was like getting back to the old times when I was a student. But more than that, it was a wonderful intellectual stimulation. Slavoj Žižek’s current “tour of the North” of England (as aptly described by the “tour manager” Dr Paul A. Taylor, ICS, University of Leeds and Editor of the International Journal of Žižek Studies) serves to introduce his new book, Violence. The reviews of it that you may find on the web (The Independent’s Simon Critchley being perhaps the kindest) criticise Žižek, on the one hand, for calling for no action as the response to the “systemic” violence of the socio-economic order (the counterargument is how can someone be inactive in the face of injustice or war, etc.), and, on the other, for never taking the extra step to act himself. So, as he acknowledged from the start of his talk, this lecture is what he would add to his book, if he were to prepare a new edition.

The three-hour “performance” (and I’m not being ironic) included a short demonstration from the film Žižek!, and I’m embedding three short extracts from the lecture itself. The choice is purely personal, in that I chose the topics that I found most interesting. The first extract is about the problem of explicit and implicit ideological injunctions. Žižek starts by alluding to John Carpenter’s They Live (1988) as the story of how ideology works and of what it takes to liberate oneself from its throes. Liberation hurts, concludes Žižek, and there is hidden agenda underneath every ideological appeal. When he illustrates this with the examples from the Fascist past, it’s hard to disagree. Even when he says that the Catholic appeals to be a priest conceal a promise of paedophile pleasures, one can not only agree, but even bring in a supportive example: The Bad Education (2004) by Pedro Almodovar. It gets more contentious when he argues that behind appeals for humanitarian help there is, in fact, an urge to act without thinking, to contribute money rather than to treat the problem itself. As a result, people become indifferent to humanitarian problems. It is tempting to disagree, but again, I recall Andrew Marr’s deploring in his book My Trade the overflow of sentiments in modern journalism, which makes little more but decrease the tabloid sales. At the same time, the audience grows dispassionate, and – I can add – the phone-in scandals hardly help the matter.

Another extract is about appearances and freedom. The modern relationships between the master and subjects, Žižek claims, are much more oppressive. We simply don’t have the freedom of choice, even though it feels like we’ve never been freer than today. Elsewhere in his lecture Žižek underlined the fact that we’re often left without an alternative. We expect to choose between fundamentalism and liberal democracy, for instance, as if there is no other form of social organisation. I suppose this is what could be called the “unknown knowns” – exactly what Donald Rumsfeld has omitted in his (in)famous speech and to what Prof Žižek alluded a few times. The price for ignoring the “unknown knowns” is usually high, as Žižek didn’t fail to demonstrate. The potential aim of the war in Iraq, apart from freeing the world of Hussein and the weapons of mass destruction, was to create a secular state. The result is that the Iraqi state is now much less secular and more fundamentalist than it was under Hussein: the so-called intelligentsia has fled the country, whereas it is with the help of precisely this social group that the secular state can be built.

In the third extract Žižek speaks of the problem of the Big Other. He is preoccupied with the importance of such notion or object (the “chicken”), especially because it relates to the problem of trauma, as recently discussed by Catherine Malabou in her book The Newly Wounded (Les Nouveaux Blessés). What happens when the Big Other is erased? – is the question Žižek attempts to answer here. Trauma is evidently connected to violence, but he also made a point during his talk that Malabou concentrated too much on the “Western” type of trauma, a momentary trauma, whereas in impoverished deprived African states trauma is literally a state of existence.

Perhaps, many a critique of Žižek’s work could be dismissed by his own statement that, as a philosopher, he isn’t there to help us solve problems or to realise the expectations. His job is actually far more complex: he needs to explain to us whether or not our expectations are sustainable. It is possibly because of this that he prefers to retreat to the back bench. Maybe, instead of supplying us with the facts, he wants us to go and do the job ourselves. The question is not whether Žižek is right; the question is whether we are really ready for this. Already in a 2001 interview (following the 9/11 in America) he stated that there is something wrong with one group of people increasingly “moving” to live in the virtual space while another group of people (which he called “cutters”) maintain that they need to cut themselves in order to feel alive. Seven years later some pundits admit that, in spite of its universally binding force, the Internet (and social media, in particular) leaves you feel extremely lonely – perhaps to the point when you do start cutting your own flesh.

I find one particular thesis very engaging. Žižek repeatedly blazes his critique against the modern multiculturalism, which, in his opinion, is just a new form of racism. Sounds odd, doesn’t it, especially when I’m writing this sitting in a city that prides itself on being diverse and multicultural? But I have only to think of some Mancunians’ attitude to homosexuality. They say there’s nothing wrong about being gay. They say it’s great that a person can be different. They accept and respect homosexuality – as long as they don’t have to visit the Gay Village, to mesh in the Gay Parade, to watch queer films, or to have a gay son or a lesbian daughter. Multiculturalism disguises indifference, which very likely conceals the deeply hidden disgust or fear. On the same note, it’s OK to respect the Hindus, Žižek said in 2001, but does this “respect” extend onto the Hindu custom of a wife burning herself following the husband’s death?

“What is it to be a human?” Žižek asks in his Leeds Lecture, answering: it is perhaps not what we can do, but something that is beyond our reach which we nonetheless are trying to grasp. To be human is to be driven, and indeed, “we endlessly care about things we cannot change”. Furthermore, he states, our innermost narrative (what we tell ourselves about ourselves) is a fundamental lie; we need, in fact, to concentrate on what undermines us. In simple terms, instead of looking at what is familiar to ourselves in ourselves, we should face the “unknown knowns”, things that exist within us but of which we are not immediately aware.

So, the thesis I find extremely interesting is that the true solidarity is not a solidarity in understanding – it is a solidarity in struggle, which manifests itself as the political universality, the only true universality (I guess we may need to retreat to George Orwell once again and his pondering on the political purpose of a writer). “Political”, however, is external, whereas what interests me is the application of Žižek’s thesis to the story of one’s self. I agree with those who say that one must first learn to solve their own problems before they attempt to solve the problems of the others. This is not an advocacy or apology for doing nothing but rather the understanding that the common insight (of which Žižek spoke in 2001) is hardly a matter of divine providence. It has to come from somewhere, and very likely the “somewhere” is within us. Learning to accept one’s personal hidden depths instead of alienating, pitying or victimising oneself in one’s own eyes is for me exactly the lesson of solidarity in struggle. It also exemplifies, powerfully and convincingly, that this struggle never ends, instead it takes on new forms and new dimensions.

The final thesis of Prof Žižek’s lecture that I also found interesting touches on the modern forms of proletarisation. In the modern capitalist world we’re deprived, he argues, of our ecological habitat (because the environment is overpolluted), of our genetic “identity” (through experiments with genome), and even of our intellectual property. The true utopia, however, is that capitalism can extend and reinvent itself forever. A clash is inevitable, but Žižek believes it is possible to do something about it.

Links:

Slavoj Žižek, The Pervert’s Guide to Cinema

International Journal of Žižek Studies

Žižek! (a film by Astra Taylor)

Details of Prof Žižek’s lecture at the University of Leeds

International Journal of Žižek Studies Facebook group

Slavoj Žižek: “The One Measure of True Love Is: You Can Insult the Other” (@ Spiked-Online)

Violence by Slavoj Žižek

Žižek on Violence (Video) – the video of the Leeds lecture uploaded by Kishore Budha to Subaltern Studies – An Inter-Disciplinary Study of Media and Communications portal.

Reviews:

Simon Critchley, The Independent

Steven Poole, The Guardian

Julian Baggini, The Times

Chris Power, BBC

I’m grateful to Mark Thwaite from ReadySteadyBook for publicising Žižek’s talk.

Earthquakes in My Life (Deux Hommes dans la Ville)

In August 2007 Robin Hamman reported on the BBC Manchester Blog about an earthquake in Manchester. He was rather surprised that very few of us, Manchester bloggers, noticed it. I didn’t notice it, no. But the Manchester earthquake was but 2 points on the Richter scale. The recent earthquake that hit much of the UK was 5 points, and I did feel it. Well, since this was the first earthquake I personally experienced I’ve got to write a memo of it. I was in the bathroom, and the door shook and rattled, but hardly anything moved, including myself. I thought it was a very strong wind which does occasionally visit the house where I currently live. You can easily imagine my surprise when in the morning I read about Britain being hit by its second strongest earthquake since 1984.

In my Russian LiveJournal I wrote about this experience, since it was really the experience, and I’m very grateful to the reader who sent me their support, even though I didn’t suffer any damage (unlike some people and households in England). In my turn, I hope that none of my friends or readers was affected by the force of Nature.

Although this was the first time I experienced an earthquake myself, it wasn’t the first earthquake in my life to which I had to react somehow. On December 7, 1988 when I was at the second form at school (still primary school), a devastating earthquake hit Armenia. As I gathered from browsing the Internet, it is now known as the Spitak, or Gyumri Earthquake. You can easily guess by looking at the date that this catastrophe occurred while the USSR still existed, and I believe it was a common initiative across all Soviet schools to organise sending some humanitarian aid to the families, and most importantly children who suffered from the earthquake. In my childhood I’ve had a lot of toys, and my Mum and I collected a huge bag of different dolls to send to children in Armenia.

I must be honest, though, and admit that the empathy upon which I focus so much these days and about which I write so much, – well, this empathy wasn’t something I had had back in 1988. I don’t know, perhaps it was normal since I was a child, and I have noticed in the recent years that some childhood experiences are relived much more sharply when I recall them some 15-20 years after they’d happened. With the Spitak Earthquake, I vividly remember smiling sceptically at my grandmother and mother, for I couldn’t understand why they were crying, as my family never had any relatives in Armenia or adjacent areas. Obviously, these days when I look at these photos and there is a whole pool of similar experiences to remember I take their reaction differently. Although I guess that there is a reason for my then reaction, I’m ashamed of it, and my parents did reproach me for it.

That was in 1988. These days I realise that I haven’t always been so detached, and that something had touched my profoundly long before the experience I’m about to relate. I told you in the past about the effect the Russian adaptation of Conan Doyle stories had on me, and there are a few more films that opened me up from one side or another. I feel that in many ways these experiences were brought by some external force (I’m not religious, but this is where I become fatalist and a mystic) to unravel my inner feelings and callings that otherwise would lay dormant.

Occasionally I feel also that when myself or whoever else speak about art, there is a more or less substantial group of people who are extremely sceptical about the ability of art to influence anyone. I don’t know about “whoever”, this is when I’m speaking entirely from my heart and my own memories. It was 1994, I was in the 9th form at school (the last year at secondary school, for you to have an idea), and because it was before my birthday in December I’d still be 13. In the summer of 1994 I read Bulgakov’s Master and Margarita, which had a profound effect on me. As I don’t remember exactly how I was reading it, I doubt this effect was such that it made me cry, but it certainly made me think.

It was probably October or November 1994 when they showed Deux hommes dans la ville on Russian TV. The film is known in the English-speaking world as Two Against the Law or Two Men in Town (Due contra la città in Italian), it was made in 1973 by José Giovanni and starred Jean Gabin and Alain Delon. The plot, in short, is about a bank robber (Delon) who returns home after ten years of imprisonment, makes his best to escape the old pals, but falls victim to the harassment of a cop from his past. Gabin’s character is trying to help and save the unfortunate young man, but the tragedy unravels. The film touched on social injustice, capital punishment, and the inability of an individual to outpower the Law.

It was the first film when I sat in front of the TV set and never moved. It was the first ever film with which I sympathised. I’ve seen a few films with Delon previously, but back then I sometimes relied on the perceptions of my family, and my mother who probably looked at this actor through his performances in Borsalino or Zorro didn’t develop any affection for him. Naturally, it was different with me, and since 1994 I’ve seen many films with Delon, including La Piscine, Once a Thief, and Il Gattopardo.

But back in 1994 I was totally devastated and destroyed by the feature. I was crying throughout the last part of it. As if that wasn’t enough, I woke up in the night, instantly remembered about Delon’s character in the last scenes, especially those in the death chamber, and once again I cried. I thought of the character’s girlfriend… I knew perfectly well that nothing wrong happened to Delon. I knew that this could be just another “story”. But I was inconsolable for the rest of the night, very much moved for a few days after, and am still under the effect of the film, almost 15 years later.

Naturally, I’m thinking exactly what it was that moved me so much. The more I think about it the more I’m inclined to believe that I felt pain from my inability to change anything. Even if such story did take place in France in 1960-7os, I was sitting in Russia in the 1990s, and it was pointless to contemplate on what could be done because there was no capital punishment in France by 1994. Lars von Trier raised the same problem in Dancer in the Dark just a few years ago, although for me it was a film “in context”, whereas Deux hommes dans la ville was the first film of such topic.

So, the devastating effect of Giovanni’s feature had to do with my understanding of my “calling” or desire to be involved – be that involvement in art or in helping people. It could never take place without the actors, the script, the directing, and the whole gamut of other factors involved in film production. And while my experience as a film aficionado has grown far and wide since 1994, it is this film that I will be invariably getting back to when thinking of when and how I realised that whatever books, films, melodies, paintings tell us, they ultimately tell us something about ourselves.

Needless to say, I am deeply indebted to the cast and crew of this film. Deux hommes dans la ville was my own earthquake that shook me and threw me out of a void of detachment. I can never be thankful enough for this…

Some Belated BAFTA Observations

I will say from the start that this is not indended to be a “comprehensive” critique of this year’s BAFTAs. A couple of times in the past I watched it, always admiring Stephen Fry (actually, I’m his fan on Facebook). This year I didn’t watch it, and boy, did I miss something. The Coen brothers scooped the Best Director award, while Daniel Day-Lewis and Javier Bardem got the Best Actor and the Best Supporting Actor awards, respectively. In addition, Sir Anthony Hopkins was awarded the British Academy Fellowship.

This was just as good news as last year’s when Martin Scorsese and Helen Mirren each received an Oscar. What is so wonderful about this year’s BAFTAs is that all three actors – Day-Lewis, Bardem and Hopkins – are among my favourite actors. The joy of 11th of February was augmented by the Russian violinist and conductor Yuri Bashmet winning a Grammy and was diminished by the news of Roy Scheider passing away. But looking at all those names made me remember the films I’ve seen with those actors, and I counted almost 20 titles. At one point about a year ago I tried to compile the list of films I’ve seen which eclipsed 250. Which made me wonder about one thing.

I don’t think I’ll ever begin to regret studying History. In fact, it is my thirst for knowledge and the excellent comprehensive University course combined that makes me so adaptable and versatile today, so I’ve got very little to complain about. Also, as far as literature goes, I’ve rarely believed in writer’s workshops or courses. What’s the point of teaching people how to write if they don’t read? And if they read, won’t they be inspired by the great works so much as to try and write themselves? It is possible that I’m a little ostentatious holding a belief like this, but so it goes. Yet as far as music and cinema are concerned, which are two other huge passions, I do regret that I never got involved more directly in studying either. And while I’m just as ostentatious here, holding a firm belief that one can get where they want to if they are actually going there, I cannot help wondering how different things could’ve been had I chosen Film Studies from the start. But that is what the historians call a counterfactual history – and if you want to know my opinion it’s only as good as a subject for a novel.

Llandudno Diaries – 3

I arrived to Llandudno at about 5pm on Friday, 28th of December 2007. The wind and rain met me at the station, as well as two lines of taxis, with no drivers inside. Turned out, my train arrived earlier, and the drivers were all away to shops. I joined an elderly gentleman and a family couple at the taxi office. By the time I was on my own, we started talking with the lady in the reception. Turned out, she was quite familiar with Manchester: she was a part of the Jewish community who regularly travel from Llandudno to Salford. Then my taxi arrived, and a few minutes later I was in Craig-y-Don where I were to stay until January 6th 2008.

Craig-y-Don means “rock by the water”, and Dave Thompson tells us in his illustrated book about Llandudno that this area became popular with residents after the First World War. On the first walk “into town” when I don’t actually know yet where to go, the place seems to be quite far away from the town centre. But as you get to discover all the different ways to get from Craig-y-Don Parade to Trinity Church in Mostyn St, you’ll soon realise that it doesn’t actually take that long.

Llandudno itself boasts a remarkable history. The origins of the place date back as early as the Bronze Age, and the remains of the Bronze Age Copper Mines located on the Great Orme is a great tourist attraction, allowing you to explore 250ft below the surface. There, on the Great Orme, is also the church of St Tudno. The church takes its name from the site of a small monastic community founded by the Welsh Christian missionary in the 6th c. AD. I haven’t visited it, but Thompson notes that the church “still has some ancient features within it including a splendid twelfth-century font”.

The fate of Llandudno was apparently determined by the Liverpool Architect Owen Williams in 1840s. The image on the left is that of The King’s Head where Williams reportedly remarked that this bay area would make an ideal watering place. His words were related to The Hon. Edward Mostyn MP who had already had plans to exploit the area of Llandudno as a potential summer resort. Some time before Williams’s prophetic remark Lord Mostyn, with the support of the Bishop of Bangor, was able to obtain through the Parliament “the sole rights to develop the low isthmus between the north and west shores”. Williams was commissioned with the survey which, when completed, presented Llandudno as a lovely seaside town, “shaped with a grid of spacious thoroughfares and a sweeping promenade”.

Although it wasn’t Williams who undertook the final planning and building, the progress of Llandudno was compelling, given its unrivalled popularity with the masses, the royalty, and the men-of-arts. It is still disputed whether or not Lewis Carroll visited Llandudno, but even without him there are enough names among Llandudno’s patrons to make any other town of its caliber blush with envy: Napoleon III, Disraeli, Gladstone, Bismarck, to name but a few. The Queen Elizabeth of Roumania, who wrote under the pen name of Carmen Sylva (commemorated in the name of one of the streets in Craig-y-Don), stayed here for five weeks in 1890. Buffalo Bill came here with his Wild West Show in 1904. The Beatles performed at The Odeon in Llandudno in 1963, and the last person to ever appear on the Odeon’s stage was Billy Connolly in 1986.

For references, I am indebted to Dave Thompson’s Llandudno (Images of Wales series, Tempus, 2005).

To be continued…

Happy New Year!

And so, I’ve been in Llandudno since December 28th, and at this very moment I’m sitting at my hotel’s lounge, occasionally looking at Great Orme and the lights along the Promenade, but mostly typing and sending greeting letters and messages to my Russian friends. I spent a wonderful weekend, strolling up and down the streets in Llandudno, but for some reason I found easier this time to jot down my impressions in Russian first. Whereas with my trip to Carmarthen in June I first wrote my memories in English and then in Russian, this time Llandudno Diaries are first appearing in my Russian LiveJournal.So, the turn of the year is the time to look back and to see if one has kept up with their yesteryear’s resolutions. Last year I said I’d be looking to find more ways to express my creativity – and indeed I learnt to make slide shows and eventually accompanied the latest of them with my own narration. I wanted to keep writing great content – and this apparently has happened, as by the end of 2007 I have had my blog written about, shortlisted at the Manchester Blog Awards, and now included in the Open Directory Project. I wanted to travel, and I’ll say a few words on the subject later on, but in general this has been achieved, as well. I wanted to keep on meeting interesting and talented people and to continue to know those whom I already knew. This has happened, too, and I can particularly single out one such person who is fascinating enough to be lurking here and there on this blog, when it is appropriate. I’ve been following this person’s work for a number of years, this year I had the chance to attend a meeting with them, and what doesn’t stop amazing me is the amount of new things this person can tell every time they give an interview. I can only say that I’m looking forward to more in 2008.

One thing that I never did was visiting Moscow. Needless to say, this becomes my 2008 resolution #1. It must really be astonishing – and quite frustrating, too – that every time I say to myself “I must go to Moscow” something creeps up and I have to postpone the visit. I think the surest way to get me back to my native shores is by buying myself a ticket, as that way I’ll feel obliged to just drop everything and go.

So, in 2008 I resolve to continue with both blogs, hopefully by making the content more wide-ranging, since now I can produce short slide shows and animated stories. I’m planning to travel more. I don’t mention that I’m planning to write more, as this is what I’ve always been doing.

I’m looking forward to more inspiring meetings, trips, events. I hope that the inspiration I get from other people’s work, from nature etc. will be the inspiration for you. Which is where I want to thank once again all of you who have been leaving comments and emailing me to thank me for blogging and to encourage me to keep on with my enterprise. And I would like to thank everyone who wrote about and linked to me this year, this was a joy, a surprise, and always an honour to me.

Two things I can note about 2007. First concerns the travels: it’s all been about Wales. In June I went to South Wales; in December I went to North Wales. I don’t know what it tells (if it’s supposed to tell anything), but so it goes. The second thing concerns music. On a couple of my profiles elsewhere I noted my huge interest in music, since I love singing. 2007 has been entirely Italian in this respect. It started with me making great friends with an Italian colleague who began to send me YouTube links to such artists as Mia Martini, Mina Mazzini, Lucio Battisti. It continued with me going on my own for some time, when I discovered Patti Pravo. And it culminated in my making friends via LiveJournal with a few Russian aficionados of Italian music of the 1960-70s. I’m yet to see where it all takes me in 2008, but the start has been compelling enough to carry on in this direction.

As my circle of friends and acquaintances has grown considerably this year, I shall not repeat the last year’s personalised greetings. Instead I shall wish all of you, my friends, readers and occasional visitors, a very Happy New Year! Let all of you know that you are very dear to me for all your talent, wisdom, creativity, sense of humour and the simple fact that you are!

I should not forget to list the Top Ten posts in Los Cuadernos de Julia, as seen from Google Anaylitcs profile:

Barbra Streisand in Manchester

Lonely Shepherd (James Last and Georghe Zamfir)

Sonnet no. 3 (Edna St Vincent Millay)

My Fair Cabbage

If I Could Tell You (W. H. Auden)

Histoire de Melody Nelson (Serge Gainsbourg)

O Felici Occhi Miei, Arcadelt, and the Lute-Player

Women and Beauty in Art

Love Me (Michel Polnareff)

Matthew Barney in Manchester

I should note that this is the stats for the entire year, and they don’t entirely correspond to the most recent interest.

Last but not least, to carry on with the last year’s tradition of uploading some Russian New Year postcards, here is something many of you will no doubt cherish. This postcard comes from my family archive, it says Happy New Year in Russian (which is “s nOvym gOdom”) and – wait for this – is 100 years old!

Going Away

I have just been reading some blog posts from some friends in Manchester who wrote about their Christmas. It may be odd, but this year “je repars à zero”, to quote Edith Piaf. I’m going away to Llandudno on Friday where I’m planning to spend about a week, including the New Year Day. There is a creative purpose to my trip as I’m thinking of setting a text in Llandudno. I did some research online and on Flickr, but obviously I need to go and see everything for myself.

There’s also a personal reason. Seven years ago I did a similar thing when I went to St. Petersburg at the turn of November and December 2000. I went for a history conference at the St. Petersburg University which was a part of a two-week research trip. Yet I was adamant I’d be coming home on the day of my birthday, not a day before. I was turning twenty, and given the fact that I was born in the morning I’d turn twenty while still on the train. I felt this to be of some significance, like an initiation into the adult life: there’re no parents around, and no-one but you in the entire world (although it may be as small as a train) know that something utterly important has just happened.

I don’t know if I was right or wrong in doing this, but the adult life indeed began, and within a year of that memorable trip I was taking on some responsibilities and duties that I was sure I wanted to have. By April 2004 I wasn’t so convinced, and all the years that followed were a test to exactly what I wanted to do and how I wanted to live. I left my academic studies behind after seven years (1997-2004), having come to terms with the fact that this wasn’t the field where I wanted to express myself. The next two years that I spent in the radio (2005-2007) played a huge part in my life; I won’t write much about it simply because that’s not the topic. For personal reasons I had to change fields again, which, as I already told you, was a good thing to do under the circumstances, and it gave me a plenty of knowledge. Yet again it wasn’t “my” thing.

I’m naturally quite private, so even what I’m telling now is probably candid of me, and I’m still not saying a word about anything more personal. But the main thing, believe it or not, has happened this year. Many comments and letters I have received through the English blog were important, and once again I am very grateful to all of you who commented, wrote and linked to Los Cuadernos. I must admit, due to work this year I haven’t followed up every link to my blog from someone’s blog, and in truth I don’t mind linking at all – I just may not know about your link! So, if you’re such person, please send me a line, as I don’t want to appear uncourteous.

However, from September 2003 well until January 2007, that is, for over three years, I’ve been writing and speaking predominantly in English. I kept reading in Russian, of course, but the vacuum of conversation in my native language compelled me to start a Russian blog, which is quite similar in its topics to what I tend to write about here. Little did I know that I would acquire wonderful friends among my compatriots, some of whom live abroad these days, too. We barely talk about our country in its present moment. The conversation predominantly swirls around the topics of literature and music, but even that was enough to make me finally realise that I won’t be happy until I faithfully follow my heart. And you all know where my heart lies.

I feel like an artist or a singer before they go on stage; or like a traveller who is about to embark on a journey to the unknown land. As I wrote before, it’s only from the distance that one can look at their life and say confidently that they are happy with it. At this moment in time I’m on the road, so I have no idea how it twists and turns. Although I like disregarding gender connotations, I’m aware that, being a woman, I might feel these twists and turns differently from a man. Yet I can’t help but take the challenge, especially when I have people around me who inspire me so much both with their achievements and misfortunes. These people (and one person, in particular) I’m talking about may very well not know how important it is to me that they share their experiences. But their examples are what drives me, and I’m so grateful that they have courage to talk candidly about themselves.

So, I’m going away to Llandudno where I’ll spend a week. This time I’ve finally got the laptop, and I hope it works well for me to share whatever there will be share. The reason why I’ve chosen this place over any other is in the nature of what I’m trying to write. It’s a story of fairy-tales, and it is widely thought that it was in Llandudno that Charles Dodgson narrated to Alice Liddell what would later become the basis of Alice in Wonderland. I can only say that I feel elated that at the turn of 2007/2008 I’m free to go and devote myself to nothing but the artistic process, and I believe it is a good start to how I want to carry on.

And, of course, if there is anything in Llandudno that I should see/visit at this time of the year, please leave a comment telling me what it is. I’m particularly interested in “magical” places, with a “fairy-tale” feel. I’m very grateful in advance.

My Favourite Billy Connolly

When I first came to England five years ago, I was promptly told that many things would be forgiven to me as a foreigner as long as I didn’t fail to like Billy Connolly. Watching him the first few times was tough, I must admit, for before 2002 my knowledge of the Scottish accent was virtually nonexistent. However, the man I saw on the TV screen was so charismatic and adorable, I said to myself that I must learn to understand him.

Time went by, I’ve seen Billy’s many performances, I loved the world tours he made, read about him, laughed at his sketches, certainly found him handsome, and watched Mrs Brown. The only thing I never paid attention to, for some reason, was his birthday. Turns out, he was born on November 24th and is a Sag, like myself. Obviously, I send my belated birthday greetings to him, and my adoration for a fellow Centaur has now grown even bigger. I love the month of December even more now.

Billy Connolly for me is the Henry Miller of stand-up comedy. I’ve never heard so many swearing words being said on stage in my entire life, but I cannot imagine anyone doing it with such gusto and creativity, as Connolly. Having lived in Manchester for over four years now, I also know that what he brings out on stage is the living language. Because when we think of stage we link it to theatre, and when we think of theatre we link it to art, Billy’s escapades at first look outrageous. It’s like Tropic of Cancer or The Rosy Crucifixion is being read aloud. But as I wrote last year about Henry Miller, one of his greatest achievements was in tuning his narrative in with the time in which he was writing. It was impossible to write “lovely” texts on the eve of the devastating military conflict. As far as Connolly’s shows are concerned, the bad language he uses can be heard everywhere, even in the most refined places. The brilliance of Billy is that he takes the genre which sometimes is a collection of pre-written sketches, not necessarily witty or funny, and turns it into a real people’s comedy. Again, just as Miller was able to write “decent” prose – like Big Sur or The Colossus of Maroussi – so Connolly has dazzled the viewers with his thoughtful and even romantic reports from his world tours.

I’m leaving you with the great man’s official website – BillyConnolly.com – and an extract from one of his shows, in which he talks about opera. This is an amazingly talented performance, but make sure you’ve got a few spare minutes and can afford laughing out loud.

Woody Allen and Me

Remember, remember the 1st of December – for it is Woody Allen’s birthday. I first came across the work of my fellow Sagittarian, when already in England – I watched Celebrity. I think initially I wanted to watch it because of Kenneth Branagh whom the inimitable Allen allowed to play what otherwise would normally be his own part in the film. With Branagh being but a part of larger cast, I soon was captivated by Judy Davis’s character, and especially by the scene below. When I included this video in the post on my Russian blog many months ago, I suddenly remembered about another Allen’s gem – Bananas.

I mentioned The Purple Rose of Cairo in the last year’s post about cinema. The sentence from Annie Hall about a relationship being like a shark that dies unless it moves possesses that powerful blend of humour and profound wisdom that is usually acquired through some rather sad experiences or gloomy observations. And the wrestling scene from Bananas is a brilliant jeer at the familial relationships – and it reminds me of another satyrical scene about family life from La Citta delle Donne (The City of Women) by Federico Fellini.

Most recently I’ve seen Manhattan. I watched it on the big screen, at Manchester’s Cornerhouse. Being a maverick, I watched two films in one day, which I mentioned in this post about the role of sound and colour in films (which was to an extent inspired by that day at the movies) – I saw Manhattan first, and then I watched David Lynch’s Eraserhead. I must sincerely admit that Eraserhead pretty much erased the impression of Allen’s film – except for its opening scene, which has long entered the annals of cinema as one of the best opening scenes ever. Its magical blend of music and the monochrome shots of New York is the perfect portrait of the city “that never sleeps”.

I didn’t intend to list all Woody Allen’s films I’ve seen since 2004 – I only mentioned those that I find corresponding with some of my own views, thoughts, experiences. Simply put, although I’m not Woody Allen, I can be just as clumsy, head-in-the-clouds, doubting, soul-searching, quirky person. Since I’m a woman, we should probably multiply all the above-mentioned qualities at least by two. But all that is hidden underneath, in the internal dialogue with my own self that will remain unheard and unseen, unless I put it in the subtitles (like in Annie Hall). On the surface I’ve got wisdom, buoyancy, even bravura, and the sense of humour for which the Sags are renowned. Life is full of duality for us, you see, but it’s a Sag life, after all.

Happy birthday, Mr Allen!

Sherlock Holmes and Dr Watson in My Life

The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes and Dr Watson, which is the name of the Russian TV series written and directed by Igor Maslennikov after the stories by Arthur Conan Doyle, were to play an important role in my life. By 1988/9 when I first watched it I have already been taking to writing short stories and poems. The first film I’ve seen, The Speckled Band, was vivid enough to scare the hell out of me: for a few nights afterwards I was afraid to go to the kitchen through the dark corridor, and I thought I could hear noises. I didn’t look for serpents under my bed, no, but I suppose I wouldn’t be writing this blog, had I found any.

The final outcome, however, was perhaps the most unexpected, as the fear gradually gave way to a loving obsession with the adventures and unbeatable charisma of both sleuth and his friend. And it was this obsession that made me take an exercise-book (not a notebook yet) and start writing the new chapter in the long chain of Holmes’s meanderings along London’s criminal web. It was in 1989. I passionately filled about half of the exercise-book when it downed on me that there was something wrong about the whole thing. You see, the cover bore a proudly written inscription “Arthur Conan Doyle. The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes and Dr Watson”, and I suddenly realised that it was me, not Conan Doyle, who was writing the story. I could very well change the name of the author, but even though I probably didn’t know the word “plagiarism” back then, I knew nonetheless that those two amazing characters had already been created, and the idea of continuing their story lost its charm instantly. This is how I learnt that I wanted to be original and to put my own name to the things I write.

But the film not only remained in my life, it became one of those films that I can watch again, and again, and again. In fairness, this is exactly what I’ve been doing, while in Russia. I probably haven’t missed any single time the series was screened on the Russian TV, and bearing in mind that this is quite a popular film I must have seen each of the episodes more than twenty times. As time went by, I stopped being afraid, and I began to pay attention to acting. And this was when I fell in love with this film once again, this time forever. Almost the entire cast were well-known stage actors, and although the names of the majority of them might not tell you anything, the series can be called star-studded. In the final episode, “The Beginning of the Twentieth Century”, you could see one of the universally acclaimed Russian actors, Innokenty Smoktunovsky, in a cameo appearance. He starred as Hamlet in the 1964 Kosintzev’s adaptation which earned him a BAFTA nomination and the praise from Sir Laurence Olivier. An Oscar-winning Russian film director, Nikita Mikhalkov (Burnt by the Sun) appeared, as Sir Henry Baskerville, in the brilliant adaptation of The Hound of the Baskervilles. By the time he played this part, he’d won the Golden Seashell award at the San Sebastian International Film Festival in 1977.

I strongly recommend you reading the article about Vasily Livanov and Vitaly Solomin: The Russian Holmes and Watson, to gain the idea of how the film was made. As the author of the article correctly says, if one knows the Conan Doyle’s Canon, they can easily get the idea of what is happening on screen. Unfortunately, quite a few of the regularly appearing actors have left us, and not only Rina Zelyonaya (Mrs Hudson) and Borislav Brondukov (Inspector Lestrade), but Dr Watson himself (Vitaly Solomin). At the same time, Vasily Livanov is the only Russian actor to have received an honorary OBE for his portrayal of Sherlock Holmes.

The reason I wrote all this is not just a sudden attack of nostalgia. It was the Sherlock Holmes weekend of ITV Granada, and I watched a few films. I’ve seen some adaptations previously, the latest being with Rupert Everett in the leading role. Yet I keep liking the Russian film – not because it was the first screen adaptation I’ve seen or because I’m Russian. Simply, in my eyes the Russian series brings to the screen the solidity and dramatism of Conan Doyle’s stories in the way that no other adaptation does. Shot entirely in what was then the Soviet Union (the Neva in St Petersburg (then Leningrad) playing the role of the Thames, in particular), the creators of the film somehow not only got under the skin of the characters, but under the skin of the Victorian London and of the late 19th c. We may never know exactly how they managed to do this, but this is what art is about – creating a physical shape for the unthinkable.

The Sherlock Holmes Story on Flickr
London Visit of Vasily Livanov (Robert Graham, 16th January 2007)
Meeting Vasily Livanov (photoset accompanying the above)

Finally, to let you delve deeper into the Russian epic film, here is an excerpt (found on YouTube) from The Hound of the Baskervilles. In the first minute of it you see Sherlock Holmes (Livanov), Dr Watson (Solomin), and Mrs Hudson (Zelyonaya), and this is the dialogue between them:

Holmes: It’s interesting to know, Watson, what you can say about this walking stick?
Watson: One could think you’ve got eyes on your nape.
Holmes: My dear friend, had you read my monograph about the tactile organs of the detectives, you’d have known that on the top of our ears there are these sensory points. So, I’ve got no eyes on my nape.
Mrs Hudson: He sees your reflection in the coffee pot.

The music is by Vladimir Dashkevich. Enjoy!

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