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Visiting London-2

As for where I’m writing this – I’m sitting in this souvenir shop in Southampton Row, just across the corner from Russell Square and the British Museum. I discovered it back in 2004, but I think it wasn’t in spring, but in autumn. 1 hour costs £1, which is much cheaper than to use a laptop in my hotel.

My hotel… My room reminds me of the one depicted by Fyodor Dostoevsky in Crime and Punishment. This is where Raskolnikov lived in St Petersburg:

His garret was under the roof of a high, five-storied house and was more like a cupboard than a room.

OK, my room is actually in the basement. I didn’t ask for it to be there, in case you’re wondering. I go there by lift. When I was leaving this morning, I tried to find a staircase to go upstairs, but all I saw were the rooms, with their doors open ajar, and the personnel already starting their daily cleaning routine. But it IS like a cupboard. It is by far the smallest room I’ve ever stayed in. Thankfully, it’s en suite. Also, the canteen where I’ve got to have breakfast between 7.30 and 9am is just a couple of steps away from my room, which again is hugely convenient. But I’ve also got the neighbours who slam the door every time they go in or out of the room.

I could be winging here about such experiences, but hey, what would I write about then? Besides, having neighbours, as I have already written previously, is very important.

My visit to London so far has been a check on my patience in relations with public transport. Yesterday, when I arrived at Euston, everybody was leaving, and the shops in the station were closing rather quickly. The voice in the loudspeaker, which is impossible to hear in the big crowd anyway, was saying something about alerts and the necessity to leave the station. Apart from those indiscernible words, the virtually first thing I heard upon arriving to London was “Yes, this is Tony Blair’s Britain”, coming from an Englishman.

And today there was a security alert whereby the trains on Piccadilly line towards Cockforsters were delayed. Those who have been waiting for the train to arrive were so keen to get in that they ignored those who were keen to get out. The station worker shouted in the loudspeaker: ‘Let other passengers off the train first, it may then be easier to get on’. The lady who stood beside me giggled: ‘You know, we’re actually supposed to be the nation of queues’. I giggled back: ‘Yes, foreign tourists have spoiled you’.

I said that in full consciousness, for the described scene has reminded me of many similar occasions that I’ve seen and experienced on the Moscow underground. I must say, though: nothing can substitute the experience of being lifted up by people around you and brought into the carriage. Nothing can substitute the sensation of floating in the space when your feet are actually dangling in the air a few inches above the floor during the rush hour. It is a powerful experience – to stare directly into someone’s sweaty face or tortoise skin on the neck with no possibility to turn away because there is nowhere to turn. So, I do recommend to go through it at least once, unless you live in Moscow or London or any other big city and such experience is hence a part of your daily routine.

As a matter of fact, I always let other passengers off first.

Visiting London -1

Since I’ve arrived in England, I almost never failed to visit London in spring. I visited the capital in early April in 2004, then in late March in 2005, I skipped 2006 for personal reasons, but now it’s April 2007, and I’m in London again. There must be, I feel, some kind of force in the working that brings me to London every year in spring.

Invariably, as well, every time I visit it, I experience a powerful feeling of being liberated. I know you’re already thinking that I feel being liberated from Manchester, but it’s not true. I still like Manchester a lot, not least because, as I said many times, I don’t suffer from hay fever in the North West. I don’t exactly suffer from it in London, but I do have to take medication.

This feeling of freedom comes simply from the fact that London possesses much more space than Manchester. It is the fact, and there is little sense to try and pretend that the vastness and grandeur of London can be substituted for something else. It can’t, and it will never be. London is not a desert, it’s the same kind of city of steel, and concrete, and brick, like Manchester, and indeed, like many other modern cities. It is its space that people like me love and miss. More than that, it is the space in the city centre that I personally miss a lot.

With me, it all comes from personal experience, of course. In Moscow, I used to lose myself in those endless serpentine boulevards, just strolling down old slopy streets with buildings of different periods and colours, or walking across bridges, stumbling accidentally into previously unnoticed little architectural gems, or revisiting the places that I have long discovered and fallen in love with. Moscow, in a way, is like Venice in Henry James’s Italian Hours that I am currently reading. So much has become known about it since the uplift of the Iron Curtain, so many people have visited it and are planning to visit in future, that it is hardly possible to say something totally new.

Same goes for London. But the fact that all hidden gems of this city have already been discovered and categorised doesn’t diminish the allure of the place. I most certainly don’t feel intimidated by it. The reason why I like going there and why now I am writing about it is the same that made James write about Venice, as he explains in this short introduction to the chapter on his reflections on this city.

It is a great pleasure to write the word; but I am not sure
there is not a certain impudence in pretending to add anything
to it. Venice has been painted and described many thousands of
times, and of all the cities of the world is the easiest to
visit without going there. Open the first book and you will find
a rhapsody about it; step into the first picture-dealer's and
you will find three or four high-coloured "views" of it. There
is notoriously nothing more to be said on the subject. Every one
has been there, and every one has brought back a collection of
photographs. There is as little mystery about the Grand Canal as
about our local thoroughfare, and the name of St. Mark is as
familiar as the postman's ring. It is not forbidden, however, to
speak of familiar things, and I hold that for the true Venice-
lover Venice is always in order. There is nothing new to be said
about her certainly, but the old is better than any novelty. It
would be a sad day indeed when there should be something new to
say. I write these lines with the full consciousness of having
no information whatever to offer. I do not pretend to enlighten
the reader; I pretend only to give a fillip to his memory; and I
hold any writer sufficiently justified who is himself in love
with his theme.

Henry James, Italian Hours (a full text at Project Gutenberg).

Unless you have already read it, this book by the late Prof Roy Porter is a great introduction to the history of London’s growth. I bought London: A Social History back in 2002, at Waterstones in either Bolton or Blackpool, and it was one of the most interesting semi-academic readings I’ve ever come across. The rich vocabulary of a Londoner who also happened to be a seasoned and versatile academic made up for a vivid and engaging reconstruction of London’s history from the times immemorial to the present day. It doesn’t contain many illustrations, and those that were included in the book are black-and-white. But I shall once more underline his style and language; together, they provide you with all colours and detail you need to paint a picture of London’s history.

Kurt Vonnegut

It was the year 2000 when I said to one person: ‘Do you realise that all years will now start with “2”? All people who’d gone before this year have got both years starting with “1” in their obituary. Those who’ll be going after 2000 will have the year of death starting with “2”‘.

Back then we went off the subject very quickly. Today I vividly remembered this conversation upon opening Yahoo.com in the web browser and stumbling into ‘Kurt Vonnegut, 1922-2007’.

The news broke across the world, including Russia, where Vonnegut is admired by many. However, the reason why his exit is one of the main news topics is not simply because he was one of the greatest contemporary authors. Let’s be honest with ourselves: a lot of people never read his works. There must be another reason, therefore.

A lot of Vonnegut’s books are fiction. There are no sirens of Titan, no Billy Pilgrim, very little at all – at the first glance – to connect his texts to the “real life”. One may say it’s normal. Today there are readers and critics who believe it is not necessary to actually experience hardships in order to describe them. For this reason, perhaps, some of today’s narratives are very much like reverberations of a second-rate Victorian novel: rather sentimental and lovely, but hardly thought-provoking.

Thankfully, the works of Vonnegut were not “lovely”. Instead, they made a reader think, providing the reader was eager to use their brain to this end. “Thinking” is often being scorned as a superficial activity, but to think is to reflect and also to dream. Every thought follows a path, and every thinker is a traveller who sooner or later realises that their destination is humanism. Neither politics, nor religion, but the progress and the future of mankind.

Deep down every humanist knows that they are nothing but dreamers, and that their many dreams are never to come true, at least not in their lifetime. Still, they dream and put their thoughts to paper, canvas or film because one thing they know for sure: someone somewhere will respond to their dreams by sharing them and passing them on to other dreamers.

The progress of the Man is something that bothers every one, including those who declare to have no interest in philosophy. What is often forgotten, is that the only way to make the world better is to better oneself, to be true to one’s human nature. And this requires not just a titanic intellectual effort, but above all – empathy.

Many of Vonnegut’s novels could be labelled as science fiction. The first one I read back in 2000 was Cat’s Cradle, a story of a scientific experiment with drastic consequences. Soon after I read The Sirens of Titan, another sci-fi story. A lot of his novels involved scientific experiments, migrations in time, or space journeys. His warning against the hyper-devotion to science and technology is unambiguous. At the same time, as “scientific” was becoming increasinly associated with “virtual” and “unknown”, the outworldly wanderings of Vonnegut’s characters became the manifestations of the postmodern era. The ‘telegraphic schizophrenic manner’ he’d used in Slaughterhouse Five stands close to the technique of collage, favoured by many art movements of the 20th c., including surrealism. The effect of such technique was in replicating the state of mind of a modern man. Fragmented memories, thoughts, emotions, reactions have reflected either a fear of, or indifference to, changes. Used in a sci-fi narrative, such technique conveyed the inadequacy and the irresponsiveness to the motion of live, which, like history (in the words of Paul Virilio), progresses at the speed of the weapon systems.

One of my first posts on this blog was about Slaughterhouse Five. Indeed, this novel has changed completely the way I envisaged the writing about war. It draws on Vonnegut’s personal experience of the World War II, and one can obviously ask, what is there to add to the significance of this novel, apart from its already established literary and historical importance?

The fact is, with all technological changes currently happening on a nearly daily basis, Tralfamadorian dogma has become a reality. It has already been known that the present lasts no longer than a few seconds. To say that we always live in the future is as valid as to say that we always live in the past. Life is increasingly virtual, and so is – apparently – death. The question is, then, what do we make of all this? Are we afraid of, or indifferent to, this rapid progress? And what do we make of the future now that we are so painfully aware that it is already in the past?

Vonnegut knew that the answer was not about who controls who: whether we control technology, or whether technology controls us. The answer was in the destination, and the destination was the progress of the man. If technology served to expand our horizons whereby we may become better people, then it was for the good. If it served to improve our weapons and to help us wage wars quicker than the previous generations could, then something must have been wrong.

Daring as he was, Vonnegut was telling true stories, disguising them as fiction. Yet his main message was about the importance of empathy, about the use of one’s intellectual effort to understand and to serve another human being. In The Sirens of Titan he paraphrased a well-known Latin sentence: ‘an intellectual mountain has produced a philosophical mouse‘ [I must admit this is not a quote – it is a “retranslation” of Vonnegut’s phrase in Russian]. Knowledge is dust, unless it is being used. And in the same novel, at the very end of it, there was another phrase, which the female protagonist pronounces before passing away. ‘You know‘, she says’, ‘it is so good when they use you‘.

I never read The Sirens of Titan in English, but it is obvious that Vonnegut was not speaking of a person being used selfishly by others. The idea was about being useful to people, and it is as humanist and idealistic a thought as it can be.

I know I could write more or less, and I am aware that many great authors will leave us sooner or later, some of whom have impacted me both as a writer and a person. Kurt Vonnegut’s impact was one of the most profound, and this entire blog is in a sense the proof. There was so much knowledge and craving to learn more, yet I couldn’t keep acquiring knowledge just for myself – I wanted to share it as soon as possible. I wanted my knowledge to be useful. I am thankful to Kurt Vonnegut for sharing his ideas with me. My only regret is that I have only now written this post.

The Return of Surrealism (Early Morning at the Bus Stop. Landscape with the Bin and the Umbrella)

This is the scene I saw at my bus stop recently.

………………………………………Early Morning at the Bus Stop. Landscape with the Bin and the Umbrella.
It instantly reminded me of Lotreamon’s quote that had exerted a rather profound influence on the minds of surrealists:

Beau comme la rencontre fortuite sur une table de dissection d’une machine à coudre et d’un parapluie (Beautiful, like the fortuitous encounter of a sewing machine and an umbrella on a dissection table).

There is no dissection table here, and the sewing machine’s place is taken by a bin. But these subtle changes do not make this scene any less surreal, do they?

Mancunian Bloggers Meet…

… at The Hare and Hounds today at 3pm. No doubt I’ll write about it, but at the moment you can read about the meeting here and here. The exterior of the pub can be seen on the left (many thanks to qualitybob!). For me, it’s the most convenient venue I’ll be going to since I graduated from school in 1997. My school was in five minutes walk away from my house. The Hare and Hounds is exactly opposite Shudehill bus and tram stop, exactly where my number 8 stops. Absolutely fabulous!

On the sad side, in Moscow today my former classmates are meeting to celebrate the tenth anniversary of graduation. Unfortunately, I couldn’t go to the reunion, but I’m keeping my fingers crossed for the fifteenth anniversary!

Update:

Wonderful weather in Manchester! Many people went into town dressed as if it was the middle of last year’s summer – sweaty hot and burning. Not me, though. It’s still April, and I don’t think it’s so hot yet.

We suspect therefore that it was the weather that did not permit some people to turn up at The Hare and Hounds at 3pm. Richard Fair said in advance that he wouldn’t be going, so he’s forgiven (he and Robin will have to organise another meeting at the BBC Bar to rectify this 😉 ). Craig McGinty was there, as well as James from YerMam and guys from Indie Credential. I know I’m missing out on a couple of people, so please mention yourself in the comments! Especially the person who’s fascinated by Bulgakov’s Cat Begemot from ‘Master and Margarita’.

We had a nice time, and people were still staying in the pub when I left. The pub seems to be quite old, with lots of period paintings and photographs on the walls. Its karaoke is very popular, with people taking the centre stage to sing anything from Neil Diamond, The Monkees, and Van Morrison. As I was leaving, I witnessed a man in a yellow duckling suit (so I think), with a glass of beer in hand; the suit was unzipped on the back. I suspect he was dropping in after a hard day’s entertaining children or giving out leaflets.

I must admit at one point I got distracted by the TV that was showing Deal or No Deal. The lady did amazingly well, knocking out all little sums and eventually leaving with £50,000. We sarcastically whispered that this sum would still be taxed, but… it’s still £50,000 after all.

Amidst all the pleasure and excitement there is only one minus – I have to wash my hair. The entire room where I sit at the moment is already filled with the stale odour of cigarettes.

On the left is the frontal view of our venue. It is really the best-located venue I’ve ever been to. Immediately as I took this picture I got on the bus that was already at the stop and soon I was on my way home.

See you all again next time!

From Doing Radio to Loving Soul (‘Yester-Me, Yester-You, Yester-Day’ by Stevie Wonder)

I know this will probably sound totally surreal – but I wasn’t interested in soul music until I went on a placement at the BBC GMR back in February 2005. Yes, I heard names like Aretha Franklin, Al Green, Stevie Wonder etc, and I even heard their songs. Yet for whatever reason it was, I was never interested in this musical style.

Then I went on this placement, which was the first time I had anything to do with the radio. I was a broadcast assistant on The Phil Wood Show, and two of my regular duties prior to the on-air time included doing questions for ‘The Dice Is Right’ and doing a one-minute musical intro to the programme. The first routine I loathed because too many questions would be crossed out by my producer as “too hard”, and then I would be twisting my brain thinking of other, easier, questions.

The second routine I loved. In fact, it wasn’t the routine – it was a joy. Our SBJ would tick four songs from the playlist, from which I would need to pick four fragments up to 20-25 secs each, and mix them. Before then I’d never done sound editing, but this is one of the things I will forever enjoy about the time on this placement. Although I was a total novice in the radio, I wasn’t treated like one. The attitude at the BBC reminded me of the Dean of my faculty at the Moscow State University who’s been calling us ‘colleagues’ from day one, despite the fact that each of us would need to work like horse to live up to his address, for Prof Sergei P. Karpov is a world-known and outstanding scholar.

But it wasn’t just the feeling of responsibility that I enjoyed. It was music. Tracks varied from Neil Diamond (whose name told me nothing at that stage, to be honest) to 10 CC, a Manchester band, whose CD I bought ages ago in Moscow and loved it, loved it, loved it!

And I think I understand it well when people tell me that my enthusiasm for the things I like shines throughout this blog. I only hope it is as contagious to my readers, as Mike Shaft’s enthusiasm for Al Green was to me. I think on that day he’d just received Green’s new album, and he played the track All the Time. I was doing the back-up recording on the computer at home, and thankfully, I am still able to listen both to Green’s song and to Mike Shaft’s waxing lyrical about it.

When I went off the placement, I continued listening to soul music. There’s still a plenty to learn, and of course I’ll never know about it as much, as Mike does, but… thanks a lot for opening up my horizons, Mike!

So, one of the songs I’d taken away with me from that first month at the BBC Manchester and my first month on the radio was Stevie Wonder’s Yester-Me, Yester-You, Yester-Day. I’ve just found this live performance on YouTube, which is different from the studio version the BBC Radio Manchester has got on its playlist. But it is perhaps in this version that Stevie Wonder’s wonderful, genuine talent as a singer and performer shines in full splendour.

Enjoy! And thanks to a YouTubist!

The Name for the King

The text that you’re about to read was written in late December 2005. It was literally inspired by a TV news report about Prince Charles considering to take on the name George when he eventually ascends the throne. The explanation was such that the name Charles was somewhat unfortunate: Charles I was beheaded, and Charles II was perhaps a bit too promiscuous.

Immediately upon hearing this, I thought about many things. Indeed, I thought about many kings and emperors and about whether or not their names ever pointed out to something bad or good in their fate. The result of my musings was posted first on Exzibit.net, which I then moved to another site. However, the beauty of Blogger is in that I can accompany the text with pictures, also choosing the best position for them on the page. Also, following the advice from Craig McGinty, I think this will be a good use of a previously written text.

I also believe this is a good way to celebrate the 1st of April. I know that all jokes on this day are usually played before noon, but, to paraphrase Kurt Vonnegut, “history is merely a list of anecdotes. It can only prepare us to laugh yet again”. Therefore, have fun!

The Name for the King

Shortly before Christmas, one of the TV news programmes broadcast a special report on Prince Charles. They said His Royal Highness is considering a change of the name and is thinking of using his middle name George when he eventually ascends the throne. Is the Prince being unnecessarily superstitious, or is name really a big deal for a king?

There are different opinions on a theory that personal names pretty much define people’s life. Some equal the theory to astrology and call it a “sham”; others quite honestly believe that name is highly important. Ultimately, it all depends on whether or not we believe in fate. If we do, we will probably avoid calling the child an old-fashioned or “unfortunate” name, like Marmaduke or Caesar. If we have no such hang-ups, our choice will be opulent (Queen), or health-friendly (Apple), or urban (Brooklyn).

The abovementioned report has left mixed feelings. For those who cannot give a damn about monarchy, Charles’s intentions certainly look ridiculous. Perhaps, even monarchists cannot quite understand him. Although the present Windsor monarch shares her name with Tudor Gloriana, she is neither as remarkable a politician, nor could she protect her royal house from public jeer. Of course, these things are not exactly to be blamed on her, but the truth is: as much as Elizabeth is a great and promising name, it could not and it would not allow Elizabeth II to fully match her famous namesake. Therefore, why to be so concerned about the past?

Now that the Prince’s plans are rumoured, and some historians have already expressed themselves on the subject, let us see if their fears are historically valid. Let us start with Charles. In England, Charles I was beheaded, and Charles II was raised in exile and is remembered for his promiscuity, the Plague and the Great Fire of London. Both, though, were the patrons of arts: under Charles I, van Dyke’s paintbrush flourished, under Charles II – Wren’s architectural genius. On the other hand, Charles I was sometimes unbearably idealistic. At the dawn of his youth he travelled to Spain incognito in an attempt to win over the Infanta’s heart. The quixotic heir mistook politics for windmills, wholeheartedly believing that his boldness and courage would make up for not converting to Catholicism. Of course, it did not work.

Continental rulers named Charles, Carlos, or Karl usually were not predestined to anything spectacular or disastrous. The Carolingian dynasty in France was named after Charles Martell and Charlemagne. The latter’s reign was famous for political prominence of the Frankish state, as well as for one of the fascinating periods in European culture, known as the Carolingian Renaissance. Charles VII’s astonishing victory over the English in the Hundred Years War is not outshone by his infamous abandonment of Joan of Arc. Some French Charleses were not very fortunate, however: Charles VIII died at 28, having accidentally run his head into a stone lentil; and Charles X was deposed as a result of the July Revolution, in 1830.

In Spain, Carlos IV’s reign was gloomy. First, he had to entrust his realm to Manuel Godoy, a terrible politician and the lover of his wife. When Napoleon invaded Spain, Carlos had to abdicate. Eventually, both he and his son Ferdinand were deposed, and Carlos fled the country and died in exile in Rome. Unlike Carlos IV, the present Spanish monarch Juan Carlos I will forever be remembered for his democratic reforms after he ‘inherited’ the realm, following the death of Franco. Indeed, Carlos is only a part of his name, but it did not seem to have diminished the political input of its bearer.

And in Germany the well-known Karl V Habsburg propelled the Holy Roman Empire of the German People to the unprecedented heights. His influence on politics, arts and religion cannot be underestimated. Neither should be the fact that the decline of the state that began soon after his death, later coupled with the dissolution of the Empire, had played a crucial part in creating the feeling of national humiliation. This feeling contributed decisively to both the First and the Second World wars.

Most royal names in English history never gave any definitive reason for great expectations. William I the Conqueror was an outstanding, although unwelcome, foreign monarch; William II Rufus was killed by conspirators; and in William IV’s reign the Reform Crisis had begun. The most “bearable” name was Henry in that the only English monarch to be murdered was Henry VI, while the other seven Henries normally lived long and remarkable lives.

If we look over the Channel, we will see exactly the same situation with the name Louis in France. Louis XVI was beheaded, and Louis IX died of dysentery in Tunis, but Louis XIV, The Sun-King, is never to be forgotten. True, the last three Louises on the French throne did not manage to equal their great predecessors, but it is their reigns that show: no matter what your name is, time will always have the last word.

In Russia, Alexander II well matched his grandfather, Alexander I the Liberator, who famously drove Napoleon out of the country. Grandson’s sobriquet, the Reformer, was inspired not only by abolition of slavery in 1861, but also by his gradual and cautious attempts to “democratise” Russian monarchy. However, the political climate of 1860s-70s in which the grandson had to rule was altogether different from the early 19^th c. The disdain of monarchy’s rigour grew to the extent, when the attempts on Alexander II’s life were carried out repeatedly. He was eventually killed in 1881 on his way to the palace – to sign what could become the first Russian constitution.

Against all listed examples that show a relative unimportance of the name in a monarch’s life those who believe in the connection between name and fate could weigh one, and truly gruesome, counterargument. It comes from English history, where the really “unfortunate” name was Edward. Edward II was violently murdered, Edward IV was deposed and exiled, an infant Edward V was killed by his uncle, another boy-king Edward VI died before he reached 16, and Edward VIII abdicated. Edward VII was possibly as much an admirer of the fairer sex, as Charles II, and even Edward III is of dubious fame. In addition to throwing his country into the turmoil of the Hundred Years War, he also committed the least conceivable blasphemy by making a garter the symbol of his chivalric order. The only “normal” king left is Edward I, praised by the English for the Eleanor Crosses and loathed by the Scots for all good reasons.

The name George that Charles is considering to take on, according to the media report, also cannot boast blissful history. George III was repeatedly “losing his head” (figuratively speaking), while the bedroom feats of George IV have allegedly reached a stupendous number of 7000, – much like Charler I and Charles II, respectively. The reign of George V saw the outburst of the First World War, the reign of George VI – of the Second World War. For a truly superstitious person, the perspective of ruling the nation at war (even nominally) should be just as horrible as that of decapitation or sexual notoriety.

Among some of the best-known and admirable historical Georges one was a father-founder of the United States, another – a brave defeater of Napoleon at Waterloo. But they were not kings, and are not likely to be used as parallels by the public opinion. The latter might instead recall the Bush “dynasty”, whose both members seem to be very belligerent: if anything else, they show great deal of consistency in motives, as in targets.

Historically, Charles’s two other middle names, Philip and Arthur, also do not give much hope. Philip is not an altogether new name in the history of British monarchy. Queen Mary I Tudor was married to Philip II of Spain, and the present Queen’s spouse is Prince Philip, Duke of Edinburgh. But Mary’s husband, although styled “King of England”, had rather limited powers and left the country where he was disliked after a little more than a year. The Duke of Edinburgh was never granted the title of Prince-Consort and does not enjoy much popularity in the masses. Those who trust in names will certainly speculate on whether a royal contender named Philip can ever become a King in England, let alone a popular one. The Glastonbury legends claim that King Arthur shall rise one day, and centuries ago in a society more poetic and less cynical the Arthurian Cycle would provide an enviable background to royal representation. If the Prince was to adopt this name today, the public opinion would be more than happy to dismiss him as the “wrong” Arthur.

As succession is not imminent, it may be that Charles decides not to undergo the name change. What is useful to remember is that both history of mankind and history of monarchy show two things. Fame and tradition, either good or bad, can be changed; and monarchy, with all its dependence on both, is no exception. As for people, their names are only remembered for their acts – and never otherwise.

The images used (from top):

Charles I, King of England, from Three Angles (by Anthony van Dyck, 1636)

Charles II (by Sir Peter Lily, c. 1670)

Karl V Habsburg at Muhlberg (by Titian, 1548)

Alexander I of Russia (by Franz Kruger, 1812)

Alexander II of Russia (a contemporary photograph)

Nigel Hawthorne as George III (Madness of King George by Nicholas Hytner)

How King Arthur Saw a Questing Beast and thereof Had Great Marvel (by Aubrey Beardsley, 1893-4)

YouTube Tag

As I am still new to the world of creating and sharing the media online, I am very puzzled at one thing about YouTube. I know some videos are disabled for embedding, with which I have got no issue. There were many more videos that have got no restrictions re their use, some of which appeared on this blog. By the time I found them, the majority of clips have already been on YouTube for several months, which means to me that whoever of the artists were against the use of their work could take action. Thanks to the pervasive quality of interactive media, word travels so quickly these days that even if the artist is a recluse, they would’ve known that their clips are being uploaded and watched online. Instead it’s only now (in the last few weeks) that those clips have begun to disappear – often together with the users who uploaded them.

I cannot fathom the situation, especially because the copies of those clips still exist on YouTube, in different accounts, of a much poorer quality, and are even aggregated on Google Videos. If you google “lion hug” on Google Videos, you’ll come into about 5 pages of results, yet the video on my blog can no longer be watched.

Needless to say, this not only jeopardises the work of people like me who try to find interesting content, bring it to other people, and get them interested in it. This also puts to question the opportunities and the true beauty of sharing the media online. For, even if you haven’t breached anyone’s copyright, another party may have done so, and when they’re *framed*, you’re facing the unpleasant task of discovering the fact that the videos, which you waxed lyrical about and really hoped that people would be glad to see, are now extinct. I am especially concerned because most of the videos that “are no longer available”, to quote YouTube, belong to the era, from which we could all draw a lot of inspiration. I mentioned somewhere that one of my poems was inspired by Polnareff’s Kama Sutra, which, notwithstanding a provoking title, is a very philosophical song. I didn’t blog it anywhere, although I copied a link to the song on the Russian site where the poem is published. Yesterday I found out that the video under that link ceased to exist.

I know on Flickr you can deny visitors to copy your photos, or even to view them in a bigger size. If necessary, this can surely be done on YouTube, to avoid some enthusiastic bloggers uploading the content to their blogs to talk about the great artists of the past. Like I said, I’ve got no issue with not being able to embed a video, although I am sure this facilitates the process of consumption of information. But it’s been truly strange to see so many of my favourite videos to have vanished, together with those who brought them – and I only blogged about a few, there were many, many more! Suspiciously, this also happened around the time when YouTube and Google have merged, whereby the question rises, as to whether the merge and the disappearance of some accounts are connected in any way.

All in all, for me and my readers it means that some (quite a lot, to be fair) videos, tagged under ‘YouTube’, “are no longer available”. So, I wanted to apologise for this, those who saw them working obviously know that once upon a time those videos were streaming indeed. I sincerely hope that those clips that still stream will continue to do so. But if (when) one of them becomes extinct, we will all know the reason.

Views of Manchester

I remembered listening to a short talk by Slavoj Žižek on Channel 4 last year, in which he discussed (very briefly) Charlie Chaplin’s film, The Great Dictator. Although the image of a dictator was unambiguously drawn on Hitler, the *true* dictator, metaphorically speaking, was the sound. Chaplin manipulated this comparison by alternating scenes with a silent Jewish barber with those with a hysterical quasi-Nazi leader, thus showing us the potential, but also the drawbacks, of using and hearing a person’s voice.

The drawback is not in the possibility of an actor having a weird voice, which may not fit their appearance or character. The drawback of a sound movie is in that it minimises the dramatic effect. Some will certainly argue otherwise, and it is indeed almost impossible to imagine, say, Kieslowski’s trilogy, Trois Couleurs, without the use of sound (especially in Trois Couleurs: Bleu). But however helpful it may be, sound imposes on us not only a directorial vision, but also a specific vision of our own. We may begin, for instance, to associate a certain tone of voice with a particular type of character; or a certain type of music with a specific kind of films. Those who have seen Sophie Scholl – Die letzten Tage, and especially those who attended a Q&A session with Mark Rothemund at Cornerhouse in October 2005, will remember that some film critics thought the music theme in his film has reminded them of Jaws’ soundtrack. The conclusion is easy to draw.

But methinks sound is not the only disputable gain in the media and arts world. I love colour photography, but some scenes, I believe, are made to be captured on black-and-white film, or mastercoloured in sepia. At best, it can teach a viewer that such colours, as black and white, don’t really exist. It can also make familiar sites look unfamiliar and more dramatic. Last but not least, b/w and sepia photos allow the viewer to use their imagination, instead of restricting them to a specific shade of colour palette.

I do think it is important to lift up this restriction through colour and sound and to revert to one’s intellectual (directorial, perhaps?) effort in filling up a silent “monochrome” space with colours and sounds. Which is why I’ve found myself continuously taking b/w and sepia pictures in Manchester. Captured this way, they remind me of some Parisian endroits I’ve seen in books, on early daguerreotypes, and on the photos by Eugene Atget.

The first two pictures were taken last Sunday, when I was killing time, walking in Castlefield, between watching Manhattan and Eraserhead at Cornerhouse. The image on the left is the passage of the Town Hall extension, which has got an Italian air about it (again, as far as I am concerned).

Although I might have appeared as if I didn’t like the use of colour or sound, this is obviously not true. Sometimes colour is invaluable – like on the shot below. As I wrote in the picture’s description on Flickr, I haven’t watched the sunset for quite a long time. And when I finally got the chance this Thursday, I absolutely could not miss it.

Histoire de Melody Nelson (Serge Gainsbourg)

As you might have noticed from the Links section in my side bar, as well as from my profile, I’m a fan of Serge Gainsbourg. The first time I heard him, I was just as innocent as France Gall (who reportedly didn’t have a clue about the sexual innuendos in the song ‘Les Sucettes‘ (The Lollipops)). In fact, I was younger than Gall because my discovery of Gainsbourg’s music started with the notorious ‘Je T’Aime Moi Non Plus‘, with me having no idea about the meaning of some specific sounds on the record.

For years, Gainsbourg has been hovering over the French music scene. His versatility at both music and lyrics, as well as his lifestyle, not only turned him into a monumental figure of European music, but in later years also inspired many *interpretations*. As someone noted on YouTube, Kate Moss and Pete Doherty look strangely similar to Birkin-Gainsbourg duet, except that Doherty’s influence on modern music is not as decisive, as was Gainsbourg’s. Then again, as Philip Sweeney remarked a year ago in The Independent, “Gainsbourg was an enthralled recycler of English and American trends, themes and phrases“, which may signal to somebody that Gainsbourg was not necessarily original.

This, however, is not the case, as Sweeney notes himself, because Gainsbourg’s songs are extremely difficult to translate into English and, in fact, into any other language. Consider this passage from his song ‘Variations sur Marilou‘:

Dans son regard absent
Et son iris absinthe
Tandis que Marilou s’amuse à faire des vol
Utes de sèches au menthol
Entre deux bulles de comic-strip
Tout en jouant avec le zip
De ses Levi’s
Je lis le vice
Et je pense à Caroll Lewis

It makes sense in English, if translated, but, as often happens, the difference in pronunciation takes away this lingering quality of original French lyrics. Furthermore, because of this difference the last three lines don’t produce the same effect. The emphasis on ‘-iss’ in the French text reminds one of a gentle murmur, of mussitation; the English version would never capture this effect.

So, on to Histoire de Melody Nelson. It was Gainsbourg’s 1972 conceptual album, which cover you may see on the right. Containing 7 songs, “Melody Nelson is a weirdly jewel-like micro-opera featuring a vintage Rolls-Royce, a male obsession for the eponymous 14-year-old garçonne, and demise via New Guinean cargo-cult, rendered by Gainsbourg’s voluptuous drawl and Birkin’s Lolita whisper, and a richly idiosyncratic instrumentation by Gainsbourg’s close collaborator Jean-Claude Vannier, owing as much to Abbey Road, George Martin and the film soundtracks of John Barry as to anything from Paris“. (Philip Sweeney, The Independent, 16 April 2006).

You can obviously find the album on Amazon.com, where the featured cover comes from. You can browse the links below, to read more about the album and/or Serge Gainsbourg. But on YouTube you can also find the videos to the songs. The videos, like the songs, are psychedelic, and feature the paintings of Max Ernst, Paul Delvaux, Salvador Dali, Felix Labisse, René Magritte, Henri Rousseau, which makes Gainsbourg’s album even dearer to my heart because I’ve been a devouted student of French surrealism for years.

The video I’m putting up here is the 5th part of the album. It is called ‘L’hôtel particulier‘, and uses predominantly the works of Paul Delvaux, with a few glimpses of Felix Labisse’s images. If you want to read the lyrics to the song, follow the link to Alex Chabot’s translation.

Links:

Serge Gainsbourg’s site – in French. Very informative – be careful if you’re a serious Serge’s fan and didn’t know about this site: you may very well spend the entire night reading the story of a remarkable talent.

Alex Chabot’s translations of Gainsbourg’s texts.

Specifically L’hôtel particulier (from the above).

Philip Sweeney, Serge Gainsbourg: Filthy French (The Independent, 16 April 2006). Also: LookSmart’s FindArticles – Filthy French

Notes on Histoire de Melody Nelson – some interesting and somewhat sentimental facts about the making of this album from Movie Grooves.

Histoire de Melody Nelson on Amazon.com