Fortune’s Pawn

Every four years, like clockwork, the far-left fringe of the Democratic Party comes out of the woodwork with one or another idea which is sure to polarize the electorate against them, driving vast tracts of voters into the waiting embrace of the right, and ensuring another insufferable term of Republican leadership. I know, I am a member of the far-left fringe. But, I can see this for what it is; a bad idea with the potential to screw the party out of yet another opportunity to lead.

“The vast amount of human activity ought to be none of the government’s business,” Frank said during a Capitol Hill news conference. “I don’t think it is the government’s business to tell you how to spend your leisure time.”
Legislators aim to snuff out penalties for pot use - CNN.com

Four years ago it was Gavin Newsom, mayor of San Francisco, who just couldn’t wait for the law to catch up to his ambition, and almost single-handedly started the stampede towards same-sex marriage in California. This time it’s Barney Frank and marijuana. Jeez!

Must we? How does this do anything but help the right? Barack Obama will have to choose between endorsing the move, giving a potentially powerful wedge to McCain, or opposing it, further disenchanting a sizable chunk of the youth vote who are already disillusioned by his rightward tack on FISA and other recent changes (be they real or perceived).

Why did Frank have to bring this up now? What possible purpose is served when he knows, and he must know, that it will not possibly pass his own house, hell even his own caucus, let alone get to the president’s desk.

Yikes what poor legislative reasoning he has. Must have an old pot debt to clear.

Do us a favor Barney, go back to reading the New Yorker.

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Pawn was visiting western Wisconsin this past weekend, and read this bizarre missive in the Minneapolis Star Tribune, a response to an article about same sex marriage. I am still not sure exactly what the writer, one Charles Charnstrom, of Watertown, was trying to get at:

Whenever objection is raised to GLBT issues or same-sex marriage, name calling is invoked, usually either “hate-filled” or “homophobic.” I am against same-sex marriage and I am not homophobic or hate-filled.

Civilization is fragile and marriage is hard. Living with a person of the opposite sex is much more difficult than living with someone of the same sex. If same-sex couples are granted the same benefits as married couples, people will cease to get married and have kids.

Proof can be found in other Western countries. Babies are not being born from Japan to Italy. Russia even made a national holiday for workers to stay home and procreate.
Letters to the editor for Sunday, June 29

Last time I checked, neither Japan, Italy or Russia permitted same sex marriage, so he can’t possibly mean that those countries were lead to extreme measures due to such a move. If I read it correctly, the only reason men and women marry is because it helps to compensate for the onerous duty of living together and having sex. At least I think that’s what he’s trying to say.

Hmm….

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I wrote back on February 25th, while I was in London, of the growth of the British Surveillance Society.  Well, today in theTelegraph comes news of a Manchester band, The Get Out Clause, which has turned that to their advantage:

Unable to afford a proper camera crew and equipment, The Get Out Clause, an unsigned band from the city, decided to make use of the cameras seen all over British streets.

With an estimated 13 million CCTV cameras in Britain, suitable locations were not hard to come by.

They set up their equipment, drum kit and all, in eighty locations around Manchester – including on a bus – and proceeded to play to the cameras.

The Get Out Clause, Manchester’s stars of CCTV cameras - Telegraph

The resulting video is quite effective, as you can see here:

The Get Out Clause: Paper

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“Sarkozy Visits, and Britain Falls for His Wife” trumpets the Grey Lady. Pawn has been gone from those shores for only a few weeks, and the British public and press have already moved on, casting their affections to their French cousins. Sacrebleu!

Was she the new Kennedy-Onassis or a reborn Diana? With her flat Dior pumps and calf-length gray overcoat, was she a high-school student on vacation, or, as one columnist asked, “Jackie O dressed as a nun”?
French First Lady More Than Tames British Press - New York Times

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My last Sunday in London and I decided to spend it seeing some more art, some more crowds, some more parks and some more theatre.  First, the art.  The Royal Academy has two blockbuster shows on right now, From Russia, great works from Russian collections, and  Cranach, a medieval artist.

The image above was used in the RA promotions for the event, and generated quite the storm of press when Transport for London initially refused to allow its use in tube stations, bus stands, etc.  The public reaction was so universally against TfL that they ultimately relented and this image has joined the ranks of so many others to be vandalised on a regular basis by passengers.

I knew that these shows were already largely sold out, and that very long lines of people turned out for the limited number of same-day tickets which went for sale early each day.  So, like with so many other cultural attractions I passed on those exhibitions.  Call me a heathen, but to stand on line for an hour in the hope of getting a ticket only to then try to admire artwork from a thicket of fellow art lovers.  No thank you.  I opted instead to enjoy the permanent collection exhibits which occupied the rest of the galleries.  Many fewer people to contend with, which heightened my enjoyment.

Next I wandered down to St. James Park to enjoy what had become a very nice day.  I had brought with me a bag of pumpkin seeds which I purchased at Tesco weeks ago, but don’t really fancy.  I thought the birds would like them, and figured that might make for some fun photos.

It is a gorgeous day in the park, and there are large crowds everywhere.  I have gotten pretty good at figuring out the language in use by a gaggle of tourists and then using the proper “pardon”, “perdon”,  “scusi” or “entschuldigung” as appropriate (having consulted the web for tips).  That comes in handy with this navigational challenge.  Almost all of these gaggles are students on tour, and they hang together tightly, sometimes ignorant or oblivious of the other users of the pavement.

I find my way to the narrow pond which bisects the park east to west and then to a properly gravelled area in which to toss my pumpkin seeds.  There are signs along the railings around the water which admonish you not to feed the wildlife, but then explaining that to do so anywhere damages the grass, so please find a gravelled area.  I start to throw the seeds, and am soon surrounded by flocks of pigeons, geese, ducks and a curious (but aloof) swan or two.  And humans.  A flock of humans wielding camera also descend upon me.  In short order the birds have had all of the pumpkin seeds and then they just follow me as I resume my walk around the pond.  I feel like the pied piper.

I trudge on through the neighbourhoods below St. James.  I found a string of roads I particularly liked.  Along the southern edge of the park is Birdcage Walk (which is a roadway, not a walking path), a short jog off of Birdcage is Old Queen Street, which turns a sharp left to Cockpit Stairs (yes, they name those as well).  I kind of liked that set.

A bunch more photos later I wandered into Pimlico station and caught a train up to Oxford Circus, and found a nice little pub to get Sunday Roast.  Football was on, FA Cup action.  The BBC got themselves in a lot of trouble for committing 14 hours out of a 24 hour period to either FA Cup soccer or 6 Nations rugby this past weekend.  You can’t win for trying.  I saw the last 20 minutes or so  of Barnsley spanking Chelsea on Saturday, and managed to see the only goal scored in the match.  It was quite the upset.  Sunday I saw Cardiff score two goals against Middlesborough in another upset.  I have watched plenty of soccer in my life, but in this one 24 hour period I think I may have witnessed more goals than in the past 45 years.  And I saw two out of three of the upsets that will lead to the first FA Cup final in 106 years to have no “Premeirship” level teams competing. (Manchester United had been unceremoniously dispensed with earlier).

Back home to clean up my photo galleries before tonight’s theatre.  You can see photos from today’s travels here

Ta!

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What a full evening! I left hotel at 19:00 still not sure what I would do. I thought of Jazz at Club Redotu, but that’s at the west end of the Nové Mestro (New Town), and I didn’t want to do that much more walking. There is a program of Gershwin and Bernstein at Municipal Hall, which intrigues, and Black Theatre, which does as well. I left with just my jacket, leaving my coat behind. I figured I would start by seeing if I could get a cheap ticket for the concert, and then try Black Theatre if I couldn’t. Those are nearby, so I could travel light.

I struck out at the concert hall. Even though the house was opening as I got there, and was well under half sold, the cheapest ticket they would sell me was 700Kc, about $42. For an hour of music, basically 20th century classical pop, that’s just too steep for me. So I went in search of Black Theatre. Oops! Should have done some more research there, seems Thursday is the one night of the week that Black Theatre goes dark, ironic. Okay, jazz it is.

I knew it was far too early for the jazz club, so I decided to just stroll Wenceslas Square. On the way in from the airport, as the driver was giving me tips for my stay, he said “I don’t think you need to bother with Wenceslas Square, that’s for the younger crowd these days.” Well, he was right about that, but it was still a fun walk. The city is overrun with high school and college students right now. Many countries are on spring interval, which contributes to the mayhem. Interestingly, the gaggle of Italian high school girls who moved into my hotel last night have been complimented with an equal sized gaggle of German boys today. I expect international relations to heat up shortly.

Along the square the crowds were already thick before 20:00. There are several Casino along the square, along with nightclubs and bars. The crowds are courted by thickets of touts. These people, toting signs, wearing vests or holding handfuls of flyers, are in front of just about every business. Even McDonalds has theirs. “Casino, Bingo, Craps…” “Good food, you try?” “Beautiful girls, no cost to look…” “Karaoke, cards…” London and New York have their touts, too. In New York it’s the comedy and strip clubs that have the worst reputation. In London there are touts for just about anything, everywhere in the West End are ticket touts, and the signs telling you how many metres to the nearest McDonalds, Pizza Hut, Falafel or whatever are ubiquitous. They have nothing on Prague.

The touts, however, have met their match in the louts. I have long thought that American college aged, men in particular, were the worst louts around. I was wrong, and for that I apologize. Seems that once again globalisation has worked its magic, and louts the world over are pretty much the same. There are swarms of German, Italian, French and Spanish, Russian, Polish, and on and on, strutting and gamboling up and down the square shouting and carousing and spitting and generally making the worst possible case for the ascendancy of their particular homeland. Where is Genghis Khan when you need him?

Even so, it is an interesting spectacle to observe; I shrug off the touts and avoid the louts. As I work my way back from the bottom to the top of the square I decide to cross the shopping strip and see what’s on the other side. Within two blocks I am twice approached by drug touts. These are a subtle breed. Rather than the obvious, in your face style of the normal tout, these use more of an en passant move. You’re walking along, and the tout sidles up along side saying “Fummé, marijuana…” and watching closely for a reaction. Then they move on, as if they have never said a thing. Fine, the last thing I need is to be a poster child for the DEA.

After a lot of wandering and stalling it is finally time to go to the jazz club. I have been in just my jacket this whole time, but I am not really that cold. There are so many open doors (a beckoning tactic here) flooding the street with warmth, and it isn’t that cold, so I am surprisingly comfortable. I have been outside for almost two hours by the time I enter the jazz club, and other than my face, I don’t really feel it.

The club is small and intimate, which is a good thing as I am the only one there, besides the musicians and the staff, when I get there at 21:00. There are artifacts all around of a visit paid here by Bill Clinton, Madelaine Albright with Vaclav Havel and Vaclav Klaus in 1994. I sit in Vaclav Klaus’s seat. A smallish crowd does wander in by the time the first set starts at 21:40, and the quartet plays a set of covers of the likes of Freddy Hubbard and Miles Davis. The latter, from his Spanish phase, gets them rocking, and the audience is getting into it. They play one more and take a break. The second set, and the rest of the show, are originals, and pretty good. I hear influences from Terji Rypdal and Keith Jarrett, Herbie Hancock and others from the late 70’s, early 80’s. A very well played set of music.

I leave the club shortly before closing at 23:45 and start to walk back. The crowds are now reduced to just the drunkest tourists and the most appalled locals. I think I straddle both camps. I stop at one of the street vendors to get a “Classic Prague Würst”. As I approach the stand a pair of middle aged women ask, “Sprachen sie Deutsch?” “Nein,” I reply. The paradox of that catches them. “Was? Sie sprachen Deutsch!” “No, Anglais.” “Oh, English. Are you from England or America?” Those of you who read last night’s post can guess where this is headed. “I’m from both,” I say, and move towards the food stand and away from them. “You want to come to bar? Nice company bar, you know?” they say. “Company” in this context does not mean business… Wait, let me rephrase that. By “Company” they don’t mean firm… Well, you get my drift. They are trying to get me to go to a Cabarét or some other venue where some nice lady (I’m sure) will keep me company for the night, or however long it takes to drain my wallet. No thanks. I pretend not to hear them anymore, get my sausage (stop snickering) and walk away. Behind me I still hear “You speak English…”

Another night of culture in Prague, one of the oldest cities in the world.

Ciao ciao!

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I almost forgot to mention my stop at the Wellcome Collection today. Their current exhibit is Sleeping and Dreaming, and quite good. I particularly enjoyed the Traces of Sleep section. One piece, The Sleepers by Nils Klinger, is a portrait of sleep achieved by means of a super-long exposure taken by the light of a single candle while the subject slept. The room was darkened, the candle lit, and the shutter opened. Once the candle had failed, the shutter was closed. The result is a sort of time-lapse photograph of the sleeper (note: this is not the exact piece displayed in the exhibit):

The rest of the collection is captivating, and well captured in The Phantom Museum, by The Brothers Quay a stop action animation featured in the Museum.

I then wandered down through Tottenham Court to get some lunch and enjoy the scenery. Of particular interest was the scene outside a Scientology office. Scientology is treated here as a dangerous cult and roundly hated. In these two pictures you can see the protesters on the east side of the road and the offices on the west. There are more bobbies here than I have seen in any one place the entire time I have been here.

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It has been 50 years since A Bear Called Paddington first appeared, and the BBC are celebrating this anniversary by placing 50 Paddington Bear dolls in train stations across Great Britain with a tag which reads “Please look after this bear” and asking the finder to please call a toll free number and leave a birthday message for Paddington, and telling where they found their bear.

A special presentation on BBC4 just featured these messages, along with Paddington history, interviews with the author, etc. Quite good.

It has been over 30 years since the last Paddington book came out, but a new one is due this June. In a fitting example of art imitating life, in the new book, Paddington Bear is arrested and questioned as to his immigration status.

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Leicester Square again this morning.  Score: Stalls, row H seat 5 for Cabaret! I’ve been needing a musical, after all of the heavy dramas I’ve seen of late. Not something too light, mind you. No, some singing Nazis ought to do the trick.

Then back onto the Piccadilly line to South Kennsington to visit the Andipa gallery for a rare exhibit of Banksy. South Kennsington is posh territory. A detached home in Kennsington just sold for £80million if the papers are to be believed, making it the most expensive home sale in the world up till now (not for long, we are assured, there’s a £95m offer in the works nearby). The streets from the tube stop to the gallery are lined with exclusive shops and galleries. The odd piece in all of this is the Michelin House and Beidendum (below) . It is a lovely building, but as if someone erected a grand McDonalds museum on Park Avenue in the 50’s in Manhattan.

This shrine to the bulbous rubberman is charming, in its own way, and the Art Nouveau style is right up my alley. Out of place here, though.

From that shrine to commercial success of a century ago I went to a shrine to commercial success just as unlikely, in setting and style. Banksy is a street artist, a graffiti talent who can do with a stencil, paintcan and boundless wit what few other artists in the contemporary realm can. He can engage a larger public, as Warhol did, but he can provoke them to think and talk about larger issues, something Warhol I don’t think ever really tried to do.

The comparison with Warhol is not incidental, I think Banksy seeks this comparison. He has even cribbed from Warhol in pursuit of his own mark on the world of Pop Art. Where Warhol sought out and craved attention, however, Banksy is so elusive that there is no documentation on who he even really is — no name, no confirmed sightings, and no retail chain of evidence connecting him to the sales of his works.

The show was marvellous, there were about 20 or so works in all, none of them direct from the artist but instead from the secondary market. Some are literally pieces of walls removed from buildings. The prices ranged from £10,000 to £250,000 each, and ¾ of the show was sold already, even though it had opened just an hour before I arrived. The piece above (not a photo from the show, but this piece was in the show) was tagged at £25,000 or so. All told there was about $10 million worth of work sold in a few hours, if the gallery folk are to be believed. I heard one on the phone with a reporter, which conversation leaves me in some doubt as to his veracity, however.

Ah yes, shrines. They are fungible things, as my next stop revealed. The Victoria & Albert Museum has two entire galleries devoted to the Cast Courts, which are an oddity in that they are collections of plaster castings of burial crypts, statuary, etc. from various royal courts. So, if you want to admire the replicas of actual historic artefacts, now made historic themselves by dint of their being displayed for so long at the V&A , have at it. This kind of reflected significance is lost on me. Unfortunately, the ceramics, musical instrument and several other galleries were closed for various reasons, leaving the V&A a disappointment for me. Onward!

Oh, but first, here is a passage that struck me, from a replica of a monument for Emily Georgiana Countess of Winchilsea and Nottingham:

Call me sentimental (big surprise there) I like it. The countess died young, just 39 years, and had suffered the last of them. So, this was her parting gift to her husband. The beautifully sculpted monument by Lawrence Macdonald was his gift to her.

The next stop was the Science Museum and the new Listening Post exhibit. This is a wonderful piece, a visionary synthesis of technology into art. It is an enveloping experience: a machine which trolls Internet chatrooms, forums and social networking sites for words and phrases and then integrates them into sound, light and motion through spoken and written word. It is beyond verbal description, so I will stop there. Chase the link above for more details. I spent about a half hour in the exhibit, and it was time well spent. I attempted to take some snaps, but they are not so good. Go to http://www.fortunespawn.com/gallery/ and search for Listening Post to see them.

LL has asked about the weather here. It has been wonderful so far. Daily highs in the mid fifties F, or 10 - 15 C, and sunny. As a matter of fact, it has been the sunniest February on record, which in England is saying something. Not the warmest, but in the top ten, and dry as well. Today it started to rain a little, only the second time in the 2 ½ weeks I’ve been here.

In the rain I opted for the pedestrian subway back to the tube, and home again for a bite and nap before theatre.

The show? Oh it was good. I will say that the nagging problem with big name theatre in London is the masses of foreigners who have no sense of decorum. I know how absurd and elitist that may sound, but bear with me. The talking, and rustling of candy wrappers, crunching of crisps, etc. during shows on the West End is worse than anywhere else I have ever gone to theatre. Tonight it was the French family behind me on the right, the 20 year old daughter constantly leaning over to her mum and chatting away, despite my frequent shushing, and the German couple behind me to the left, who must have had a three course dinner, and discussed it all, during the show. What were Germans and Vichy doing at Cabaret to begin with?

Oh, but back to the show. I was pleased, even before the show started, with the staging. The sculpted drop which serves as main drape had the word “Will-com-men” spelt out in three ranks, with the centre of the O a large iris, as in a camera. The play upon which Cabaret is based was itself based upon a collection of stories by Christopher Isherwood called “I am a camera,” and this nod to origins was welcomed (pardon the pun). This particular staging (brilliantly designed by Katrina Lindsay) is very true to the original feel of Isherwood’s stories, very tawdry and served with lashings of gratuitous nudity. In other words, a delightful night out. Now if only we could exclude the Axis Powers from the theatre…

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I have written before of the problems associated with trying to appease religious or social groups, in the context of tolerance or acceptance. I have never written with the clarity and eloquence which Deborah Orr has in her recent Op-Ed in The Independent.

It is always easy to pillory an unpopular concept by simply casting it in caricature, as happened to John Kerry in his well known “I voted for it before I voted against it” comment. In this form we readily ignore the subtle for the ridiculous contra-textual. His bigger point was that he did ultimately support funding the GIs after having voted against the larger bill in committee. But that was lost in the hype over his having switched his vote, having “flip-flopped” in the final vote.

In her piece today, Ms Orr takes on the conflict over the recent comments by Rowan Williams, Archbishop of Canterbury, in reference to Sharia law. I made recent reference to those comments, and in retrospect I wish I had exercised the level of judgment and consideration Ms. Orr has.

Here is an excerpt:

…as many commentators have noted. Whatever the Archbishop may or may not have said, or may or may not have meant, he has done us a favour in drawing a storm of attention to the unpalatable fact that sharia courts are already operating in Britain.

Whatever else in his much-derided speech we may want to unceremoniously dump, though, it is important to think about how we can act on one thing that Rowan Williams said. He warned that even the level of “supplementary jurisdiction” this country already hosts “in some areas, especially family law, could have the effect of reinforcing in minority communities some of the most repressive or retrograde elements in them, with particularly serious consequences for the role and liberties of women”

Much retrospective attention, since last Thursday’s speech, has been paid to Masood Khan’s documentary film, Divorce: Sharia Style, which graphically displayed, in operation in Britain, elements of the discrimination against women for which the worldwide application of sharia has become notorious. The rule of law is already inadequate in protecting the rights of Muslim women in Britain, for precisely the unwelcome reason that Dr Williams pointed out. They are caught between the “stark alternatives of cultural loyalty and state loyalty”, whether we like this or not. The instinct of feminists is to “do something about it”. What we must consider now, is what that something might be.

This is not an easy area. One cannot simply tell people that it is all their own daft fault for being silly enough to be a devout Muslim, however tempting that might be. Nor, in reality, can we adopt the line promulgated by many in the blogging community – that people who want to live under Muslim law can go and live in a Muslim state and see how they like it. Not if we all really do want to “live under the rule of law” anyway.

This is as important as it is sobering. It is always far too easy to separate the ideal from the real. There is a reason that there are two different words for these concepts. Ms Orr does us all a favour to remind us of this. I recommend this column to all who, like me, would have too quick a response to the Archbishop’s comments.

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