Energy Efficiency & Darwinism

Yes, the British are officially at the bottom of the list of energy-saving nations. The ramifications are that the journalists and broadcasters are trying to find out what to do to save energy. One Mancunian has told the Radio Manchester that he uses a torch to go from one room to another. While it's very unlikely that many people will follow in his footsteps, most Mancunians are trying to save energy by boiling only so much water as they need to brew a nice cuppa. In Russia (in case if you don't know) - in Moscow, at the least - we have regular central heating from mid-autumn until mid-spring, none in summer, with a mandatory switch-off of hot water for a month in summer (for any necessary check-ups or overhauling of water supply system). So, yes, if you want to have a bath then you've got this beautfiul opportunity of visiting your friends on the other side of your huge capital city, providing they're staying at home and don't mind letting you share their bathroom. Alternatively, all you've got to do is to boil water, mix it with cold water to make it warm, and to keep yourself clean without leaving your abode. If this looks barbaric or too original to you, so does an English bath to me. Anyway, thanks to having been living in such princely conditions for 20-odd years, I've been affectionately called a "Jamaican" by many Englishmen because I can very easily feel cold when most people are bathing in sweat. [OK, I am uttering things, of course]. As you can guess, therefore, I'm not the energy-efficient person. I require the heating being turned on in winter, and I do love chimneys [I love them all the year round, actually, I find them very romantic, but of course I don't turn a chimney on in summer - I am not Jamaican, after all]. Like I said, however, I have acclimatised here, and I was wondering how I might feel if my plans work out and I go to visit my parents in Moscow, say, in February? It tends to be bitterly cold in February, so I'm just trying to figure out, how I'm going to feel there after three English winters. To be honest, however, I think I'll be skiing in glee. :-)) [And just to give you an idea of what I've been missing the most for all three years that I've lived in England, here are two photos taken around the Moscow State University, where I studied. I found them somewhere on the web, so thanks to the photographer, if they suddenly find their images on my blog]. Finally - I don't know why I'm including this link in this post, with my energy efficiency capabilities and habits in life I would hardly stand the natural selection - the complete work of Charles Darwin are now available online. And as you navigate the site, just take a notice of how many people have visited it since its opening on 19 October 2006. So... viva Darwin, I guess.

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

I know I've put up a lot of poetry here recently, and I'm just about to post more. The genre of villanelle was probably fixed by one French poet in the late 16th c. Every villanelle consists of five three-line tercets and a final quatrain. In addition, the first and third lines of the first tercet recur alternately in the following stanzas and form a final couplet.

I've been particularly fascinated by this poem by W. H. Auden, If I Could Tell You, which I happily share now.

Time will say nothing but I told you so,
Time only knows the price we have to pay;
If I could tell you I would let you know.

If we should weep when clowns put on their show,
If we should stumble when musicians play,
Time will say nothing but I told you so.

There are no fortunes to be told, although,
Because I love you more than I can say,
If I could tell you I would let you know.

The winds must come from somewhere when they blow,
There must be reasons why the leaves decay;
Time will say nothing but I told you so.

Perhaps the roses really want to grow,
The vision seriously intends to stay;
If I could tell you I would let you know.

Suppose the lions all get up and go,
And all the brooks and soldiers run away;
Will Time say nothing but I told you so?
If I could tell you I would let you know.

Needless to say, for all its beauty, the genre of villanelle has through centuries retained the mannerist quality of the French Renaissance.

Poetry

Poetry presents the "thing" in order to convey the feeling. It should be precise about the thing and reticent about the feeling, for as soon as the mind regrounds and connects with the thing, the feeling shows in the words. This is how poetry enters deeply within us (Wei T'ai, Chinese philosopher).

From Goethe

FOR woman due allowance make!
Form'd of a crooked rib was she, --
By Heaven she could not straight'ned be.
Attempt to bend her, and she'll break;
If left alone, more crooked grows madam;
What well could be worse, my good friend, Adam? --
For woman due allowance make;
'Twere grievous, if thy rib should break!

1819.*

[From Tefkir Nameh. Book of Contemplation, Western-Eastern Divan (1814-19). Those who know German, can contemplate the original text. There is also a collection of Goethe's works in verse, first printed in 1883, which you can find here. It contains English translation of the Divan. Finally, in Russian it is published at Lib.ru, but in fragments only].

Mother (and mama mia!)

It is no news that early Soviet films are well-known, treasured and studied in the West. Not only many of those films commemorated pivotal figures and moments in Russian history (Ivan the Terrible, Alexander Nevsky and The Battleship Potemkin by Sergei Eisenstein, Peter the First by Vladimir Petrov), they can also shed a lot of light on the early Soviet ideology. Cinema, as many statesmen of the time had understood, possessed the immense importance as the way to disseminate ideas in the form of art.

[I have to put in a historical note: unlike the 16th zealous European Reformers, Soviet leaders understood very well that to educate a then largely illiterate population, they had to make emphasis on artistic representation, of which cinema and posters were the most straight-forward. Having said that, one shouldn't be too hard on the 16th c. people - after all, they did have engravings].

So, here is a very good article by Cara Marisa Deleon about one of the best-known films of the era, Mat' (Mother) by Vsevolod Pudovkin. You can check the film's details here, as well as Pudovkin's filmography, which includes several historical films, Admiral Nakhimov (he was the hero of the Crimean war, 1853-56), and Suvorov (this outstanding soldier was awarded with the title of generalissimus and had crossed the Alpes in 1799, at the age of 70!).

And if you are interested in the history of Soviet Russia and want to read a novel that inspired the film, you're very lucky because The Project Gutenberg has got an English translation of this famous novel by Maxim Gorky. I hope you have a pleasant reading. If you wish to know which of Gorky's works to read next, don't hesitate to ask - he'd written loads, and I've read at least a half.


And as I was writing this post I received a voicemail from a friend of mine. He's been a volunteer with the Red Cross since early this year, has been to many duties, and was interviewed for The LOOK. Now he rang to invite me to appear as a casualty extra on an educational DVD. Things would be as realistic as possible, he said. Which, knowing my luck, might very well turn into a real casualty. I know, Paul, you mean well, but... sorry, no!!!

A Day in the Life

Of course, you know this famous Beatles song. At least, I hope you do. And today you can add your own verse (or a passage in prose) to it by going here. History Matters is a campaign to raise awareness of history in Britain, supported by such organisations, as The National Trust, The English Heritage, The Council for British Archaeology, and by the leading British historians, politicians and men-of-arts (names include Dr David Starkey, Tony Benn and Boris Johnson MPs, and Stephen Fry).

The Future of a Thriller

This year I've read at least two legendary film makers predicting the end of cinematographer: Peter Greenaway and David Lynch. They obviously don't say that cinematographer is going to die altogether. Simply, the way films are being produced, their promotion and, consequently, our relation to and understanding of them will have been changed profoundly in the near future.

I'm not going to expand on this any further, as I decided to post one link here and to ponder on how technical innovations may change the future of the thriller genre. I mean, the technique you are about to see is not innovative in itself. However, I thought: what would it be if the entire film was produced like this? You might say that, unless the emerging images were as intriguing or captivating, as this one, you'd fall asleep long before the drawning ended. But in the world where there are many dull blockbusters and pathetic action thrillers, to see something like this unravelling in front of your very eyes would be rather exhilirating (at least, the first time round). And then people would begin to mass-produce such films. Imagine the remake of Oldboy, in which the producers used this technique.

In short, I think, this is a very productive way to add some fresh blood to the thriller genre. At any rate, the level of suspense should be sky-high.

http://www.pelourinho.com/movies/c003702/

Nobel Prize in Literature 2006

This year's Nobel Prize is awarded to the Turkish author, Orhan Pamuk

Nobel Prize in Literature

This year's Laureate in Literature is to be announced on Thursday October 12, at 11 am GMT (1 pm CET). You can watch the live internet broadcast here.


And today I was woken up in the most unusual way, by thunderbolt. The strike was very violent and loud, but I don't know if anything was actually destroyed. That was in Manchester. And in the Lake District our intrepid photographer Tony Richards, who's been documenting the beauties of the Lakes for several years by now, took this photograph:

© Tony Richards, www.lakelandcam.co.uk

"Too late to be 'frightened' by it, I just wondered at the power of Mother Nature!!!", Tony wrote on his website. In my turn, after listening to my local thunderbolt, I was too wide awake to fall back to sleep.

The Sea

Give me your lips
I shall make them a boat
It will take me to the centre
Of the Earth that longs for love
The fingers will be the oars
And I'll be a simple sea boy
And let me perish
At sea of your infinite love.

[For Russian text, go here].

English translation © Julia Shuvalova 2006

© Julia Shuvalova 2004, 2006

Quiet Flows the Don

Many thanks to an IMDb.com user who's posted the link to this article, printed in The Moscow Times in February this year. Unfinished Business is about the process of completion of the last film by the Oscar-winning Russian director Sergei Bondarchuk, Quiet Flows the Don. I've already written something about it in the Notebooks, but now you can read the article for yourself.

Also, this is a link to the film's trailer, posted by another IMDb.com user. It does actually look very impressive, and I hope it works well in your browser.

I cannot tell you how much I've been looking forward to this picture! Which is why I'm digging information about it from everywhere, and I do hope it gets finished soon. As a matter of fact, 9th Company(Devyataya Rota), a film by the late director's son, Fyodor Bondarchuk, is Russia's official entry to the Oscars' long list for 2007.

In the Mood for Reading (Eco, Murakami, Sueskind...)

I shall start reading Murakami as soon as I finish Umberto Eco's new novel, The Mysterious Flame of Queen Loana. It is a story of a man in his 60s (very much resembling the Master himself), who after an accident lost his explicit memory, i.e. the one associated with emotions. As a result, he remembers everything he's ever read and speaks in quotes, but when looking at a wedding photo of his parents, he doesn't remember who they are. All feelings brought up by drinking hot tea and brushing teeth are new (although he'd definitely experienced those before). The book, hence, is the story of a man in search for his lost emotional memories (shall we call it experience?)

Although I already find the book interesting, I couldn't help pitying myself that I'm reading it in English translation. I should've read it in Italian. The problem with translation of this particular text (or rather, its first chapter) is that all characters speak similarly. Now and again I was catching myself on a thought that there's not much difference between how a doctor, the protaginist (an antique book dealer) and his wife (a psychologist) speak. It's like one person talking all the time. The wife is particularly disturbing, her speech is so scholastic and unnatural, I began to ponder if I might sound like her at times - which, if I do, is pretty dreadful. [I'm also absolutely sure that I never sound like her, but literature has indeed manifested its power by confusing me]. Anyway, I'm looking forward to next chapters. Oh, there are many illustrations in the book, some in colour.

The Mysterious Flame of Queen Loana is published by Vintage Books (London, 2006), translation by Geoffrey Brock.


For some reason, I wasn't impressed with anything I saw on the 'Recommended' bookshelf in the new Waterstones in Manchester. I know I nearly bought a little book by Jerome K. Jerome, but put it on the shelf, went elsewhere, and eventually forgot to buy it. But the books on the 'Recommended' stand didn't hook me. Ten years ago, when I was attending an English class with a native speaker (twice a week, in addition to my normal school hours), one of the topics we once discussed was our reading habits. One member of the group, a medical student in his final year, said that he'd normally read first 10 pages, and if they failed to impress him, he'd put the book back on the shelf.

Back then, being incorrigibly romantic and untarnished by much experience, myself and two other students protested ardently against this student's 'erroneous position'. Ten years later, and especially after visiting Waterstones last week, I've begun to feel that 10 pages is sometimes too long. Needless to say, when you read exclamations like 'I couldn't put the book down!!!' coming from a critic writing for a very old and respected edition, you kind of feel confused and even disturbed, if you fail to appreciate the book's ingenuity. But it's not my fault that of about seven books that I went through five (!!!) started with a similar exposition. I know definitely that in two of them a protagonist found himself waking up, and in another two the protagonist was riding or driving somewhere.

Don't get me wrong, I'm not saying that before an author writes the first sentence, s/he has to go through their entire library, to check if this first sentence is totally original. Equally, I don't know why those phrases and even styles in which they are written look and sound so similar to one another. I've recently gone through several publications of the new Russian poems, and I couldn't help noticing that most of them are even written in the same metrical foot. This is something I have to say about The Da Vinci Code - although it was a dull and dragging reading at times, it was at least captivating in the beginning.

So, I'm looking for originality, and whilst I'm looking for it, I'm also engorging on the good old classics. I'm going to reread Das Parfuem by Patrick Sueskind. I read the novel ages ago, when I was still a student, and I know it impressed me a lot, and I'd love to read it again before I watch the screen adaptation by Tom Tykwer. I have to say, few adaptations impressed me in the past, the most disappointing being One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest by Milos Forman. Kubrick's A Clockwork Orange also wasn't particularly pleasing.

I guess it has to do with how we read books. Speaking of A Clockwork Orange (which deserves a different chapter altogether), for me the most important part in the book is when Alex leaves prison. Everything before the book's final is important, of course, but Alex's rampages and his time in prison are not what the book is about. It is about human violence, insincerity and indifference, which start in the family and society and the physical expression of which is only the tip of the iceberg. Burgess's novel (like all good works of literature) depicts - sometimes in a very detailed and painful way - the tip, but the base of the iceberg is always to be found by the reader, providing s/he is attentive to the hints and keys scattered by the author throughout the book.

So, I'm going to reread Das Parfuem, I'm reading the new book by Eco, and I'll be reading Murakami. And I'll also be keeping my fingers crossed for Mario Vargas Llosa who, as some tabloids have reported, is in the long list for the Nobel Prize in Literature. I'll be way over the Moon (and over Aisa Tanaf, perhaps), if he wins it.


Also, this Sunday I've been to my first rugby match at the Halliwell Jones Stadium in Warrington. I've seen lots of rugby on TV since 2003, but I've never been to the rugby stadium before this Sunday. Both teams for which I was supposed to cheer (one of them was a local team, Swinton Lions) lost, and I left half-deaf, without finishing watching the second game. Well, hopefully next time it'll be better. In the meantime I'm following the football leagues and championships - sporadically, when I decide that the only thing I want to do in my free time is to knit and to listen to the TV.

Berkeley University Video Lectures and Courses

From now on, if you're lazy or too busy with work but still want to further your education, you can do so with the help of the ever mighty Google. The Berkeley University in California has started broadcasting their lectures online at http://video.google.com/ucberkeley.html

For myself, I've already noted two lectures that I'll listen to as soon as I have time (I'm not lazy, but I'm busy):

David Lynch: Consciousness, Creativity and the Brain

Modern Literary Manuscripts





Links:

The regular broadcast of the Berkeley University lectures can be found at http://webcast.berkeley.edu.
One of the lectures that may be interesting enough is introduced in this post - How Wicked Is Wiki?

A Psychic Moment

'Voxpops are not representative - it's just a few people who stopped to talk to you on a rainy Friday afternoon' (an old journalistic adage).

It's Thursday, but it's been raining nonetheless (we're in Manchester, after all). I sorted my headache out by interviewing my own GP about migraine management, and the last thing I needed to do was to collect some voxpops from those Mancunians who'd wish to chat to me about their migraine and headache experience.

Some people didn't want to talk. Most of those who did never experienced either migraine or a severe headache (is that ever possible?) One young man who kindly decided to asnwer my question told me he didn't suffer from any sort of migraine, but that he suffered from asthma instead. Unfortunately, we already covered asthma before.

Finally I saw this lady in a black-and-white stripy jumper walking towards me.

- How do you feel when you have a headache? - I asked.

She stopped and looked at me in amazement. She asked what it was for, then said that she's currently suffering from a severe headache, which feels like a knife is being stuck in her head.

At the end of all this, when we still stood together in the street with me saving the file, my anonymous interviewee said:

- You know I've actually got this terrible migraine right now, and when you came up and asked me, I thought: how does she know? is she a psychic?

Morale: voxpops may not be representative, but they're invaluable for getting an odd story or comment.

Ups and Downs

I love research. I adore it. There is nothing better than to look for something and to find it in the most unexpected place. For example, I've been following the fate of the late Sergei Bondarchuk's last film, Quiet Flows the Don, for years. I've read a lot about it, I've seen the trailer, and today I found an absolutely wonderful interview with a famous Russian actor who'd worked on that film. And I never found that interview before, and I never even knew it existed.

Being a media researcher made me realise that I've got incredible perseverance. Not that I didn't know this before. Simply there is a difference between an academic research and a media research. When you're visiting an archive, it obviously helps if your archivist is a nice accommodating chap (or an equally accommodating lady). But even when the archivist clearly treats you as an intruder or better else, as a hopeless uncultivated individual who's got no right or chance to lay their eyes on a precious illuminated manuscript, your knowledge and confidence will make them surrender. In addition, there are printed and online catalogues of books and manuscripts, hence you can always catch your Dark Angel off guard by showing them that you know exactly what the library holds.

In media research, it's a bit different. Being knowledgeable and reliable yourself is not enough if other people are not, especially those who are supposedly assisting you in your task at finding a contact. I'm deeply thankful to all reliable PRs and members of the public who've helped me in the past. I've managed to secure some wonderful interviewees for the programmes, but it's only now that I'm exploring the dark side of the job. For the third week running I've been trying to find a medical professional to speak about migraine, and, to my huge amazement, still haven't got anyone, except for a couple of doctors, whose secretaries it's difficult to track down. Two organisations that I tried didn't have a contact, and the third one is showing great deal of relaxation in not getting back with any kind of response. Thankfully, this is not urgent, and I have vowed to get this sorted by Thursday - it's truly annoying otherwise.

My current mood - perplexed.
Music in my head - Elton John, I'm Still Standing

It's in the Name

I don't know if I told you but I do love the mystery of a name. I have already explored it once, but of course the problem of strange names doesn't befall the humans only. They also befall the companies and firms. Below is a very short list of names of some commercial enterprises, which may conjure very strange images, if you dare concentrate on their meaning.


Mighty Health and Hygiene

Beyond Hope

Secretly Sensual

Adept Pine


In Russia, there were these companies, which never failed to bring smile to my lips, thanks to their names:


Big Elephant


White Hedgehog


Some names simply look weird, if a dot is not inserted:


A Train and Sons


Some look OK and put a very sensible idea across, but try and pronounce their name quickly:


Kids Are Us


And this is my favourite:


Impregnation Services


[The company provides very technical services of saturation and permeation].


As I've been a name geek for years, I'm looking forward to any additions to my list from your home towns.

What Do You Think an Artist Is?

Several sayings by Pablo Picasso have already appeared on The LOOK's front page in the past. I also love this photo of him, made by Robert Doisneau - a genuine portrait of the genius.

Another portrait of the genius was made by Jean Dieuzaide, and I'll leave it for you to guess, whose historic moustache you're gazing at.


I've also found this phrase by Picasso a while ago on the web:

What do you think an artist is? An imbecile who has only eyes, if he is a painter, or ears if he is a musician, or a lyre in every chamber of his heart if he is a poet, or even, if he is a boxer, just his muscles? Far from it: at the same time, he is also a political being, constantly aware of the heartbreaking, passionate, or delightful things that happen in the world, shaping himself completely in their image. How could it be possible to feel no interest in other people, and with a cool indifference to detach yourself from the very life which they bring to you so abundantly? No, painting is not done to decorate apartments. It is an instrument of war.

One may say that Picasso's viewpoint is somewhat outdated, in that people want to live in the world as peaceful as possible, hence art-as-war is no longer interesting. But there are many kinds of war, and not all are fought with tanks and missiles. There are language wars, religious wars, 'moral' wars, media wars, and all use art as a type of warfare. Furthermore, as George Orwell has put it, there are four main reasons to write prose, one of which is 'political purpose' - 'using the word "political" in the widest possible sense. Desire to push the world in a certan direction, to alter other people's idea of the kind of society that they should strive after. Once again, no book is genuinely free from political bias. The opinion that art should have nothing to do with politics is itself a political attitude' (Orwell, G., Why I write).

It would be very hard indeed to disagree with either Picasso or Orwell, and there are modern artists who follow in their footsteps. Perhaps, they don't get involved in politics very much, but they nonetheless admit that their art exists because of people. One such artist is Dave McKean, who put it this way:

My own world is just trying to make sense of the real world. I don’t like the sort of science-fiction art and fantasy art that is just about goblins and fairies and spaceships. I don’t really see the point of that. It’s entertaining and it’s fine, but I couldn’t do it. I needed to be about people, who I have to deal with every day, and that’s what I’m interested in. I’m interested in what people think and how they think, and the things that they believe in, and desire, and are frightened of. So I’m interested in that side of life, really. And then I’m trying to sort of look at those things from a different point of view, or from metaphor, or from dreams, or from these other angles, because I think they are just interesting ways of seeing things, you know, that you have to deal with everyday for fresh, and you see them with different eyes, I think. [read more].

Finally, however, comes this passage from The Wicked and Unfaithful Song of Marcel Duchamp to His Queen by Paul Carroll:

Art? A form
of intimate hygiene for
the ghosts we really are.


This brings to my mind a TV programme made by Channel 4, which explored the anti-art, particularly, in the form of inflicting pain on oneself as a means of teaching the audience a lesson of empathy. One of my 'favourite' moments on the programme was this couple who drank tea with biscuits, while being hung to the ceiling on the chains that pierced their skin. The idea was to explore their experience of pain and also to expand people's understanding of pain through such performances.

Having read the entire 120 Days of Sodome by de Sade, I wasn't scared or repulsed by what I saw on screen, but it made me think. The question I've been asking myself was: why in the world where there are so many wars and where the footage of deaths and casualties is available on the internet, it is necessary to appeal to people's empathy by sticking iron hooks in your chest? Far from telling the artists what not to do for their art's sake, I'm simply wondering about the purpose of such art. If the knowledge of the two World Wars and many other military conflicts doesn't automatically make people detest the very idea of an offensive war, if the photos of destroyed houses, orphaned children and open wounds don't change people's view of loss and pain, then why would seeing two able-bodied adults hanging on chains drinking tea influence people's idea of pain? I'd imagine that after watching such 'performance' people would lose interest in pain altogether. If it's endurable, then what's the problem?

Some people with whom I discussed this previously have pointed out that this practice of piercing and inflicting pain is ritual in some countries and cultures. The problem, though, is that the only instance of it on our continent that springs to my mind was flagellantism, which had spread in Europe in the 13-14th c. and had later been revived as a sexual practice. There is evidently a difference between the culture of piercing in African or Aboriginous societies and this 'hygienic' European movement, and as far as I am concerned, this difference is much bigger than someone may think. This 'civilized' pain-inflicting art, given its purposes, is - in my opinion - exactly the kind of 'personal hygiene' Carroll had written about. An artist, no matter how politically involved, is above all a human being, and when he lacks empathy and cannot relate to other people's experience, unless he shares it physically, it raises questions as to how worthwhile, creative and useful his art is.

And don't quote Wilde's 'all art is quite useless' - had Wilde not been an artist, he'd never have said this.