The Kiss

I've sometimes written poems that were inspired by a piece of music or by a painting. One may appropriately call such poems impressions, the consequences of reflection or meditation on a subject. But sometimes a poem was written "independently" from the influence of another work of art, yet it may still be possible to find a parallel to it in cinema or painting.

In the case with this poem, I didn't have any work of art to inspire me. And I didn't conspire to write a poem on the subject of a kiss. It was one of those occasions (quite usual with me) when the idea, together with the interpretations, has simply descended. On such occasions I usually don't work on a poem - it arrives in the exact form.

One thing I was consciously trying to do was to write the poem "neutrally". The beauty of the English language to me is in the fact that it generally doesn't distinguish grammatically between the masculine and the feminine, which is the case of other European languages, including Russian. My love for this grammatical "neutrality" is naturally connected to my regular pounding on the necessity to shrug off the "categories" and "identities". The story of an act of a kiss is told in the first person, and I wrote it in such way that it contains no indication of a gender, so both a man and a woman can read it. In this regard neither of the authors of playcasts for this poem succeeded at following my vision: both images have a male figure as an active partner, whereas my idea was to allow women, who evidently do kiss men, to play the leading part, providing they dare read the poem aloud. I don't mention same-sex couples, since my idea was to write a poem that could be read by everyone and for everyone.

After I've written it, however, I read it over and over again, and suddenly I realised that, without actually planning to do so, I wrote a verbal illustration to Roland Penrose's painting Winged Domino. Portrait of Valentine. At once a painting that can potentially instill someone with awe or even disgust has become romantic.

I must admit that I still couldn't translate the poem, so as to give the full idea of its meter and rhythm; I will include the English verbatim translation in the parentheses for the time being.

Поцелуй. Winged Domino. Portrait of Valentine (R. Penrose).

Как бабочка порхает над цветком,
Его бесценной красотой любуясь,
Так я касаюсь робко языком
Губ-лепестков твоих; а ты, волнуясь,

Мне отдаешь божественный нектар;
И, превозмогши головокруженье,
Я вижу сквозь пыльцу цветочных чар
В твоих глазах – мое изображенье.

© Жюли Дельво 2006




(The Kiss. Winged Domino. Portrait of Valentine (R. Penrose)

Just like the butterfly flutters around the flower
Adoring its precious beauty,
So I hesitantly touch your lips
With my tongue; and you, excited,

Return to me a divine nectar;
And, having overcome my vertigo,
I see, through the pollen of flowery charms,
My reflection - in your eyes.

© Julie Delvaux 2007)

Julie Delvaux - Playcasts

The beauty of the social media and web publishing is in the opportunity to see how your content is being used and possibly interpreted. Although I own copyright on my works, I do not strive to publish them on every available web resource, thus restricting myself to Stihi.ru, which is registered as the actual printed edition. I republished certain poems previously on my blogs, but at no point did I expect some of the poems to become a source of inspirations to the creators of playcasts.

A playcast, as the website www.playcast.ru tells me, is the latest form of a postcard. The technique is fairly simple: you choose an image, a poem, and a piece of music, arrange them together nicely, and voila, the playcast is ready. Perhaps, the only issue I can have with the whole thing is that I only find out about it if I do a bit of ego-surfing. At the same time, since none of the authors of these playcasts did any wrong to my work, I am happy to accept theirs.

One of the poems, "Kiss", happened to be particularly popular, and was used twice in playcasts. I'll write about it in another post, however, because both playcasts focus on the story of the poem. There is an image behind it, as well, which deserves some attention. Another poem, called L'Amour des Saisons, is also a love poem, composed in the form of a song, possibly in the genre of Russian romance (somewhat similar to the French chanson). But as you'll see if you follow through to the playcast, the author used a song by Mylene Farmer. As you might guess, knowing about my francophilia, I don't mind such song in the slightest.



From what I've already said it is quite clear that me and the authors of playcasts see both poems differently. This is where we can get back to the advantages of the social media and the web. It is great for me as an author to be able to follow the interpretations of my work almost in real time. Online publishing on this occasion enables me to see almost immediately what the readers find interesting or important for themselves in my work. I cannot agree that the authorial voice has totally disappeared in the postmodern age. I think this is often simply a matter of the public voice featuring more prominently than before, mainly due to the various channels of communication. On the other hand, the variety of interpretations or a constant possibility of misinterpretation doesn't mean that the author should not have their own clear vision, which they express in their work. What makes the social media and the Internet important for the author is the opportunity to see how the idea you've conceived of is being accepted, disputed, criticised, marvelled at, applauded, re-interpreted in different media, without having to organise reading tours, etc. Needless to say, those very (mis)/(re) interpretations can be a source of inspiration in themselves, or at least can provide much food for thought.


Images, from left to right: playcasts by Nelya, Alexander, and Eva.

Links:
Poems in Russian: Kiss, and L'Amour des Saisons
Playcast by Nelya
Playcast by Alexander
Playcast by Eva

Ain't No Blogging...

...when there's work. Apologies to all of you who was evidently wondering what happened to me in the last couple of weeks. Fear not, I've been well, but in such frame of mind that doesn't allow for either reading, or writing, or even replying to emails and comments. This is not good, and I'm looking to change that very soon. The action on my blog may still be stumbling in the course of next week, but not quite so in the first week of November when I have a holiday. I was hoping to do another spell in the capital, wandering streets and finally going to the Victoria and Albert Museum, but in the end of the day I am likely to stay in Manchester. Thankfully, there are some places to visit in the North of England, and I might do just that. In the meantime there is a blog and a topic I'd like to introduce, and whichever comes first I'll post it soon.

Thanks for standing by!

Blog Action Day: Nature and Memory

As decided, on the Blog Action Day we're blogging about environment. But exactly what shall we say? On occasions like this I've always wanted to say something different, yet how different can you be these days when absolutely everyone seems to be aware of the necessity of environmental protection?



My problems were solved when my mother scanned and sent to me my first (and only) herbarium. I went to school in 1987, and upon finishing our first form we'd all got this task, to create a herbarium. My mother and I made it together in 1988, and I must be honest and say that it was actually her who made most of the job, although I did have my share. This, for instance, is the title page with my first-form handwriting. This is a poem by a Russian children's poet, Valentine Berestov, and it tells of the author's amazement at seeing different flowers out together in herbarium, even though "in the wild" they probably didn't know about each other.



I must admit that I never liked biology or botany at school. I might have mentioned on the blog my biology teacher, who was a chemistry teacher by her uni degree, and who actually was up to teaching any subject, including history and law. Her method of teaching, unfortunately, boiled down to reading from a textbook and drawing tables, and naturally perhaps, the lessons were far from engaging.



Believe it or not, but the first time we spoke about the environmental protection was at the English lesson. We had an improvised "enviromental press-conference", over which I presided. I introduced the topics and speakers, from "environmentalists" and "journalists" to "witnesses" of environmental catastrophes. The "speakers" discussed at length the pollution, and the green-house effect, and the animal protection, and the global warming. Yet I should be honest again and say that the only thing that has then benefited from such lesson was my English vocabulary, and not the awareness of the environmental problems.

I think in part the problem may have to do with how the subject of Environmental Studies is taught at schools. In those early years at school I had the lessons in what could literally be translated as Naturology. And I can never forget a quiz we had had when we had to answer questions and tick boxes. One of the question was to classify the objects by their nature - "animate" or "inanimate". Everything was OK, until I saw "flowers". I thought of photosynthesis, of everything I knew then about flowers, and ticked "animate". Turned out, this was the wrong answer. To this day I cannot understand, why. If I go from Latin, it makes sense: "anima" is "soul", and flowers, naturally, don't have soul. But neither do animals, one would imagine, yet they do belong to the "animate" world.

And just as I was writing this post, I remember about Hans Christian Andersen again. I was sure he had had a tale about the four seasons, but when I went to look for it I found another tale, which I always used love, it is called The Elder-Tree Mother. The elder-tree tea is a great popular remedy against the cold, but Andersen presented the elder-tree as a dryad, whose spirit told the protagonist, a little boy, wonderful stories. Let me quote this passage to you:

Now the little maiden with the blue eyes and the elder blossoms in her hair sat up in the tree and nodded to them both and said, "Today is your golden wedding anniversary!" Then from her hair she took two flowers, and kissed them so that they gleamed, first like silver, and then like gold. And when she laid them on the heads of the old couple, each became a golden crown. There they both sat, a king and a queen, under the fragrant tree that looked just exactly like an elder bush, and he told his old wife the story of the Elder Tree Mother, just as it had been told to him when he was a little boy. They both thought that much of the story resembled their own, and that part they liked best.

"Yes, that's the way it is," said the little girl in the tree. "Some people call me Elder Tree Mother, and some call me the Dryad, but my real name is Memory. It is I who sit up in the tree that grows on and on, and I can remember and I can tell stories. Let me see if you still have your flower."

Then the old man opened his hymnal, and there lay the elder blossom, as fresh as if it had just been placed there. Then Memory nodded, and the two old people with the golden crowns sat in the red twilight, and they closed their eyes gently and - and - and that was the end of the story....

And so I looked my herbarium, and I saw things I've almost forgotten about, or haven't recalled for years. Indeed, as the works of some historians would prove to us, Nature is the cradle of our Memory. This Memory is living and surviving, from generation to generation, and if this is not enough to persuade us in the necessity of its protection, what else will?




Links:

Hans Christian Andersen, The Elder-Tree Mother (in English)
The same in Russian
The same in Danish
The same in German
For translations in other European languages, check Hans Christian Andersen Centre.
Julia's Herbarium 1988 Photoset on Flickr.

Exercises in Loneliness - VII

I've been reading A Room of One's Own by Virginia Woolf. It is an interesting book. It is easy to see why it was written; why it was written in such form and way; the content is much explained and restricted by the time when Woolf had been writing it. Her passionate appeal to write the history of a woman was received not only with accolade, but has brought much fruit in the form of the so-called "feminist studies".

So many years and academic studies later, it is also clear that, had Virginia Woolf known everything we know these days about female authors of the past centuries, her take on female literature would probably have been different. Marguerite de Navarre had written Heptameron, a collection of novellas, clearly inspired by Boccaccio's Decameron. When Marguerite died in 1549, three daughters of Edward, Duke of Somerset (the unfortunate Good Duke of Edward VI's reign) wrote Hecatodistichon (Le Tombeau de Marguerite de Navarre), which was published in France in 1550 and was promptly translated and augmented by the poems of The Pleiade (Ronsard and Du Belle, in particular). The first English translation of Euripides, of his tragedy Iphigenie in Aulis, was produced by Lady Lumley, the daughter of Henry Fitzalan, the 12th Earl of Arundel. Elizabeth I, as we know, was not overt on an occasional verse. Even this very brief look at female writing in the 16th c. shows that, although no Shakespeare's sister would be able to become an actress, women were not always beaten by their fathers, but instead had the abilities which were recognised.

This is not to say that Virginia Woolf was deceiving herself or the women who would be reading her book. But recently, as I was reading Counsels and Maxims by Arthur Schopenhauer, I came across a chapter on loneliness. Written in what one could call a typically masculine style, the chapter is a blazing apology of solitude. The progress of one's mind, says Schopenhauer, causes the regress in their necessity to communicate. Solitude is the haven of an outstanding, self-sufficient mind. Ordinary people are only so keen on communication because they are afraid to face themselves. Those who crave loneliness are strong people. Etc, etc...

Naturally perhaps, Schopenhauer didn't say a word about women in that chapter. Many a feminist would probably point a finger at his chapter and sneer. Or perhaps on the contrary, they would cheer for him, because for some strange reason Woolf is speaking of exactly the masculine kind of solitude in her book. "A woman needs money and a room of her own if she is to write" - is she not asking for women to have what had previously belonged exclusively to men?

What is quite obvious is that in order to give women money and rooms of their own it would take to break many centuries of tradition. There is no doubt that this tradition was stark and stifling, and that it still exists these days, when young teenage girls, still children themselves, decide to have children instead of seeking education and career. But the existence of this tradition may also very well suggest that there are two different kinds of solitude, a feminine and a masculine. There are also two rooms pertinent to each of these solitudes, and it may very well be that a masculine room will be a study, and a feminine room will remain a common room.

It would be lovely to think that when a woman says that she wants a room of her own she means that she wants to raise above the restrictions the society places on her gender and responsibilities entailed to it. She wants to acquire that sort of fortitude that a room of one's own instills in the person who sits there. She wants to face herself. Her mind is strong enough not only to stand this solitude, but also to collect the fruits of such condition. And the fruit of solitude is the calmness of body and spirit, when the thought floats freely and effortlessly. The kind of calmness that gave us the works of Shakespeare.

But solitude, if we agree with Schopenhauer - and there is no reason not to agree with him - is a measure of self-sufficiency. The more self-sufficient one is, the happier they are in the room of their own. This is where Schopenhauer stumbles into a problem, at which Nietzsche had pointed in Human, All Too Human. "Lack of historical sense is the family failure of all philosophers", he writes. Philosophers at the time of Nietzsche (from his point of view, anyway) "had the common failing of starting out from man as he is now". It is hard to disagree with him, but this lack of historical sense, this failure in logic, is the direct consequence of extreme self-sufficiency.

I often feel - and this in part explains my opposition to the sometimes inevitable necessity to categorise people even by their gender, not to mention other things - that ascribing a category to oneself is retreating to the room of one's own, to the realm of self-sufficiency, where one takes an immense pride in being different from all the others. For to be different is to be singled out; to be singled out is to be on one's own; one can only be truly on their own in their space, which can appropriately be called a room. Of course, these days probably nobody any longer have that "family failure" of ahistorical thinking, thanks to all the academic studies. But now, probably, they have another failure of not having the knowledge of life in all its diversity, which is taking place in the common room.

Dumas had once said that he used history as a hook to hang his stories on it. A person who has a room of their own, be they a man or a woman, often has the hook, but no credible story up their sleeve. And so I think: we can earn money; we can have a study; but we, both men and women, are in far greater need for a common room - to see life, as it happens, and to better cherish the fruits of solitude.

The Public Transport in Russia

As I was writing about the British passion for queuing, I remembered about this text I wrote back in 1999, when I was still a student in Moscow and had to use public transport every day. After I read it again, I realised it was still topical, even so many years later, even in England. So, I translated it. It obviously utters things, as becomes a humourous text, but also sheds tons of light on what it was like - to use public transport in Moscow eight years ago. Enjoy!

The Ode to the Public Transport.

People like slagging off businessmen, actors and generally everyone who possess such a phenomenon of social life, as a private vehicle. One has lost the count of numerous jokes and black humour stories that feature these people and their cars. How many times did you hear, upon going out in the street: “Oh yes, of course, it’s this A* (or X*, Y*, Z*, etc), he’s driving this BMW 600 (or Cherokee, Ford, Fiat, Smart, etc)”? And how many times did you wish plague on all the houses of one unfortunate driver of a “Vauxhall” who managed to splash the entire puddle all over you?

Even so, we ought to always bear in mind that those who we consider lucky are, in fact, losers. Just think, why do they repeatedly say that they are cut off from other people? Exactly because they are hindered by their private means of transport. Of course, their public status is slightly at fault here, too. With all his love to us (people – JD) and to life, a world-known politician (who used to relish a thought of serving the Muses rather than politics) would never get on the bus and begin to read poems about the river Volga, Russia, and her enemies. He would not do it even if that provided him with a guaranteed number of votes at the forthcoming elections. To paraphrase a well-known TV ad, “image is nothing, life is everything”.

Nonetheless, the main cause of all misfortunes of the protagonists of popular legends is their personal transport. For when a man is driving his own half-rotten Fiat, he already considers himself the ruler of the Universe. When he is driving the notorious BMW 600, he considers himself the Universe without any ruler. Whereas, if he finds himself on the public transport, he’ll have to answer the Raskolnikov question: “whether I am a trembling creature or whether I have the /right/ . . .”

Those of you, however, who do not possess a car, or who do but for whatever reason do not use it, should not grin gloatingly. Those of you should not do this at all, for you know the price of all trouble, so don’t put this trouble on anyone else.

Therefore, I shall allow myself to be a little more concrete because the main purpose of all that is written is to persuade those who use public transport not to sacrifice the chock-a-block for the solitude of a private car, and to inject the doubt in cars in the minds of the protagonists of popular legends.

Let us look at one day in the life of the public transport user.

Unless you are so lucky that you live in three minutes' walk from the metro, you will first and foremost have to take a bus, a trolleybus, or a tram. The latter means of transport your humble servant, for all her love for it, uses fairly seldom, the second – more often, but both are a pure exotic in comparison to the bus.

Imagine: early morning, vernal freshness, not a raindrop, not a cloud, a sea of cars, and not a single bus in sight. “Splendid!” you think and slowly, with a bit of whistle, depart from your doorstep. If in the next five minutes you are walking the distance of 30 meters from your house to the crossroads, on the sixth minute you will get it in the neck for being so carefree. For on the sixth minute, when you are getting ready to cross the road, you will see right in front of you an elegant white, with a green stripe, rectangular on wheels, which we call a “bus”.

At such moment different people do different things. Some of them remember their P.T. classes – that is, if they are running with the minimum weight. Others in the same situation remind one of the times before our era. In those distant times there had also been the Olympic games, and a sportsman used to run in the full armour of a hoplite – a Greek soldier – that weighed around 30 kg. Although our contemporary is not a hoplite, and their bags don’t always weigh 30 kg, still, when such contemporary is running for a bus, they look fairly historic.

However, some people carry on walking as they used to. They may have their own reasons, and we shall leave them at this.

Suppose that in a record-breaking time – around 1 minute – you manage to cover three distances from your house to the crossroads. In such case it sometimes turns out that you have considerably outdone the bus (which is still standing at the traffic lights), and so you begin to get bored. This is a huge mistake! For if you reached the bus stop before the bus (especially if it happened), you should be extremely vigilant (providing you want to get onto your bus).

And so your flying carpet on six wheels arrives. Against all fears, you manage to get, or rather to wriggle, in the bus. You only get half of yourself wriggled in – the other half is helped by the closing doors. If your body is inside the bus but your bag is dangling on the outside, don’t start screaming hysterically. First of all, when you bag is in such interesting position, no-one can raid its contents. Secondly, if your bag is outside the bus, the doors will be closing and opening much easier.

Standing on the bus in one of the poses of the Indian traditional gymnastics, you may begin to meditate. The subject does not matter. Sooner or later you will be dragged out of your meditative state by the accent of a conductor. This conductor, who with effort, rale, and squeaks is pushing through the thick backs and wide chests, is chatting ceaselessly:

- What do we have for a fare here? Pay for your journey, please, and show your passes. There at the doors, whom did I not ticket yet?

This procedure is happening every morning, and every morning you most probably cannot understand, how you manage to get your pass from your bag. This is the reason why all passengers should remember: if they are being touched through their clothes by someone’s hand, it does not mean they are standing next to a sexual maniac. Most probably it is a passenger, like them, who is trying to reach for his or her bag.

Let us omit further particulars of the bus ride, and get on the underground. On the station where you change trains, upon going up or down the escalator you will inevitably hear this:

- Standing on the escalator, hold on to the rails by your hands only. Upon getting on or off the escalator, lift up the long ends of your upper coats in prevention of getting in the mechanical elements of the moving stairs of the escalator.

At some stations there sometimes occur such marvellous things, as the queues to the train. But we shall suppose we have got past this stage, and now you find yourself in the wagon, in the position of one of the Eastern martial arts. Your left hand with the bag got lost somewhere on the left, and your right arm is stretched straight, perpendicularly to your body. On your right you observe the tortoise-like skin of someone’s neck, wrapped in a checked mohair scarf. If you turn your head straight, your nose will get right into the hairs of artificial fur on the hood of a lady’s coat. Your appreciation of female beauty may deepen if the lady is wearing her hair loose. If you turn your head to the left, there will normally stand a slim gentleman in tiny glasses on the nose that is "as the tower of Lebanon which looketh toward Damascus". In general, your way to work, to the uni or wherever in these morning hours is as eloquent as The Song of Songs.

After all these troubles and sufferings, you finally get to work, to the uni, or wherever. At the end of the day you take the same journey, but towards your home. And it is then that you often think: why are the metro and buses not as empty in the morning, as they are in the evening? Your question will remain without answer. For a long time this phenomenon will be a phenomenon to you. Let us console ourselves in the fact that such was the design of Nature, and this was done especially so that every morning we could feel an immense force of physical, if not spiritual, union with all others who use public transport. Do those who drive a car have so many tempestuous emotions regularly? By the way, there is no need to shower offensive names and jokes on either party. Better get on the bus!

English translation © Julie Delvaux (JS) 2007

A few notes: 1) the politician in question is Vladimir Zhirinovsky, the leader of Russian Lib-Dems, who dabbled in showbusiness and, indeed, read poems in public during the campaign; 2) the ad mentioned in the same passage is the Sprite slogan: "image is nothing, thirst is everything"; 3) the hoplite's armour weighed, in fact, about 50-60 pounds (22-27 kg).

What Do Your Legs Talk About?

Oh, don't tell me you didn't know that our body's parts can talk. Alberto Moravia, an Italian author whose 100th birthday anniversary is this year, wrote an entire novel about a man's conversations with his penis. It is called "Io e Lui" (1971) (I and He, and apologies but this Italian review is apparently the only review of the book that you can find without diving too deep into Google Search), and, apart from being a hilarious though thought-provoking reading, it seems to be the best critique of a literal interpretation of the idea of sublimation. Many people believe they follow Freud if they think that having sex casts the bad spell on one's creativity; hence, if one wants to be a successful writer, they first and foremost must stop engaging in that carnal activity. Moravia subtly reminds us that sex does start in one's head, so while you keep listening to your libido, even if you don't necessarily follow it, sex goes on.

So, back to legs. Some time ago one of my favourite Russian actors had an online meeting with his fans, which I couldn't miss. One question was if he liked telling jokes. The answer was positive. I then stepped up: "Can you tell any now?" And he did: "Right leg says to the left leg: "Listen, let it stay between us"".

Now, personally I find this joke funny, as well as everyone who I told it to. But it struck me today that sometimes blogs are being assessed on the level of humour in them. I scratched my head. I certainly wrote some posts that I consider funny, but humour is a difficult thing to estimate. The joke I alluded to is a perfect example here in that it begs the question of exactly what makes it funny. It is as ambiguous as it gets, but it is the ambiguity and the wittiness that make this joke work, at least as far as I am concerned. Undoubtedly though there are those who may disagree, so the question "what makes a joke funny" is indeed rhetorical.

I think there is always some prejudice against a "national" sense of humour. They say that the English humour is difficult to understand. Years ago with this thought in mind I was translating Russian jokes with gusto to a friend of mine, who eventually said, looking to the side: "What exactly is funny about it?" That was the day when I realised that the Russian humour is probably just as difficult as English.

To an extent, it was a relief. I was even engulfed by some kind of pride, or at least joy, that a Russian joke can send an Englishman in exactly the same kind of stupor that people from many non-English-speaking countries find themselves in when they hear an English joke. But the same kind of problem occurs in other languages, and the French or Italian humour is no different. And because translation means a migration of a text from one culture to another, those who translate humour have, in fact, to translate an impulse to laugh, not just mere words or phrases. This is really tricky.

Anyway, I didn't want to make this post too academic, so I'd better tell you a few of my favourite jokes, and I can only hope you find them funny. Somehow almost all of them are about trains, which makes sense, I suppose, since I do love travelling by train.

Two men are riding on the train. They ride in total silence for a long time. Finally, one of them decides to break the silence and says:
- Hello, I'm Smith. John Smith. And you?
- And I am not.

On the train, a man stands at the window in the corridor. Relaxed, he observes the landscape that flies past. Suddenly the train derails, drives across a field, stops at the forest, then turns, moves back, returns to the rails, and drives on, as if nothing happened. Perplexed, the man rushes to the train manager: "What's going on?!" - "Ah well, you see, there was this man walking on the rails in front of the train". - "Oh, but you should've run him over!" - "Well, that's it, I only got him near the forest".

A station warden, while checking the rails, finds on them a rat that was killed by the train. He lifts it by the tail: "Oh for god's sake, look at this! D'you think you're Anna Karenina, or what?"

Stella Artois: Just the Name Makes the Beer Taste Better

Whether you are a cinema fan, or a beer fan, the name of Stella Artois is familiar to you. Exquisite TV adverts with an anecdotal story at heart of each of them, praising the labour of love of the Belgian brewery in Leuven. The Belgian tradition of brewing the beer dates back to 1366, and last year saw Stella Artois's 640's anniversary. The launch of a new interactive website this year is a perfect birthday gift to the dedicated beer-makers and to all faithful Artois lovers.

The website is located at www.artois.co.uk, but on October 8th it was only open to a limited number of people invited for its online premiere. It was a pleasant surprise for me to have been invited (along with "various designers, marketers, film enthusiasts, beer connoisseurs and reasonably friendly-seeming people", to quote the invitation email), and I have just spent the most wonderful hour on the site. As you see from a very blurred image on the top left, I had to type in two special words to access the site, and once I did I have entered the Artois Wonderland.

On your journey through the Wonderland you are being guided not by a White Rabbit, but by a newly appointed (i.e. invented) Artois brew master (left). As the creators of the website, Johan Tesch, Noel Pretorius, and Tim Scheibel, explain, the whole visual language of the journey is strongly influenced by the early 20th c. posters., films, and Artois's own print ads of the time. To get in the mood for your journey, watch this teaser (courtesy of http://www.artoisblog.co.uk/).







As it happens in all polite houses, La Famille Artois first introduces you to their beers (left). After learning everything you certainly did not know about these wonderful beverages, you are taken to the dawn of history of La Famille Artois. The section Le Courage (right), which, as the creators admit, is one of the most entertaining, captivating, innovative and humorous parts of the site, potently reminds one that to brew a good beer in 1366 was indeed an act of courage. The hard-working citizens of Leuven had to balance the Earth, fight against the evil spirits, and even to appease gods. But we, modern people, obviously know that the Earth has got no end, and we can help, for example, to balance it. A Greek mathematician, Archimedes, reportedly claimed that he could overturn the Earth with the help of a mere stick, all for the sake of science. Well, to make a perfect beer is a science, too, so you have 30 seconds to turn the Earth with your mouse, to save the precious hops.



I must admit: although I managed to balance the Earth and to appease the gods, I was unable to do any more for the lovely people of medieval Leuven. In particular, I couldn't lit the lantern of a brewer who went to collect water, and I was told that "the people of Leuven would be sorry tonight". So am I.

The next section, L'Origine, tells the actual story of La Famille Artois, from 1366 when Den Horen brewery had been established in Leuven to 1926 when the Artois produced the first filtered lager (left). La Publicité is a deftly arranged collection of diverse and sundry TV adverts, of which you may perhaps recognise the one on the right. And the section L'Etranger is the best place to test your knowledge of pouring the ideal glass of beer, or better else, of learning how to do it (below). At least with regards to La Publicité, I can imagine its content being enjoyed and put to good use by some clever cinema or media student.



Although the Stella Artois website would be impossible without the three gifted guys I mentioned above, it is accompanied by a special Artois Blog, written mainly by Sam. The blog serves as a hub of everything you want to know about La Famille Artois, as well as the website developments, and Sam has granted permission to use some of the contents in this post.

The website will be up and running full-time since October 9th, and I hope the teaser and the pictures have put you in the right mood for enjoying the process of "passing on something good", as Artois have been doing for over six hundred years. As for me, I totally enjoyed it, mostly as a cinema fan rather than a beer connoisseur, but also as an historian. I notice I keep getting back to where I came from academically, that is Medieval and Early Modern History. Le Courage is absolutely a hit for me, for its amazing animation and subtle jokes on the Titanic labour of medieval beer-makers. But as you also know, I am a Francophone, and all the sections after Le Courage is a great treat for someone like me. Finally, I just loved this phrase, which sounds like a perfect tagline and has been used in this post's title: "just the name makes the beer taste better". Vraiment, c'est ça!

A Few Quick Updates

To begin with, do not forget that this Wednesday is the Manchester Blog Awards night. If you've been looking forward to joining us, make sure you've taken a note of the venue. The venue has changed, and the Blog Awards will now be at Matt&Phred's in 64 Tib St. Here is where they are located, in case if you are not familiar with Manchester's Northern Quarter.

So, we're looking forward to see you there, from 7pm onwards. The nominees for this year include, apart from myself, Mancubist, Crinklybee, FictionBitch, Skipper, Normblog, A Free Man in Preston, and a plenty of others whom you can (and should, I may say) check out at Manchizzle. Unfortunately, Robin Hamman won't be present at the awards this year, as he explained on the BBC Manchester Blog, but both Kate and Richard will be there. As a matter of fact, let me remind some of you that Richard is the author of this photo and this photo of Alan Rickman, so if you want to meet the man (Richard, that is) and shake his hand, make your way to Tib St in Manchester on October 10th.

By the way, if you wish to confirm your attendance via the now-ueber-popular Facebook, please look for BBC Manchester Blog project group there. That means you can also join either Facebook or the BMB (isn't that a nice abbreviation?).

I was supposed to meet a friend, with whom we couldn't meet for good two months, and the meeting is now delayed for another week. But I am not short of engagements. Right after publishing this post I am going to the online premiere of a great place for many a beer lover and a film connoisseur. Watch this space.

Last but not least, October 15th is our Blog Action Day when bloggers all over the world unite to say their word about the importance of the protection of environment. Since this blog is mostly about literature, cinema, art, and music, I thought writing up an entry a day starting on October 5th, to make it ten days worth of quoting, translating, and analysing the way our culture has embraced the problem of environmental protection. Unfortunately, this is already not happening, but even mentioning my plans made me envious of myself. This is a plan certainly worth of realising, and the only impediment I may face is the necessity to go to work every day. To Warrington. By bus and train.

Marcel Marceau on Life and Art

It took me a little longer than I hoped to fulfil my promise, but here I am finally with the English translation of the interview with Marcel Marceau. I will not say anything more in this introduction, and as you read on you will probably agree with me that no words are necessary here.



This is not a mystery. How to do it? Well, the art of mime is that one needs a great concentration, one needs to have a vision of what to show; and one also needs emotion, the laughter, the comical, but not a caricature because when it is too much, it is too much. This is why one needs to learn to restrain oneself and to communicate the essential.

I was a picture, therefore I am an artist who often paints pantomimes.

When I was six years old I had a very profound look, but it wasn't a caricature, I have always had this depth. Chaplin was very deep, and his profundity touched me when I was little.

I think it is true that an artist remains a child within himself, but when he has had a really great experience in life, he changes, too.

When it was the Second World War, I didn't yet practise my art. I began to practise it. I started acting when Germany was occupied, and the war was over. Theatre is impossible during the war, for it is a terrible theatre. But I didn't have yet the knowledge I have now. I was more naive, even if I had seen the unhappiness of life I was still naive, I didn't have this experience, the experience of terror, hoping all the time that I wasn't killed. And today when I watch the documentaries about the war that I myself lived through, I say: my God, what a courage they ever had being so young! But I don't have this courage any longer because I want no more wars, I hate the war, and this is what I am trying to show in my manner at the theatre.

Often the young don't like the old, it's like "the old are nothing any longer", it's the youth, the future that counts. But they will grow very old one day, too, and so I am instilling the respect to their parents. The respect to a grandfather, a grandmother, the respect to the old, the respect to those who taught us.

I have even written a book on this subject: "The memoirs of a mime who let out a scream of silence". And even now I am trying to write, in part about the painting, in part about the family. From time to time I visit my children who have grown up now, and I love playing chess. But sometimes I feel a great sadness when I say: what will happen if our world does not evolve so badly? Will one day the eternal piece really have arrived?


Translated from French © Julie Delvaux 2007

Life in Space: The Anniversaries of Satellites and Search Engines

Russia was in the avant-garde of Space Science in the 20th c. Today's Google homepage reminded us of the 50th anniversary of Sputnik, which was the first satellite sent into space (image is the courtesy of NASA website).

But space has many meanings. In the passage above it means "cosmos". If I say "I need space" it will mean that I either crave for freedom or that I need to put something somewhere where there is little or no place. And when we say "virtual space", we mean the web.

Recently it was Google's 9th anniversary, of which again their homepage has reminded us. At Search Engine Land they contemplated on whether 9 is the correct number, but Google seems to have their own view, which they communicated with this logo (right) on September 27th.

And ten years ago, on September 23rd 1997, Yandex, Russia's leading search warehouse, has set off their rocket into the virtual space. To mark the anniversary of intermittent work of their orbital station, they have sent a lovely gift. The gift consisted of a cylinder box, which contained: a message to other "space civilisations", a flashy pen, a tube of cherry and apple juice, a can of meat in white sauce, a prunes and nuts flapjack, and a pack of 10 miniature bread loafs. As you undoubtedly notice, the word juice is spelt "cok" in Russian, which looks very familiar to the English speaker. I would like to repeat that it means juice, and not what it may seem to mean, judging by its spelling. :-)


Yandex is obviously playing a deft joke on the word "space" and Russia's history of delving into the cosmic vastnesses. All the food items are exactly what they eat (or definitely used to eat) in space. I had a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to visit the Gagarin Cosmonaut Training Centre at Starry Town (Zvezdniy Gorodok) in, if I am correct, 1993. I went with my classmates, and I vividly remember our sheer amazement at the size of those Lilliput chocolate bars and bread loafs on display at the museum. Well, now my present colleagues have shared this amazement, too, and in turn, I am sharing it with you.

Raphael, Degas, and the 16th c. music

2004 saw the first exhibition of Raphael in England. In November I happened to be in London, and my first visit to the National Gallery naturally included a voyage to the Sainsbury Wing. I had mere half an hour to enjoy some 40 works of one of the Titans of Renaissance. To see them, I had to gently if politely wriggle past some visitors, or queue up where it was impossible to squeeze through. Everyone who knows the Sainsbury Wing will recall its catacomb-like interior: low ceilings, dim light, rather small rooms with dark walls - hardly a backdrop for the rich Italian masterpieces.

At exactly the same time they were exhibiting Edgar Degas upstairs. The works of French artist resided in two or three well lit halls with tall ceilings and light pastel-colour walls, there were not many visitors (it was one of the first days of exhibition, I should note). Most paintings were of medium size, in front of every second or third of which there stood a Far-Eastern girl with a pad and some crayons, copying the works of one of the greatest Impressionists. To this day I cannot fathom why these two exhibitions could not be swapped places.

I wrote a lengthy text about it in Russian in the same 2004, contemplating on how these two exhibitions manifested our attitude to art. I was probably a bit harsh to suggest that it was easy to admire the classical art because then no-one would find a fault in your taste, but on second thoughts this is hardly far from the truth. Indeed, one would rather be ridiculed if they admitted liking pop music than if they admitted liking Mozart. Same with Raphael. As Henry James put it, Raphael was a happy genius, and by looking and admiring his Madonnas we seek to find happiness, too. Raphael is also easier to comprehend, unlike his contemporaries. Leonardo is very intellectual, to which La Gioconda is a good proof. Michelangelo's devotion to the physique is sometimes baffling, as can be seen, for instance, in the figures on the Medici monument. Raphael, on the contrary, is always pleasant, always radiant, always rich in colour, and even if his end may not be as happy as his paintings, we probably shall still forget about it when we observe his work.

It is different with Degas. Degas was known for his perfectionism, and many times in his life he turned to rework his own paintings, as the examination of certain works, e.g. Portrait of Elena Carafa, shows. The name of the exhibition - "Art in the Making" - further highlights Degas's critical, intellectual approach to his work. The British art historian Kenneth Clark in his book "The Nude: A Study in the Ideal Form" (N.Y., 1956) says, in particular, that Degas excelled at what the Florentine artists of the 16th c. would call "disegno" (i.e. a drawing, a sketch). He focused on a human figure as his main theme, but aimed to capture the ideal image of the movement of this figure, and especially the energy of this movement. Degas's painting is more vigorous than Raphael's, and his Madonnas are not only nude, they are also depicted in the poses or at such activity that many of us would still deem inappropriate. Still, again in the words of Clark, had the figures painted by Michelangelo come to life, they would have scared us to a far bigger extent than Degas's naked women.

Thanks to his colour palette, techniques, and themes, Degas appears more disturbing, almost revolutionary, compared to Raphael. I noted in my text that in the three centuries, from Raphael to Degas, the very attitude to art had changed. As far as Madonnas are concerned, after the European revolutions of the 19th c. and on the eve of the First World War they became more emancipated, they drank absinthe and spent evenings in the Parisian cafes. Their blurred faces, loose hair and outrageous nudity were the symbols of their time, the sign of the fear of changes and of the vulnerability in the face of the outer world. Their movement and individuality were more prominently expressed in comparison to their Renaissance predecessors. Like many other Impressionists, Degas is much more "relevant" to our time, but as it happens we prefer to turn to what gives us hope and faith, and Raphael seemed to be a perfect saviour. Apparently, I concluded, when people turn to the classical art, they seek peace; and when they find peace, they'll think of a revolution.

Nevertheless, I bought a wonderful CD at the Raphael's exhibition, The Music of the Courtier, which contained several beautifully performed pieces by the late 15th - 16th cc. composers. One of this, Dilla da l'acqua, by Francesco Patavino (1497?-1556?), performed by I Fagiolini, has become an instant favourite, and I hope you enjoy it too.




The paintings used (from top, left to right, clockwise):

Raphael, La Donna Velata (c. 1514-1516)
Edgar Degas, Portrait of Elena Carafa (c. 1875)
Raphael, Madonna of the Pinks (c. 1506-1507)
Michelangelo, The Tomb of Giuliano de' Medici (1526-1531)
Leonardo da Vinci, La Gioconda (c. 1503-1506)
Raphael, Madonna Connestabile (c. 1502)
Edgar Degas, La Coiffure (Combing Her Hair) (c. 1896)
Edgar Degas, Russian Dancers (c. 1899)
Raphael, Ansidei Madonna (1505)
Raphael, Lady with a Unicorn (c. 1505-1506)
Edgar Degas, Miss La La at the Cirque Fernando (c. 1879)
Edgar Degas, Young Spartans Exercising (c. 1860)
Edgar Degas, After the Bath (c. 1890-1895)
Raphael, St Catherine (c. 1507)

The Saddest Work of Art in the World (Leonardo, Last Supper)

In the recent years we've heard a lot about Last Supper - a large mural by Leonardo created for his patron, which can be seen at Santa Maria delle Grazie in Milan. Cenacolo (Last Supper) featured prominently in The Da Vinci Code and in many subsequent publications and TV programmes that aimed at "decoding" the novel by Dan Brown.

I wanted to quote, however, two passages from the works of Henry James, in which he contemplates on this work by the great painter. As we know, the mural has been in the state of decay for centuries, but James seems to have interpreted the reason for its survival in beautiful and passionate narrative. There is much more to one of Da Vinci's great works than a quasi-female head, and the two passages below explain this.

"... the prime treasure of Milan at the present hour is the beautiful, tragical Leonardo. The cathedral is good for another thousand years, but we ask whether our children will find in the most majestic and most luckless of frescoes much more than the shadow of a shadow. Its fame has been for a century or two that, as one may say, of an illustrious invalid whom people visit to see how he lasts, with leave-taking sighs and almost death-bed or tiptoe precautions. The picture needs not another scar or stain, now, to be the saddest work of art in the world; and battered, defaced, ruined as it is, it remains one of the greatest. We may really compare its anguish of decay to the slow conscious ebb of life in a human organism. The production of the prodigy was a breath from the infinite, and the painter's conception not immeasurably less complex than the scheme, say, of his own mortal constitution. There has been much talk lately of the irony of fate, but I suspect fate was never more ironical than when she led the most scientific, the most calculating of all painters to spend fifteen long years in building his goodly house upon the sand. And yet, after all, may not the playing of that trick represent but a deeper wisdom, since if the thing enjoyed the immortal health and bloom of a first-rate Titian we should have lost one of the most pertinent lessons in the history of art? We know it as hearsay, but here is the plain proof, that there is no limit to the amount of "stuff" an artist may put into his work. Every painter ought once in his life to stand before the Cenacolo and decipher its moral. Mix with your colours and mess on your palette every particle of the very substance of your soul, and this lest perchance your "prepared surface" shall play you a trick! Then, and only then, it will fight to the last - it will resist even in death" (Henry James, Italian Hours: From Chambery to Milan, 1872).



"...I have seen all great art treasures in Italy;... but I have looked at no other picture with an emotion equal to that which rose within me as this great creation of Leonardo slowly began to dawn upon my intelligence from the tragical twilight of its ruin. A work so nobly conceived can never utterly die, so long as the half-dozen lines of its design remain. Neglect and malice are less cunning than the genius of the great painter. It has stored away with masterly skill such a wealth of beauty as only perfect love and sympathy can fully detect. So, under my eyes, the restless ghost of the dead fresco returned to its mortal abode. From the beautiful central image of Christ I perceived its radiation right and left along the sadly broken line of the disciples. One by one, out of the depths of their grim dismemberment, the figures trembled into meaning and life, and the vast, serious beauty of the work stood revealed. What is the ruling force of this magnificent design? Is it art? is it science? is it sentiment? is it knowledge? I'm sure I can't say; but in moments of doubt and depression I find it of excellent use to recall the great work with all possible distinctness. Of all the works of man's hand it is the least superficial" (Henry James, Complete Tales: Travelling Companions, 1870).

Citation is from Henry James, Italian Hours. Penguin Classics, 1992.