Beauties of Stage and Cinema

Today our Symbolism and Decadence lecture was postponed, and the professor arranged for us to watch The Dying Swan (Umirayushcii Lebed), a silent Russian film from 1917, directed by Yevgeni Bauer. Most of my classmates scoffed and chewed gum throughout, and indeed there are moments of the film that, to our modern sensibilities, seem mawkish or silly, and who knows, perhaps they did in 1917, too. Despite this, however, it is a haunting film, a gem of silent cinema. One caveat, however, and that is the rendition of The Dying Swan displayed in the film. Ah, no one could do it like Maya Plisetskaya. Behold: (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fWYYQN-6tJg).


Trying to describe anything she has done is like trying to describe In Search of Lost Time. Whatever I may say will be inaccurate, inarticulate, inadequate.

While on the subject of dance, here is a wonderful rendition of what must have been an even more magical performance by the imitable Loie Fuller. Shot by the Lumiere brothers! Is she a moth? A flower? A chimera?

***

It was an interesting experience watching a silent movie amidst a room of people. Old films are a good litmus test for concentration and attention span, and the devil knows that such things grow in scarcity as the years pass. Thank goodness for newer films raising awareness of older ones, such as Cinema Paradiso, The Dreamers, and others, not to mention Turner Classic Movies, aka One of My Only Friends in High School. A great documentary came out in 2005 about Henri Langlois, the true Hero of Cinema. He ought to be sainted. Hopefully preservation work continues at a diligent pace, as reels are mouldering away at this very moment...

Come Unto These Yellow Leaves

He wha tills the fairies' green

Nae luck again shall hae :

And he wha spills the fairies' ring

Betide him want and wae.

For weirdless days and weary nights

Are his till his deein' day.

But he wha gaes by the fairy ring,

Nae dule nor pine shall see,

And he wha cleans the fairy ring

An easy death shall dee.

***

***

Cats and Cookies

Meet Lapushka, the wee Persian we adopted a few weeks ago from the Greenhill Humane Society. She's an absolute doll, despite her tendency to walk over our faces at night. A kitty-friend, at last...

Les Chats

Les amoureux fervents et les savants austères
Aiment également, dans leur mûre saison,
Les chats puissants et doux, orgueil de la maison,
Qui comme eux sont frileux et comme eux sédentaires.

Amis de la science et de la volupté
Ils cherchent le silence et l'horreur des ténèbres;
L'Erèbe les eût pris pour ses coursiers funèbres,
S'ils pouvaient au servage incliner leur fierté.

Ils prennent en songeant les nobles attitudes
Des grands sphinx allongés au fond des solitudes,
Qui semblent s'endormir dans un rêve sans fin;

Leurs reins féconds sont pleins d'étincelles magiques,
Et des parcelles d'or, ainsi qu'un sable fin,
Etoilent vaguement leurs prunelles mystiques.

— Charles Baudelaire

***

After nearly half a year, I finally felt confident enough to purchase some flour, as the moth scourge has subsided and the weather has turned crummy. My first tentative venture back into the land of baking began last night with a batch of Scotchies, oatmeal cookies with butterscotch morsels. They didn't come out quite like my mom's but were decadent and wonderful nonetheless. Here's the recipe I used:

Scotchies

1 cup whole wheat flour

1 1/2 cups old fashioned oatmeal

1/2 cup brown sugar

1/2 tsp baking powder

1/2 tsp salt

1 tbs cinnamon

Dash of dessicated ginger

1/2 cup oil

2 egg whites

2 tsp vanilla

2 tbs honey


Preheat oven to 350 degrees.

Mix dry ingredients in a large bowl.

Mix wet ingredients in a medium bowl, beating the egg mixture until slightly fluffy.

Add wet ingredients to dry ingredients with a wooden spoon. Gradually stir in 1/2 to 1 package butterscotch morsels.

Drop by rounded tablespoonfuls onto a nonstick or greased cookie sheet. Bake for 10 minutes.

The Vaselines

Last Sunday R. and I ventured on a rain-drenched and nearly ill-fated trip to Portland to see one of our favorite bands, the Vaselines. Ill-fated? Indeed. As we were leaving our humble abode (read: total dump), the doorknob broke, and an hour-long debacle of discombobulating the mechanism ensued, peppered with many an obscenity and the frustrated tossing of lock components. By some miracle, R. managed to fix the thing while beating it mercilessly with a hammer while I was out in a blinding rainstorm, cursing the weather, on my way to buy a new doorknob.

Fazed and irritated, we left later than planned but with enough time to perhaps find a nice restaurant and wander about fair Portland. Fate, however, was not on our side, and we ended up lost for about 45 minutes. We eventually found our way to the Wonder Ballroom, wandered, set out in search of food, found none suitable, settled on some rather unfortunate and not entirely agreeable fare, not after being stared-down small-town style in a locals bar, and finally made our way back to the venue, fully drenched from a rather insidious downpour.

Despite all this, however, seeing Frances and Eugene more than made up for our plights, and soon enough we were dry and dancing to Oliver Twisted and I Hate the 80's. Seeing the Vaselines was particularly sweet not only by virtue of their stage banter (Frances is salty and adorable; Eugene wry and witty....), and magical performance, but because R. and I courted and fell in love to their music. We even played Molly's Lips on guitar and mandolin/autoharp together, troubadour-style down neighborhoods and thoroughfares.

Sadly, and somewhat confusingly, the crowd last Sunday was rather small, but this lent an intimate air to the show, and R. and I left satisfied, the madness of the day behind us and forgotten.

***

I highly recommend the Vaselines' new album, Sex With an X. Their sound has become a little more refined, Frances' voice has increased in heavenliness, and the album holds up, if not even surpasses in some ways, their older material. I particularly enjoy their views on younger generations' proclivity towards yearning for decades of yore in which they did not exist. Although I have a predilection for anachronism, and very much admire that of Baudelaire and Plutarch, I must admit that in some aspects nostalgia can take on attributes most irritating, in particular, and in following with the song, this odd worship of all things 1980's is foul and awful. I already loathe the day when the 90's will resurface in some ghastly incarnation.

A lovely quote from Boswell's Life of Johnson:

"...for love is not a subject of reasoning, but of feeling, and therefore there are no common principles upon which one can persuade another concerning it. Every man feels for himself, and knows how he is affected by particular qualities in the person he admires, the impressions of which are too minute and delicate to be substantiated in language."

***

A friend posted this, and I thought I'd share it. I do wish this would happen at my work--Eugene isn't too far from Portland, after all:



For those of you who have never seen The Music Man (tisk):

The Goncourt Brothers

A while back, in March, most likely, I was browsing at a local used book shop and came across Pages From the Goncourt Journals and bought it, not necessarily because I had ever heard of the work or was too particularly interested, but because it was published by NYRB. Yes, dear reader(s), I am a publisher snob. Oh, I do own a Reader's Digest Book Club edition of Moby Dick, but the damn thing is something of a thorn in my side, and I am putting the Penguin version on my birthday list this year. But I degress! Ahem:

While pondering Bourget for a class the name Goncourt appeared, and I immediately rushed over to the library to see what tomes about or by them were available. Until this moment I had kind of written the Journals off and came close to selling the book on a number of occasions, but a light had gone off, and now it seemed necessary to find out more about them.


I found two different English translations of the Journals, the complete French text (why, WHY did I give up on French???), and the brothers' novels and plays, and checked out the English translations. One is quite inferior, translated by Lewis Galantiere, and the other appears to be the standard (as well as the one published by NYRB), by Robert Baldick.

The lives of the brothers Goncourt, or dare I say life, is on the one hand absolutely compelling and quite touching, indeed: two inseparable siblings penning a journal of their mutual exploits, thoughts, and acquaintances. At once they were men of the society and reviled by it. I love how mercurial they were, as well as their rotten constitutions. On the other hand, the two were disagreeable on so many levels, but the genius of the work and their overall talent overshadows their less savory qualities. I'd highly recommend it if you have even a modicum of interest in 19th century lit, French lit, precursors to fin de siecle, belle epoque, or dabble in literature steeped in debauchery.

***

This quarter has me flustered already, but never fear, recipes and more are on the way!

Update

I've fallen behind in entries as school and my new job at the library draw neigh. However, I shall soon post vintage finds and more recipes! Until next week, enjoy this prose version of my favorite Baudelaire poem, The Fountain of Blood. Au revoir!

Sometimes methinks my blood gushes in torrent, as a fountain with rhythm ceaselessly sobbing. Its slow weltering murmur beats in vain for a spurting wound. As in the lists of tourneys of old, my life's blood streams forth o'er the city and in hurrying stream speeds down her ways, until in the flood each stone stands out a lonely islet and everything that walks or creeps with the red liquid is glutted. Vampire all Nature shows and livid. Of guileful wines oft have I asked respite of a day from the terror that preys, but in treachery they sharpen mine eyes and keen mine ears. In Love have I sought a slumber Lethean, but Love is to me but a bed of quick, pitiless needles that pierce my flesh and drain my veins white.

"But a dandy can never be a vulgar man" --Baudelaire