Friday, April 30, 2010

Analect 2.709x



30 April 2010. Backyard, early. Green ivy leaves in beginning sun... Nicola, insistent, darting down the stairs, rounding corner into kitchen, heading for back door...

Or, a scene from Zhuravli--The Cranes Are Flying (1958)--the score in 12/8, for that beautifully ponderous Russian touch... Paired (in my imagination) with Mark Bernes again (he later recorded his own version of the song). Still lost in Tri Goda Ty Mne Snilas' (For Three Years I've Dreamed of You)...

A younger man, in an earlier time...

Thursday, April 29, 2010

Analect 2.708xs



29 April 2010. This morning--an empty table where my copyshop computer once sat. Dust and scratches, Plan B...

But what is Plan B?

Listening to a Mark Bernes song, seat by the window, view onto Solano. The year is 1946, from the film, Bolshaya Zhizn II (A Great Life). The song-- Tri Goda Ty Mne Snilas'--Three Years I've Dreamed of You. Bernes face filling the screen--cap tucked back on his head, simple guitar just behind. A Soviet everyman, but with thoughtful face... "I keep my dream of you..." Minor chords, hinting at the major, something brighter, then returning...

Both strength and tenderness...

* * *

For the song itself: Три Года Ты Мне Силась

Analect 2.707x




28 April 2010. Sudden shower at dawn, steady downpour--then sun...

White helmet of construction worker, far across the street, his gray sweatshirt with touch of red ochre, heading up Solano, 7-eleven bag in right hand...

An older woman from the Ukraine. Posture universal? Pulled into her chair, shoulders of dark coat molded to her own. Becoming noticeable--the strength of her arms and wrists. Somewhere the meaning--and result--of a lifetime of labor. Set against filigree curtain--a floral print with folk motif, the swirled curves of a dusty Soviet-era drafting template, even the tassles below no more than one thin layer of ink...

Shum vremini... The sound of time...

Wednesday, April 28, 2010

Analect 2.706x



27 April 2010. Rain, insistent. Umbrellas and frowns...

Nikolai Bolkonsky returns to Lisye Gory with his new wife, Liza, who is expecting... Encounter of Liza and Princess Marya... "who although they've met only briefly, one time, at the wedding, now immediately clasp each others hands...and burst into tears." Hands abandoned, for a moment, then rejoined, again with tears. Prince Nikolai frowns... Entire universe in one moment of feeling...

An Odessa street. Na Deribasovskoj. Pelican's view. The Russian sailor and his girl, "like a proud Grechanka," or so goes the song. The shepherd, without his flock, and a woman from the past, Ottoman times, cloistered in the ways of the Prophet. The Pontus even before...

Mariupol, Odessos, Tira...

Monday, April 26, 2010

Analect 2.705x



26 April 2010. Early, April light. Nicola heading up bed, step by step, curling into her preferred position, high on my chest.

And, of course, Vasya-Shmaravoz. Na Deribasovskoj Otkrylasya Pivnaya (On Deribasovskoj There Opened Up a Bar), a song from the late 1920s. Author unknown--and there are many variants. The one here, recorded with appropriately louche Soviet-era backup band, each instrument sliding in almost unannounced, adding a subtle but necessary touch of the declassé. Which was, after all, the whole point...

Also: an Odessa "anekdot"... (The great cities announce their radio broadcasts...)

Attention! Moscow speaking!
Warning! Here speaks Kiev! (in Ukrainian)
Achtung! Hier sprecht Berlin!
Sha! Odessa needs to say a few words...

* * *



In the original:

Внимание! Говорит Москва!
Увага! Говорэ Кыив!
Ахтунг! Хир шприхт Берлин!….
Ша! Одесса имеет сказать пару слов!

And, naturally, the song itself: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IdkFes0Guwg. To the tune of El Choclo, an Argentine tango...

Friday, April 23, 2010

Analect 2.704x



23 April 2010. Sunny April day, arms churning at pool...

And why so obsessed by a song? Shalandy Polnie Kefali, voice of Mark Bernes. But something else as well--harder to pinpoint--the Russian-ness of the melody line--the particular ups and downs in a sequence of tones. Having to do with the shifting tones in a landscape--an Odessa sky...

Here, a zaftig lady, sitting alongside. My Russian instructor (this I'm inventing), in long dress, dark shawl with amber broach. Her smile--also a set of shifting tones. And why not? She comes from there...as do we all...

Analect 2.703x



22 April 2010. Open lane, wavery lines deep below...

Cheremukha--the bird-cherry tree--as in Chekhov--or Mark Bernes, blooming over an Odessa fountain...

And the Ryabina--also in an old song. Tyonkaya Ryabina--the Slender Mountan Ash, longing for her oak tree across the way... To cross the river, and press him close amidst her branches...

Lands with horses...to travel over a long distance. Rolling fields and wind...

Wednesday, April 21, 2010

Analect 2.702x



21 April 2010. Gray morning, some rain... Old Chinese pines off Moeser--now gone...

Mark Bernes, his strong face, close cropped Soviet hair, brushed down a little over the forehead. Singing to a Russian woman, blond, just alongside--the camera holds on her impassive face, questioning eyes... Shalandy polnye kefali... The Black Sea skiffs are filled with gray mullet... Much too prosaic in English, where the Russian has all the lilt that arrives with years of inhabiting and enjoying a particular place. Lore of Odessa...the shifting tones...

Ya vam ne skazhu za vsyu Odessu
Vsya Odessa ochen' velika (here the tone modulates up a half step)
No i Moldavanka u Peresyp' (back to the minor)
Obozhayut Kostyu-moryaka... (and then the major again...)

I won't tell to you about all Odessa
For all of Odessa is surely very grand
But in the Moldavanka and Peresyp'
All adore Kostya the fisherman...


* * *

(Shalandy with Mark Bernes singing, 1939)

Tuesday, April 20, 2010

Analect 2.701x



20 April 2010. Gray clouds, racing high. Rain though the night...

Struggling drawing--that's how it is, sometimes. Too many glimpses of too many figures from the past. Aunt Ruth for one--but more on my mother's frame. Here--girl at edge of screen in Lyubimy Gorod, at the very end of the song... Turning away, thoughts of what's to come...

Mark Bernes--his jaunty face, at the piano, filmed in 1939--singing of home...

* * *

Tone of the different stanzas. First, in the voice of a crooner--major-minor, with an American lilt. The second, a Russian folk march--launching in, even and upbeat, ending on lyric note. The third--positive and unforgettable 2/4 bounce--the folk march with even fuller spirit--again resolving into slower, more lyrical, sadder, maybe even darker, finale...

Lyubimy Gorod.

Monday, April 19, 2010

Analect 2.700



19 April 2010. Slow takeoff for local aviation--Nicola up on her back legs, extra long stretch at front door. Open, please... Natasha's approach--more slinky, the lovely fur ball slipping down back stairs, darting into side room, waiting...

Requirements and requests. The stuff of life--Smuglyanka--infill runs and trills. Schematic score for the garmon--Russian accordion--tiny numbers below each note. The mystery of where each finger goes...

Girl's face, the Bravo cafe, Fergana, Eastern Uzbekistan. Ancient mountain town high in the Fergana valley, original source of the great Chinese horses--as given form in T'ang dynasty pottery, where they "resemble the animals on the golden medal of Eucratide, King of Bactria..."

Kara Darya...

* * *

(Note: Smuglianka Moldavanka--the name of the song from smuglij--Russian for dusky. And Moldavanka--the Jewish Quarter in old Odessa (later the setting for Isaac Babel's stories.) And so, a Fergana girl, whose snapshot is labelled "Ax, Smuglianka Moldavanka." The Kara Darya--Black River...flowing though that same valley...) 2.700x

Friday, April 16, 2010

Analect 2.699x



16 April 2010. Nicola heading up the bed at dawn, her small head and delicate ears, leaned towards my own... Rapprochement...

As with Natalia, yesterday evening, singing Smuglianka, the partisan song with Ukrainian roots. Pure liveliness of each line, an even start, quickly building. She's inadvertantly demanding--no way to slow down here--no "wait for me's." You're in it or you're not, dancing with a country girl in the Podole, flaring skirt, flashing eyes... The maple tree--memory of something brilliant and vast...

Narrow paths, disappearing into the marshes...

Thursday, April 15, 2010

Analect 2.698x




15 April 2010. Quiet spring sun, almost to those mornings in early May when the world feels entirely remade...

"Here the birds don't sing
The trees don't grow
And only ourselves, shoulder to shoulder
Rooted here on this ground..."

Okudzhava's voice, almost tender--a song from the war, twice distant now. Story told, and retold...

"Someday we'll remember this
And will not believe it
But for now we need a single victory
One for all--
For less we will not stand..."

Photograph, for many years on bedroom wall, in Oceanside--from a friend of my parents, made somewhere in Italy, also during the war. A group of children together in a doorway--one of them holding a crust to his mouth. Written below, in pencil-- "Bread for one..."

To learn these truths...

* * *

(The scene here, again, from "V Boj Idut Odni Stariki," (Only Old Men Are Going to Battle). Hillside, in silhouette--handing out potatoes to gathered children. Filmed in 1973. For the song, Okudzhava's voice: Десятый наш десантный батальон

Wednesday, April 14, 2010

Analect 2.697x



14 April 2010. Late, late. Bucket bath in back yard--water over head and shoulders in open air... A la Russe (except that the water's not freezing, and it's not mid-winter...)

Smuglianka-Moldavanka. How much better the words look in cyrillic--where the "smug" disappears entirely. A partisan song, as sung here in Soviet film of a certain vintage (1972--Leonid Bukov: "V Boj Idut Odni Stariki.") Man and woman at unseen table, Red Army, musicians (balaika, accordions, a drum and guitar) launching in, spirited director in cossack shirt, expressive gestures (again a la Russe). She turns her head towards him--face in full profile for a moment, then back and slightly down--a touching mix of formality and modesty...

Entire spirit of song as counterpoint...

* * *

As R.B. Kitaj once put it, "Art needs a job to do..."

Tuesday, April 13, 2010

Analect 2.696x



13 April 2010. Birds calling at dawn, over Solano, Javed's gulls...

To fed the poor, the animal kind. A brace of squirrels, tohee and jay. Their box of seeds, peanuts scattered under lemon tree, wobbly water bowl. Family...

Or three women, small boat, in a Russian woods. Auden's line. Or Okudzhava's--On the Smolensk Road. "Po Smolenskoj doroge--lesá, lesá, lesá..."

The terrible reach of history simply won't let go. Gaby wrote me this morning of someone who died on that plane--"a very very dear friend of mine. I still can't believe it..."

How close we were to all of this, and at the same time, how far...

Monday, April 12, 2010

Analect 2.695x



12 April 2010. Slanting sheets of rain, gray skies, dimpled pool...

Catalina Island, maybe 1955. Girl in home-made summer dress, sitting on stucco parapet. Her posture almost formal--the inheritance of a day when women wore gloves--but veering gently here into the world of thin-strapped sandals and higher hems. Holding in her lap a straw hat--somehow then the rage, with each strand of weave extending out beyond the rim... We never knew quite what to do with them--their floppy and almost useless insistence. More a reflection of the I than the straw itself--as in Don the Beachcomber, or the Tiki Room. Imaginings...

We are here...

Friday, April 09, 2010

Analect 2.694x



9 April 2010. A year's end, a year's beginning. California, sunshine...

The claims of Gauguin, as in deep-sea diver or mining engineer. A room filled with technological gadgets, layed out in long rows like the county fair--Del Mar--where in early summer the horses are brought down to the surf. Large and graceful creatures stepping gingerly in the waves...

A continent's edge--under-sea world--the strands of kelp flaring up from unseen depths--wide, waxy leaves, golden-brown in deep blue-green, a garibaldi's brilliant orange spine--twisting in the filtered light. Sudden massive shape appears--a male sea lion, banking, turning, in his own realm...

The flowered cloth, the rubber fin...

Thursday, April 08, 2010

Analect 2.593x


8 April 2010. Window seat, Solano on the world...

Reading at dawn--the house servants gathered at Count Bezukhov's, a German doctor, and a one from France as well. The three princesses, their darkened room, with small lamps placed in front of votive pictures. Candle smoke and flowers. The house servants gathered--their Russian phrases--the boundaries of life...

A figure with a flute, in a clearing. To accept and to soar...

Wednesday, April 07, 2010

Analect 2.692x



7 April 2010. Beauty sun, spring... Mother with young child tucked to her breast, another on it's way...

Beginnings. Sergei Orekhov, performing informally, in a room with worn walls, tall brown wardrobe just behind, painted decorations--a Russian shape, like an egg or an eye, black and dark dark red, moving towards gold. Sitting casually, legs crossed, the precision all in his hands...and face. A woman alongside, listening intently, head to one side. Warm, muted light...

Zhavoronok...

Tuesday, April 06, 2010

Analect 2.691x



6 April 2010. Golden light in blue pool water...

A girl with a small suitcase, travelling who knows where. In Russian, chemodan--the sound like something out of Central Asia--or the mountains of the Caucasus. As in Daghestan--that vertiginous vertical land-- "que nace en el vert ante septentrional del Cáucaso hacia el monte El-bruz..."

Things borrowed, as if on the run--migrations--a shawl, a linen vest--a bag of barley and sprouted peas. The simple meal, prepared over mountain fire--a ring of stones, kindling, gray smoke in cobalt air...

Monday, April 05, 2010

Analect 2.690x



5 April 2010. Sun at dawn, golden light, streets dark with last night’s rain.

Chorny voron--a black crow, but here he’s white. Isklyuchenie. The exceptional case. Silent for a moment—in the watching mode. Forest and meadow, rabbit and vole. Small creatures in their even smaller burrows, a clinging snuggle of babies, tucked way down, warm earth, mother’s breath, a worm or two…

Anthropomorphised in the song. Interlocutor if not judge. Witness of fate, as in all human affairs…

Spring winds…

Friday, April 02, 2010

Analect 2.689x



2 April 2010. April chill, gray skies, moments of rain...

The impossibility of drawing someone, least of all Sergei Abramov in this 1936 production of Figaro. Or following the intricacies of a plot by Beaumarchaise--picked up by Mozart for intricacies of his own. The three figures on a stage, robust Russian women with plain dresses and bare arms--linked with Comrade Abramov through a hidden story...

Shepherds of the moment--a sly glance, unabashed longing...

Thursday, April 01, 2010

Analect 2.688x



1 April 2010. Sun and clouds, pool closed for cold water... April fools...

Georgy Andreev Abramov, in the tradition of the Diego Rivera, musical variant, a portly fellow in a shaggy suit, rounded shoes--his smile genuine, if a touch forced. In between, Krasovitskaya, then Bunchikov--the world of Soviet opera, 1953... The three of them, standing before a paysage--the long neo-classical promenade, with trees at determined intervals, planted symetrically, as if on stage. In the far distance, brief horizontal of a river view--water, the most stable of elements...

History itself being fungible...