the tumbls and rumbls of my life

Another Lesson in Cultural Differences, and This Time I Mean CULTURAL Differences

There are some things I always put on my must-do lists and there are things that disappoint me just because I feel the need to put them on the must-do list.
However there is always a bright side to a bad experience and most likely in my case that bright side will reflect some newly acquired insight into the culture I’m currently exploring. Sometimes it will just confirm a well recognised fact about that culture, but I will still be forced to welcome it as a revelation, since I have obviously been silly enough to expect something else instead.

The fabulously revealing experience I have had the pleasure of it hitting me straight on in the forehead yesterday was that of encountering the attitude embedded in the New York City Ballet.
If I am in a city with a relatively long ballet tradition and if that ballet house has trademark show for the season during which I’m visiting I have to put that show on my must-do list. Since it’s December in New York, my husband and I decided to start off the merry month with The Nutcracker. Yes I know a very stereotypical holiday thing to do but hey, the piece was first staged a hundred years ago , which means that for once America is only 50 years behind with the first staging of the NYC ballet’s nut-cracking performance going as far back as 1954’, which considering the circumstances is an honorable age for a show (try not to think we’ll soon be half a century away from the sexual revolution of the sixties…as you will experience a sudden attack of melancholy and the feeling you must make an appointment with your estetista as soon as possible to start removing those signs of aging).
To cut the long story short, we had a lovely night out and have as intended had the opportunity to peek into those well nourished cultural voids that define the frightening space in-between our European background and the American reality around us. Thanks to my most significant other we had seats in the front row of the second balcony. Yes I like the balcony better than the stalls and prefer to sit there if possible. Naturally the seats on the balcony must be front row if possible and it should not be one of the side rows. Straight on and with a bit of creator’s perspective is how I like my theater. The good thing about the balcony seats we had yesterday was that we had (naturally) nobody in front of us, but had a typical (and I do mean very typical) family behind us. But I’m getting ahead of myself.
Where I should really start this story is pure marketing . The much advertised and much visited performance hall in Lincoln center offers payable show-character-photo-ops, merchandising, snacks and sodas as well as a fancy-wannabe champagne island in the lower foyer. The problem is, that for some reason the institution feels that in a city, where you can pay your way through anything with a credit card, they have for some very elusive reason a better chance at getting the money from their customers if they do stuff cash only and tell you there is an ATM just at the other side of the street (never mind the rain). The second thing you encounter and is already making you feel a bit strange is the senior-citizen-volunteer system, which you have forgotten about. I’m still feeling very confused about all that. Less confused in theaters than in galleries but still wondering at every show if that is the best choice of staff in case of an emergency or in case one should communicate things quickly, efficiently and with respect. I give them credit for patience. But that’s probably as far as I’m willing to support this system until someone gives me more info to chew on.

Anyhow. . The show featured a large cast of ballet dancers, some thirty of them children taking ballet lessons at an affiliate ballet school. The orchestra was decent, did an awfully correct job on the Tchaikovsky but non the less started to leave the pit as soon as the last note was played.

Image via Wikipedia

The show itself was heavily overproduced with an enormous x-mas tree and well executed set solutions. Even the snowstorm looked rather impressive. However the tem in charge of the lightning must have gone for a break and left the work lights on, since there was honestly close to zero input on their side. So a bit of magic was lost due to a blunt absence of any proper atmospheric light in contrast with soft but determinant accents one would expect in such a production, and I dare say the set designer had in mind when putting it all together. The rest of the magic was subjected to step by step mutilation by (this is not going to sound nice) the chord of elephants that call themselves ballerinas. The stomping of the little feet was loud enough to punch holes in the floor. The gracefulness gave way to hysterical movement in panic to keep up with the pace of the music. Lack of training, coordination and general agility (apart from a well executed spectacularly received split!?!) added to the effect of a school performance. And for the male dancers, I have never ever seen characters so absorbed in their own reflections before in my life ( and mind you I worked in the biz). Dancing in pair seemed to take a special effort and even that did not help the leading couple as the ballerina was left to loose balance, while her partner was more or less fixing his hair. However the audience went wild at every broadway-ish trick in the show and clearly decided to treat the music as they have learned from film. And this last thing was the core of my discovery.

When you bring a culture up on a Hollywood diet, you get direct consequences in life as well as in the attitude towards other forms of cultural production. The

Image by gretchen robinette via Flickr

sub-ordinance of music was never yet so strong as here. Tchaikovsky was treated as film music is – a source of suspense, a welcoming shower, a little bit of romance and most of all as something not worth the attention it dares to take with the overture to each act. Coinciding with that the audience had a very different set of clapping interruptions that we usually experience in Europe and by the second act I felt I was in a circus. Obviously there’s nothing more mysterious or difficult then how to act at a concert, an opera or a ballet show…Yes and people brought food to the hall. Luckily it was only the annoying 3 kids, 2 parents and a nanny that hits children because she is running out of control the whole time, while mom and dad are quietly approving the behaviour of all parties. The family itself looked very civilised, they even dressed up the kids in very serious outfits. They just forgot to tell them how to behave and what the heck they were doing at this theatre anyhow. So the kids got 0 magic, the parents got a headache, and the nanny probably got fired as did so many before her that just could not tame the southern accent of the spoiled brats. Don’t get me wrong, I’m all for bringing bot h parent s and children to shows like this. Both could learn a lot. The problem of Nutcracker in this environment was, that neither did the children want to consume a high culture thing and were so against it they almost did not see any part of the story that was not directly related to the merchandising they saw before entering the hall, neither did the parents take time to get themselves reminded of the true

Image via Wikipedia

message the Nutcracker is trying to get across. The message spelling out the potentials holiday season has in motivating, igniting and nourishing the vivid imagination of young ones, of the wonderful world that can take place under the decorated tree in a land where soldier toys come alive to fight with the mice and candy canes dance when you become the special guest in the kingdom of dreams.

Overall the all white performing cast (which i found horribly strange in the middle of New York) made the highly predominantly white audience (and I took a really good look at the audience) happy. There were no reasons for refunds and the show goes on. Money in, money out. The system works without the artistic surplus. So why bother getting better if this is good enough.

http://www.naxos.com/education/enjoy2_concertmanners.asp

November 25

home #2

Image by Jose P Isern Comas via Flickr

It strikes me as odd how nothing really surprises me anymore in New York. It feels like the city is gettin’ under my skin.

Crowds rushing to the subway with their tight schedules, endless workhours and way too litle sleep. The taste of the lightly yellowish liquid comming from the taps, one should call water, that makes your hair shreek and your clothes stiffen. The way people say good morning with the cheerfull intonation of »Hwdyd«. The taste of »no, we just have tea, y’know, hot tea«, you thicken with something not quite unlike milk and drop in the insides of the only real-sugar bag you resscue from the company of endles “0% fat” saccharins on the table. The 3am truck delivery rounds, after which the city falls quiet with only some distant sirens patrolling the streets. The way everybody is programed to be time effecient and has learned quite a while ago how to work the personal minutes market. The casual »oh, I’m sorry« when only the slightest indication of one crossing another persons path appears. The trash days with their assortment of white, blue, black and transparent plastic bags on the streets. The fierce joggers in the morning. The wind down the avenues. The hairstyles, the dresscodes, the khakis, the hoods, the stilletos, the flats, the unimaginative business suites and the funky designerwear. The hats. The plastic bags with take-away sushis or salads. The afternoon gym stalkers. Friends meeting friends for “dinner at 7”. The endless search for a decent coffe house.

Take some dim, cloud filtered city light, add the buzz of $ millions, the background dominated by traffic and put a smile in front. That’s New York in a glance for ya.

November 11

20th century / sign / system / model

postgravityart:

DUNJA ZUPANČIČ :: MIHA TURŠIČ :: DRAGAN ŽIVADINOV

Up until the end of the 20^th century, metaphysical tasks in art were performed by allegories, metaphors and symbols.

Allegories represent the abstract through parables. Metaphors name a certain phenomenon with an expression which usually denotes some other similar phenomenon. Meanwhile, symbols illustrate a specific abstract concept. In allegories, metaphors and symbols we always see more than is inherent in them.

In 20^th century art, metaphysical tasks are replaced by functional operations with systems, signs and models.

Read More

November 2

In Case of Emergency You Might be Forced to Break the Glass Door

Image via Wikipedia

A strike of (ab)normality I was able to experience this morning, left me restless and I feel I need to write a public warning instead of the regular minding-my-own-silly-business tumblog. The nightmare of shopping centers I’m already blessed with having, just turned into a real life hazard. We were only going there to get a new household appliance, since the old one gave in and instead we got a lesson in public (un)safety of highly commercialized areas. It was before twenty minutes past ten when lights went out in the store. Blackout. A good sign to stop wandering around and conclude your affairs, right? Wrong!

It was a perfect illustration of a dysfunctional system. The store has slide doors. Nothing wrong with that, right – very user friendly, saves money on heating as they control the amount of time the doors stay open, etc…Except that the slide doors in most contemporary stores and superstores work on electricity not on hydraulic systems. See the picture? There’s a blackout in the area and the doors slam shut. No way out. The staff, you would think, surely has some procedures they follow in cases of emergency and some steps from those procedures could be applied to the situation of this morning in order to let the customers out. Not exactly…The staff at Big Bang BTC reacts extremely lightly, joking, saying we’re trapped and it takes almost a quarter of an hour to get a very simple point across to them. We want to exit. We are slightly amazed; you’re not offering answers to our questions. We even attempted to open the doors with brute force and seriously considered setting off the fire alarm just to see if that could perhaps guarantee us some fresh air. When we finally managed to look aggravated enough and started discussing which authority has the potential jurisdiction to act upon such malpractice, they discovered through many internal telephone calls that someone in the tech staff actually knows of the storage passage through which additional exit can be supplied.

All in all – enough disturbance to make one want to have a simple cup of tea before driving off. But wait, our favorite Zvezda café had slide doors as well. And they were shut. And the staff and people inside the pasticeria did not even realize that they are locked in. sigh. Avoid shopping centers and let me know if you find any similar public hazard moments. I’d love to avoid them in the future….just in case something really does happen.

October 21

La biennale

Image by JAMES KUDO via Flickr

Every two years I meet someone who has visited the Venice art biennial for the first time just a couple of days prior to our meeting. These meetings tend to take place in the casual atmosphere of central European coffeehouses and are escorted almost surely by an aromatic cup of coffee for my fellow conversationalist and a cup of dark black tea with a drop of milk for me. On this last meeting however the tea was there as it always is, but my guest way in an freshly squeezed orange juice breakfast mood. It was my second breakfast coffee and a lovely day was starting in Ljubljana.

Two years have passed from the deja vu of the very very similar situation and it took me a while to recognize all the common traits connecting these incidences. It is remarkable to have the opportunity to follow a persons reconstruction of memories form La Biennale. The show is “big, mindbogglingly big” and the vast array of visual impulses one tends to consume in either one or two days is an overload in itself without the City of Venice’s architectural and historic superposition which is impossible to ignore.

The biennial newbie tends to start the reminiscences with a categoric statement : “If this is contemporary ART!??!, I don’t know….Even I can do things like this”.

So what is the problem of the Venice art expo if this is what one has to say when they are only offered one sentence to express their opinion in?

Continuing through the conversation it is inevitable to find the visitors compelled to first visit the national exhibition grounds in the Giardini. Remembering their overcapacity state of mind only by the national tags attached to certain works, pictures start popping up as they trace their stroll through the park. “The Belgians were awful, there was great Scandinavian interior design however - man that appartment was amazing-, the Czech had forested their gallery, the Russians had a lot of artists, The Serbs were innovative and they spent over a year gathering redundant hair from hair saloons to make rugs, I remember there was a lace-like structure filling the whole pavilion somewhere, and there was a very-nonsense-art piece somewhere else…..” “All in all we walked a lot and some more.”

“Hmmm”, …I usually say…”It sounds like the national pavilions had done it again.” Then I tend to search for traces of the biennial topic - this year the 53rd International Art Exhibition promotes the title Making worlds. An exciting topic just waiting to get the art flowing up your veins. Sadly the info-clutter one has to deal with at an exhibition so big, tends to leave you barehanded.

The biennial can be discouraging instead of invigorating. And my advice is, go there with someone, who knows her way around the important stuff. Find the Peggy Guggenheim amongst your friends or just try to get someone to read ahead and play the role of Hal Foster amongst your colleagues.

Oh, yeah…and wear really comfortable shoes :)

October 16

How to make that perfect cup of Tea?

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There are times in life when nothing will do the trick more efficiently than a simple cup of tea. They tend to last from October to March.

Sure coffee gets some people going for hours in a blink, but when the day is cold and rainy, you think of tea. Or in the morning, after a good night’s sleep (however rare that may be), when you step out to the terrace and breathe in the crisp light of the rising sun, can you imagine doing it without a big brightly colored cup of your favorite golden tea to warm your hands? Not to mention the evening routine in front of the fireplace, with a book in your hand, wrapped up in a blanket, letting your cookies get to wet when you dip them into that wintertime flavored fruit and spice blend. Aaaaah…tea. Some things in life are just not the same without it.

I have recently discovered that most coffee bars around the western world are starting to put more emphasis on their tea (including good ol’ American take aways!). It seems to me that tea drinking has reached a point of contradiction within this development and I’m not sure weather I welcome it or regret the fact that history took this curse. The ceremonial part of tea drinking has been translated into the time-for-myself philosophy of the “now” we are living in. The “Tea at 5” is no longer the social get together but a quick pampering with a Tall Chai latte in a paper cup on your way to the sub.

Be it what it may, even Starbucks tea still gets you in the out of office mode for the first minute or two..

There’s something else in my tea (theworldison.blogspot.com)
Masala Tea (kisaso.com)
The Lost Art of Teapot Blowing (neatorama.com)

June 5

A Taste of Home

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When deciding to live in a foreign country you always expect some adaptation will be in place and the parts you can preempt are easy to tangle. The sensory impact your new residence has on you however is more subtle and takes time before it comes into effect. It usually takes about 6 weeks for the body to realize it is not traveling, it moved. And that is when the crave for a taste of home begins.

In my case it was a very gradual process, because I hardly spent two consecutive weeks in the same place since moving to NYC and all the hopping around the states blurred my perception of home even more. But it was clear that with each visit from home, there came the familiar sounds, gestures and (in the form of various presents) tastes.

Even if it was clear form day one that the air smells differently than it did back home at the alpine background, the water has an unfamiliar taste of chemical treatments in major quantities and the light produced by this climate was…well Atlantic, not Mediterranean, I was confident that after getting to know my way around the town all else will be algebra. Guess what! I was wrong…badly wrong. I have, no matter how much detail about the food availability I have studied and recognized as a challenge, somewhere along the way forgotten all about the regional taste. It could just as well be a mistake originating from the concept of moving from one part of the Western culture to another, but I believe there must be more to it.

The way in which I see myself react to familiar products must have a direct connection with an inbred addiction to local tastes. It never really meant soooo much to me to take a sip of even modest Teran liquor or taste some of the Stayer ultra sweet white wine. Nor has ever the Slovene chocolate Gorenjka seemed so much better than all the tailored artisan chocolates of the world. The list goes on and on and it most certainly includes all the typical products foreigners have always told us, that you must be Slovene to eat or drink this.

So I go and smell another sip of Teran and ponder a bit more on the taste of home, remembering the sensory details I find impossible to forget.

Slovenia’s Culinary Diversity and My Favorite Rebula (enotheque.blogspot.com)

June 4

Nothing is Impossible

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A cast of 55, brought to you in an idea crafted by a super team of 12 creators and supported by a technical and logistic army of unconceivable proportions. 175 different costumes. 160 hats. About one thousand piece wardrobe. Approximately hundred props.

And kilowatt months of energy.

And there it was. Kooza. A simple story of fitting in, growing up, fighting your fears and accepting responsibility for your actions. Done right.. Done more than right. Done as it is only done by Cirque de Soleil.

For 25 years, Cirque de Soleil has had the lion share of the acrobatic circus market and its current position, although the recession might have crossed the Macao plans, they still have it made. Theaters were constructed to host the shows, but it is a certain thrill to embark on a water taxi trip off Manhattan to enjoy the circus tent experience in its full glamour.

One thing is sure, the show is a major production and to a trained eye it shows all the sweat, blood and nail fights that were there along the way. It lets’ you see the real dangers and it makes you gasp for air. It enchants you and teleports you to a world where not even gravity has its power anymore. And still it lives and breathes and pulsates in its own rhythm, adapting to environment and outside factors proving constantly its agility and skill of adaptation. It is there and it will stay alive. And more – in its determination that the show must go on it IS the most powerful invigorating factor I have ever been exposed to.

Cirque de Soleil proved to me quite efficiently that NOTHING IS IMPOSSIBLE.

Cirque du Soleil At The Circus (mediabistro.com)
See Cirque du Soleil - Mystere in Las Vegas (jerichooncbs.blogspot.com)
Cirque Du Soleil in Dubai (umarsiddiqi.com)

May 26

This is Information Design.

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Orthogonal Polynomials and their Zeros as part of sustainable development

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About a year ago Tina Košir had the honour of interviewing an amazing man from Cambridge , Neil Turok, and I as her friend had the onsequtive honor of watching the full 3 hrs interview filmed on that day by another amazing member of the Cambridge faculty, Alan Macfarlane (yes I have a signed and dedicatd copy of the Slovene translation of his Letters for Lilly due to the same triangle), while she did the transcripts for an extensive portrait of the visionary.

Even though we often consider sientists (and phisicists, mathematics and cosmologists even more so) to be the most detached from life of all the people on the face of the Earth, Turok proved to be an amazing person One can easly admire for his broadmindedness and desire to give something back to the community..

This is how I learned about the AIMS project.

The African Institure for Mathematical Sciences (http://www.aims.ac.za/english/) is an educational facility providing higher mathematical education to African students, aiming at creating enough knowledge that can be applied in other fields of science and industry to cover the local developement demands.

With a network of institutes all over the continent the knowledge base attained by students so deprived of education would create a steady and sustainable system of community developement and have the ability to drive Africa into giving us a new Einstein, but most of all it would give the people a chance to base future progress on themselves and work towards creating a stable developement without the downfalls of short term outside interventions.

to make a long story short i urge you to glimpse at turok’s own TED lecture on the topic since his words will be so much more meaningful than mine: http://www.ted.com/index.php/talks/neil_turok_makes_his_ted_prize_wish.html

Bottom line - if Stephen Hawking suports the project as a good cause and quaity solution, so do I.

GO AIMS!

African aid ‘needs science focus’ (news.bbc.co.uk)

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