posted by: gcallejo

En el cine es muy fácil centrarse en los diálogos, en la música, en los efectos sonoros, y menospreciar u olvidar algo tan capital como el silencio, un ingrediente esencial en un buen puñado de largometrajes que ya han pasado a la historia. Propongo que nos centremos, en primer lugar, en el género del drama.

El festín de Babette (1987), producción danesa basada en el libro de Isak Dinesen y que recibió, entre otros premios, el Óscar a la Mejor Película extranjera, juega mucho con el elemento del silencio. Es, de hecho, llamativo cuánto recurre el director a él, aun cuando surta un gran efecto en el espectador. Algo tan sencillo -y aparentemente vulgar- como una cena se convierte en el motivo y fin de esta historia amable y cercana. Los escuetos diálogos, los movimientos cautelosos y comedidos de los protagonistas, la ausencia de grandes imprevistos… Parece que todo ello debería sumergir al público en un estado tedioso o de gran aburrimiento, y sin embargo no es así.

Y es que abundan los silencios, sí. Más aún, imperan. No obstante, nos cautivan. En este caso, nos permiten adentrarnos en el carácter mágico de la cena, comprender la relevancia del momento, sentir el drama como propio, saborear los manjares con los personajes, reflexionar sobre sus propias reflexiones casi nunca verbalizadas. Son silencios, en fin, que llevan al ejercicio intelectual del que está sentado plácidamente en su sillón.

There was a farm in Africa…

O.K., so I’m not Meryl Streep or Isak Dinesen (Karen Blixen) and no the farm did not belong to me, but Out of Africa was a great movie. I did go to a farm in Africa (Swaziland) that was situated at the top of a small mountain or a very large hill—depending on your view. Also located on this spot was a bright beehive of houses, filled with African children breaking into song or dance for the sheer joy they felt or the sound of laughter as they made a game of folding their own laundry that they had just brought down the hill from the clothes lines in an old wheelbarrow.

My mother, Gwen Ellis and I (Wendy Weising) arrived at New Hope Centre on August the 2^nd of this year. We had just flown what felt like a billion hours from Los Angeles. The last leg of our journey had been on a small plane that took us to a small airport. There we met a small woman with the heart of a lion, who would change our lives forever. Dr. Elizabeth Hynd was there to meet us. She was and is the director of New Hope Centre—not an orphanage, but a home where a very large family lives.

Now you may be wondering what this has to do with books. Well, I will just tell you. One business of books is to tell a story. I will be sharing some very interesting stories over the next few weeks with those who choose to keep reading and to come back for more.  I hope that when I am through you will see something that is working in this world where barely anything does. The children in this family are confident, happy, and full of hope for not only their own futures, but the future of Swaziland.

So this is my introduction with many more stories to come. I leave you with this story-

Have you ever been fumigated on a flight?

Well, this was definitely a first for me. We actually got it twice. The first time was really unfair. We were on a tiny 29 seat prop plane. As the propellers whirled, we heard the captain’s voice, but could not understand his words. I turned to my mom and said, “Did he say something about covering our faces?” She shrugged her shoulders. Then the plane lurched forward as it began its short trek down the runway for take-off. I could hear a faint “sssssssssssssss” sound as the flight attendant walked quickly from the back of the plane to the front. I wondered for about two seconds what she had in her hand before the smell of baby powder and Old Spice penetrated my sinuses…and then we took off into the air—with all 29 of us gagging and grabbing anything to hold over our faces.

The second time it happened was on the way back home on the big plane. This time when the announcement was made, we thought that we were prepared. We pulled the fronts of our shirts above our noses, over this we packed the airlines pillows, and then we hid under the airlines blankets. That flight attendant knew what she was doing. She had a huuuuuuugggge can of spray. She started on the other side of the plane. She knew how to spray that disinfectant behind her back as she almost jogged ahead of it. Kind of like a weird Olympic torch runner. Then she started down our aisle. I kept peeking out of my barricade to see where she was. What I saw made me giggle—hundreds of passengers with blankets over their heads. We looked like a ghost convention. I tucked my head back in for the flight attendant was near now. She passed by. Whew! Then it hit. That same baby powder Old Spice nastiness. Now in retrospect, I don’t believe that anything we did would have stopped the pungent aroma that hit us full force. I don’t know what the stuff was, but I do believe it was created to seek and destroy—I’m not sure exactly what, but everyone was gagging and coughing. I have been asked several times what they were fumigating. I have no idea, but I think it probably kept people from getting anyone else’s germs, due to the fact that we spent part of the trip wrapped up like mummies.

Anyway, we survived. End of first story. Please feel free to ask me questions or to post a comment about your own experiences or the answer to the fumigating question.  More stories to come. In the meantime, here is a topic-

What do you do when you have a panic attack over the Atlantic Ocean, 7 hours into a 15 hour trip?

Discuss.

–Wendy Weising

Lady Jayne Books and Collectibles

I belong to an ancient, idle, wild and useless tribe, perhaps I am even one of the last members of it, who, for many thousands of years, in all countries and parts of the world, has, now and again, stayed for a time among the hard-working honest people in real life, and sometimes has thus been fortunate enough to create another sort of reality for them, which in some way or another, has satisfied them. I am a storyteller.

Karen Blixen (Isak Dinesen, author of Out of Africa)

All sorrows can be borne, if you put them into a story.

—Isak Dinesen

Samuel Barber was a fine Baritone, nephew of a famous contralto Louise Homer and long-term partner of opera composer Gian Carlo Menotti. By all accounts he was an avid opera-goer and –lover. Therefore it seems odd that, his first opera, “Vanessa” was written when he was 48. It seems he took his preparations very seriously indeed. Commissioned by the Metropolitan in New York, its first performance was so successful it commissioned a second opera “Antony and Cleopatra”. After it’s first triumphant season at the Met, “Vanessa” was however unable to secure a regular foothold in the repertoire of the Met or elsewhere. “Antony and Cleopatra” suffered the same fate, despite a sumptuous first production by Franco Zefirelli. Barber and Rudolf Bing conceived the role of Vanessa for Maria Callas, and negotiations advanced well, but it is one of those historic might-have-beens that this never materialised.

Barber revised “Vanessa” in an attempt to make it more “user-friendly” and removed colloratura passages such as the “Skating Aria”, settling the “fach” of the leading lady as a lirico spinto.

 Video Clips of Vanessa

 San Diego Opera Talk with Nick Reveles: Vanessa - Inspired by a novel by Isak Dinesen (Karen Blixen: “Out of Africa”), Samuel Barber’s Vanessa was snubbed by “modern” composers. But its love story and lush, romantic music made it an instant hit with audiences and won Barber the Pulitzer Prize for Music. Nicolas Reveles hosts an intimate portrait of the opera and its creator. Series: “San Diego OperaTalk! with Nick Reveles” [11/2004] [Humanities] [Arts and Music] [Show ID: 8669]

 ”Do not utter a word” – Eleanor Steber  - The creator of the role of Vanessa learnt the opera in 6 weeks after Sena Jurinac pulled out of the first production. She included the original colloratura aria which was later cut. She sang the role in the first recording of the opera, oposite Swedish tneor Nicolai Gedda. Steber also commissioned “Knoxville: Summer of 1915″ from Barber, and recorded it twice, both in its version for orchestra and piano. Here you can hear a live version with piano from Carnegie Hall.  The accompanist is her longtime accompanist Edwin Bittcliffe:  Knoxville: Summer of 1915″ Part 1, Part 2

“Do not utter a word” – Leontyne Price - One of the great interpretations

 ACT 1 excerpt: Kiri te Kanawa (Monte-Carlo) – Perhaps a surprising choice of casting, yet Kiri reveals the lyric side of the writing.

 ACT 2 excerpt: Kiri te Kanawa (Monte Carlo) 

ACT 3 Excerpt: Kiri Te Kanawa (Monte Carlo)

ACT 4 Exceprt: Kiri te Kanawa (Monte Carlo) 

“Must the winter come so soon” Erika’s first aria here sung by Mary Gayle Greene, who was a Met Audition winner, now teaching in North Carolina. Sung with Piano Accompaniment

  Lauren Flanigan: New York City Opera – an assumption of the role that surely needs to be recorded on CD

 Video Clips of Antony and Cleopatra

Barber’s attempts at extending the shelf-life of this opera included making a chamber-reduction of the score, as well as a translation into Italian.

 “Give me my robe” Leontyne Price

 “Give me my robe” Catherine Malfitano

 “Give me some music”: Catherine Malfitano

“Death of Enobarbus”: Eric Halfvarson

 “I am sick and sullen” Catherine Malfitano and R.Cowan Chicago 1991

 “O take those lips away: Catherine Malfitano and R.Cowan Chicago 1991

Barber also wrote a One-Act Opera “A hand of Bridge”

I hope to see more recordings and live performances of these powerful works.

Ventured to a used bookstore last night.  Found a copy of Isak Dinesen’s book, Daguerreotypes and Other Essays.  Couldn’t resist buying it since my working title for the book is taken from one of her quotes.  How cool is that!

“Difficult times have helped me to understand better than before how infinitely rich and beautiful life is in every way, and that so many things that one goes worrying about are of no importance whatsoever.”

– Isak Dinesen

 Apricots 2.5″ x 3.5″ Watercolor & Pen

This is the “A” card from an alphabet ATC exchange I took part in recently on WetCanvas.com. Okay… I’ll share the whole alphabet on my blog this month. It was fun. The letter they drew for me was H. So far I have received Hot Air Balloons, a Hackberry Butterfly, a Hippo, a Hungry Mouse, H is for History with Mr. Peabody and his boy Sherman, with their “way back” machine, and a Happiness card. Fun!

Water is an amazing element. Composed of two parts hydrogen and one part oxygen, water covers 70 percent of the Earth’s surface. In fact, there are 326 million cubic miles of the stuff on the planet. Even the human body is 75 percent water.

 I love water. I recently found myself sitting in a hotel room overlooking a breathtaking expanse of water. To my right was a marina with hundreds of boats and to my left were sailing sailboats galore. On the desk beside my laptop was a two-liter bottle of Figi Water, bottled on that tiny spot of land in the South Pacific. It tastes just like the ocean minus the salt. 

One of my favorite quotes is from Isak Dinesen, “The cure for anything is saltwater: sweat, tears, or the sea.” That’s just the truth. 

 There’s nothing better to drink on a hot, humid summer day and there’s nothing better to fill your gigantic battery-powered-super-duper-super-soaker with than water. Water is an amazing thing. 

But as amazing as water is in its liquid state, when you heat water up to the boiling point, 212-degrees, unbelievable power is released as liquid morphs to steam.

When water reaches 212-degrees amazing changes take place. And the same is true spiritually. When you and I reach the boiling point spiritually, amazing things happen, amazing changes take place.

Christianity was not designed to be lived at 180-degrees. From its inception, Christianity was meant to be lived at the boiling point. It’s a 212-degree faith.

2 Corinthians 5:17 says, “Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation; the old has gone, the new has come!” When you stepped across the line of faith, you changed properties and when you changed properties, everything changed. When you live at 212-degrees, at the boiling point, everything changes.

You see the world differently. You spend your money differently. Your heart works differently. You spend your free time differently. You rearrange your priorities differently. You think about God differently. You think about heaven differently. You think about life differently. You think about everything differently.

Some of the most miserable people I know are 180-degree Christians. 180-degrees is a bad temperature at which to live. 180-degree Christians have just enough spirituality so they can’t enjoy the passing pleasures of sin but they don’t live anywhere close to the boiling point to be released into this new state where God is moving.

Jesus said in John 10:10, “I have come so you might have life and have it to the full.” In other words, “I came so you might have real and eternal life, more and better life than you ever dreamed of. My purpose is to give you life in all its fullness, both here and now and in the hereafter.”

So if you’re really serious about heating your life up, just ask God to turn up the flame. He will do it. Remember, he takes no pleasure in lukewarm, room temperature Christians. He wants you to live at the boiling point. 

So if you can’t stand the heat…

There’s an ancient proverb in China: “Plant one bamboo shoot, cut bamboo for the rest of your life.” Bamboo is the largest member of the grass family.

Papyrus sedge was beaten into strips to form the earliest know ‘paper’ for writing. According to Theophrastus (371-287BC), who wrote the earliest known history of plants, papyrus sedge ranged from North Africa to as far away as Syria. Theophrastus’ extensive works were recorded on papyrus scrolls.

Milton speaks of God dressing the naked earth in his vivid re-imagining of the biblical creation story, Paradise Lost:

…when the bare Earth, till then

Desert and bare, unsightly, unadorn’d,

[He] Brought forth the tender Grass, whose verdure clad

Her Universal Face with pleasant green…

(Book VII, 313-316)

In Ode: Intimations of Immortality from Recollections of Early Childhood (1807), William Wordsworth celebrates ‘splendour in the grass’, by which he refers to the child’s retention of some memory of paradise. This state glorifies children’s existence on earth, something lost to distracted adults.

In Ruth, a novel of seduction by Elizabeth Gaskell (1853), Jemima learns of Ruth’s illicit relationship and the truth surrounding the birth of Ruth’s son: “The diver, leaving the green sward, smooth and known…down in an instant in the horrid depths of the sea, close to some strange, ghastly, lidless-eyed monster, can hardly more feel his blood curdle at the near terror than did Jemima now.” The grassy bank represents safety, innocence; the lidless-eyed monster, the way the 19^th Century viewed sex.

The title of Walt Whitman’s celebration of nature and the human body, Leaves of Grass (1855), was intended as a pun. “Leaves” is another word for the pages on which the poem is written, and “grass” was used by publishers of the day to refer to works of insignificance.

Because of blight, drought, grasshopper plagues, debt, and other troubles, Isak Dinesen was forced to sell her coffee farm in Africa. Her lover, Denis Finch-Hatton, was due for a farewell lunch but failed to arrive. She learned later that his plane crashed outside the city of Voi and he was killed. Because she and Finch-Hatton once spent lovely days in the Ngong Hills, Dinesen buried him there among the waving grasses. Later, years after her return to Europe, she heard from friends that a lion and a lioness had been frequently seen sitting on his grave. (Dinesen writes of this episode in her memoir, Out of Africa, first published in 1937.)

In A Thousand Plateaus (1980),the second part of their work Capitalism and Schizophrenia, Giles Deleuze and Felix Guattari borrow the concept of a thousand plateaus from a Balinese Tantric tradition signifying a non-climactic orgasmic field. They reject hierarchical (or ‘arborescent’) organisation, which is vertical and linear, in favour of ‘rhysomatic’ organisation, which they see as being horizontal and therefore having the possibility for more connections. (I’m not kidding.)

In a marijuana fog, Grady Tripp, the hero of Michael Chabon’s novel Wonder Boys (1995), broods about love and literature while he does just about everything possible to mess up his life. Getting high on pot, he says, “makes me feel like everything already happened five minutes ago.” Everything, that is, but growing up.

Mark O’Flynn gives us strange, mentally disabled Edgar, who collects dogs. When the dogs find the corpse of a man, Edgar is arrested for the murder. In Grassdogs (2006), the harrowing experience of prison life is contrasted with the wild, and often dangerous, freedom of the Australian landscape.

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Eco-Heroines All Nairobi—never mind its constant traffic congestion and generally uninspiring central business district—is pleasingly clean and leafy. Colorful beds of well-tended flora edge the roadways and parks. Signs urge reuse and recycling. Billboards promote organic milk. But when we think of the Kenyan capital’s most ardent defenders of the environment, we think of women.

Wangari Maathai with Nobel Prize

The first is Wangari Maathai, winner of the 2004 Nobel Peace Prize, the first African woman and first environmentalist to win the award. In 1977 Maathai launched the Green Belt Movement, based in Nairobi, which has inspired women throughout Kenya, most of them rural and poor, to plant trees, and oppose deforestation and other degradation of the environment. That adds up to some 30 million trees planted. And to a legion of African women who have become grassroots environmentalists and learned income-earning skills in things related to good environmental stewardship—like forestry and bee-keeping. Along the way Maathai has not hesitated to butt heads with the most powerful elements within her country. The Kenyan government has tried shutting down her Greenbelt offices, and twice it jailed Maathai. She was attacked and beaten by police while protesting the jailing of environmental and political activists. But she would not be deterred, and today the Greenbelt Movement is honored throughout the world.

The second is Kuki Gallmann. This equally remarkable woman was born in Italy’s Veneto but has lived most of her life in and around Nairobi—especially at Ol ari Nyiro (The Place of Springs) a few hour’s drive away on the western edge of the Laikipia Plateau along Kenya’s Great Rift Valley. Gallmann has given Africa her heart, her soul, and the 2 men she loved most in this world: her husband and son, who loved Africa as much as she does, died here tragically. All this she captures in vivid and lyrical prose in her acclaimed memoir, I Dreamed Of Africa, which was made into a film of the same name (Kim Bassinger won an Oscar as best actress for her portrayal of Gallmann).

Kuki Gallmann

In honor of her loved ones she has converted the 100 thousand-plus acres of O ari Nyiro into the largest privately owned nature conservancy in Kenya and has created the Gallmann Memorial Foundation, which promotes “coexistence of people and nature in Africa through harmonizing the protection and the creative sustainable and ecological utilization of the natural resources.” The foundation supports a host of projects ranging from antipoaching and wildlife and habitat protection and research, entomology and ornithology, re-forestation and tree nurseries, innovative utilization of indigenous plants, (from eco-charcoal to essential oil production through Africa Botanica), cultural studies and much more. Community involvements include support to local schools and health care. Gallmann’s Great Rift Valley Trust “aims to highlight environmental themes through bringing great artists to humankind’s common cradle to create original art together with African artists.”

Gallmann has even built 2 two resort lodges at O ari Nyiro, both featured in Architectural Digest and nominated for a Green Globe Award for responsible travel and eco-tourism.

Karen Blixen

No mention of the grand eco-dames of Nairobi, of course, would be complete without Karen von Blixen-Finecke, most famous of the indomitable European women who settled here in the early 1900s. Few have inspired more fascination with east Africa and its natural environment than the author of Out of Africa, which she wrote under her pen name of Isak Dinesen. The farm house she shared with her husband Baron Bror von Blixen Finecke at the foot of the Ngong Hills is now a museum. It’s only a few minute’s drive from the city center.

Karen and Bror honeymooned at Nairobi’s venerable Norfolk, today the oldest continuously operated hotel in Kenya. Since first opening its doors on Christmas Day, 1904, it has also graciously bedded Teddy Roosevelt, Robert Baden Powell (founder of the Boy Scouts), Hemingway, Robert Ruark and a host of the more recently famous. It now deserves recognition as a green hotel as well. As part of earth-friendly Fairmont Hotels & Resorts, this historic property subscribes to Fairmont’s extensive policies for environmental stewardship. Fairmont pioneered its Green Partnership nearly 2 decades ago to minimize its impact on the environment via waste reduction, resource conservation and community involvement. It champions what it calls eco-innovation (in Kenya this has meant fighting deforestation) and green meetings and conferences.

A final Nairobi recommendation: Should you want to resupply nutritional supplements or natural beauty products, grab some organic snack foods for safari or browse a good selection of health foods and gifts, head to Healthy U at the Sarit Centre.

Like a large black cup of coffee (the way God intended), is a timely, challenging, poignant quote; such can change my perspective for a day, sometimes for an entire week, and on occasion for forever. 

I keep a Word document on my laptop that contains nothing but quotes. As of this week it is 183 pages long. Sometimes when I need a little perspective, I will read through twenty or thirty pages. It’s breath to my spirit.

I’ll never forget when I first read these words by author Isak Dinesen, “The cure for anything is saltwater: sweat, tears, or the sea.” They captured what I have felt all my life. More than any other combination of words, these eleven words frame me.

From a leadership perspective there are certain axioms that are pregnant with meaning. “Your system is perfectly designed to yield the result you are currently getting.” “The power of accurate observation is commonly called cynicism by those who have not got it.” “Poor planning on your part does not constitute an emergency on my part.”

My favorite leadership quote is, “After the ship has sunk, everyone knows how she might have been saved.” If you’ve led anything for very long you realize all too well the truth in that statement.

Then there are those quotes that are funny because they contain a kernel of truth. “Household tasks are easier and quicker when done by someone else.” “A friend in need is a pest.” “The Law of final exams states if you’re given an open-book exam, you’ll forget your book. And if you’re given a take-home exam, you’ll forget where you live.”

Most significant are those statements that move us to want to accomplish big things for God. King Solomon writes in Ecclesiastes 11:4, “If you wait for perfect conditions, you’ll never get anything done.” Daniel 11:32 says, “The people who know their God will be strong and do great things.”

But a few weeks ago someone sent me a quote that stopped me in my tracks. I’ve read it dozens of times over the past few weeks.

When asked how she has kept going despite her incredible physical challenges as a quadriplegic, Joni Eareckson Tada responded, “This is the only time in history when I get to fight for God. This is the only part of my eternal story when I am actually in the battle. Once I die, I’ll be in celebration mode in a glorified body in a whole different set of circumstances. But this is my limited window of opportunity, and I’m going to fight the good fight for all I am worth.”

That is perspective and vision and courage and reality and Scripture and faith all rolled into one. If we could somehow grab hold of what she’s saying, it would change everything. We would never look at our jobs, plans, kids, opportunities, time, past, cars, church, relationships, present, vacations, pain, community, money, future, problems, friends, stuff, families, challenges, and God the same.

This is our one shot at making a difference. This is our one shot at pushing back the kingdom of darkness and advancing the Kingdom of God.

This is the only time those of us who follow Christ get to fight for God. I pray you are fighting for all your worth.

Isak Dinesen (1885-1962)

Danish Author Isak Dinesen Known for Seven Gothic Tales

Karen Blixen aka Isak Dinesen was the most famous of all Danish writers. She wrote gothic tales (Seven Gothic Tales, her first book) and African memoirs in English (Out of Africa.) Her last book was Shadows on the Grass. Karen Blixen Museum is in the outskirts of Nairobi on Karen road.

Read more — [Karen Blixen]

Isak Dinesen’s Major Books in English:

• The Authorship
• Seven Gothic Tales (1934)
• Out of Africa (1938)
• Winter’s Tales (1942)
• The Angelic Avengers (1944)
• Last Tales
• Anecdotes of Destiny
• Shadows on the Grass (1961)
• Marionette Plays
• Posthumous Publications

The cure for everything is salt water – sweat, tears, or the sea.

- Isak Dinesen (courtesy Joan Happe Gunderson)

Isak Dinesen said,

“All sorrows can be borne, if you put them into a story.”

Baroness Karen von Blixen-Finecke (17 April 1885 – 7 September 1962), née Karen Christenze Dinesen, was a Danish author also known under her pen name Isak Dinesen. Blixen wrote works both in Danish and in English. She is best known, at least in English, for Out of Africa, her account of living in Kenya, and one of her stories, Babette’s Feast, both of which have been adapted into highly acclaimed motion pictures. In Denmark she is best known for her works Out of Africa (Danish: Den afrikanske Farm) and Seven Gothic Tales (Danish: Syv fantastiske Fortællinger).

That biography from wikipedia is just straight, cold facts.  I think Karen, or Isak, had a life much like mine: full of disappointments and let-downs, but also with a certain joy in just being along for the ride, and for experiences beyond the mundane and ordinary. Or does anyone have an “ordinary” life? Anyway, we are defined by our sorrows, not by our joys, because sorrows are so much more interesting than joys.

Isak Dinesen, Danish novelist, best known for her novel Out of Africa said:

“To be a person is to have a story to tell.”

In real life, she was Karen von Blixen-Finecke because in the early 1900s it was fine for a baroness to follow her husband into the wilds of Africa, but not to write about it. 

I know an author who, catching sight of one of those “why not be a writer?” advertisements, made a scornful noise and then said, “for the following reasons . . .”, rattling off an impressively long list of harrowing psychological and financial pitfalls.  The writers interviewed here are or were at the top of their game, or the top of the pile, but even they can express discomfort or unhappiness with their chosen profession.  Writing fiction “involves stuff that isn’t agreeable”, says Norman Mailer; “It seems as if I was fated to write,” says Jean Rhys, “which is horrible”.  (Joyce Carol Oates does enjoy writing, which is just as well, considering how much of it she does.)

Read Nicholas Lezard’s review of The Paris Review Interviews, Vol. 3 here.

Ehrengard

Isak Dinesen

ISBN 978-84-931471-2-9

Ehrengard es el nombre de un cuento muy simpático que de dejó con un agradable sabor de boca.  El escenario es un país germánico cuya familia real se ve en aprietos, como en cualquier círculo de poder tiene su lugar la intriga.  La solución está en la persona de Ehrengard, una joven hija de un clan de famosos y fieles guerreros.

Toda la narración es dada a conocer por un consejero de la familia real, un artista y un hombre al que le gusta disfrutar lo que la vida tiene que dar.