Memory

In the empty lot behind the row of new office buildings, a singular structure sits, grey and green, moss-crowned, rust-shedding, an emptying hull of something that once was. People might have lived here, or passed through here, or worked here. Now it is cracked concrete and crumbling brick, flaking iron and the last chips of paint curling from the rotting wood. In another time, it might have been called grand, magnificent.

It still is, though. Magnificent, that is, though perhaps not in the same way. It is not only the image of rebirth (the ivy covering the walls, the oak growing out the roof, the grasses forcing their way through the concrete, the swallows nesting in the rafters) that makes it so. There is something else at work here.

In some places, the structure is skeletal. Stripped away are the trappings a former life, of a once-upon-a-time, of something that now lurks on the fringes of memory. Time passes, things change. Some things are forgotten, other linger on, and yet others merely oddslot morph into caricatures of whatever they once were. Perhaps the past was meant to moulder away into dust. Perhaps the past was meant to be remembered with processions of horns and viols and scarlet-decked frivolity. Perhaps.

But even then, in remembrance, something is inevitably lost. You can restore your brick-front facades and repaint your crown moldings and rebuild your sagging roof. In choosing what to remember, you choose what to forget. And then you remember, but you remember incorrectly, incompletely, which is, in a way, worse than not remembering at all.

Better, perhaps, to let things fade away into memory, beyond memory. Yes. Better to leave them unsullied by oversimplifications and misinterpretations and false justifications. It’s all quite romantic, really. Lost knowledge! Entire kingdoms, buried and then unearthed! An idealized past is at once untouchable but tangible, foreign but familiar.

Time alters all, slowly, but surely.

Top 5 Books that I Read in 2011

Hello and welcome to 2012; here is a list of my 5 favorite books that I read in 2011:

5.  The Monument by Kanan Makiya.  I wrote a previous post on Saddam’s victory arch, the subject of this book.  I had read one other book by Makiya, The Republic of Fear, about Ba’athist Iraq under Saddam.  Makiya is a political dissident from Iraq and was forced to publish under the pseudonym Samir al-Khalil until recently.  From reading The Republic of Fear, it was no mystery to me that The Monument would largely center on the nature of Saddam’s unique brand of pan-Arab fascism, but I didn’t expect it to have the level of art historical writing or image theory that it does.  I rarely read anything relating to Middle Eastern art, but Makiya applies the history surrounding it and Western art theory to the creation and interpretation of the victory arch, which makes it wholly relatable.

4.  The Silence of the Sea by Vercors. This was the first fiction novel I have read in awhile; it’s very short and only takes a couple of hours to read.  It was written in 1942, right at the height of the Nazi’s occupation of France.  It details the forced quartering (like, housing, not tearing apart by the limbs) of a German officer in the country house of and older French man and his young, female niece.  It explores the definition of

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resistance, and the extent and moral limits of inaction.  The old man and his niece choose to resist the occupation by ignoring the presence of the German officer, despite very human temptations.  The beauty of The Silence of the Sea is that it has no direct answer as to what constitutes resistance; for Vercors, inaction is not necessarily passive support as many condemnations of civilians under Nazi occupation seem to muddle up.

3.  Marianne into Battle by Maurice Agulhon.  This book chronicles the history of the French female allegory for liberty, named Marianne.  Agulhon engagingly chronicles how Marianne arose out of the 1789 revolution and quickly became a propagandist tool into the 5th Republic.  If you are interested in the small details of history then I certainly recommend this book.

2.  Eye Scream by Henry Rollins.  I actually read this in high school, but I reread it this past year and got way more out of it the second time around.  Henry Rollins, former singer/yeller for Black Flag and consummate angry person, has been more known in recent years for his spoken word than hardcore punk.  Unsurprisingly, Eye Scream is violent, sociopathic, and wonderfully lyrical.  Rollins’s aggressive intensity is mirrored only by the sadly honest clarity of his worldview.  I love this guy so much, I’ll probably write a whole column on him soon.

1.  Inside the Third Reich by Albert Speer.  These are the memoirs of Speer, who was Hitler’s chief architect and the Minister of Armaments for the Nazis.  It was secretly written mainly on scraps of toilet paper while he was serving a 20 year sentence imposed at Nuremburg.  When it comes to Nazi ‘confessions,’ they typically seem to be Eichmann-like, saccharine and dishonest, apologies, with no real remorse.   Speer isn’t begging for forgiveness in his memoirs, but accepts responsibility for the role he played.  He isn’t slobbering with excuses of brain washing or having no other choice, but instead treats his readers like adults.

River, Hip-Hop

Forked from the scope of the music world, Hip-Hop music can further be organized into two different classifications: mainstream and underground.  Hip-Hop’s mainstream artists are among the most affluent and well-known musicians alive today, and are responsible for most of the “pop” rap music heard on the radio. Underground Hip-Hop artists are, obviously, the opposite. Mainstream music cascades in a swift progression, fueled by the attention of millions and luxurious commodities available to only the most successful artists. However, there are more distinctions between the two groups other than their status of wealth and popularity. The reason there is such a dichotomy is because of the nature of the songs. The mainstream music is inspired by the artists’ lifestyles, enlisting complex beats and samples that are only available to artists of their stature. Underground artists rap over simple beats, made most frequently from a bass guitar’s constant rhythm, with a light accompaniment of a snare drum or piano.

Both categories have their strengths, and are equally important to the genre. In order to see the differences between them, we can look at two songs. Kanye West’s “Lost in the World” is featured on his masterpiece, My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy. Its polished production quality, multifaceted sampling and emphasis on the instrumental render the song utterly mainstream. In contrast, “De La Souls” by P.O.S is distinctly underground. The beat is extraordinarily simple, the chorus adopts a punk-rock tone and it stresses the lyrics, instead of the instrumental.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jb0Vub0i9O0&feature=related

Kanye’s finale incorporates a hook from folk singer Bon Iver. While making MBDTF, Kanye spent a few months in Hawaii, where he invited all of his featuring artists (among other friends) to spend time collaborating and recording. Only the most prominent musicians can afford retreats such as this one. “Lost in the World” has a long introduction; Kanye doesn’t even start rapping until almost two minutes into the song. This sophisticated beat represents mainstream because of its catchy, pop style and contrasting tones.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qKUt5g1AiJ8

“De La Souls” could not be more different. P.O.S. writes a deep and powerful message in his song. Personally, I love it because it exemplifies the intelligence embedded in Hip-Hop culture. An ugly, unfounded stereotype of Hip-Hop is that rappers are always ignorant, brainless fools who acquire wealth without any talent or moral conscious. Rappers like P.O.S. blatantly disprove that typecast. He proudly states, “I raise a black fist but won’t say (the N word) in the things I write, and I don’t say (faggot) because I don’t think it’s right.”

When asked to choose my preferred tributary, I struggle in finding the exact answer. I appreciate the redeeming qualities in both types, and am proud to profess myself a fan of all sorts of Hip-Hop artists.

A Wolverine Abroad – the Art Lover’s Travel Blog “Old and New”

Hello again everyone! I hope your holidays were fabulous! That’s right, it’s me Danny Fob, switching over to the arts, inc. page this semester. I hope they don’t miss me too much over at [art]seen, but for the next 7 months I am here in Italy! The most beautiful and flavorful country in the world. It’s weird already to be typing this in English after speaking only Italian for nearly two weeks, but I will do my best for you throughout the semester. Because of my travels this semester and my ongoing desire to write for Arts at Michigan, the wonderful people in the department have allowed me to switch over to this blog and continue talking about art (note the shameless brown-nosing). And so, throughout this semester I will write about the different arts I see around the places I visit. I hope you enjoy it! I’ll be posting every Sunday, so put it in your calendars!

In my first post, since I am both an old writer for the site and new to arts, inc. I want to talk about this idea within the city of Florence. We have all heard of this glorious city, its position as the womb from which the Renaissance was born, its riches and artworks, its museums and styles. And it is all true. Walking through Florence is like going back in time. Its buildings are all made of stone and long forgotten masonry styles. There are statues to heroes of the Renaissance, rich merchants and bankers, scientists and artists, and the first King of a united Italy, Vittorio Emanuelle II. The museums hold works by Bellini, Raphael, Donatello, Michelangelo, and Caravaggio, which used to decorate the halls of patrons and churches but now sit behind glass as artifacts of a different time. Yes, these works are old, they are masterpieces from a different era, but something that I learned about Florence is that it still thrives. Its culture is still rich in artists and art. People still use century old churches blanketed in marble and sculpture for prayer and worship. A friend of mine, that housed me for a week, is what I would like to call a Renaissance man.  Apparently it is still common, at least in Florence, to be a patron of a certain artist. My friend has an artist that paints what people ask him to paint. I would put up a picture, but I forgot to ask him if I could and his phone is out of money right now. The picture is personal for him, which I think only adds to its value. It is a beautiful tradition of the city and is continuously influenced by new culture, from films and music to the food and lifestyles of other cultures. The city is at the same time ever-changing and always the same. This is one of the reasons it is my favorite city in Italy. It’s like a living, moving work of art.

I think travel is an incredibly important part of life. I know it can be difficult and expensive, but it is sooo worth the work and the stress. Today I travel to Bologna and continue my search for an apartment there, since I will be studying at the oldest university in the World, the University of Bologna. I am very excited and a little terrified, but that is to be expected. I hope the weather isn’t too bad for all of you in Michigan. It’s mildly cold here, but I havn’t seen an Italian snow yet L Fingers Crossed!

Tanti Auguri!

Danny Fob

Your Wolverine Abroad Blogger

Trivial History Trivia

Hey Wolverines, welcome back to a new semester. To hopefully inspire you to take an art history class, here are some of my favorite interesting facts from history that make those classes so enjoyable:

In Soviet prisons, it was once common to tattoo portraits of Lenin and Stalin over an inmate’s vital organs, in the hope that guards would not harm them in those areas out of respect for the two Communist leaders.

A lot of people associate Marie Antoinette with her iconic enormous hair. She famously filled it with various event-appropriate objects. Reportedly, she had a (what one can only assume was horrific) birth scene placed in it when her sister-in-law delivered her first child. She was fond of filling it with fresh fruit and vegetables from her garden, with suck up aristocrat women following suit. The highest measurement we have

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for one of these hair styles is 6 ft, Marie would have to crouch down in her carriage to accommodate it. There are actually 3 reported deaths of court ladies whose hair was so high that it caught on a chandelier and they were in effect hanged. These hair pieces were made from wire, horse hair, cotton pads, fake hair, and the wearer’s own hair.

Louis XI of France, appropriately nicknamed the Star King, was a paranoid despot who very much believed in astrology. He was so unnerved by his astrologer’s accurate prediction of a court lady’s death that he ordered for the astrologer to be defenestrated (yeah, THAT word) from a top window of the palace. However, right before the astrologer was about to be told of his impending death, the king asked him to predict his (the astrologer’s) own death and when it would occur. The astrologer replied “I shall die just three days before Your Majesty.” Louis XI was so bothered by this that he canceled the defenestration (look it up, that word is a history fact on its own).

Napoleon wore a black handkerchief around his neck for every battle except for one, where his black handkerchief was accidentally thrown in the wash and he was forced to wear a white silk cravat. That battle was Waterloo.

Picasso’s first word was the Spanish word for ‘pencil.’

The Beginning of the End (and no, I’m not talking about the Mayans)

The first blog I posted here was called Beginnings in the Middle, about how for a theatre student, your semester sort of re-starts right in the middle.  Now, I am sad to say, it’s time for another beginning.  I am about to begin my final semester here at the University of Michigan.

For me and many of my peers, the beginning of this semester has meant many things.  First of all, this semester began as soon as the last one ended.  I began dramaturging Spring Awakening the day Beaux’ Stratagem closed.  I rushed back to school yesterday to continue my research, while all of the musical theatre students auditioned for the show, so we are all ready for our first rehearsal on Friday.  I’ve been receiving floods of audition announcements and calls for designers and crews the past few days.  The theatre department likes to get a running start.  So while I, like most of us, am not ready for classes to start up again, they sort of already have.  I borrowed seven books from the library today.  For the record, I love the stacks.  Today, I traversed both the North and South stacks.  Then, I went over to the Fish Bowl and found images that might help the cast and crew find useful, both historically and thematically.  Now I am diligently thumbing through my books, marking pertinent passages, and figuring out how to best communicate that to the actors.  Friday, I will get to start the actors’ journey through the text, guiding them as best as I can through history, themes, and culture.

Over break, I was busy too.  I compiled a glossary for Spring Awakening, which is actually one of my favorite parts of dramaturgy.  I read the script twice, the first time just for getting a grasp on the text and the second to go through and pinpoint any terms, places, or people that the actors may be unfamiliar with or needs further explanation.  I also spent much of my break reading plays for the 2012 National Playwrights’ Conference at the O’Neill.  They receive approximately 900 submissions a year and actually produce 7 or 8.  The first round of plays is read by a whole host of volunteers to weed through the plays that are not right for the conference.  I read twenty plays in all, fifteen of which I read over break.  There is nothing more exciting than a new play.  There is something really invigorating about seeing someone take risks, play with form, and genuinely surprise you as a reader.

Like most people, I didn’t get everything done over break that I had planned, but I at least got a start on editing my newest play as well.  My first play won a Hopwood, which I mention not to toot my own horn, but to encourage anyone who has anything they feel is worth reading to submit.  The Hopwood absolutely changed my life.  It gave me confidence to continue writing and money to pursue dramaturgy.  Fingers crossed that the second play fares as well, but it’s a tricky business and pretty impossible to predict.

I am going to sign off here, because I need to get ready for the big game tonight.  My brain is in dramaturgy mode, so I’m sure I will be analyzing the dramatic arc of the game, pulling out moments where I feel the stakes could be heightened, or critiquing gender dynamics at play between the football players and cheerleaders.  Go blue!