at the G.I. Methodist clinic

- What brings you here today?

 Young resident, end of morning. He's got a lean, hard face with blue eyes. Tall, thin. He looks harassed.

   kkk - I'm coming for the results from the sample analysis, and also for a renewal of...

  kkk- Let me pull the results on the system. You're not in the system. Have you been here before?

   kkk- Yes, I came in Jan...

   kkk- How come you're not in the system? Are you sure you've been here? Yes. You must if you have a chart. That's so annoying. Let me check what's happening.

He leaves. He comes back. Without a word, starts putting my info into the system, his back to me. The room is tiny, I'm sitting right behind him. I look out the window, Brooklyn under a grey sky. I see all the way to the Bay of New York. Packed with so many ships & barges it looks like we're at war. The doctor, his back still turned, pulls the results from the analysis.

   kkk- No infection detected, but chronic non aggressive gastritis. Were you diagnosed with GERD?

  kkk - Yes, I saw a throat sp...

   kkk- Right, I see it here, diagnosed a couple of years ago. Hey, could it not have been caused by taking too much Ibuprofen or another similar drug?

  kkk - I did get poisoning...

   kkk- Poisoning? What do you mean by poisoning? This is so confusing!

   kkk- Well the drug I was taking, similar to ...

   kkk- But that's not called poisoning. Anyway you have GERD. You need to avoid certain foods: spicy, caffeine, fats. Don't drink with meals. Don't eat late before going to bed. You look fit. That's good.

   kkk- Oh. Thanks.

   kkk- Why are you here today?

  I sigh. I waited 2 hours to be seen.

    kkk- To get a a refill of my prescription.

Contributed by  - -  Arabella Hutter

Kant, la science moderne, moi

En lisant l'analyse d'Isaiah Berlin de la relation entre le romantisme et Kant (il y en a une), je pense à la nature et au libre arbitre. La tendance, du moins aux Etats-Unis, est d’attribuer de plus en plus de comportements à une cause génétique. L'agressivité serait sur le gène 12, la solidarité sur le chromosome 6, le mysticisme sur le 18. Nous serions des automates dont le comportement programmé se transmettrait de génération en génération. Lors du séquençage du génome humain, les généticiens se sont montrés surpris du nombre de gènes détectés. 25'000 au plus. Bien inferieur aux 100000 prédits. 

http://www.ornl.gov/sci/techresources/Human_Genome/faq/genenumber.shtml

Je jubile. Les humains ont seulement deux fois plus de gènes qu'un animal primitif comme le nématode. Où sont-ils, tous ces gènes du comportement? Attribuer le comportement aux gènes dispense l'être humain de prendre ses décisions librement, mais surtout permet de dispenser la société de sa responsabilité. Si les jeunes noirs ne finissent par leurs études et remplissent les prisons, si les pères ne remplissent pas leurs obligations, si les jeunes filles deviennent mères trop tôt, c'est génétique. Solution: médications? Manipulations génétiques? Sélection au stade embryonnaire? Aldous Huxley? 

Dans le monde de la recherche, il y a une tendance non scientifique à disculper la société, et il y a une tendance non scientifique chez moi à croire de toute ma foi que l'être humain peut prendre des décisions responsables dans la mesure où la société lui offre un environnement adéquat. Que tous les plus beaux rêves de l'humanité de justice, d'égalité, de solidarité ne vont pas passer à la poubelle au nom de la science.

Contribué par  - -  Arabella Hutter

Sunday at the Park

Klezmer music in front of the Brooklyn Public Library. Klezmer dance class for public. Would have made Glissant proud.

Contributed by  - -  Arabella Hutter

Motherhood

Recently on French radio: 
Heard  a reportage on a maid working for wealthy whites in South Africa. She comes from Soweto where unemployment is 50%. A job is very hard to come by.

"When I started working here they gave me the cabin at the end of the garden. I asked if I could bring my two children. No, the cabin wasn't big enough, they said, I could only bring one. I had to chose. My daughter was starting adolescence and I thought she would need me more. I left behind my son who's 10. I don't understand why I have to be like a mother snake whose babies go and fence for themselves. Like a mother snake I don't take care of my son."

Contributed by  - -  Arabella Hutter

Walking down Houston St - miniblog

I was walking the 10 long blocks from 1st Ave to the FDR with my son Numen yesterday. He was going to his orientation at Bard High School. I was telling him: I don't know how I feel about my kids being more intelligent than I. It gets a bit tiring. What's intelligence anyway?

He was wary:

-  I'm not even going there.

-  No, seriously, how would you define intelligence? 

-  It's one of those things you can't define. Like friendship.

14 and so wise. I took up the challenge.

-  It's easy: friendship is when you like someone and they like you back.

-  And why do you like them?

-  I think they must fill some need you have. If you like to think, they'll be smart for good conversation. If you like to be pampered they'll be caring.

-  Oh so friendship is a kind of cure for you needs?

He was skeptical. I gave up on defining friendship, but it was good to chat on a beautiful spring day, New York thriving with life and excitement around us.

Contributed by  - -  Arabella Hutter

Shopping dernier cri: 5 tableaux du Musée d'Art Moderne

Le Pigeon aux petits pois de Picasso, La Pastorale de Matisse, 

L'Olivier près de l'Estaque de Braque, La Femme à l'éventail de Modigliani 

et Nature morte aux chandeliers de Léger.

Apparamment le vol des cinq peintures au Musée d'art moderne de la Ville de Paris aurait été une commande. Pas facile de revendre ce genre de recel sur le marché de Montmartre. Un choix assez étonnant, mais peut-être le commanditaire ne voulait vraiment qu'un ou deux tableaux et a fait escamoter les autres pour brouiller les pistes.

Contribué par  - -  Arabella Hutter

A week in New York, uh, five days actually

As my nephew Léandre is visiting from Switzerland, I have been going out more than usual. And floored, again, by what this city has to offer. In one single week:

Started on Wednesday with Carousel event on the Lower East Side. Comic strips/graphic novel artists were presenting their work as slide shows on a large screen with voice over. It was such an essential Lower East Side event, with a cool assortment of New York eccentrics, and a totally unique show. Just loved it. Plus we had a bottle of beer in our hands, uh, my hand, as my nephew is 18. Proceeds from the drinks go to the theater so we were actually doing a charitable act by drinking which is a very enjoyable experience. We totally enjoyed Jason Little's postmodern fable and were swooned by Doug Skinner's gorgeous black and white drawings accompanied by a poetic text. In the vein of Herriman's Krazy Kat. Puzzled by his awesome performance and the European flavor of his art, I checked him out and found that he composes music, is a ventriloquist, actor, has made videos, am I forgetting anything? 

Carousel apparently organizes these slide shows regularly. Anybody who's into graphic novels/comix art/bande dessinée or just plain visual art with a twist should check them out. Just too cool, too much fun for words.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Doug_Skinner
ullagegroup.com/

http://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=6301533565&v=wall&ref=ts

Friday went to see "Women without Men", a film by Shirin Neshat, at the Quad. Visually stunning, she was present after the screening for a Q & A about her visually stunning film. The main role was played by an artist friend of hers, who was acting for the first time. Incredibly touching and convincing performance. The film is interesting and daring and explores narrative possibilities. The combination of realistic and fantastic characters didn't quite work for me. And the theme of the orchard was somewhat contrived. But. Salute anyone who goes and makes a first full length feature which is compelling, because we know how hard that is.

http://www.womenwithoutmenfilm.com/

Saturday at Roulette to hear John King's compositions. Unfortunately we were late because we went to Roulette's headquarters in Tribeca instead of the performance space on Greene St. Now you know and won't make the same mistake. So we missed part of the first quartet which was intriguing and horizon widening. SAPPHO, twelve arias inspired by Sappo's poetry was the most beautiful and poignant thing I've heard since Bach's Matthew's Passion at BAM last spring. The music and singing captured the essence of Sappho's poems, their beauty, their simplicity, precious fragments somehow handed down to us through time of a woman, a poet who felt and loved and sang on the Aegean coast a long time ago.

http://www.roulette.org/events/event.php/KING10

Sunday at the Queen's Museum of Art for the opening of a very very cool exhibition, the Curse of Bigness! Inspired by the model of New York city  and the Unisphere, it offers some fun and clever pieces of art. My son Numen (in the photo below, against a painted background) enjoyed the giant churros and the tiny dumplings which were served at the opening.

http://www.queensmuseum.org/the-curse-of-bigness

Contributed by  - -  Arabella Hutter

Mode ... glissantienne à Paris!

Message d'Astou Arnould, à propos du festival de mode organisé par Lucie Zambo à Paris qui devrait faire plaisir à Edouard Glissant, tant les magnifiques modèles (voyez les photos) expriment la joie de la rencontre des cultures!

A la fin du mois aura lieu à Paris le 2ème Festival de mode ethnique, "Métissages des styles", avec 15 créateurs de vêtements, lingerie, accessoires venant de France, de Burkina Faso et de Côte d’Ivoire.

Le samedi 29 mai 2010de 10H00 à 23H00, traiteur sur place
à la salle 66pelleport, au 66 rue Pelleport Paris 20ème, Métro Gambetta tel: 09.63.54.46.30

Au programme :
- - 10H00 à 18H00 entrée libre : Exposition vente
- 19H30 à 21H00 entrée payante : défilé de mode 5 créateurs renommés accompagné d'un spectacle de danse africaine


Article complet: http://www.categorynet.com/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=125126&Itemid=790&utm_source=twitterfeed&utm_medium=twitter&utm_campaign=mode&utm_content=Twitter

Vous pouvez aussi vous promener sur le blog Afriqua Paris, qu'Astou Arnould anime en collaboration avec Penda K. Traoré et qui  traite de la bouillonante culture africaine parisienne. Comme son nom l'indique. http://afriquaparis.blogspot.com/2010/04/gabriel-okundji-auteur-invite-du-jeudi.html

Contribué par  - Arabella Hutter en collaboration avec Astou Arnould

Tribeca, PEN, Nomad

As the Tribeca Film Festival was wrapping up, the PEN festival was in full swing with Salman Rushdie, Toni Morrison, Patti Smith, Richard Ford, and more. As well as the Nomad festival at the FIAF - Alliance Française - focusing on Lebanon this year. Hard to keep up with it all in NYC. I went to a panel about Dystopia and Utopia which included Jonathan Lethem and Eshkol Nevo. The discussion was interesting, many dystopia/utopia around the world today and in yesteryears. Jonathan Lethem talked about dystopic New York of the 70's. A Russian poet was there, talking in Russian which was then translated by an interpreter. Inga Kuznetsova. Whenever she spoke her face, her voice, her body vibrated with passion. All smiles and joy for utopia - writing, literature, anguish and pain for dystopic USSR. In front of a very restrained audience in a large CUNY auditorium she was holding nothing back, her emotions overflowing freely.

And later that night I went to a poetry reading. The international group of poets read translations from their poems. Again, a Russian, Pavel Nastin, read his poems in Russian. He was practically shaking with anticipation, whether dread or excitement, as he walked on stage. He read into the mic, his poetry's strong rhythms rippling through his body. Whether he was expressing sarcasm or nostalgia his whole body joined his voice in shaping the meaning. When he finished reading one a young woman would take over the mic and read the English version. He would run away to the back of the stage and wait there, in trepidation. When his turn was over he left the stage before the end of the clapping and rushed outside to smoke a cigarette.

Journée de commémoration à la Réunion

Voilà longtemps que je souhaitais que ce blog soit par épisodes trilingual, multilingual. C'est fait! Dimanche le 9 à la Réunion, une journée mémorable à ne pas manquer!

JOURNÉE DE COMMÉMORATION NATIONALE DES MÉMOIRES DE LA TRAITE NÉGRIERE, DE L'ESCLAVAGE ET DES ABOLITIONS

Lo dimansh 9 mé 2010 dann "Parc boisé, parc Laurent Vergès" o Port 9vèr ziska 13 zèr lo groupaz MCUR-CRA i invit zot tout pou la zourné souvnans trafik zesklav, lesklavaz, ek tout bann zabolisyon. Zourné-la partou dan Lafrans i ansouvnans ali konm i fo. Nou kont si zot tout pou èt anparmi. Nora : Fonnkèr, kont, shan, dans, moring, slam, maloya, lektir 100 non bann konbatan la liberté. Ariv azot ekzot manzé nou va mèt ansanm

L'association MCUR-CRA vous invite à participer à la journée de commémoration nationale des mémoires de la traite négrière, de l'esclavage et des abolitions, le dimanche 9 mai 2010 au parc boisé du Port de 9h à 13h. Au programme : Fonnker, contes, chants, danse africaine, poèmes, moringue, slam, maloya, hip-hop, lecture de 100 noms de combattants pour la liberté et pique-nique de partage sur place....

The MCUR-CRA association invites you to participate in a day of national commemoration of slave trade, slavery and abolition. It will take place Sunday May 9 2010 in the "Parc boisé" or Laurent Vergès Park in Reunion, from 9am until 1pm. Program: Fonnker, storytelling, songs, African dance, poems, moringue, slam, maloya, hip-hop, reading of the names of 100 freedom fighters and potluck picnic...

L'entrée est gratuite.

Alé di partou - Alé fann partou !!!

Entry is free.

Philadelphia on a happier note

In my last blog, I vented how angry I felt at crossing devastated North Philly. Here's something more joyful. During the Art Crawl in Fairmount, the Ukrainian center presented a happening/fashion show by a young Ukrainian artist/designer Lucy Oleksyuk. A number of young and beautiful Ukrainian women wore her clothes which incorporate elements of Ukrainian folk art and history. A light beige veil wrapped each head. They froze in one place, then vamped around the space and regrouped in various formations. It was beautiful!

Contributed by - - Arabella Hutter

Against human rights

We drove through North Philadelphia yesterday, on our way home. Having human beings - children - live there is a crime against human rights. Our country has not been bombed, we have not suffered a huge earthquake, devastating tropical storm, alien invasion. There is no excusable reason for people living in conditions which are harsher than most third world countries experience. The devastation is worse than in the South Bronx, or East New York, because instead of pockets inside the city, they go on for miles and miles. Miles of blocks which are occupied to, what, 10, 15% of capacity? The rest of the buildings are boarded up, burned or razed to a rumble. Their inhabitants can not live in dignity, their children do not have access to an acceptable education.

In Germany, many cities have lost a large part of their industries and know a similar decline in population, or at least, in wealth. Some of their city halls are buying blocks after blocks, relocating their inhabitants to other areas and turning the deserted houses into parks. Urban management.

No pics.

microblog: la vie

Définition de la vie par un penseur catholique qui me parait belle, et singulièrement exacte:

La vie est apparue sur terre au moment où deux molécules se sont reconnues, se sont aimées.

Etes-vous un(e) romantique?

Le Sabbat des sorcières, de Goya

Vous l'êtes peut-être sans le savoir. Traditionnellement la culture occidentale a été divisée en cinq périodes: le Moyen Age (auquel on attribue des sous-divisions: il a duré plus de 1000 ans), la Renaissance, le Siècle des Lumières, le Romantisme et le Modernisme. Moderne? Combien de temps allons-nous demeurer modernes? On se moquera de nous, dans le futur, avec notre modernité désuète. Je trouvais douteuse de toute façon cette dernière division. Il me semblait que nous vivions toujours avec les mêmes éléments culturels de base qu'à l'époque romantique: en particulier notre conception de l'individualité. Je m'étonne de ne pas avoir écrit à ce sujet plutôt, parce qu'il me fascine. J'ai fait un peu de recherche, et j'ai découvert qu'effectivement bon nombre de penseurs ne croient pas que le romantisme soit une période révolue. D'après eux, nous sommes des romantiques tardifs, comme Rousseau et Goethe appartiennent aux débuts du romantisme, nous en vivions la période décadente alors que s'écoule des formes de romantisme à peine reconnaissables, comme l'existentialisme.

Alors que j'explorais ce sujet, je suis arrivée au livre de Isaiah Berlin, The Roots of Romanticism: Les origines du romantisme. Je ne crois pas qu'il soit publié en français, malheureusement, c'est un texte passionnant et aisé à lire, parce qu'il était destiné à une conférence. Berlin, dans sa sagacité, n'essaie pas de définir le romantisme. Il développe d'abord le sujet historiquement. Selon lui, ce mouvement serait né en réaction au Siècle des Lumières. Dans un miileu piétiste, bourgeois et germanique, par opposition aux rationalistes français aristocratiques. Alors que ces derniers croyaient en la toute puissance de l'intelligence, en l'universalité des valeurs, le romantisme préfère l'émotion, le mystère, le particulier, le pittoresque. Selon ce mode de pensée, le monde, dans une grande mesure, est insaisissable. L'homme aussi. Une grande partie, la plus précieuse, est cachée. Cette conception de l'humain, rationalisée, donne naissance plus tard à la psychanalyse. La valeur d'un homme réside dans son caractère individuel plutôt que dans ses qualités. Plus il est unique, plus il est exalté. Le rationalisme du XVIIIème soutient l'horizontalité, le contentement est possible. Le ciel au-dessus de nous est vide, seul existe la capacité des humains à comprentre et à créer une société raisonnable. Le romantisme est tout en verticalité, de tout en bas jusqu'au nues, et à vitesse grand v. Je pense à Sorel, le personnage principal d'un de mes livres préférés, Le Rouge et Le Noir, de Stendhal. Ce héros, tout en ambition et en égotisme, finit par tuer sa maîtresse puis à être condamné à mort. L'opposition entre rationalisme et romantisme se retrouve dans l'architecture: le baroque avec ses lignes plates, sa dévotion aux plaisirs terrestres, sous l'égide de petits amours se baladant dans les nuages et le ciel bleu. Le romantisme, avec son penchant pour la nostalgie et les mystères mystiques du moyen âge, retourne vers un gothique plus que flamboyant, avec sa verticalité exacerbée et son désir d'absolu. Il est intéressant de noter d'ailleurs que le romantisme du XIX n'a produit que peu d'architecture innovatrice et moins d'artistes que d'autres mouvements. (Exception: Goya - voir tableau ci-dessus.) Mais ceci a peut-être plus à faire avec le fait que le romantisme a été particulièrement important dans le nord de l'Europe d'où sont issus moins d'artistes visuels et plus de musiciens que dans sa contrepartie méridionnale, du moins avant le XXème siècle. Le capitalisme peut aussi être considéré comme un dévelopement, si ce n'est consécutif, du moins parallèle au romantisme. La transcendence par le gain. Ce système, ainsi que notre sens hyperbolique de l'individu qui l'accompagne, se propage dans le monde entier de part son attraction irrésistible. Vaincra-t-il? La Chine et l'Inde semblent déjà avoir épousédans le contexte de leurs cultures ces valeurs alors qu'elles sont encore rejetées dans certaines parties du monde arabe. Qui n'ont peut-être pas particulièrement bénéficié du capitalisme global. Ou le capitalisme sera-t-il terrassé par la montée du fondamentalisme à laquelle on assiste dans le monde entier?

Contribué par - - Arabella Hutter

Are you a romantic?

Wanderer above the sea of fog by Caspar Friederich

Yes, you are. Don't kid yourself you're modern. Traditionally, Western culture has been described as being composed of five periods: the middle ages (sometimes split in several parts, they do span about 1000 years), the Renaissance, the Age of Enlightment, Romanticism, Modernism. And how long will modernism stay modern anyway? Recently I have been wondering about the validity of the last category. Our conception of ourselves as individual strikes me still as belonging to the romantic movement. Strange I have not blogged about this any sooner, it's been on my mind a lot in the last couple of years. I have started reading about the issue and found a number of scholars who also dispute these divisions. According to them we are late romantics, as Rousseau and Goethe were early ones, having developed various branches of Romanticism, such as marxism, existentialism and psychoanalysis.

My exploration into the subject brought me to Isaiah Berlin"s book, The Roots of Romanticism. He investigates the notion of Romanticism. Very wisely, he does not try to give a definition of this cultural movement. Rather he develops the subject historically. According to Berlin, Romanticism was formed in Northern Europe, mostly Germany, as a reaction to the French enlightment movement. It originated within pietist bourgeoisies in opposition to intellectual aristocrats. By opposition to the an intellectual approach to the world through the light of intelligence, universality, Romanticism stresses feelings, mystery, the particular, the picturesque. That the world is not entirely fathomable. That man is not entirely fathomable. Which led later to the psychoanalytical movement. The worth of a man, rather than being his qualities, resides in his particularity. The more particular the better. The Enlightment is horizontal, contentment is possible. No God above, but humans power to understand and creative a reasonable society. Reason. Romanticism is vertical, from the very low to the very high, and as fast as possible. See Julien Sorel in one of my favorite books, The Red and the Black, by Stendhal. The hero of the novel ends up killing his mistress and being executed! This opposition is reflected in the architecture of the two periods: enlightment with its baroque lines all flat and horizontal, with its stress on the pleasures of life on earth, as recommended by little amours galivanting amongst clouds and blue sky. Romanticism returns - in keeping with its penchant for nostalgia, and for the mystic mysteries of the middle ages - to a rampant Gothic all in verticality and desire for the absolute. The resulting capitalism with its exarcebated sense of self work a pretty irresistible attraction to the world outside the West. Will they win? China and India seem well on the way to espouse these pursuits within the context of their cultures, but they are still rejected in parts of the Arabic world - they probably feel the capitalist system has not profited them much so far. Or will the religious resistance of fundamentalists rising all around the globe take over in the long run and eliminate all traces of Romanticism?