Balzac

I first met Tony when he was a reporter for the Washington Times.  He was fair but persistent and thoroughly honest.  He was not impressed by White House spin which can often be outright lies, whether coming from a Republican or Democrat administration.  As one of his few White House sources I tried to help him pursue his stories but he lacked the guile and aggressiveness of his rivals who would lie and manipulate back to get their information.  I thought he was in the wrong profession, thought he should be heading up Mercy Corps.

He came into the Bush, Senior White House as I was leaving but I heard he was balm upon the troubled waters.  It sounds like him.  Of course, he would come back years later and do it again for George W. Bush too.

When I went through my days of infamy, as the taper of Bush the younger, he sensed there was more to the story.  He understood all too well how complicated and dangerous Washington can be.  So, over the objections of others, he had me on his television shows and once even asked me to sit in as a guest host for his radio program but I had a conflict and was unable to make it.  It was a gesture I will never forget.

He never once asked for details, never once said, “Tell me what was really going on?”

He just knew, instinctively, that no one is all bad or all good, especially in Washington, D. C. and the stories the public thinks they know the best they usually know the least.

Vince Foster left us sadly.  In his suicide note he called Washington politics a “blood sport.”  In his own soft way, Tony Snow left us too.  No suicide, of course, but a stress related disease nevertheless.  Both men may have been better than their environment.  We are certainly better knowing Tony Snow.

Blazac once wrote that kind men hide some earlier evil for which their life atones.  If so, the life of Tony Snow has wiped it clean.  Now, that the president has named a street after Tim Russert.  Let him name one after Tony too.

Balzac

Balzac

Balzac

Balzac

Balzac

"Puede uno amar sin ser feliz; puede uno ser feliz sin amar; pero amar y ser feliz es algo prodigioso"

Balzac

My blog on the reality of fiction, the fiction of reality, is up on Guardian Unlimited today.

"One of the greatest tragedies of my life," wrote Oscar Wilde in his 1889 essay The Decay of Lying, "is the death of Lucien de Rubempré. It is a grief from which I have never been able completely to rid myself. It haunts me in my moments of pleasure. I remember it when I laugh."

Such were remarks Wilde penned not on a flesh and blood acquaintance but on one of Balzac's most exquisite characters, the fragile poet/arriviste first seen ground up and spat out by the human grinder that is the 19th century Parisian society of Lost Illusions. De Rubempré resurfaces later in the magnificent A Harlot High and Low, only to hang himself with a silk cravat in the dungeons of Paris's Conciergerie. Leaving aside a fictional destiny of boom and bust that foreshadows, in a sense, Wilde's own, one could construe his remarks above as typical - an arch, even camp, witticism on nothing more than a book he was fond of...... More here

The Insider is a recurring profile of tastemakers in the fields of fashion, design, food, travel and the arts. Here the Tony Award-winning costume designer Catherine Zuber shares a few of her style essentials. Zuber is currently in Austria designing the costumes for an operatic version of "Romeo and Juliet" at the Salzburg Festival. Next, she is set to design the costumes for "A Man for All Seasons" at the Roundabout Theatre Company, John Adams's "Dr. Atomic" at the Metropolitan Opera and "The Winter's Tale" and "The Cherry Orchard," to be directed by Sam Mendes at the Brooklyn Academy of Music (BAM).

Name: Catherine Zuber
Age: 57
Occupation: Costume Designer
Home base: New York City
Retail standby: Barneys New York
Music venue: The Metropolitan Opera
Favorite concert: Jimi Hendrix, 1968
Music: Opera; jazz; salsa
Provisions: Ethiopian coffee; Italian and French cheese (especially Petit Billy and Pierre-Robert); New Jersey tomatoes in August; Montauk sea bass; radishes
For gifts: Flowers
Restaurant: Noodle Pudding in Brooklyn
Drink: Red wine
Party central: Opening night
Momentary style obsession: Rick Owens
Reading material: "Cousin Bette" by Balzac
Art pick: "Cai Guo-Qiang: I Want to Believe” at the Guggenheim
Movie: "The Last Mistress"
Vacation destination: Sauve, France
Something you are looking forward to this summer: Visiting my friend Gerd on the Isle of Gotland, in the Baltic Sea.

Catherine's New York City Neighborhood

Here are some of Zuber's favorite spots near her studio on West 38th Street that she visits almost daily. The map below is interactive; click on the blue markers to learn more about Catherine's spots.

[googlemaps http://maps.google.com/maps/ms?ie=UTF8&hl=en&s=AARTsJoZtkS1L5Vd0aUBHbdLPquEzfrluw&msa=0&msid=103739794770934605257.000451fe3df560ec6b932&ll=40.7587,-73.990002&spn=0.040959,0.068665&z=13&output=embed&w=400&h=315]

• When I'm not in the studio sketching or having a meeting, I love to visit the fabric stores on 40th Street: Paron; NY Elegant; B&J; Mood Fabrics; Rosen & Chaddick.
• For lunch, it's Metro Marché, which is actually in the Port Authority Bus Terminal, or Go Go Curry (very delicious Japanese curry).
• It is always fun to stop in at the Drama Bookshop on West 40th Street — and now it is on the same street as Muji!
• A day usually includes a visit to the costume shops of Jennifer Love, Werner Kulovits at Euroco Costumes, Sally Ann at Parsons-Meares and Arnold Hatters Inc.
• When days are spent at the Metropolitan Opera or the Vivian Beaumont Theater, there is always Bar Boulud, O'Neal's and Café Fiorello to enjoy meeting friends for lunch.
• After a day at the studio, it is fun to meet friends at Le Zie restaurant or the garden at Gavroche on 14th Street and then go for a walk along the Hudson River.
• A visit to the gym at Equinox on Broadway and 19th Street usually leads to visiting the outdoor farmer's market at Union Square and seeking treasures at the Strand Bookstore on 12th Street. My schedule is always diverse, and I have the pleasure of days spent in varying parts of NYC — but these spots seem to be constants during the typical home-base workday.

Read previous columns of The Insider here.

My husband has been amazing and his business approach is invaluable.  He seems to set aside the emotions and helps me focus.   Another angel.

My sisters are so different from one another but the one thing that we did growing up in our home was to take care of each other and give each other the love that was lacking from our parents, at least from my perspective.  As dysfunctional as our parents were, we managed to cook for one another and look out for each other.  I wouldn't trade in my sisters for a new set even if give the opportunity.  I donned my second daughter's middle name after one sister,Katie, and interestingly enough, she looks just like Katie as a little girl.  But the reason to naming her after Katie speaks more than words that I can put down on this blog. 

My friends that were at the launch party were all angels in my small house in Orange County.  Many of them that came weren't petite but they were there for me, friends from book club and business groups.  Two of my friends Patti and Kim whose lives are just as busy with work and family made the time to offer their support and advice, and have been angels from the day that we became friends.  

In a world that can be mean and ugly, there is also a stronger force that I have chosen to surround myself with as we all can.  There are angels here on earth and they are truly superhuman.  Their love and support that surrounds me has kept all the demons in disguise away from truly hurting me.  Down any path, there lies road blocks and boulders that may get in the way but as long as there's angels around, I know that I will make it along the path safely.  I thank you for everything.    

The sitting-room had been partly modernized by the late Mme. Sechard; the walls were adorned with a wainscot, fearful to behold, painted the color of powder blue. The panels were decorated with wall-paper --Oriental scenes in sepia tint-- and for all furniture, half-a-dozen chairs with lyre shaped backs and blue leather cushions were ranged round the room. The two clumsy arched windows that gave upon the Place du Murier were curtainless; there was neither clock nor candle sconce nor mirror above the mantel-shelf, for Mme. sechard had died before she carried out her scheme of decoration; and the 'bear,' unable to conceive the use of improvements that brought in no return in money, had left it at this point.

Wainscotting/ etymology. Murier, blackberry bush.

Boris Akunin: Türkisches Gambit
Edgar A. Poe: The Gold Bug, The Fall of the House Usher, The Tell-Tale Heart, Ligeia
Honoré de Balzac: Glanz und Elend der Kurtisanen

Mit dem Buch von Balzac bin ich erst zu 2/3 fertig, aber es ist doch erstaunlich was man für Schätze in seinem Büchergestell findet. Das Buch mit vielen von Poe's Geschichen, habe ich vor etwa ein bis zwei Monaten gekauft, aber die zwei anderen liegen schon ein paar Jahre hier herum. Das Buch von Akunin, ein Kriminalroman, hat mir meine Mutter irgendwann um 2001 mitgebracht. Zwei Bücher von Balzac konnte ich gratis von der Bibliohek meines Gymnasium haben. Nur will mir bis heute nicht einleuchten, wieso man einen Schriftsteller wie Balzac aussortiert. Mittlerweile finden sich dort nur noch die französischen Originale, an die ich mich auch einmal heran trauen werde. Von Balzac konnte ich damals auch "Das Mädchen mit den Goldaugen" ergattern, was ich wohl als nächstes lesen werde. Naja, jetzt bin ich wieder am Lernen. Nix mit Lesen.

Ansonsten habe ich ein neues Handy. Mein Vater konnte mit seinem Abo ein Neues gratis beziehen und hat es mir netterweise gegeben. Ausgesucht habe mir das W910i in den Farbe "Hearty Red". Seit ich das Gerät zu ersten Mal in der Werbung gesehen habe war ich sicher, dass es das sein muss. Endlich ein Handy, dass zu meinem Lippenstift passt! Habe ich das gerade so gesagt?

Ich telefoniere eigentlich nie und soviele SMS bekomme ich jetzt auch nicht, aber das W910i ist vor allem ein Walkman Handy, und ich bin ja ziemlich Musik vernarrt. Momentan habe ich eine 1GB Speicherkarte, werde mir aber sicher mal noch die 4GB Karte zulegen. Wenn schon ein neues Gerät in meine Wohnung einzieht muss auch gleich eines den Geist aufgeben. So dachte sich wohl mein Staubsauger als er montags mit einem jämmerlichen Seufzen langsam aber sicher zu saugen aufhörte. Entsetzen, anders kann man wohl meinen Gesichtsausdruck nicht beschreiben...Küche und Bd kann ich mit Kehren und Wischen einigermasen sauber halten, aber in meinem Wohnzimmer habe ich Teppich. Zwei Katzen ohne Staubsauger ist wirklich toll...Momentan ist meine Mutter auch in den Ferien und kann mir nicht helfen das dumme Ding vorbei zu bringen. Ich bin sicher da ist nichts mehr zu machen, abgesehen davon ist die Garantie im Februar abgelaufen...

A nossa infância foi diferente, até demais, da de hoje. Hoje é tudo muito rápido, dinâmico. Nós temos lembranças que nos fazem dar risada e lembrar até do gosto, ou de histórias sobre nossas coisas de criança.

Particularmente, eu usei muito essas fichas telefônicas. Costumava conversar com a minha melhor amiga na época nos bons e velhos telefones públicos (quando não estavam depredados), e passar horas colocando fichas a cada 10 minutos. Eu gastava trilhas e trilhas dessas aos finais de semana. E ainda tenho umas duas ou três guardadas. E tenho a amiga também, que reencontrei no orkut no ano passado. Uma boa recordação...

Balas Soft... quem não se engasgou com uma dessas? Eu tenho uma história sobre isso! Uma vez, na escola, eu pus uma dessas na boca... que foi sem pestanejar direto pra garganta! Que sufoco. Eu sei que a fabricante depois mudou o formato para que não tivesse mais engasgos entre os consumidores, mas ela sumiu do mercado, assim como as balas de framboesa mastigáveis da Kids que eu adorava... era docinha e viciante!

Quem não fazia pesquisas na Enciclopédia Barsa? Muitos volumes, conteúdo de A á Z de tudo quanto é jeito. Eu usava também aquela enciclopédia Conhecer, da Editora Abril. E adorava um capítulo que tinha só falando de mitologia greco-romana. Andava pra todo lugar com aquele livro.

E aí, no primário eu usei essa cartilha! Só não sei que fim levou a minha, deve ter sido passada a alguma prima minha, ou ter ficado na escola... não lembro se era comprada ou se a escola fornecia.

Tinha figuras grandes e era o básico para alfabetizar uma pessoa. Mal sabia a autora que se transformaria num ícone da nossa infância...

Eu sei também que ela foi usada até o final. Que cartilha será que é usada nas escolas de hoje? Deve ser a Wikipedia...

Meu primeiro contato com a informática foi com esses disquetes, que pareciam uma "bolacha cream cracker" super desenvolvida.

Inclusive o primeiro micro que tive no serviço tinha entrada para esse disquete. E foi rapidamente substituído pelo disquete de 3 1/2 polegadas, que cabia 1,44 Mb.

Hoje, usamos Cds, com 700 Mb de espaço e DVDs, com 4 Gb e os duplos, com 9 Gb de espaço. E os pen drives, que variam de 1 à 4 Gb.

E pensar que eu tinha arquivos com esses disquetões...

Chicletes Ping Pong. Com uma merreca você comprava um monte. E tinham figurinhas para completar os álbuns que vinham, mas não lembro se você comprava o álbum na banca ou mandava uma carta pedindo... acho que o chocolate Surpresa era assim, lembram?

Quanta coisa!

E olha que ainda não acabou, tem muitas memórias para tirar o mofo. Guardei algumas propagandas para postar depois. Escrevendo esse post, desarquivei muita coisa na minha memória... valeu a pena, alegrou a sexta feira!

OBS: O tema do post de hoje era outro, mas a história é tão bonitinha que resolvi ilustrá-la e escrever com calma. Vocês verão. :-)

Not having read anything by Balzac before, the book's title didn't exactly jump off the shelves at me, but a friend's recommendation is all I need as an excuse to dive into another book.  Interestingly, at the last writer's conference I attended, I learned that the number one reason why women purchase books is because of a recommendation. 

The story is set in a time that I knew little about, during the Cultural Revolution in China, specifically in 1971.  The two main characters are bourgeois boys sent to the countryside for "re-education," which basically means that they were to forget all the city bred culture they knew and replace it with backwoods country ways.  This also meant that all Western elements were banned, especially books.  When the boys come across a cache of forbidden books, including several works by Balzac, their world is expanded, and they are nourished by their worldview and lessons.  The Little Chinese Seamstress is a simple country girl that the boys meet who is also transformed by these Western books and ideas.

Anyone who has read the high school classic Fahrenheit 451 can recognize the horror of a culture without books.  Whereas Bradbury's book imagines future without books, Dai Sijie's novel looks back to a time and place where the unthinkable actually happened. 

The boys risk their lives to read these forbidden books.  They devise clever ways of copying the writing, most notably on the inner lining of their clothing.  I've read about a thirst for words like this before, and it occurs to me that stories that most closely resemble them are from missionaries who travelled across the Iron Curtain (Brother Andrew's God Smuggler is the prime example). Today, missionaries in the 10/40 window also face similar obstacles.  Underground churches meticulously copy Bible verses, so the one Bible in the congregation can be shared more effectively. 

Do you ever notice how you only recognize the value of something once it's taken away from you? If you're anything like me, you have a bookshelf or two crammed with books, many of which you don't read.  Most believers probably have several Bibles kicking around their homes. There's also a public library in your town that you might not have visited in the past year, or 10.

But what if a new government stepped in, one that banned these books and ideas.  Wouldn't their worth be of greater value to you?  Would you sit up late at night, reading them, searching them for the hidden, secret wisdom that was banned and forbidden?

Sometimes, I wonder if banning books makes people read them more.  For example, in the small town where I grew up, our high school assigned Jane Smiley's book A Thousand Acres to one of the English classes.  A parent got wind of the assignment and sounded the alarm that there were profanities and some sex scenes.  Would you believe it, the book flew off the shelves in our area?  It was mostly church people buying it to read it, so they could join in denouncing it.  It was sold out everywhere.  But bookstores were quick to catch on, and they restocked quickly.  There's a copy on my bookshelf too.

I'm not saying that we should ban the Bible. Heaven forbid. But I am saying, maybe we're a little too comfortable in our freedoms.  Stepping into these stories, where we read about others who don't have it so easy, who would love to have the access we have, maybe we'd recognize the precious treasure we have available to us any time we want it. 

And we too can be transformed (Romans 12:2).

Depuis le 17 octobre et jusqu'à aujourd'hui, chaque mercredi je m'ai plongé en France. C'était, chaque fois, un vrai voyage qui allait d'un côté à l'autre de la porte de la salle 302 de l'Institut Français de Barcelona.

Dehors, les voitures, les ambulances, le bruit et le froid et l'odeur d'urine sur les rues. Dedans, pas du silence, mais de la tranquillité. Au moins ça. On y entrait peu à peu, mot a mot. Il y avait des fois où on se plongeait dans les textes: peu a peu et mot à mot. Mais il y en avait d'autres où on tombait dans les phrases et encore d'autres où les mots nous frappaient sans pitié, en nous laissant étourdis pendant des heures, ou des jours.

J'ai pleuré avec Phèdre mais j'ai ris jusqu'aux larmes avec Balzac et son Lys dans la vallée. Une seule phrase de Racine m'a sauvé de la folie. Je l'ai répété pendant des jours sans m'arrêter, pour n'y penser pas. Pendant tout ce cauchemar, je demeurais longtemps errant dans Césarée.

J'ai changé d'une semaine à l'autre pendant neuf mois. Et elle était toujours là, en France. J'y entrait les mercredis à 8 heures 30, je laissais tout dernière moi. Cette heure et demi me laissait une sensation douce que durait jusqu'au matin suivant, quand jeudi commençait.

Et si quelque semaine, mercredi était trop loin, je prenais mes photocopies et je lisais pour le plaisir de sentir les mots rouler dans la bouche, en se coulant par les lèvres. J'étais déjà un peu là.

Quando lavora non ha bisogno dei denti
ma le unghie quelle sì e le affila con la lima
che userebbe per evadere se non fosse di cartone
e la sua prigione il corpo grasso e capiente

Le si è imbizzarita la dolcezza
e ora non sa più che farsene

Una parola gentile al vedovo habitué
che le vuole baciare i polsi chissaperché
Un analgesico al macellaio che ha la cefalea da rimorso
e i baci risparmiati al figlio di Marianne che ha diritto a labbra piu fresche

Tutto in lei si fa strada e accorre
rabbia, sentimenti e lussuria

e mentre nella sua stanza batte il sole
lei batte i marciapiedi e fuma senza sosta

Vede, signora, a me piacciono le poesie

Ha un anello con una pietra azzurra e un reggipetto nero che occhieggia dalla scollatura,
Cerca nella borsa e pesca un quadernino, sceglie una pagina:

A Jeanne, l’amore mio del sabato

"L'amour n'est pas seulement un sentiment,
il est aussi un art"

- Honoré de Balzac -

Ora il sorriso irradia lampi ed i suoi occhi riconoscono
i giorni buoni e quelli d’archiviare.

Chiude la borsa, è tempo di rientrare.

Forse ho capito, le baciava i polsi perché sua moglie si tagliò le vene.

La strada diventa larga e il traffico scorre come il tempo.

macellaio:
perdonami signore, se ho molto peccato.

signore: peccato.
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[audio http://www.rapida.typepad.com/filosofia/files/02_que_restetil_de_nos_amours.mp3]

La vita non ci chiede di esser perfetti, ci chiede lungimiranza e sacrifici senza sangue.
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Agora, um monumento que visitávamos pela sua complexa arquitetura feita nos antigos tempo, não é nada mais que um cemitério. O Stonehenge, um monumento megalítico da Idade do Bronze, "foi utilizado como cemitério desde a sua construção até ao seu abandono final, por volta de meados do terceiro milénio a.C.. Os restos de cremações da época em que Stonehenge foi construído são apenas parte do que foi encontrado e pertenceriam a este período tardio demonstrando que este local foi um sítio reservado aos mortos muito mais tempo do que aquele que julgávamos”, comenta Parker Pearson, que liderou, com a National Geographic, o chamado Stonehenge Riverside Archeological Project.

Contudo, as "celebridades" encontradas neste "cemitério" correspondem a uma única família pertencente à elite da época e seus descendentes, naquilo que poderia constituir uma autêntica linha dinástica, segundo a opinião de Andrew Chamberlain, colega de Parker Pearson na Universidade de Sheffield e perito em demografia da antiguidade. Um dos indícios que Chamberlain aponta é o contraste entre o pequeno número de enterramentos das primeiras fases da jazida e o aumento considerável dos mesmos nos séculos seguintes, o que significaria um natural aumento da descendência. Outro dos elementos que sustentam esta teoria é o carácter monumental da jazida. Nas palavras de Parker Parson “é muito difícil pensar que as pessoas comuns fossem enterradas em Stonehenge. Pelo contrário, tudo aponta para a existência de uma elite. Assim, os chefes de uma tribo do Neolítico não só seriam os responsáveis por erigir o monumento como teriam inclusivamente sido enterrados ali”.

Um belo lugar para descansar. Por que depois da morte, mesmo assim, no fim, nos colocam nestes lugares de grande e inspirada beleza, como o Cemitério do Père Lachaise ou, o recentemente descoberto cemitério, o monumento Stonehenge? Por que o ser humano, no seu fim, precisa descansar em paz e beleza? Digo nós, imaginando-nos reis ou grandes celebridades da cultura mundial. O resto de nós, mortais, nos contentamos com um lugarzinho espremido no cemitério do Caju se tiver espaço, ou, então, não morrer, levando em conta a falta de sepulturas aqui no algarve português.

Para Ler sobre "Arte, História, Turismo e Lazer Nos Cemitérios Da Cidade de São Paulo".
Para Ler Mais sobre Novas Descobertas no Stonehenge em Ciência Hoje.

Foto: Grant Faint