Eddie Zuckermandel and the Cat

I had never heard of Alice Neel until I came across the picture above online recently. She's described as a major twentieth century portraitist, but I'm uninformed about the art world. I'm glad to find her. I think this work is striking. There is a 2007 documentary film about her life, which can be viewed online here. It left me feeling sorry for her children.

Alice Neel (1900-1984) was born in Pennsylvania, the third of four children. In 1925 she married a Cuban painter and moved to Havana, where her art found appreciation. In 1927 they moved to New York with their infant daughter, who died of diphtheria just before her first birthday. They had a second child in 1928, but in early 1930 the father took the child and moved back to Cuba. Devastated, Neel suffered a nervous breakdown and was hospitalized. After a suicide attempt and a year in the hospital, she was released and eventually returned to New York. She never divorced or re-united with her husband. She did have two more children -one in 1939 by a night-club singer who left her in 1940, and another in 1941 by a communist activist who left her in 1955 to marry someone else.

Neel died of colon cancer on October 13, 1984, when she was 84 years old. Four years before her death she painted a self-portrait, a nude:

NPR says,

Neel commented that "the reason I did it was because my own face bores me. I can't bear that little Anglo-Saxon face. But with the whole body, there are strange things going on -- the flesh is falling off the bones...I always had bad feet -- I have a prehensile big toe and there's a leg that as a leg is frightful, but as a work of art, it's gorgeous."

Neel is naked in the painting, save for a pair of eyeglasses, which was her way of saying "look, I'm someonebody who looks. That's who I am. I'm somebody who inspects, I'm somebody who scrutinizes."

*******

"Art is not as stupid as human conversation." -Alice Neel

*******

In 1959 she appeared in a short Beat film named Pull My Daisy. The film was adapted by Jack Kerouac from one of his plays. You can watch it compliments of Vimeo.com:

Pull My Daisy (Robert Frank 1959) from Vladimir on Vimeo.

This video is a 15 minute staff-led overview of Alice Neel's life and times and a more in-depth exploration of one of her portraits:

The photo at the top of the post is from Victoria Miro, where there was a recent exhibition of Neel's work.

I'm scheduling this post as I can, because we're having internet issues here. Please share your T(ea)-related interests (you did notice the cup in that painting at the top of the post, yes?) over at Bluebeard and Elizabeth's weekly gathering.

The Children of the Night: A Book of Poems

I read The Children of the Night: A Book of Poems by Edwin Arlington Robinson (1869-1935) to meet the Read Harder Book challenge. It counts unsurprisingly as a collection of poetry. It was published in 1919 and can be read online here. Robinson won the Pulitzer Prize for poetry in 1922 (Collected Poems), 1925 (The Man Who Died Twice), and 1928 (John Brown's Body).

Robinson had a sad childhood beginning when his parents wanted a girl and so didn't get around to naming him. He had a disappointing love life with his chosen one choosing his brother and continuing to reject him even after that marriage ended miserably. His childhood home is a National Historic Landmark, though it is privately owned.

This is the first poem in this collection:

The Children of the Night

For those that never know the light,
The darkness is a sullen thing;
And they, the Children of the Night,
Seem lost in Fortune's winnowing.

But some are strong and some are weak, —
And there's the story. House and home
Are shut from countless hearts that seek
World-refuge that will never come.

And if there be no other life,
And if there be no other chance
To weigh their sorrow and their strife
Than in the scales of circumstance,

'T were better, ere the sun go down
Upon the first day we embark,
In life's imbittered sea to drown,
Than sail forever in the dark.

But if there be a soul on earth
So blinded with its own misuse
Of man's revealed, incessant worth,
Or worn with anguish, that it views

No light but for a mortal eye,
No rest but of a mortal sleep,
No God but in a prophet's lie,
No faith for "honest doubt" to keep;

If there be nothing, good or bad,
But chaos for a soul to trust, —
God counts it for a soul gone mad,
And if God be God, He is just.

And if God be God, He is Love;
And though the Dawn be still so dim,
It shows us we have played enough
With creeds that make a fiend of Him.

There is one creed, and only one,
That glorifies God's excellence;
So cherish, that His will be done,
The common creed of common sense.

It is the crimson, not the gray,
That charms the twilight of all time;
It is the promise of the day
That makes the starry sky sublime;

It is the faith within the fear
That holds us to the life we curse; —
So let us in ourselves revere
The Self which is the Universe!

Let us, the Children of the Night,
Put off the cloak that hides the scar!
Let us be Children of the Light,
And tell the ages what we are!

Seven Years In Tibet

Seven Years In Tibet is a 1952 travel narrative telling the story of Heinrich Harrer's escape from a British internment camp in India and his and his fellow inmate's attempts to enter Tibet. They were finally successful and spent several years in Lhasa where Harrer got to know the 14th (and current) Dalai Llama. The book ends with the Chinese invasion of Tibet.

This is a fascinating read, an interesting picture of a place now lost forever. There are some photographs, which add a lot to the reading. I think if there were a coffee table book with more and larger pictures, it would be well worth having. I haven't looked to see if such a thing exists.

There have been 2 films based on the book: the first is a 1956 documentary, and the second a 1997 film starring Brad Pitt.

from the back of the book:

The astonishing adventure classic about

life in hidden Tibet just before the Chinese

Communist takeover.

In this vivid memoir, Heinrich Harrer recounts his adventures as one of the first Europeans ever to enter Tibet. After escaping from a British internment camp in India during World War 11, Harrer trekked across Asia, ending up in the Forbidden City of Lhasa, penniless, and without proper permission to be in the area. But Tibetan hospitality and his own curious appearance worked in Harrer’s favour, allowing him unprecedented acceptance among the Tibetan upper classes –including a young Dalai Lama.

The Devil Bat

The Devil Bat is a 1940 black and white horror movie starring Bela Lugosi.

This bat makes cawing sounds. Terrifying! And a mysterious ingredient involved in the murders comes from Tibet.

via Youtube:

1000 Misspent Hours says, " It’s reassuring to know that even after all these years, I can still find movies that leave me wondering how they could possibly have gotten made."

Werewolf of London

Werewolf of London is a 1935 Universal Pictures horror movie with Henry Hull as the first feature film werewolf. Spring Byington plays a dippy aunt and is a real scene-stealer.

This film starts off in Tibet and in that segment misplaces one of the actors who is never seen again. I still wonder what happened to the good Dr.'s companion. I picture him still sitting on that rock. Ah, well, that's not the worst thing about this film. I honestly couldn't tell whether or not some scenes were supposed to be funny.

The New York Times review written at the film's release says

Designed solely to amaze and horrify, the film goes about its task with commendable thoroughness, sparing no grisly detail and springing from scene to scene with even greater ease than that oft attributed to the daring young aerialist. Granting that the central idea has been used before, the picture still rates the attention of action-and-horror enthusiasts.

100 Misspent Hours offers this mixed praise:

Despite its sometimes dragging pace, often ridiculous script, unnecessary and unfunny comic relief, and implausibly portrayed supporting characters, Werewolf of London is among the more entertaining 1930’s horror films I’ve seen.

Arbogast on Film examines Valerie Hobson's scream. Goatdog has a review.

trailer:

The Dowsing of the Torch

China ain't winnin' the public relations race in the pre-Olympics festivities, that's for sure. There have been effective protests in Greece (when the torch was lit), in London, in France -BBC report here- (where police had assured all that security would be impenetrable) and now California (where the torch has yet to arrive).

The Housing Panic blog has some pictures, a video and an interesting suggestion. BoingBoing has had some posts on the ongoing news.

4/8/2008:

Pew Forum reports:

A federal religious freedom watchdog panel has urged President Bush to boycott the opening ceremonies of the Beijing Olympics unless "there is substantial improvement" in China's treatment of Tibet.

The U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom said China must open "direct and concrete talks" with the Dalai Lama, the exiled spiritual and political leader of Tibetan Buddhism, before Bush attends the opening ceremonies.

If those talks do not occur, the nine-member commission called on Bush to first visit the Tibetan capital of Lhasa, and urged Bush to request a meeting with Chinese political prisoners or dissidents during his visit.

Yahoo sports reports:

No person with even a modicum of sense could have believed the Olympics would cause China to reverse course on human rights, democracy, freedom and the environment. To believe it overnight would turn into Switzerland is not gambling, it's insanity.

Nor would anyone think that freedom seekers in Tibet, their cries mostly ignored for the last 50 years, would decide to just stand down as world attention finally turns to them just because they didn't want to embarrass the very government they believe persecutes them.
...
The Olympic torch makes its lone appearance in the United States Wednesday when it will be run along the waterfront in San Francisco. Crowds of protestors are expected to jeer its every flicker, if not try to extinguish it. This comes after disruptions in Greece, England and France as regular citizens do what little they can to rage against Chinese oppression and IOC corruption.

Death in Tibet

The death toll is rising.

Faith Central has some links, the BBC says, "At least 80 people have been killed in unrest following protests by Tibetans against Chinese rule, the Tibetan government in exile says. Indian-based officials said the figure was confirmed by several sources, even though China put the death toll at 10," the VOA reports that "Chinese authorities continued to level blame for the violence at what it calls "the Dalai clique," headed by Tibet's exiled spiritual leader the Dalai Lama, who lives in northern India," and CNN, the Telegraph and others report that the Dalai Lama has called for UN investigations into the "cultural genocide" of the Tibetan people.

BoingBoing's update.

3/18/2008:

from the BBC:

Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao has accused the Dalai Lama of masterminding the recent days of demonstrations against Chinese rule in Tibet's capital, Lhasa.

Mr Wen said the exiled Tibetan spiritual leader's claim of "cultural genocide" was "nothing but lies".

The Dalai Lama denied he was behind the unrest and said he would resign from the government-in-exile if it worsened.

I wondered when China would attack

and it didn't take them long. The Tibetans began their peaceful march on Monday. As The Guardian reports:

"When we get to the border we will face the Chinese," he said without saying where or when they planned to cross it. Marchers, including Buddhist monks and nuns as well as young people born in exile who have never seen Tibet, said they were hoping to reinvigorate the Tibetan freedom movement. They set off on the 49th anniversary of a 1959 uprising in Tibet against Chinese rule, which was crushed by the People's Liberation Army, driving the Dalai Lama into exile. "With the Olympics in China, and the Chinese government using this platform to legitimise its illegal occupation of Tibet, we are demonstrating that Tibet belongs to Tibetans and we will never give up until Tibet is independent," Rigzin said.

BoingBoing has video and links on the story and reports of the new story that the Chinese have responded to the spreading protest with violence.

Times Online says:

Witnesses described helmeted soldiers firing teargas yesterday to try to disperse more than 600 monks as they attempted to march out of the Sera monastery on the edge of Lhasa. The monks were forced to halt virtually at the gates of the monastery, after police at a station just outside the main entrance called in the military.

The monks, shouting “Release our people”, demanded the return of 11 monks detained on Monday after staging an anti-Chinese protest in front of the Jokhang Temple — the holiest site in Tibetan Buddhism — in the heart of the city. That protest coincided with demonstrations by about 500 monks from the sprawling Drepung monastery just outside Lhasa.

China's response includes a halt to Everest summits in the area they control, delaying all climbs. The Independent reports:

China is denying mountaineers permission to climb its side of Mount Everest this spring, a move that reflects government concerns that Tibet activists may try to disrupt plans to carry the Olympic torch up the world's tallest peak.
...
It comes as China's much-criticised rule of Tibet, which has long been an emotive issue, heats up and joins a slew of other issues pressure groups want the authorities to confront in the run-up to August's Beijing Olympics.

The Guardian had reported that

When the marchers stopped last night near the northern Indian city of Dharamsala in the Kangra district, the seat of the Tibetan government-in-exile, the local police chief Atul Fulzele warned that they would not be allowed to leave the district, following a recommendation from the Indian government.

But Tenzin Tsundue, one of the march leaders, said this morning that the protesters would ignore the police order.

And now the original marchers have been arrested in India. from the NYTimes:

NEW DELHI — A group of Tibetan exiles in northern India who began a six-month march this week to protest China’s control of their homeland were arrested on Thursday, and went on a hunger strike they say will continue until they are released.

The marchers — more than 100 people, mostly monks and nuns — were arrested early Thursday in the northern Indian state of Himachal Pradesh, after the police seized a well-known activist in their group and the rest of the marchers linked arms and sat in the road in protest. The group started their trek from Dharamsala, the seat of the Tibetan government in exile, on Monday, the anniversary of a failed uprising in Tibet in 1959. They planned to reach the Tibetan capital of Lhasa in August, as the Olympics Games open in Beijing.

The Voice of America explains:

New Delhi has given shelter to tens of thousands of Tibetan refugees, but it does not allow them to mount anti-Chinese public protests.

Rigzin, who is one of the organizers of the march, says it is a non-violent protest and should be allowed to go on.

"We have said it, all, along, that our march to Tibet is completely non-violent… We have not caused any problems to anyone along the way, whatsoever. We are just a bunch of peaceful monks and nuns, along with some lay people. We are just marching along the road and we are not committing any crime. So, the march should go on," Rigzin said.

It is interesting that India, the beneficiary of Gandhi's peaceful protests should prohibit peaceful protests within its borders.

3/14/2008 update:

from Bloomberg.com:

Chinese troops sealed off three of Lhasa's largest monasteries after Tibet's biggest protests in almost 20 years deteriorated into violence, with shops and police cars set ablaze.

and now the BBC reports people are dead:

An emergency official told AFP news agency that many people had been hurt and an unspecified number had died.

from AFP:

BEIJING (AFP) — The Tibetan capital Lhasa erupted in deadly violence Friday as security forces used gunfire to quell the biggest protests against Chinese rule in two decades, officials and rights groups said.

The protests, which spread outside Tibet into other areas of China, came amid a growing international campaign by Tibetans to challenge Beijing's rule of the Himalayan region ahead of the Olympic Games in August.

Several people lost their lives and many others were injured in Lhasa on Friday, an official at the city's medical emergency centre told AFP, with Radio Free Asia reporting at least two people had been killed by Chinese bullets.

BoingBoing has an update that includes this:

At a demonstration outside the United Nations in New York, Psurbu Tsering of the Tibetan Association of New York and New Jersey said its members received phone calls from Tibet claiming 70 people had been killed and 1,000 arrested. The reports could not be verified.

There are many links at the BoingBoing site for more information.

3/15/2008:

The Tibetan government in exile has pleaded with the UN to intervene in the crisis as violence escalates. from the AFP:

Tibet's government-in-exile on Saturday demanded the United Nations intervene to end what it called "urgent human rights violations" by China in the region following deadly protests.

The exiled government in Dharamshala in northern India, home to Tibetan spiritual leader the Dalai Lama, also said it had received "unconfirmed reports that about 100 people had been killed and martial law imposed in Lhasa."

"The Tibetan parliament urges the UN to send representatives immediately and intervene and investigate the current urgent human rights violations in Tibet," the administration said in a statement.

BBC reports that, "The authorities in Tibet have given anti-Chinese demonstrators until Monday to surrender."

Prophetic Reincarnation

The Dalai Lama has responded to China's announcement that he can't reincarnate without their permission with word that he may choose his own successor.

"If the Tibetan people want to keep the Dalai Lama system, one of the possibilities I have been considering with my aides is to select the next Dalai Lama while I'm alive," he told Japan's Sankei Shimbun in an interview published Tuesday.

The Dalai Lama has said the Tibetan people will not accept a successor chosen by the Chinese government. The BBC has the story and some background information. The Associated Press has also written the story.

Bush and the Dalai Lama

Today President Bush will meet with the Dalai Lama anyway, even though China has expressed "fury" over the meeting.

More news on the topic:

Voice of America

Forbes

from the AP report:

BEIJING (AP) — China said Tuesday that a decision by the U.S. Congress to honor the Dalai Lama would "seriously" damage relations between the countries.

The Congress will give the Dalai Lama, the exiled spiritual leader of Tibet, an award this week at a ceremony attended by President Bush.

"The move will seriously damage China-U.S. relations," Foreign Ministry spokesman Liu Jianchao said. Liu did not specify how relations would be damaged if the award does take place.

He told a regular news conference that China hoped the U.S. would "correct its mistakes and cancel relevant arrangements and stop interfering in the internal affairs of China."

Bush and the Dalai Lama were scheduled to meet at the White House later Tuesday, one day before a public ceremony will be held to award the 1989 Nobel Peace Prize laureate the prestigious Congressional Gold Medal.

BBC

from the Guardian Unlimited article:

China expressed anger today at America's red carpet treatment of the Dalai Lama and warned that plans to honour him would seriously damage relations with Beijing.

Despite Chinese protests, President Bush was scheduled to meet Tibet's exiled spiritual leader later today at the White House, the first sitting US president to do so.

Tomorrow, Mr Bush is to attend a ceremony on Capitol Hill where the Dalai Lama, who won the Nobel peace prize in 1989, will receive the congressional gold medal. Past recipients of America's highest award for civilians have included Tony Blair, Winston Churchill and Nelson Mandela.

Times Online

Dalai Lama Art Exhibit

See the report and some of the portraits here at the PBS site.

Dalai Lama's Birthday

Today is the Dalai Lama's 72nd birthday. He is currently planning a trip to China where it is hoped diplomatic relations between Tibet and China can be improved.

update 7/7/07:

Coverage of the birthday celebration.

Reuters report on the talks between Tibetan envoys and the Chinese.

Book of the Dead

The Tibetan Book of the Dead: A Way of Life is a documentary about the history and current use of this book.




From the amazon.com description:

A Way of Life reveals the history of The Tibetan Book of the Dead and examines its traditional use in northern India, as well as its acceptance in Western hospices. Shot over a four-month period, the film contains footage of the rites and liturgies for a deceased Ladakhi elder and includes an interview with the Dalai Lama, who shares his views on the book's meaning and importance.

Tibetans at the Hands of the Chinese

This AP report at CNN tells the story of what happened during and after the incident on 9/30 when Chinese border guards opened fire on unarmed Tibetans.

Forty-one refugees managed to reach India, but 32 others were caught and detained. While Samten said some of those detained have since been released, he is the only member of the group known to have again tried to flee and made it.

Samten's account of his detention and flight, told to The Associated Press at a center for Tibetan refugees in Dharmsala, the home of Tibet's exiled spiritual leader, the Dalai Lama, was the first report of the fate of those captured in September.

The article concludes with these words:

Tibetans say China, which sent its troops into the Himalayan area in 1950, has attempted to destroy Tibetan Buddhist culture by flooding Tibet with China's ethnic Han majority.

China says Tibet has been part of China for centuries.

HT: Alan Arnette's climbing blog.

Here's a song commemorating the tragedy:

Where the Hell is Matt?

I don't remember when or where I first saw the first video of Matt dancing 'round the world in 2003:

but I was entranced.

Then there was the sequel:


What a trip! He has a web site at wherethehellismatt.com.

Today as I was looking at my WorldHum feed I saw they posted video of Matt explaining the genesis and evolution of his experience.

part 1:


part 2:

At about 3:40 and through about 8:20 in part 2 there is video of some penguins in Antarctica.

part 3:

At about 1:50 in part 3 he talks some about the Tibetan government in exile in India. At about 12:42 he tells the story about how he got arrested for dancing in Greece.

Tibetan Refugees Shot

BoingBoing has the story. Like the people of Tibet don't have enough problems....

Dalai Lama Honors Tintin

Tintin is the first comic book character to be honored in this way. The Dalai Lama gave "Tintin in Tibet" the Light of Truth Award for helping raise awareness of Tibet. Google's links to news stories on this is here.

I first saw the story at Religion News Blog.