A Tale of two cities, Lima and Caral.

 
Travelers arriving in Lima usually land at the busy and friendly Jorge Chavez International Airport. It feels like a department store: all duty free goods are available for arriving passengers. Shop attendants welcome passengers with spray perfume in hands. Travelers have then to go through the usual airports hassles, immigration, and luggage collection; there is the additional hurdle of an x- ray tunnel for luggage. No problem really, unless you are a mule, i.e., a drug smuggler. Civility however ends at the door of the terminal.
Driving in Lima is not recommended for the faint of heart. Limeños, as the inhabitants of Lima are known, take traffic rules in utmost contempt. Taxi drivers define their driving style as alternatively offensive or defensive, depending on the comparative size of their vehicle in any given traffic situation. Obviously, bigger is better in Lima. Literally speaking, truck and SUV drivers usually get away with murder. Driving is so reckless and dangerous that some 500 cyclists recently decided to demonstrate. To make sure that people paid attention, they rode naked in the city; their mobile protest created a buzz and gridlock. After a day in Lima traffic, one wished that Humvees would be available for rent.
Visitors are also puzzled by the weather and the color of the sky. In summer, the blue sky may suddenly turn grey with dark clouds and thick fog but it doesn’t rain. In winter a sea mist engulfs the city, bringing moisture but rarely rain. This phenomenon has a specific name: la garúa. La garúa comes in all shades of grey; actually grey is inaccurate, it is rather dirty beige: the color of the earth, the color of the pre-colonial ruins and the color of most of the houses.
With 9 million inhabitants, Lima is the second largest desert city in the world after Cairo, the Egyptian capital. The coastal desert of Peru is also one of the driest in the world. Lima is a rather characterless city. Many people even question how its derelict historic center deserved an UNESCO Heritage site listing. Lima could easily be dismissed save for its magnificent museums, the hustle bustle of its Chinatown, the rich gastronomy and its tempting silver market.
Lima’s residential suburbs are very spread out, on the model the urban sprawls of the West Coast of the United States. The housing density is small. High rises are still few in the quaint suburb of San Isidro; many green areas including an 18-hole golf course, have notably been preserved. Now and again, the uniformity of San Isidro’s bourgeois housing pattern is broken by the sight of mini fortresses guarded by heavily armed men. A foreign flag usually flies on top of the gate. San Isidro’s claim to fame is the 1996-97 hostage-taking crises in the residence of the Japanese Ambassador. Even before this dramatic event, Lima’s embassies had always been surrounded by high walls for protection against terrorism.
However, high walls did not deter the daring raid by 14 Tupac Amaru guerrilleros in December 1996. On the contrary, these walls prevented the escape of the hundreds of dignitaries trapped inside. The stand-off lasted for 126 days. Finally in April 1997, the Peruvian Special Forces blasted a hole in the roof and tunneled their way into the residence and freed the 72 remaining hostages. One hostage was killed in the raid and all the captors were summarily dispatched to an unknown location. Now, under Human Rights new legislation, family members of the guerilleros are suing the army.
The hostages ‘ordeal makes good reading. It notably inspired American novelist Ann Patchett. She wrote a novel titled “Bel Canto”. This best seller explores the relationship between captors and captives and the impact of opera music on people with a very different background.
Now, every foreign ambassador worth his salt is living in a dungeon. The new residence of the Japanese ambassador stands out. Its high walls and metal fences look like a castle out of a Harry Potter film. An empty lot is all that is left of the former residence where the siege took place. It is for sale.
The heydays of urban warfare are gone; this is not to say that Peru is not totally free of terrorists, guerrilleros or freedom fighters. This writer is not qualified to make the distinction between these terms, subtlety of which escapes her. Many former guerrillero movements have diversified their activities, with political activism being a front for more lucrative drug trafficking. Today Lima is enjoying more peaceful days.
Peace-loving tourists must visit the Sacred City of Caral. The ruins of the city lay in the rocky coastal desert, some 120 kilometers north of Lima. What makes Caral so extraordinary, is not the site which is remarkable in itself, but the exceptional story of the


                       Caral: Lunar desert and two of the six pyramids.
archeological discovery.  Caral is still a place few tourists have heard of. It takes over two hours to get to the site in the Supe Valley. The last 26 kms are on a dirt road. Before reaching Caral, cars have to pull out at the gate of a chicken battery farm. Disinfection of the vehicles is the first stop on the way to Caral. Intensive chicken farming is big business in Peru; to avoid contamination the majority of the farms are scattered in the desert near Lima. Their dusty white sheds add to the overall desolation of the area.
The fascinating story of Caral only started to unfold in 1994 when the first pyramids were identified by Ruth Shady Solis, a Peruvian archeologist. The site had been known since 1905, but it had been dismissed as marginal because no ceramic artifacts were found. In 2001, radio-carbon dating confirmed that the settlement was the oldest in Latin America, dating from 2600 BC. This news caused disbelief among the archeologists. Many had to make drastic revisions to their theories. Caral was a millennium older than previously believed!
Furthermore the warfare model which had been taken for granted as the underpinning of city building had to be thrown out. In the Americas, most pre-Colombian cities were built to protect the population. In Caral no weapons or mutilated bodies were found, only tools for agriculture, nets for fishing and musical instruments. Therefore Caral had not been established to protect its inhabitants from quarrelsome neighbors, but to enjoy peaceful activities and trade. Life must have been quite idyllic in Caral during its heyday when 3000 people lived there. Since there is no evidence of ceramics, the people were certainly eating their food raw. The city was opened to visitors in 2006 and became a UNESCO Heritage site in 2009.
Not only is the Sacred City of Caral the oldest known civilization of the Americas, it is the third oldest in the world after that of Mesopotamia and China. It is contemporaneous to Egypt and a couple of hundred years older than the Giza Pyramids. With its 626 hectares, Caral is the largest and most grandiose settlement of the Supe Valley. Life in Caral lasted for some 400 years before declining; the city was later abandoned. Why did the population flee? Did they move to a greener area or to the coast? Since there is no indication of violence or destruction, archeologists believe that drought may have compelled the residents to leave the area. Obviously, archeologists are still looking for clues.
Despite its archeological significance, Caral is not as breathtaking as Machu Picchu which stunning beauty is unparalleled. Cusco, the Inca capital has more appeal than Lima. However Peru’s capital deserves a little more respect thanks to its five impressive museums, most of them set up by private collectors: Museum Larco Herera (pre-Colombian ceramics, including erotic ones); museum Andres del Castillo (Peruvian minerals and Chancay ceramics); museum Pedro de Osma (colonial art); museum Amano (pre-Colombian weavings) and the Gold museum (mish-mash of gold artifacts, ceramics, and weapons). Savvy shoppers will head for the silverware market of Salaverry St in the Surquillo suburb. Last but not least, Limeños take their food seriously, and tourists cannot miss savoring a ceviche made from raw fish and sea food marinated in lime juice and chilies. Like in Caral, present-day Peruvians eat their fish raw.
http://whc.unesco.org/en/list/1269
http://www.myspace.com/video/pat/peru-caral-bbc/34547931

SALZBURG: AN HAVEN OF RESISTANCE?

 
Setting foot in Salzburg, Austria is like stepping back in time. This statement sounds like a cliché to describe a city whose reputation and business depend on an 18^th century wunderkind and a mid-20^th century family choir. Mozart and the Trapp kids aside, Salzburg is at least five years behind other European cities on the political correctness scale. Not only do the locals still smoke in restaurants and bars, but drivers have little use for seatbelts.
Is Mozart’s home town a haven of resistance to modern diktat? Or is the city still in a time warp? Since I am unaware of any study commissioned by the Brussels bureaucrats on this matter, I cannot express an informed opinion. However I suspect that the home town of the Sound of Music is far from being the bland playground for family it would like to have tourists believe. When scratching the gelded surface of the baroque landmarks, one finds some wicked stories.
By promoting the Trapp family values, Salzburg authorities may want to conceal less virtuous stories. In Salzburg, family values are a rather modern concept. Until Napoleon unleashed his brand of creative destruction on the city, from the early Middle Ages without interruption Salzburg had been ruled by autocratic prince archbishops. One of the most notable and colorful was Wolf Dietrich Von Raitenau who during the 17^th century razed the mediaeval town to re-build it in his cherished baroque style. The elegant Mirabell palace is certainly his most magnificent building legacy. The palace was built as a love nest for his 15 children and his mistress, appropriately named Salomé.
If Von Raitenau’s reign ended in disgraceful fashion, it was not for having renegaded on his chastity vows. In this troubled period, the prince archbishop made some bad political decisions and paid dearly for his mistakes. He was jailed in the Hohensalzburg Fortress, the imposing medieval castle which still proudly watches over the city. Contrary to the majority of central European castles, this particular one doesn’t show wear and tear. It came under siege only once: the surrounding forces were not well-armed foreign troops but mobs of angry and hungry farmers.
In the early 1800s, when Napoleon’s troops reached the castle’s foothills, the castle surrendered without a shot. At this time medieval furnishing was no longer fashionable and no one of importance lived in the castle. The French soldiers removed whatever could be taken away. In order to efficiently sack Salzburg and avoid twice visiting the same house, the French named the streets and gave numbers to the houses. Salzburg is grateful for this initiative.
               
                 The Fortress and Man on a Golden Globe Sculpture
                                     by Stephan Balkenhol.                             
                   

The rooms of the fortress are still empty save for an impressive collection of torture devices. In these pre-water boarding times, torture was more labor intensive, but not lacking creativity, as the artifacts reveal. They may have inspired the Gestapo, which set up shop in a convent at the bottom of the castle during WWII.
To show its Nazi credentials, Salzburg held book burning fetes on the square in front of the prince archbishop’s palace. Some of these books were authored by Stefan Zweig, who had been a city resident for many years. Zweig has now been rewarded with a museum. Actually Salzburg has museums for nearly everybody and everything. Mozart, its most celebrated son, born in 1756, has not one but two museums. Obviously the tourism-fed city does not hold a grudge against the genial composer. Mozart hated the city: he felt snubbed by its rulers.
It is not all baroque in Salzburg. The city is breaking new grounds in the modern art department. It has two modern art museums, both named Der Moderne. One is located in the historic center and the new one on the Mönchberg, overlooking the city. Architecturally, the mountain museum is a strikingly provocative building. Its bunker-like structure seems to defy the mediaeval fortress which stands on the opposite side of the mountain. In an act of defiance to conservative family values, the winter exhibits bare it all! There were oversized penises, courtesy of Canadian artist Evan Penny; clitorises on the sadomasochistic photos of Nobuyoshi Araki; and naked androgynous women snapped by photographer Helmut Newton.
Artistic provocation seems to be the staple of modern art. All this pornographic art and erotic titillation were for every kinder to see. It is extraordinary that gemütlich Salzburg didn’t rate it R. Is this another act of resistance to the politically correct?
On the other hand, the winter music festival, Mozart Week, was musically correct to the hilt, with predictable artistic quality. The festival’s habitués are well behaved and don’t wear jeans like in Carnegie Hall in New York City. Many don Alpine fashion: dirndl for women and steireranzug, a loden jacket with green lapels for men, like the characters of the Sound of Music musical. With its small white apron the dirndl may be fashionable again among Austrian and Bavarian women but it very much remains a symbol of the 3 Ks, kinder, küche, kirche; children, kitchen and church and, therefore, an outdated female role model.
Mozart is still Salzburg’s poster boy but there is a new kid on the block. Dietrich Mateschitz was not born in the city but he has taken it by storm. The flamboyant and attractive looking billionaire is the owner of Red Bull the energy drink. With plenty of disposable income, he is challenging the Salzburg cultural tradition. Hangar-7, his brain child, looks like a futuristic glass airport terminal. It was built to display Mateschitz’s high-octane collection of vintage planes, racing cars and motorcycles. Being Salzburg, it is also an art center and a concert hall. Hangar-7’s claim to fame is its over-the-top restaurant. Creative cuisine is a novelty in Salzburg.  However patrons are challenged to find a table in the small smoke-free section of the restaurant.

Where Are Women Going?

“The greatest achievement for a woman is to be as seldom as possible spoken of.”

Unfortunately, the quotation still rings true today. It was written during the 4^th century BC by the Greek historian Thucydides.

When recently in New York City, I saw the entertaining film Margin Call which is roughly based on the final days of the investment bank Lehman Brothers. Over a 24-hour-period, the fiction film follows the actions of seven employees from the boss to junior traders, as they try to salvage the bank by unloading its toxic assets to clients. Demi Moore plays the head of risk management, the only woman among these Wall Street’s Magnificent Seven. Although she had warned the boss of this impending financial disaster (but no one listened) she is now slated to be the sacrificial lamb. But we only learn this later.

When the film credits were scrolling on the screen, my neighbors, two middle age women started to chat and one said with a shrug: “To be able to stay all night at the firm, this woman cannot have kids”! I had a jolt, and if she had kids? Why do women keep blaming professional women for wanting to be successful? Is motherhood the only success criteria for a woman? Actually the film raises two related issues: women’s professional achievement and the poor recognition for it, more on this later.

In my generation, women aimed for the corner office; some got there but many of them chose to stay single or childless. In the 1980s, progress was impressive, but progress brought false expectations, namely that thanks to generous maternity leaves careers could be balanced with motherhood. Too many Western women believed that they could combine home bliss with successful workplace. Business construed this as an ambition-gap and a woman’s lack of commitment to the corporate bottom line. As a result progress in the workplace stalled, private sector female salaries continued to lag behind that of their male colleagues and female occupations became increasingly segregated with less pay and subsequently smaller pension. Promotions are also increasingly biased towards women. Studies indicate that women are promoted on their performance and men are rewarded on their potential. By being constantly tested women have slower promotions. Many women have come to think that a successful career means becoming a member of the rat race and that it is not for them. Consequently, a number of successful North American women dropped out to stay home. It is a Catch-22 situation.

Early December 2011 The Economist magazine[1] ran an online debate entitled “This house believes that a woman’s place is at work”. At the end of the week-long debate, 53% of the respondents had disagreed with The Economist. Although it was meant as a quip, the title was not liked by many women respondents who thought it was too dogmatic. The debate was old-fashioned for its lack of new ideas. Apart from a couple of contributions from macho provocateurs, it was the voice of the gynecium (Thucydides probably kept his wife in one of these). One of the conclusions was that many women “were compelled to work”. In other words women would have preferred not to work but stay home with their children. Unless a majority of men join women in regarding paid work as a requirement and constraint, the work-centered and the home-centered groups of people are defined by gender determinism.

In her book The Second Sex (1949), Simone de Beauvoir asserts that women have difficulty to reconcile their reproductive and productive capacities. Both allow them to contribute to societal well-being. Beauvoir stressed that “woman is neither exclusively a worker nor exclusively a womb”. Sixty years later, women’s social contribution is still overly reduced to that of reproduction: wombs wins over brains. Wombs belong to the home and brains to the workplace where both men and women can engage their minds in creative and competitive pursuits.

According to The Economist‘s special report on women and work (November 26^th-December 2^nd, 2011), data on what is best for children are far from being clear cut. The quality of parenting depends on several elements; stay-at-home mother is one of them, significant but not fundamental. If baby-boom mothers had full time jobs at home, 21^st century mothers in OECD countries[2] have a much lighter load as their fertility has dropped to 1.7 children per woman. They also tend to be much better educated. In economic terms, these highly educated stay-at-home mothers seem to be a waste of talent and money. For the state, the return on investment is absurdly modest. In Europe, the tertiary education system is predominantly financed by the tax payers.

On the other hand, many studies have made clear that a large number of women in the higher echelons of the workforce are good for both the economy of a country and the financial and market success of companies. Similarly, countries that have the higher number of women in political decision-making are in general much better managed. In these troubled financial times, it is probably not coincidental that the Nordic countries show a better socio-economic performance than Greece, Italy, Portugal and even France. Sweden, Denmark, Netherland, Norway and Finland have an average of 40% women in parliament. Greece, Italy, Ireland and France don’t even reach 20%[3]. In some situation numbers are not relevant as women tend to be elected by parties on the left which often bestow unrealistic social benefits that the economy of a country can ill afford. E.g. by granting unrealistically long maternity leave and benefits to women only, these politicians are de facto distorting the job market, making women workers less valued than men.

The current predicaments of women in general and working women in particular result from a lack of women critical mass in decision-making positions in both workplace and political sphere. Legislation and fiscal policies should able to reconcile productivity with reproduction. Not only women’s views must be heard, but women must understand the socio-economic implications of their choices. Once again the diversity of the workplace provides a much more dynamic environment than the isolation of the home for healthy work-life balance decisions.

One cannot discuss women issues without bearing in mind the impact of globalization. There is evidence that women in emerging economies will leapfrog and achieve a higher level of political and economic empowerment than their developed economies’ sisters. The formers obviously started from a lower base. In a competitive globalized world, the deflated economies of the aging developed countries can ill afford to allow 40%[4] of their human resources cut from the productive sectors.

In China, in the 1950s, Chairman Mao Zedong got women out of the house. He liked to quote and old Chinese proverb “women hold up half the sky”. In many parts of the world this proverb is still more aspiration than reality. Many would have added that women hold the better half. Now women should run with it, and the world will be all better off.

The title of this article is a quote of a Greek philosopher who died 400 years BC. The punch line is from a 21th century woman role model Sheryl Sandberg, Facebook COO who according to Forbes magazine is the fifth most powerful woman in the world: “So, the question is, what are you going to do with it (your education)? What will you do with this education you worked so hard to achieve? What in the world needs to change, and what part do you plan on playing in changing it[5]?

This article is dedicated to four bright young women Elsa, Clémence, Tiphaine and Béatrice who are pursuing higher education. I hope that they will hear Ms. Sandberg’s message and manage a harmonious work-life balance by reaching their full potential as productive and self-reliant women.

---

[1] www.economist.com/debates
[2] The Organization for Economic Co-operation for Development, OECD has currently 32 country members; most of them are high-income economies.
[3] Ireland: 15%; Portugal: 26.5%; Greece: 17%; Italy: 21%; France: 19%. www.ipu.org
[4] OECD average: 64% women employed in 2010.
[5]http://articles.businessinsider.com/2011-05-18/tech/30071342_1_graduation-speaker-achievement-gap-young-women#ixzz1gn0PPBiG

Caught Trunk Driving

 
On Wednesday, November 9, the most wanted drug traffic boss of Rio de Janeiro was caught by Brazil special forces hidden in the trunk of a car. Antonio Bonfim Lopes better known as Nem was trying to escape the Rocinha favela the shantytown which was his business base and was under siege by the police. Scores of other less prominent gang members were also caught in the police noose. For a traficante, drug kingpin of Nem’s status, it was an anticlimactic grand finale, more soap opera than “Elite Squad” (the prized Brazilian film “Tropa de Elite”).
What is astounding about this "catch-a-drug-dealer" episode is how easy it was. At the same time, it makes a fascinating story due to the personality of the central character, as well as the frightening reputation of the Rocinha shantytown.
Rocinha is probably the largest slum in Rio de Janeiro; no one knows exactly how many people live there, any number between 70,000 and 200,000 (picture below). Rocinha is a sprawling hillside slum which divides residential Rio in two parts. It is a well-established gang sanctuary in the middle of Rio de Janeiro. During periods of gang and police confrontation, the roads are blocked and the city is de facto taken hostage.
                               
                                           

Rocinha is regarded as a drug supermarket, and Nem was reigning supreme over this multifaceted and prosperous business. In order to make Rio de Janeiro safer for the 2014 Soccer World Cup and 2016 Olympic Games, the local government has embarked on a vast favela crackdown operation. During the past two years, drug gangs and dealers have been physically removed by force from some twenty favelas around Rio. So far the pacification efforts have led to broad social improvements. These operations were regarded as dress rehearsals for the occupation and pacification of Rocinha.
Nem, 35 (see picture below) became the drug king of Rocinha in 2005 when his former alcoholic boss lost control and was subsequently killed by the police. Nem did not look the part. He ran his drug cartel as a savvy businessman rather than an unsophisticated drug trafficker. Nem filed income tax, but didn’t report any income although his revenue is estimated at US$ 5 million a month. He invested in real estate and in the health and education of his kids, not in samba schools like other drug kingpins. Nem did spread his wealth around, helping many destitute people in the shantytown. Many “needy” policemen were also on his payroll, apparently half of his profits were spent on local police “protection”.
                                                   

He is a clean-living family man, didn’t do drugs. He had zero tolerance for crack addicts, and routinely fired his employees if caught taking crack. Crack addicts fail to report to work and tend to steal to indulge their vice. Nem worked-out daily in his house’s small gym; he also built a swimming pool on the deck of his house which has a commanding view over Rocinha. 
When the federal police stopped his car, the driver claimed diplomatic immunity to avoid a car search; he argued that he was none other than the honorary consul of the Democratic Republic of Congo. This indicates some degree of geopolitical sophistication which is not a usual trait among the Rio drug barons. As the police remained unconvinced, the driver changed tack and offered a $ 570,000 bribe. This is a huge amount of money for anyone let alone a policeman. Pay scale for policemen varies greatly but it averages $ 900 a month in Rio.  However, the policeman refused and opened the trunk. A rumpled Nem got out. Since this episode the policeman who goes by the name of Disraeli (like the 19^th century English Prime Minister) has become the poster boy for honest police in Brazil!
This is the film version, the version that was offered to us to believe. Many think that the true version is slightly different. Nem is far too smart to have let the cops snatch him from the trunk of a fleeing car. His lawyer may have negotiated his surrender to the federal police in order to avoid being killed by the local police, his former business partner. Upon his arrest, the first thing Nem did was to call his mother on the phone and ensure that his kids were at school. He then exposed the rotten apples within the Rio police.
The Rocinha crackdown may be over, but another more messy one is just starting within the local police. Stay tuned.

Swindle in Provence: How to Buy a Medieval Abbey Without Money

 
In 1791, during the French Revolution, the revolutionary authorities launched a fire sale of national assets. The outstanding Montmajour Abbey, located on a rocky hill near the city of Arles in the south of France, was put on the block for the attractive price of 62,000 livres. Montmajour consisted of several buildings dating from the medieval period to the 18^th century.   A commoner, Mrs. Elisabeth Roux-Chatelard, bought the land and monastery. However, there was a major snag: She was insolvent. It was not a deterrent for the entrepreneurial lady. To make money, she striped and sold the abbey’s wooden doors, panels and roof timber. Then for good measure, she sold the stones as well; the abbey became a profitable quarry. Her demolition zeal didn’t go unnoticed. She justified her actions by stating that the 18^th century monastery that she was taking apart had been far too opulent for the  monks who should have lived in poverty.
It is worth pointing out that the monks of Montmajour have never been poor. The history of the Romanesque Benedictine Abbey of Montmajour goes back to the 10^th century. The heyday of the community was between the 12 and 14^th centuries when the abbey attracted thousands of pilgrims from all over the south of France. Successive popes and local rulers lavished privileges on the monastery. Its abbots enjoyed seigniorial rights. One of these outlandish privileges was the right to fish sturgeons in the near by Rhone River.
Moreover, these caviar-eating monks ran a lucrative indulgence business along with a relic exhibition. Indeed, Montmajour was the only abbey that could exhibit for a fee, a small piece of the True Cross of Jesus Christ. In the 12^th century, a separate chapel had to be built to
                        
                                Figure 1 Monks ‘burial ground
accommodate the overflow of the faithful. Montmajour became too wealthy for its own good. Spiritual and material prosperity rarely go hand in hand. The abbots regarded Montmajour as a cash cow and neglected the spiritual side of their tenure. The abbey was built on an island surrounded by marshes, but that was not a deterrent for uninvited guests. During the upheaval of the Hundred Years War against England it became a magnet for marauding soldiers. The religious wars of the 16^th century brought additional hardships to the community.
At that time, the abbots were no longer elected by the monks and most of them only visited the abbey to pocket the rent. Consequently, monastic duties were side-tracked and the remaining monks were left to fend for themselves. The religious authorities decided to bring some order to the community. The congregation of Saint-Maur was selected, thanks to its reputation for redressing wayward monasteries. The Maurists took control and proved better builders than spiritual saviors. Needless to say that the resident monks were neither co-operative nor appreciative of the spiritual revival imposed on them. The Maurists built the imposing monastery that Mrs. Roux-Chatelard left in ruins a century later.
                             
                         Figure 2 Montmajour Abbey in the 19th century
Montmajour suffered another indignity in the hands of the infamous Cardinal de Rohan, its last abbot. Rohan lived the high life of a debonair Parisian aristocrat who had access to the court of Louis XVI and Marie Antoinette. Like his predecessors, he was more interested in the revenues of the abbey than in its maintenance needs. He had already resigned as abbot when he got embroiled in the scandalous affair of the diamond necklace. Montmajour’s income may have been used by Rohan to buy a 2,000 livres necklace for the queen. It was an exorbitant amount of money for the period. This scandal was the first nail in the coffin of Marie Antoinette who became the poster girl for all excesses. Subsequently Rohan was expelled from the court and went into exile in the remote abbey at la Chaise-Dieu in Auvergne in central France.
Montmajour was secularized four years before the Revolution and its nine remaining monks (down from fifty) were expelled.
Mrs. Roux-Chatelard had to sell the abbey, and by the end of the revolution in 1795, Montmajour had been divided into more than twenty lots. Although the all-out destruction stopped, the indignities continued. The new owners used the still standing mediaeval buildings as barns, storage and stables. Sheep and cows were kept in the Romanesque cloister and drank out of the Count of Provence’s sarcophagi. The monk’s burial ground was also used as drinking troughs.
Mrs. Roux-Chatelard was not alone in converting historic buildings into quarries. It was a profitable business during and after the French Revolution. The near-by monastery of Saint Guilhem-le-desert was also dismantled. Sections were shipped to New York City. The Cloister of the Metropolitan Museum of Art on Fort Tryon in northern Manhattan is also the product of revolutionary zeal.
The misfortune of Montmajour ended in the mid-19^th century when several Romantic artists and painters from Arles pooled their funds to save the abbey from further degradation. A slow restoration program began. When in Arles, Vincent Van Gogh spent time in the abbey sketching its inspiring ruins and surrounding landscape. He wrote that he went 50 times to the abbey, so fascinated he was with the site. Van Gogh complained that he could not paint there because the strong mistral wind prevented him from setting up his easel.
War again brought devastation to Montmajour. During WWII, the German army used the church as a depot for confiscated weapons. In 1944, before retreating the soldiers set them on fire. It was a miracle that the roof didn’t collapse.
Arles and Montmajour have been included in the UNESCO Heritage landmark list. Montmajour is one of the special sites that one can visit over and over and always discover something new to admire. Sturgeons are no longer fished in the Rhone, Montmajour is no longer an island only accessible by boat, mosquitoes are no longer pestering the visitors, but the mistral is still blowing.
www.montmajour.monuments-nationaux.fr

Lord of the Castle: Picasso in Vauvenargues

 
“Art is the Elimination of the Unnecessary”
Pablo Picasso was a high-volume artist; he was also famous for his many witty and provocative quotes like the one above. True to his words, his Vauvenargues castle epitomizes his minimalist taste in interior decorating. Picasso was in his early 80s when he purchased the rustic and austere 17^th century castle, 20 minutes away from the city of Aix en Provence in the south of France. The castle’s setting is enchanting, nestled on a small hill in a valley next to the small village of Vauvenargues. Picasso’s castle came with extensive land at the foothill of the famous Mont Sainte-Victoire so many times painted by Paul Cézanne who lived on the other side of the ridge.


Picasso bragged about having purchased the Saint-Victoire of Cézanne. He may have been shortchanged! Although the mountain is visible from the castle, one fails to recognize it, because it looks so unremarkable. Cézanne painted the other side of Sainte-Victoire which is much more striking.
During the three years (1959-62) Picasso and his second wife Jacqueline, who was 40 years younger, spent in Vauvenargues, the castle was primarily used as an over-sized storage space for his sizeable collection of paintings by Corot, Cézanne, Matisse, Braque and many others, as well as a junk-yard for refuse Picasso collected to make his thought-provoking sculptures.
Picasso was tired of the hustle and bustle of the Riviera; the castle’s peaceful surroundings offered a welcome change. Both countryside and castle reminded him of his beloved Spain. Actually Vauvenargues looks like many unadorned castles of Castile around Madrid. Vauvenargues was also strategically located between the Riviera and the cities of Arles and Nimes where Picasso and his aficionados travelled to enjoy bullfights.
When Picasso bought the castle its walls were bare, having been stripped of their fineries by the previous owners. Picasso bought some basic furniture, had heating installed and a bathroom built. He painted a faun playing the pipe on the bathroom wall to keep Jacqueline company, but Vauvenargues was too isolated, cold and uncomfortable for her taste.
The castle is as it was when the couple left for good in 1962, minus the art collection which was relocated to Mougins on the Riviera, their last home. Picasso gave Jacqueline the castle causing resentment and a feud between Jacqueline and Picasso’s four children from previous relationships. After his death in 1973, Jacqueline brought his body to Vauvenargues to be buried. The unmarked grave is located under a grassy mound by the castle’s front door. It is guarded by a monumental sculpture. Jacqueline committed suicide in 1986 and her body is resting next to Picasso’s.
Vauvenargues remained a well-kept secret for the following 20 years. Jacqueline‘s daughter by her first husband inherited the property and kept it closed to visitors. The village folks do not seem to have welcomed Picasso in the first place. After his death, they took action to prevent the castle from becoming a shrine and cause traffic havoc in the quaint valley. Now visitors are allowed during the summer months from mid-June to mid-September; visitors cannot roam free in the park surrounding the castle, and their number is also strictly limited. Vauvenargues is worth a visit. There is little so see, but much to feel: Picasso’s spell is overpowering.
Before starting the guided tour, visitors are invited to watch a short film on Picasso’s busy life in Vauvenargues. The artist is surrounded by the devoted and adoring Jacqueline, kids, and dogs. He seemed to enjoy the country life. Never a fashion icon, he usually wears casual and mismatched clothes, like a striped pullover and tartan trousers. He looks very healthy and fit for an 80 year old man. In 2011, the tour included a display of etchings made during the last years of his life.
Picasso once stated “There are only two types of women- goddesses and doormats.” I wonder how many of each type he had among his many muses, mistresses and wives.

DSK: Post Mortem

The French Socialists are celebrating.  As of Tuesday, August 23, Dominique Strauss Kahn, DSK, their champion, is a free man.  A New York City judge has dismissed the sex case against him.

There won't be a trial, not because DSK did nothing in room 2806, but because his alleged victim, Ms. Nafissatou Diallo, the hotel maid, did too much. Actually she lied too much.  Since the accuser lost her credibility, the prosecutor felt he "could not prove the case before a jury beyond a reasonable doubts." 

The forensic evidence only indicates a hurried sexual encounter between Diallo and DSK without visible violence.  It is a text book case of "she says, he says". She claims a sexual assault.  He insists on a consensual sexual encounter.

DSK's statement looks totally ludicrous to me.  This aspect seems to be lost on the French Socialists.  Is this the latest NYC fairy tale: a tryst between a rich white man and a poor African maid in a discounted hotel suite?  Do you believe it?

For sure, something sleazy took place in the Sofitel suite. If the sexual encounter didn't involve violence, the truth may be found half way between the two opposing claims.  It could have happened like this: the male client requests a quick sexual service and for some reason the service provider, the maid doesn't receive the expected reward, she is upset and feels cheated.  We know what happened next.

So desperate to defeat Sarkozy, the incumbent president, the Socialist party places all its hopes in reviving DSK's political fortune.  I sincerely hope that female voters won't forget that a woman got the short end of the stick, literally speaking, in this story.  

This case may prove to be another setback for legitimate victims of sexual assault. The alleged victim’s past gets thoroughly scrutinized; she is put on trial before the trial. Unless she is totally virgin, she won’t get justice. On the other hand the alleged sexual predator walks out cleared without going through cross-examination.