There is no free lunch in Jackson, Wyoming.

 

Jackson Hole is a mountain ski resort located at the southern tip of Grand Teton National Park in the state of Wyoming. If the top one percent of Americans in terms of wealth ski in Aspen Colorado, the 1% of the 1% head to Jackson Hole. At the end of my winter tour of Yellowstone National Park, I visited the town of Jackson which lies below in the valley; it qualifies as “posh rustic”.

                                 Grand Teton Mountain Range.

After indulging on wildlife and raw nature in Yellowstone National Park, I was ready for culture and history in Jackson. I paid a visit to the small museum of the Historical Society. Although native hunter-gatherers and French Canadian fur trappers occasionally set up camps in the inhospitable valley, Jackson was only settled for good in the 1870s. In addition to the expected paraphernalia used by the early settlers, the walls of the museum displayed pictures from the many films which were shot around the city. I was particularly interested in the pictures from the classic Western movie Shane shot in 1953, with George Stevens the director and Alan Ladd the lead actor.

I had seen Shane in the 1960s but barely recalled the plot except for a bloody saloon scene, a staple of Western films. The pictures and their captions brought back memories and interesting tid-bits. One of the settlers’ log cabins still stands in the Gros Ventre Wilderness of the Grand Teton National Park. Although Ladd played a gunslinger, he couldn’t shoot straight, and the actor Jack Palance could not ride a horse. In spite of these shortcomings, the film was a great box office success.

The friendly on-duty guide stated that the museum needed more display space. She proudly informed me that in February 2012, Quentin Tarantino brought his film crew to Jackson to shoot footage for his latest film Django Unchained. The filmmaker uses the snow-capped Grand Teton mountain range as a backdrop for the action. I had not yet seen the film and became very curious. Subsequently, I asked my wildlife tour guide to show me some of the locations as well as the Shane legendary log cabin.

Jackson is a fitting environment for Django, the promising bounty hunter. He had recently been freed from shackles by Dr. King Schultz, a German itinerant dentist cum bounty hunter with an aversion for slavery. It is in this snowy valley that Django, the former slave gets his first on-the-job training by his smooth-operator mentor.

Django, Dr. Schultz, & human booty. Courtesy of Q. Tarantino. Grand Teton Mountain Range in the background.

On our way to check a fox den in the Gros Ventre hills, we stopped by Kelly Warm Spring where Django takes an invigorating bath. The den was empty, so we returned to the plain where a couple of lazy moose where lounging half hidden in the thick snow. We drove past the National Elk Refuge and headed back to town.

With their dead human booty, Dr. Schultz and Django are also seen riding by herds of elk and bison on their way to cash their rewards. When I finally saw the film this particular footage brought back memories of my sleigh ride in the Elk Refuge. The day was polar cold and the thick blankets thrown on our knees didn’t do much to warm fingers and feet. In winter some 7000 Rocky Mountain elk take refuge north of Jackson. It is a migration dead end as the city was built on the elk migration route towards the south. The refuge was established 101 years ago to prevent the elk from starving to death during the harsh winter months. When the native grass is gone, alfalfa pellets are distributed to supplement the elk feeding.

   

Such a large concentration of elk, big horn sheep, mule deer and bison attracts other opportunistic animals mainly bald eagle, coyotes and even wolves. “Welfare” is a word excluded from the American lexicon and the elk are not enjoying a free lunch. They actually contribute to their upkeep. Mid-March the elk start dropping their antlers; Refuge staff, helped by the Jackson District Boy Scouts, collect the antlers and organize the once a year May auction. In average, US$ 77,000 is collected. Eighty percent of the proceeds are donated to the US Fish and Wildlife Service towards the feeding program and the Refuge management.

     

Apparently, Tarantino was so taken by the magnificent herd of elk and bison that he decided to add an additional scene to his film. Django Unchained brings the elks a bonus in food and publicity. Their fees were not disclosed.

Fire and Ice: Yellowstone National Park in Winter

 

Yellowstone is one of the coldest spots in the United State of America. In winter it is appropriately referred to as the deep freeze with temperatures frequently falling to minus 66 degrees Fahrenheit (minus 54 Centigrade). Yellowstone is both frigid and white, as snow abundantly falls, even sometimes during the summer months. Some three million tourists flock to Yellowstone National Park during the April-October season. Since winter access is very restricted and the visit is not cheap, only 100,000 tourists visit between December and March. I was one of these happy few. As expected, it was polar cold and white.

But there are splendid rewards for hardy visitors. They are welcomed by spectacular crowd-free scenery, unflappable wildlife and an awe-inspiring thermal system.Yellowstone is the oldest nationally protected area in the world.

       

The park was founded in 1872 when President Ulysses S. Grant signed the Yellowstone National Park Act. At the time, ecosystem protection was both an untested and forward-thinking idea. Subsequently, the creation of the park generated a multitude of controversies, arguments and quarrels which still enliven the visits of today’s inquisitive tourists. The national park idea encapsulates the concept of sustainable development-which was coined more than a century later-namely to protect nature for today’s enjoyment without compromising the enjoyment for future generations. This concept is still polemic in the 21^st century, imagine then! Yellowstone National Park is an American icon to visitors and an abhorrence to many citizens of Montana, Idaho and Wyoming, the three states that it straddles.

Yellowstone is literally loved to death, in the grip of mass tourism in the summer months. Democratic access to the park conflicts with conservation goals and sustainability objectives. A winter visit offers a very undemocratic way of escaping this dilemma. The thick snow fittingly blankets the footsteps of mass tourism.

Yellowstone is an extinct super volcano produced by a 16.5 million years old hot spot inferno. The last eruption took place 600,000 years ago. Fire (molten rocks) rages at only 3 to 5 miles below the surface. The park is a steaming and bubbling cauldron of hot springs, fumaroles, geysers and mud pools. This cauldron is actually a restless sunk volcano, a caldera which shakes, rises and sinks as per the mood of the hot spot underneath the earth crust. Up to 5000 mild earthquakes are annually recorded.

If winter gives Yellowstone a break from human assault, the season is not free of controversies. Winter is the playground for the park’s predators, the wolves and the snowmobiles! Their respective fans are on opposite sides of the fence. The former wants more wolves and no snowmobiles. The later want unobstructed access to the park and believe that a good wolf is a dead one. My goal was to sight the wolves (reportedly a US$ 35 million a year business) in the Lamar Valley in Eastern Yellowstone and get close to the bison (another much maligned species) without being pestered by noisy and polluting snowmobiles.

 

           

Life is tough in the snow covered cauldron. If the wolves make the best of the season, their prey and the other species are struggling to stay alive. To keep warm, bison, coyote, and elk mill around geysers and hot springs, and tourists flock to the rustic warming huts. Although few, they are strategically located within the park. Their on-duty ranger is a welcome presence. Even lowly places such as the heated lavatories, become much sought after places. Yellowstone rangers are the park’s guardian angels, even more so in winter when their skills and park knowledge contribute to keeping casualties low.

Snow coach transportation is an experience not to be missed. The Bombardier snow coach, a model which has not evolved much since the 1930s, is the most fun to ride. Equipped with front skies and rear tracks, this retro snow coach can speed at 40 km per hour. During our week in Wonderland we had plenty of traffic excitement. One of our four Bombardier snow coaches drove into a ditch and had to be abandoned. Fortunately, no one was injured in this freak accident. The same day, the rear of the snow coach I was riding was hit and damaged by a speeding snowmobile. The snowmobile driver crashed on the road. Medic and doctors, all of them rangers were quick to come to the scene and the injured fellow was taken to the hospital. Reckless driving, accidents, noise and smoke pollution have compelled the park management to drastically reduce the number of snow mobiles. Mother Nature is certainly thankful.

 

        

Winter in Yellowstone is a world of superlatives. The pristine snow covered wilderness is overwhelming, intimidating and even awe inspiring. Stillness is only broken by the rumbling of the geysers, the bubbling of the mud pods, the roaring of the waterfalls and the howling of the wolves.

Winter is the best season to spot wildlife, except bears which hibernate. We spotted six healthy wolves at a distance, small brown and grey dots on the snow. With powerful spotting scopes we were able to observe the pack frolicking for half hour, until we got too cold and stiff. In January 2013, eighty one adult wolves and eight pups were recorded, down from over 120 in previous years. Disease, fight and shooting have taken their toll. A wolf venturing outside the park is a dead wolf as both the states of Montana and Wyoming authorize killing. Last year, several collared wolves were shot.

 

       

No need for spotting scopes to watch the bison; they roam everywhere. Their population is estimated at around 4000. Winter is tough on the herd. Foraging for grass under the deep snow is an exhausting activity. Bison look easygoing enough but they have a short fuse, and are fast and agile. They can charge without warning. I took a solitary morning stroll around the famed Old Faithful geyser to enjoy the geothermal activity. The ranger had warned me that there was some bison activity in the vicinity. Right he was. Suddenly, I faced a herd of females with their calves standing on my track. They were taking advantage of the warmth provided by the hot springs. It was far too cold to wait for them to move off and it was too long to go back on my track. I made my escape in a foot-deep fresh snow.

 

            

During this detour I met another local denizen. At first, I was apprehensive, a wolf or a coyote? To strengthen my resolve, I decided that it had to be an inquisitive coyote. By the time my cold-stiff fingers reached for my camera in my warm pocket (batteries lose their energy in subfreezing temperatures) the beast had disappeared into the bushes. I walked fast towards Old Faithful looking over my shoulder. Later, I was told that coyotes customarily lurk in this area.

 

                

The winter wilderness of Yellowstone is a world of contrasts, serene and eerie, gentle and wild, still and thundering, ethereal and earthy. I found the mist-shrouded West Thumb Geyser Basin particularly intriguing and inspiring. Words cannot describe the beauty of this surreal landscape. The color, light and thermal activity keep changing during the day. It is a magical show of ice, snow, colorful fumarole and haze.

 

                   

In winter, days are short and temperature is extremely cold. Many landmarks are off limit, as only bits of the park are accessible by snow coach. Walking, snowshoeing and cross country skiing are challenging in deep snow, and do not get you very far. The bitter cold forced me to restrict my exploration. Between my hourly visits to the dependable Old Faithful Geyser, I reluctantly stayed indoors and warmed up by the fire place of the Old Faithful Snow Lodge. Because so few people are fortunate enough to visit the park in winter you feel privileged to be part of an unspoiled but glacial Wonderland.

Lula, Dilma and Pelé: Brazil, a country of first names and creative monikers.

 For eight years Brazil was headed by President “Squid”. The former president was universally referred to as Lula, squid in Portuguese, his trade-union-days nickname. Now Dilma is holding the office. Dilma is her first name; in Brazil she is very rarely referred to as President Rousseff. Pelé is a soccer icon, few people actually know or even bother with his real name, Edson Arantes do Nascimento.  Joaquim, and Macarrão are two names which are currently making the front pages of newspapers in Brazil.

Over the past month, they have become household names. Joaquim is a first name and Macarrão is a nickname (Portuguese for macaroni). But these two persons cannot be further apart. Joaquim Benedito Barbosa Gomes is a judge and the new president of the Brazilian supreme court. Macarrão, a handy man cum driver, is now in jail for helping his boss, Bruno, murder his mistress. Bruno, a famous soccer player, is awaiting his own trial. Macarrão’s real name is Luiz Henrique Romão, which was certainly mentioned in court but not in the street. Macarrão is a common nickname given to men and domestic animals that are laid back or tend to get confused and muddle-headed.                 




Many Brazilians are not called by the names which are typed on their ID cards. It may be just as well, as names are traditionally very long. Surnames are commonly double barreled. Brazilians have long been legendary for their single-name tags. This tradition carries an additional exotic element, as creative nicknames often replace the given first name. Soccer players notably use nicknames, a common practice in sport. Yet the national love for informality and whimsical monikers often lead to the ridiculous and the vulgar.

Sociologists have long indicated that referring to a person by his or her first name was very much a “New World” practice. Brazilian phone books still list people by their first names instead of their surnames.  When this blogger first came to Brazil to work in a large mining company, she was referred to as Dra Beatriz, or Dr. Beatriz. Her immediate boss went by the title of Dr. Lyrio, his surname; another boss of hers was identified as Dr. Breno, his first name. The highly respected CEO of the company was universally known as Dr. Eliezer, his Christian name. Local conventions are loose; background, personality, track record and lifestyle may influence the choice of name and nicknames.

Brazil doesn’t seem to have any baby-naming law. In Brazil as in the United States of America, parents can name their babies almost anything. However, Brazilians are head and shoulders above the Americans in terms of creativity when selecting the names of their children. True, the registry officer may object to a name which could cause ridicule or be offensive. Yet in the north-east region of Brazil unconventional and improbable names are routinely registered. Parents seem to have great expectations for their offspring as the list below implies. Among a very long list, these names stand out: Anjo Gabriel Rodrigues Santos (Gabriel Archangel).
Dysney Chaplin Ribeiro.
Elvis Presley da Silva.
Hericlapiton da Silva (Portuguese pronunciation for Eric Clapton?).
Ludwig van Beethoven Silva.
Maicon Jakisson de Oliveira (mangled version of Michael).
Marili Monrói de Oliveira.
Marlon Brando Benedito da Silva.
Sherlock Holmes da Silva.                                                                              
Colapso Cardiaco da Silva (Cardiac Arrest).                                                               
Ladigaga de Almeida Souza.
And my favorite is: Ceu Azul do Sol Ponente do Nascimento, which can be translated into Blue Sky of Sunset do Nascimento.

In addition to the names of celebrated soccer players, show business and soap opera characters, the names of victims of notorious murders are frequently chosen by parents. As a matter of fact, in 2012 many baby girls were given the name Elisa, the name of Bruno’s murdered mistress. Isabela, currently the most popular name in Brazil, is also the name of a murder victim, an infant in São Paulo.

Unique to Brazil, race-related nicknames don’t irk much. At school a very dark skinned boy will be referred to as Negão (from the Portuguese Negro, a somewhat affectionate name for an Afro Brazilian buddy), or as Feijão (black bean). A person with a very white skin will be dubbed Tapioca. The childhood’s nickname may stick into adulthood. Singer and former minister Gilberto Gil has a daughter named Preta which means black (feminine). When he tried to register her name, the registry officer first refused but Gil got his way by agreeing to add Maria to Preta. He argued that there were many Rosas (Rose), Blancas, Biancas (Blanche is white in French) and Violet, so why not Black! Preta followed in her father’s footsteps, she is a famous singer.

Pages after pages could be filled with the peculiar and often incongruous monikers of soccer players and candidates for local elections. Recently the New York Timesran an article titled “Where Daniel the Cuckold and Zig Zag Clown Vie for Office” (September 16, 2012) to express its admiration of the vitality of Brazilian democracy. Although there are some restrictions on exuberant names the candidates can select to promote themselves, almost anything goes. Many people with names like Batman, Obama, and even an Elvis Didn’t Die ran for the municipal elections. Many of these silly nicknames convey hints of friendliness, familiarity and even of affection. Conversely they very well illustrate the rough and tumble of today’s Brazil.

Apparently a bill to restrict baby-naming freedom is circulating in the Brazilian congress. Its sponsor is Congressman Paulo Sérgio Paranhos de Magalhães. He doesn’t seem to have a nickname. Should we hope the bill doesn’t pass?

Of Mirages and Mirrors: The Bolivian Salar de Uyuni

 After several frustrated attempts, last October I finally travelled to Bolivia to see the fabled Salar de Uyuni. I was extremely lucky to have the company of two very good friends eager for a different experience and curious about off-the-beaten-track destinations. Salar means a salt flat in Spanish. The Salar Uyuni is one of these remote and hard to reach mythical places frequently used as the backdrop for adventure and science fiction movies. Uyuni is located on the Altiplano (plateau) in the south-west corner of Bolivia. It covers an area of 12,000 sq. kilometers (6,575 sq. miles) at 3,668 m above sea level between two chains of volcanoes, the Andean Cordillera. It contains more than 10 billion tons of salt, and 50 to 70 % of the world’s lithium reserves. Lithium is a much sought-after mineral widely used in computers, cell phones and electric car batteries.

  


The Salar is renowned for its dazzling and surreal whiteness and changing appearance from mirage to mirror. The salt flat often appears to be a mirage and confuses visitors as its horizon disappears in the hazy sky. It can also be mistaken for an ice surface. A couple of months a year, usually in January and February when rain falls on the Salar, a thin film of water replaces the mirage with a mirror where the surrounding volcanoes reflect their mighty bodies. During the rainy season the cloudy sky reflects on the water. Hence the reflective surface of the Salar has been dubbed “heaven on earth”.




Our twelve-day trip started in Sucre, the colonial capital of Bolivia (now constitutional capital, an honorary title). This small city stands at the civilized altitude of 2,750 m above sea level (9,000 ft.). We also visited Potosi, the highest city in the world at an altitude of 4100 m (13,500 ft.) and the former world capital of silver mining. Purposely we avoided starting the trip in the capital La Paz (altitude 3600 m) as we wanted to be gradually acclimated to the altitude. We ended our expedition in the village of San Pedro de Atacama in northern Chile. We drove some 1,000 kilometers with our guide and driver in a reliable four-wheel-drive Toyota.

The Salar de Uyuni may be unfamiliar to most people in our baby boomer age group. It is much better known to the Facebook generation. In Latin America, Uyuni is first and foremost the backpackers’ destination of choice. Until very recently, access to the Salar was a rough experience even for budget conscious travelers, as hotels were few and far between; moreover since there are no paved roads to speak of one has to make do with the rustic comfort of a four-wheel-drive vehicle and the usually sporty driving of its owner. Although more comfortable hotels are now being built, Uyuni is still not on the itinerary of the “five star” travelers. Total immersion in the Uyuni spirit is not complete unless the traveler sleeps in a hotel room built with salt blocks. In our upscale hotel even the bedside tables were made of salt. We wanted to travel in relative comfort and peace of mind. We had to organize our own circuit and book hotels, and our guide and driver through a reliable travel agency. Self-driving is still neither advisable on the Salar or on the dirt tracks to San Pedro de Atacama. Tracks are unsigned and known only to the local taxi drivers. The city of Uyuni counts some 200 four-wheel-drive taxi companies that take budget travelers from the Salar to the Chilean border where they are met by Chilean taxis for the drive to San Pedro. Bolivian rented cars and 4X4 taxis are not allowed into Chile.

Before traveling to the Salar I could not resist surfing the web to read about other travelers’ experiences. Posted pictures are extremely beautiful and texts are wildly enthusiastic. When in situ I found the Salar de Uyuni still more mesmerizing than its pictures. One feels both humbled and overwhelmed by its white emptiness (it is bigger than Lake Tahoe in Nevada, USA), its quietness and bareness. The Salar is so pure and so unspoiled that it makes the visitor feel free and light. The clean fresh air is invigorating, but deceptively so: at over 4000 m altitude one often feels short of breath. Even if the contrast between the white expanse and the brownish bulky volcanoes is overpowering, it doesn’t seem threatening. A metaphor for this sensation of tranquility is the sight of groups of usually skittish vicuñas grazing unhurried by the road side. Part and parcel of the Uyuni experience is the visit to the Eduardo Avaroa National Andean Wildlife Reserve which is located 150 kilometers south of the Salar towards the Chilean and Argentinian borders. On route, one climbs over 4000 m above sea level and drives on the red and ocher volcanic ash desert of Siloli. The desolate landscape is strewn with oddly shaped rock outcrops as if tossed by surrealist artist Salvator Dali.

                        


This region is a world of nature superlatives, volcanoes with multicolored sunken craters, geothermal springs and geysers, multicolored brine lakes and glacial salt lagoons. The stillness of this lunar landscape is only broken by the fluttering noise made by the flapping wings of the flamingos. One of the three Andean species of flamingos, the rare James flamingos nest in these lagoons. Herds of graceful vicuñas are everywhere to be seen grazing on the scarce grass.

                      


In addition to nature lovers and young backpackers, Uyuni also attracts “Wild West” middle-aged mythology buffs. Their pilgrimage starts some 20 kilometers east of the city of Uyuni at the Pulacayo mining ghost town. From the 18^th century until the mid-20^th century it was one of the richest silver mines in the world. So rich that its owner built a railway line to ship the ore all the way to the Pacific port of Antofagasta. The mine may eventually resume operations as its new owner, a Canadian company has identified economic silver reserves. Nowadays the mine’s claim to fame is the display of a bullet ridden railway car which was allegedly attacked and robbed by American outlaws Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid during their Bolivian exile in 1906-08.

There is credible evidence that the two robbers met their deaths in November 1908 some 100 kilometers south of Uyuni in the small mining pueblo of San Vicente. After robbing a mule train carrying the payroll of the rich Aramayo silver mine, Butch and Sundance took a rest in San Vicente. Soon they were circled by Bolivian soldiers, and after a shoot-out, two bodies were recovered. They were anonymously buried in the international section of the tiny cemetery of San Vicente between the graves of a German miner who had mishandled a stick of dynamite and that of a Swede who could not ride a mule. However reality and fiction are blurred. The outlaws’ families claimed that they moved back to the United States and died there in their beds. The DNA analysis carried out on bodies exhumed in San Vicente were inconclusive as well as those carried out in the USA. In 2011, an international film titled Blackthorn was shot around Uyuni. It tells the story of an aged Butch Cassidy living in Bolivia under an assumed name (Blackthorn) but who decides to return to the USA. The fate of the two famous outlaws will certainly continue to generate investigations and feed local business.

Lonely Planet has just issued its “top 10 best value destinations” for 2013. Surprisingly expensive Rio de Janeiro came first (the advice is go now because the city will get even more expensive after the Soccer World Cup in 2014!). Bolivia ranks fifth and the Salar de Uyuni is listed as a “must-visit”. Therefore don’t wait.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V0biZIJoRpg
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pod0UstxMUM

My Summer Readings: Many Shades of Grey

 

Summer of 2012 in the south of France was both very busy and very social.  As a result, I only managed to read three books which coincidentally covered the most dreadful period of the 20^th century, namely the rise of fascism in Europe and WW II.  As illustrated by these three books, the history of this period cannot be seen in black and white.  Major events took place in a more sinister grey zone with many shades of grey.  Fifty shades of grey would be an understatement, or like comparing the “Divine Marquis” with Erika. L. James!

Two of the books are in English: And The Show Went On by Alan Riding and The Lady in Gold by Anne-Marie O’Connor; the third is a French translation of an Italian novel Canale Mussolini by Antonio Pennacchi.  They are all recent releases.

Canale Mussolini pleased me the least.  Its length, over 500 pages, was obviously an inconvenience for summer reading.  Halfway through the book I was tempted to drop it.  Not that the book is badly written, although Pennacchi uses a very colloquial style and vernacular that often made me wince.  His Italian text is peppered with the Veneto region dialect.  Consequently in the French translation the choice of words is odd, if not confusing.  

Canale Mussolini is the thirty-year saga of a family named Peruzzi of mainly illiterate peasants from the Veneto region during the rise and fall of Italian fascism.  Thanks to the family’s close relationship to Il Duce, Benito Mussolini, the seventeen-member family is relocated and given land in the Agro Pontino region near Rome.  Although the region was left in ruins after the Allied landing in 1944, the drainage and colonization of the malaria infested Pontine Marshes is still regarded as one of the lasting social contributions of Mussolini’s dictatorship. 

What makes the second half of the book so fascinating is the politically incorrect manner that the author describes Il Duce, his fascist movement and its followers the so-called “black shirts”, including the male characters of the Peruzzi family.  At the beginning of fascism, the black shirt militia, camicie nere or squadristi, were former disgruntled WWI veterans.  In portraying fascist Italy, Pennacchi takes no prisoners.  He is irreverent and handles self-mockery and self-deprecation with gusto.  It is laughable that most of the Italian fascists were former Socialists and Communists, in that they emulated their Duce who started his political career as a communist.  It is somewhat ironical to learn that Pennacchi did the reverse process:  fascist as a young man, leftist as an older one. 

The book’s nuggets consist of little known but highly pertinent historic anecdotes of the Benito Mussolini era, his rise and fall.  The book is an ode to the resilience of the Peruzzi family, the embodiment of the Italian underprivileged.  The book has not yet been translated into English; it will be a challenging task for any translator.

The sub-title of Alan Riding’s book And the Show Went On is Cultural life in Nazi-occupied Paris (1940-44).  Actually this very comprehensive book describes the cultural life beyond Paris and before 1940.  In May 2012 Alan Riding visited Rio de Janeiro to promote the Portuguese translation of the book.  The book has also been translated into French.  Riding was born in Brazil of British parents and spent many years as a journalist in Latin America.  He also spent decades in Western Europe as the New York Times cultural correspondent.  This experience led him to research the role, behavior and reaction of artists, literati and intellectuals when confronted by oppressive dictatorships.  I was lucky to meet Riding personally before a book signing and his debate with famous free-spirited Brazilian celebrity Fernando Gabeira. 

Gabeira is a “green” politician, author and journalist whose fame however doesn’t derive from his current worthy activities.  During the Brazilian military dictatorship (1964-1985) Gabeira was a student involved in anti-military activities.   One of his faits d’arme was his role in the kidnapping of the United States ambassador in 1969.  As a result Gabeira is still persona non grata in the U.S.A.  More recently, he made headlines when parading on Ipanema beach only wearing a minuscule knitted swimming costume. Rumor had it that it was the bottom part of his girlfriend’s bikini.  Gabeira also ran for mayor of Rio de Janeiro and narrowly lost to the current mayor.

The impact of dictatorship on cultural life and on the activities and production of artists and intellectuals was the topics of the Riding-Gabeira debate.  Comparisons between situations in France and Brazil were made.  At the outset, it is worth pointing out that as the result of its military debacle and defeat, France was forcibly occupied by a dictatorial foreign country.  Dictatorships in 20^th century Latin American were self-imposed and did not involve foreign occupation.  

During the four-year Nazi occupation (by the German armed forces and paramilitary groups like the Gestapo) French life was not painted in black and white but in many shades of grey similar to the Italy of Antonio Pennacchi.  In the French artistic microcosm, heroes were few and far between.  If some artists and literati were primarily concerned with their daily survival, others grabbed the opportunity to improve their lots through fraternization or blatant collaboration.  Some of these literati took the opportunity of the occupation to intensify their personal feuds, not to mention those French writers and thinkers who fell over themselves to do the bidding of the occupying forces.  As Jews were obliged to either flee or go underground, opportunists advanced their career by taking their jobs as part of the French-driven Aryanization policy.  For some actors the occupation was a bonus, they welcomed the larger audience.  Were not Germans keen theatre and movies goers?  Cultural production continued in spite of censorship imposed by both German and Vichy governments.  According to Riding, German censors were often more open-minded than their French counterparts!

Riding may not have unearthed new facts, but he has enriched the topic.  His exhaustive compilation and the profusion of noteworthy anecdotes make this compact reading crowded with hundreds of characters very captivating.  In Riding’s account, cultural life in Paris covers a very broad field from prostitution to philosophy; one wonders which was more favored by the occupying forces!   Riding discloses that Hitler had some respect for French culture and that some of his underlings in the cultural area often turned a blind eye on subtle forms of resistance and even developed lasting friendships with their French peers.  Riding reveals that at the end of the war when things were going badly for them, German officers even went to the Comédie française to watch a five-hour long play titled Le soulier de satin (in French) by Paul Claudel.  Had they been punished? Hardly the ideal Rest and Recuperation program in Gay Paris!  Too long, the play is rarely featured. 

Alan Riding does not pass judgment on the behavior of the French cultural celebrities and he quotes the late former British Prime Minister Sir Anthony Eden who claimed that those who have never gone through foreign occupation “have no right to pronounce upon what a country does which has been through all that”.  At the end of his book Riding ponders on the role of “those engaged in artistic and intellectual creation” as they propagate doctrines which may lead to extremism.  On this subject, one should highlight that Germany, Spain and Italy underwent far more radical and dramatic mayhem than France and without the contribution of renowned intellectuals.  While the influential intellectual glitterati were chatting, writing, acting and painting in Paris or Nice, the liberation of France was carried out by others who were less wordy but more action-oriented.  Instead of being in the driver’s seat, the French cultural elite was a mere spectator of its own deliverance.

My last read was Anne-Marie O’Connor’s riveting story of Gustav Klimt’s portrait of Vienna Belle Epoque socialite Adele Bloch-Bauer (1881-1925), the now world famous The Lady in Gold.  It is somehow upsetting to discover that the portrait painted in 1907 became known by a name coined by the Nazis in order to hide the Jewishness of the sitter.  O’Connor is also a journalist; she was a foreign correspondent for Reuters and currently writes for the Washington Post.  Her non-fiction book is as dazzling as the Klimt painting itself, and reads like a novel.  It oozes feminine empathy and thanks to O’Connor’s exhaustive research, the reader becomes bonded to the many hapless characters in the book.  The book received so many complimentary reviews that there is nothing more to add.  It can appeal to an eclectic lot: art lovers, feminists, 20^thcentury Mitteleuropa history buffs, readers interested in the Holocaust, and more surprisingly, lawyers familiar with international litigation.

Except for a chapter devoted to Klimt, the book is about the women of the Bloch-Bauer family: Adele the rebel and pre-feminist, her straight-lace sister Luise and her nieces gentle Maria and plucky Nelly.  The most fascinating section of the book covers Nazi Austria from the rather welcome German annexation in 1938 (Anschluss) to the defeat in 1945.  Jewish families were the first targets of the Nazis’ feral anti-Semitism; rich families like that of Adele lost everything but at least managed to save their life. 

The last part of the book describes the twists and turns of the recovery of the Bloch-Bauer art looted by the Nazis and exhibited in Austrian museums.  I found this section much less inspiring.  Maria teamed up with a West Coast lawyer who also had an axe to grind with the Austrian government.  The lawyer, Randol Schoenberg, is coincidently the scion of another Viennese glitterati, composer Arnold Schoenberg who was Adele’s contemporary.  Finally in 2006 after a protracted legal battle, five Klimt paintings, all property of the Bloch-Bauer family were removed from the Belvedere Museum in Vienna and shipped to the United States where Maria and other heirs live.  

When I finished the book I had more questions than answers.  Adele’s Lady in Gold portrait (Klimt painted another one for her) was privately purchased for the exorbitant price of US$135 million by philanthropist and art collector Ronald Lauder, son of Estée Lauder, the founder of the cosmetic empire.  Why did he pay so much money?  Art pundits believe that Lauder needed a significant piece of art to boost ticket sale at his boutique museum, the Neue Gallery in New York City on the Upper East Side.  The other four paintings were soon after auctioned off to anonymous art collectors and are not visible to the public.  The sale of the five Klimt paintings grossed US$327 million divided between the heirs; understandingly Mr. Schoenberg got the lion share of the proceeds (40%).  .

In the mid-90s, I visited the Belvedere Museum and strolling through its collections I admired the Lady in Gold portrait which I compared to a fin de siècle Theodora from the famous Ravenna mosaics Klimt used as a source of inspiration.  I had no clue who sat for the portrait.  When writing this blog, I Googled “Adele Bloch-Bauer” and found pictures of the portrait not the biography of Adele.  The painting has upstaged its sitter.

Last but not least, rumor has it that Adele and Klimt had been lovers.  Klimt was a well-known serial lover, bordering on promiscuity.  Someone may one day write a trilogy about their affair. Title any one? Fifty Shades of Klimt? Or possibly Fifty Shades of Gold?

 

 

Washington DC: Memorial Overdose and Headaches

  If its dysfunctional Congress makes headlines, it is its monuments that turn the American capital into a tourist draw. As a result, Washington DC has morphed into a shrine to Americana. Year round, museums to anything and memorials to anybody are attracting hordes of curious visitors. With over twenty memorials (of questionable architectural value) and counting, the city is facing a situation of memorial overkill.

As the dust settles over the controversial architecture and design of the Martin Luther King Memorial, a new memorial project is creating waves, offending families, upsetting the architectural world, and distracting the government. If one of America’s greatest sons deserved a memorial it must be Dwight D. (Ike) Eisenhower. Ike is both a world-class hero and for many Americans a national icon. The hero of the WW II was a five-star general, who subsequently became the 34^th president of the United States of America. The decision on how best to represent Ike’s multi-talented personality and legacy by the means of a three-dimensional monument is putting Ike’s family against the world famous architect Frank Gehry, who has been selected to design the project. For this blogger who has recently visited Washington DC and dutifully took the Grand Memorials Tour, it seems that the conflict boils down to the feuding party’s diverging views on architectural style and design.

As far as Washington memorials go, there are two competing artistic thoughts: the good old-fashioned, unoriginal neoclassicism versus the modern eye-popping extravaganza and Gehry’s trade mark (e.g. the Guggenheim museum in Bilbao, Spain). Tempers have been flaring and Gehry’s initial design has been compared to “totalitarian architecture and even to something designed by Nazis and Communists”1. These over-the-top comments make this blogger cringe as she feels that a number of the most recent Washington memorials are ugly, unimaginative and pompous, very much like the projects designed by Nazi architect Albert Speer.  


The recently (2004) inaugurated World War II Memorial is a case in point. It is an eye sore and a stone monster in the pure Nazi tradition. This blogger felt emotionally disturbed as it reminded her of the grounds of the 1930s Nazi parades in Nuremberg and immortalized by Leni Riefenstahl’s film The Triumph of the Will. Although this uncomplimentary comparison is lost on younger generations, the memorial draws many visitors including WWII veterans. These frail men are wheeled to the site. It makes for a moving scene in an architecturally grotesque setting.

On the War Memorial tour, one can also visit the Korean War Memorial built in 1995. It is outstanding for its realism and visual effect. It displays nineteen human-sized emaciated soldiers, seemingly cast in a tin-looking metal. They are plodding through winter mud and their silhouette is reflected in the mirror of a long granite wall. For many Americans, the Korean War (1950-1953) is an in-between conflict. It is somehow forgotten and frequently referred as the Forgotten War. The war outcome was a dismal draw and the Korean peninsula was consequently divided in two. Because of this unfinished business, tempers occasionally flare between the Communist North Koreans and the democratic South Koreans bothering the whole region. Visitors may leave this memorial more puzzled than inspired.

The newly completed memorial to another great American, Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., is noteworthy for being compassion deprived. If he knew about it, Dr. King would twist and turn in his grave. His XL white marble statue is particularly incongruous; one wonders whether it was not intended to Marshal Mobuto the former dictator of Zaire.

If one memorial has beaten the odds, it is the Vietnam War Memorial (1982). The Vietnam War was very unpopular; 58,209 men and women lost their life or are still missing in action (MIA). Although controversial from the beginning, the low, sunk-in wall has managed to convey the human losses in the most unpretentious but poignant manner. The names of the victims are listed by year and in alphabetic order. Each name is followed by one or two symbols. A diamond follows the name of a dead soldier and a cross indicates a MIA. If the soldier returns alive, a circle is added to his or her name. When only remains are identified the diamond circles the cross. Among the newer memorials it is the most visited and worshipped.

The blockbuster memorials remain the “big three”, respectively dedicated to George Washington, Thomas Jefferson and Abraham Lincoln. Washington DC’s most prominent landmark is still the tall stone obelisk to Washington, the country’s first president. The monument is now off-limits to tourists as it was damaged by the 2011 earthquake. The obelisk may be sinking and remarkably Congress has set money aside for repairs. Although Jefferson’s and Lincoln’s are architecturally worlds apart, both are paradigms of the neoclassical style. The setting of the Jefferson Memorial is particularly pleasing; its rotunda reflects in the Tidal Basin and in spring the Japanese cherry trees are in full bloom.

Washington DC is increasingly becoming a memorial Disneyland. Tourists are bused from one monument to the other; consequently the original purpose of these memorials -remembrance, tribute and respect- may be lost. It may be time for a pause in memorial building. This blogger doesn’t imply that statesmen like Dwight D. Eisenhower should be deprived of their own memorial; very much to the contrary, but some peace may be needed to ensure that outstanding Americans get the memorial they rightly deserve.

1. A Monumental Conflict, Paul Goldberger. Vanity Fair, September 2012.