Claude Monet: Impressions a day late

I meant to salute the artist Claude Monet yesterday on the occasion of his birth (November 14, 1840), but was waylaid by my obsessively dark mediation on religion, prayer, free will and environmental responsibility. Giving myself a respite from those heavier themes, I've immersed myself in the works of Monet to catch a lighter view of the world.

He's known to many as the father of the Impressionist movement because his 1872 work Impression, levant soleil (Translated as "Impression, sunrise" and pictured at left) was used by a befuddled contemporary art critic to label the blossoming style. I've always appreciated the dreamlike perspective he shared of the brightly colored and atmospherically lit beauty that surrounded him. I'm especially fond of his later landscapes that tend toward abstraction.

I'm lucky that locally there is a good collection of Monet's work, including a few paintings from his wonderfully poetic haystacks series, at the Art Institute of Chicago. The museum also held a great retrospective on Monet back in the summer of 1995.

The YouTube set is quite taken with Monet as well, and I found numerous videos there dedicated to samplings from his body of work. Below is one I particularly like for its choice of pieces and fitting musical accompaniment.

Dia de Los Muertos: Honoring my loved ones

It may not be fashionable in these times of creeping xenophobia, but I've always admired the celebration of Dia de Los Muertos (Day of the Dead) that takes place on this date throughout Latin America ... and with our changing demographics, increasingly here in the US.

At the core of the festivities is the honoring of loved ones who have passed on, and that's a tradition that most Americans, including myself, neglect far too much. Our society has always overly concerned itself with the present and future, at the expense of reconciling its past. That's understandable for a country that prizes assimilation above the preservation of cultural identity, but much is lost in the forgetting.

To make personal amends and lead by example, I'd like to use the occasion to recognize three of my guiding spirits. In this space, I'll construct a virtual altar at which I'll try to feed the memory of my adored dead with loving words. The joyous celebration of the holiday views death not as an ending but as the next stage of human existence. By invoking the spirits of our ancestors, we keep their energy alive, and I know that each of these three people still exist very vividly in my heart and thoughts.

• My grandfather Anthony was a quiet, kind and patient man. He was dedicated to his family and learned to adapt himself to whatever profession would put food on the table during the hard years of the Great Depression. He valued the weight of his words and didn't use them capriciously. He was a gentleman in the truest sense of the word. I miss the sweetness of his smile.


• My grandmother Rosa was a woman small in stature but big in heart and intellect. She took great pride in her Italian heritage, and highly prized the benefits of formal education. She was fiercely independent by nature, but sadly limited by the circumstances of the time and place of her birth. I'll always remember the brilliant sparkle in her eyes whenever she greeted me with a hug, and the passion with which she discussed politics.


• My father, Tony, was a man of strong convictions. He was very loyal to his family and his faith, and expected us to be equally dedicated. He had a sharp mind and enjoyed a good intellectual argument, but he also loved to kick back and watch a big game or bout. He felt nothing was worth having if it wasn't earned, and made sure to teach us the important lesson of self-reliance. He wasn't quick to anger, but could get very passionate when provoked. In many ways I'll always measure myself against him.

They've each greatly influenced me genetically, emotionally, spiritually and intellectually, and I hope that I leave as lasting an impact on my friends and family. I wouldn't be the person I am today, for better and worse, without them. Although I have to find my own way in this world, I thank them for the lessons they've left with me, and aspire to honor them with all I do going forward.

Note: The images in this post are taken from the amazing art work of my cousin Jen Blazina. The top piece features the wedding photo of my grandparents (Anthony and Rosa), and the lower one that of my mother and father (Marina and Tony). You can see a wider range of Jen's pieces on her website at JenBlazina.com.

Escaping a certain fate: changing a frame of mind

I've always been struck by the overwhelmingly negative tenor of most cinematic imaginings of our future. The vast majority of science and fantasy fictive projections of our tomorrows posit a post-apocalyptic world: depressed, dark and barren. They often depict regressed societies forced to go primitive and trying to overcome and rebuild, or escape and survive.

There are of course exceptions, and my guess is that a lot of more positive renderings never make it into the mainstream culture outlets. Negativity sells, modern audiences have been trained to accept cynicism more easily than hope, and all the trends of our time incline the viewer toward cataclysmic thoughts.

I've watched two films recently that cast such dark gazes into our future selves, albeit with very different styles and settings. The first is action heavy with big Hollywood box office aspirations sprawled out across the sandy American southwest. The other is a quirky French art house project acted out with a wry sense of humor in the intimate apartments above a Parisian butcher shop.

Oddly both feature collapsed societies from the not-too-distant future that are dominated by those with a compulsion to devour human flesh. Buried in the blood and gore I tried to discover an abiding faith in the human capacity to circumvent the worst of circumstances, but these are some dire straits.

Part I – Resident Evil

Last weekend I went with a friend to see the recent release Resident Evil: Extinction. It was my introduction to this video-game inspired franchise, but I was able to get up to speed on its general premise pretty quickly. It's certainly not high-brow cinema, but there are elements of it that reflect the contemporary collective consciousness.

The broad outline of the back-story is that the evil Umbrella Corp. has unleashed a deadly virus on the world that turns the Earth's landscape into a uniformly barren desert, and evolves most of its denizens, both human and animal, into zombified mutants wanting nothing more than to chomp the innards of unlucky passersby.

The hero is a super-human, zombie-killing machine named Alice who was genetically modified by the bad guys who unleashed the viral menace. She's a modern female high-plains drifter, skirting her way through the dunes, helping any remaining normals in need, and trying to avoid both the zombies and the Umbrella Corp. henchman. Both sets of villains have a penchant for popping up unexpectedly as in the video game.

Alice's engineered blood holds the scientific key to an antidote, but the mad scientist of the story also sees the potential for using it as a serum to domesticate the zombies into a drone work force. Also traveling the abandoned roadways of the southwest are a convoy of poorly defined characters who have banded together to try to find an uncorrupted corner of the world where they can rebuild.

The film on the whole is little more than a loose story strung together around the money-making scenes filled with special effected explosions, crashes, stunts and gore. It is however an interesting little window into the general cultural cynicism of our time.

There is the mistrust of the corporate-owned science that is tinkering with every aspect of Nature in order to discover new profit-making mechanisms. There is the suspicion of a society over-run by mass mindlessness, where jobs have become so scarce and deskilled they can be performed by automatons. There is the fear of an environment decimated by our mismanagement; the earth returned to a wind-swept rock.

The limited vision of the authors can only offer up the clichéd biblical hope of a new Messiah to rise up out of the desert and deliver us from evil to a promised land. Interestingly, Alice, moses-like, is only able to lead this group exodus part-way toward their goal before going her own way. Of course, the story is to be continued.

Part II – Delicatessen

A few days before heading to the theater, I watched the DVD of the 1991 film Delicatessen. It's a visually clever, dark comedy set in a dystopic future France where domestic animals and their meat have gone extinct, grain is used for currency, and a rebel force of vegetarians roams the sewers. The butcher Clapet keeps his business going by luring unsuspecting tenants to the an apartment above his shop with the promise of free lodging in return for odd jobs.

The circus performer Luison stumbles into this trap, but stays one step ahead of the cannibalistic butcher's knife with the help of Clapet's daughter Julie, who falls for his clownish charm. Luison still looks at this collapsed world with rosé colored glasses, believing the brutality to which most have succumbed a symptom of necessity rather than a moral failing.

Attempting to rise above the abasement, the shadowy Troglodistes have gone underground to the sewers pursued by what remains of a governing authority. They're a well-intentioned but absurdly bumbling mercenary crew, bought off by Julie with promises of access to Clapet's store of corn in order to come to Luison's rescue. As with everything else in the film, nothing goes according to plan, but things work their way out for the best, Rube Goldberg style.

It's a meditation on the depths to which much of humanity will sink when abandoned by society and forced to rely on their own devices to survive. The tenants submit to Clapet's harsh rule to avoid the edge of his blade, and they line up for his ill-gotten goods because, driven by hunger, they've come to expect no better for or from themselves.

Louison, playing the wise fool, maintains his moral compass and survives precisely because of his naively optimistic outlook. His persistent grasp on the finer points of human nature keeps him from falling blindly into the tenants' bestial march to the slaughterhouse.

Conclusion – Escape

What fascinates me about these two so different films, and many others like them, is the sense of a world headed toward disaster that informs the reality of their futures. It's as if the collective creative consciousness detects an inescapably negative trend toward economic, social, environmental, and political collapse.

If such a gloomy feeling dominates our expectation of things to come, these worst-case prophecies may become self-fulfilling. We're at a critical moment in human history, and the choices we make today will shape our tomorrows. Allowing ourselves to be carried along on the tidal waves of suspicion, fear and apathy, we'll wash up on a recognizably arid shore.

It's not too late to pilot our way toward a more hospitable climate, but that will require some much more positive creativity. The innocence and honesty that most today disdain, may in fact hold the key to our survival. Looking at the world with naked eyes can reveal new possibilities.

That's how I escaped my certain fate
by Mission of Burma

This might be your only chance
to prove it on your own
Tulsa's not that ...
Tulsa's not that far

Besides if you stay
I'd feel a certain guilt
Did I hold you
Did I hold you back?

Can I count on you
If I fall apart?
Yeah, if I fall a...
If I fall apart?

That's how I escaped my certain fate
That's how I escaped my certain fate
Innocence, a novice's mistake!!!
That's how I escaped my certain fate
That's how I escaped my certain fate
Honesty's an actor's worst mistake!!!
That's how I escaped my certain fate!!!

Chicago Celtic Fest 2007: Wanting Summer to Linger

Today's autobiographical trivia: Appearances to the contrary, your humble narrator is not of pure-bred Italian descent. One fourth of my lineage actually lies further north in the land of the Celts; my paternal grandmother's surname being Havens.

In order to assuage that green corner of my soul, I occasionally indulge it in bits of Irish culture. So it was that I gladly accepted my friend Patrick's invite to join him today at Chicago's annual Celtic Fest for a stellar musical lineup. The evening air was chilled, as locally Summer has given way to Fall, but the downtown setting of Petrillo Music Shell was spectacular as always:

The Irish group Lúnasa started the night with a wonderful more traditional set of reels and folk music. They were followed by the pride of Wales Jon Langford, who was backed by assorted former band mates and friends, including The Welsh Male Voice Choir. I've always been a big fan of Langford going back to his days with the Mekons, and he played a great set including one of my favorite songs:

Pill sailor
by Jon Langford

A pit bull tattoo
One good eye of blue
That's wandering still
But what can you do
These ropes are all knotted and tangled round me
I'm a sailor who wandered a little too far from the sea

Did they raise up this child just to die
To stare for too long into the sky
Shirley Bassey's from Tiger Bay
But I spend my nights down in Pill
They shut down the docks
Thrown our lives on the rocks
But my good eye's wandering still
Past the pubs where I festered all day
Transporter bridge transport me away
'Cos these rope are all knotted and tangled round me
I'm a sailor who wandered a little to far from the sea

They passed in the channel great ships by the score
To carry out coal and to carry in ore
And at night these old sea legs were anxious to stray
They'd come from all over but never intended to stay
So tell me something I don't know
And find me a skipper with somewhere to go

As if that weren't cool enough, the evening's headliner was Dolores O'Riordan, who formerly fronted the Cranberries. She performed a rousing set of Irish-inflected rock. One of the more popular numbers was the Cranberries hit Linger, which seemed appropriate to the mood of the crowd. Recognizing that this weekend marks the end of Chicago's summer festival season, we all wanted to linger just a bit longer after all the music had been played.


As my mission is always to educate self and others, my parting note will be that I learned there are actually seven original Celtic nations: Ireland; Scotland; Wales; Isle of Man; Cornwall; Galicia, Spain and Brittany, France. Humanity has moved around and mixed itself up quite nicely, so we should all celebrate and take pride in the various cultural heritages that span our globe.

Ferragosto: Taking off, the Virgin Mary taken up

In the best tradition of my ancestors' homeland, I took a much deserved break from blogging yesterday. In Italy, August 15th, better known as Ferragosto, is a national holiday. If you ever happen to visit one of the country's big cities on that date, you'll find most of the shops and restaurants closed and the locals off to the mountains or seaside for vacation. The tourists outnumber the residents, and an almost eerie quiet descends on the usually bustling towns.

The abandonment of diurnal activity is very fitting considering the occasion the fest marks. August 15th is also the Roman Catholic holy day that celebrates the Assumption — when the Virgin Mary was taken body and soul up to heaven.

I've made several trips to the "old country," and if you take the time to visit the churches and museums that shelter great art across the nation, you'll surely witness many depictions of the Virgin Mary. There are hundreds of paintings and sculptures that show her beatifically cradling the baby Jesus in her arms, and a good number of artists have also interpreted the moment of her Assumption into heaven.

One of the most famous of these latter paintings is Titian's masterpiece, The Assumption of the Virgin (shown above), which graces the altarpiece of the Basilica di Santa Maria Gloriosa dei Frari in Venice. I had the opportunity to view its three-tiered design in person, and it is much more impressive than the facsimile of it you can view on a computer screen. Mary hangs between heaven and earth, captured mid-journey, as the throng reacts to her loss. It's an interesting visual treatment of the contradiction between her divine and earthly natures, and it's a juxtaposition that's even more intresting when considering the pagan origins of Ferragosto.

The feast has pre-Christian roots in the Roman holiday of Feriae Augusti where those empirical polytheists most prominently celebrated their virgin goddess, Diana, as well as the natural cycles of fertility and maturity. Diana, the Roman version of the Greeks' Artemis, was both the goddess associated with forests, nature and the hunt and the deity invoked to aid in conception and childbirth. She was the protector of women and probably an amalgam of various earth goddess figures.

I don't want to start sounding like The Da Vinci Code's Dan Brown, but the fact that the Mary the Christian religious icon assumed several characteristics of the pagan goddess with whom she shares a holiday certainly starts one to head scratching. As religious doctrine took shape, it's not hard to imagine the personality of the historical figure of Mary receding to be replaced by the more worshipful traits of a deity. In that sense, the holiday may mark a metaphorical assumption of Mary as well as a physical one.

Two millennia after she lived, it's impossible to know what Mary the woman was truly like beyond the obvious generalities. I'm sure she was a protector and font of strength, who nurtured a child to make his way in a troubled world. No doubt she was wracked by the same emotions, pain and worries every mother feels as she watches the life she brought forth gradually taken away from her.

As her story was adopted by a growing Church it was necessarily taken from the historical realm into the mythic. A very mortal and womanly figure got transformed into a divine abstraction, assuming the nature of a goddess. As much as she may have gained upon reaching the realm of the heavenly, much was also lost. Equating Mary's story with virgin births and the cheating of death, the very human and natural rhythms of fertility and mortality were disrupted in the telling. It's not hard to see a connection between that diconnect and the Catholic Church's often problematic views toward women.