Thursday, November 02, 2006

attica-ruth magazine 11

Journal Jottings
~ "A life less ordinary"

Delighted to read an interview with long-time friend Leela Ramanathan, illustrated with two lovely photographs.
See hinduonline.com for the supplement to newspaper of Friday 27 October.

~ "During Divali pets hide from the sound"

So they do, poor things, & some find unusual places of refuge!


Photo: HINDU: K. Gopinathan

Rapture

Photo: HINDU: Murali Kumar K.
Lowest end music system from the bargain basement enraptures as effectively as - more effectively than? - top-of-the-line product. Proves that in truth what matters is not so much the quality of that which delivers the music as the quality of mind in the one who hears it.
Offer in support of this proposition the following: back in the 70s & 80s this lover of music explored the often strange & always fascinating world of "Western Classical" music, into its outer reaches & back to its earliest, Oriental-sounding origins. These explorations were conducted through the then abundant & superior music programmes of BBC World Service, heard fitfully as far as an erratic power supply & the electrical interference of kitchen appliances would allow, (not to mention the almost inevitable "wow-wow-wow" of poor reception), & always heard through a heavy storm of hiss, crackle & pop. Never did one lose heart even if frequently misplacing one's temper. Every fragment of music, as if it were a shard of porcelain or glass, was stored away as though it had been the finest Ming or the rarest Murano, entire & unblemished.
To recognize the matchless beauty & artistry of Claudia Muzio, Rosa Ponselle - oh, one must stop before nostalgia overcomes the spirit in this fading time of year; to recognize these beauties in such circumstances & be haunted by them ever after... Only the parched soul grateful for a single drop of heaven-sent refreshment could so respond. So, yes, this image perfectly mirrors the experiences of long ago, when life was as full of trials as today, but the spirit was young & hope had not had her wings so severely clipped. Eheu fugaces!

ATTIC TROVE
THE MAGUS (concluded)
The exhilaration generated by a live performance is not peculiar to Shakespeare's plays. But there is one source of this exhilaration that Shakespeare tapped more skilfully than any other dramatist. He used to the fullest the power of language. We all delight in language used with imagination, skill, wit and boldness. We may not ourselves be very adventurous in our use of it, but it gives us keen pleasure to follow an artist's exploration of the potential of language, especially if the result is as vibrant and graceful as the truly great writers make it. Shakespeare was one of the greatest of these, and he lived in an age when the language was as full of promise as Eldorado, while he and his contemporaries worked its mines as vigorously as any gold-hungry Spaniard. That splendid vitality still fires the blood, stretches the mind or stops the heart as it chooses; and when it chooses will ravish the ear with sweetness. With his contemporaries we have no present concern, but here is a necessarily random and restricted sampling of voices from Shakespeare's plays, now
thrilling:
Henry V:
Old men forget; yet all shall be forgot,
But he’ll remember, with advantages,
What feats he did that day. Then shall our names,
Familiar in his mouth as household words -
Harry the King, Bedford and Exeter,
Warwick and Talbot, Salisbury and Gloucester -
Be in their flowing cups freshly remember’d.
This story shall the good man teach his son;
And Crispin Crispian shall ne'er go by,
From this day to the ending of the world,
But we in it shall be remembered -
We few, we happy few, we band of brothers...

defeated:
Macbeth:Tomorrow, and tomorrow, and tomorrow
Creeps in this petty pace from day to day,
To the last syllable of recorded time;
And all our yesterdays have lighted fools
The way to dusty death. Out, out, brief candle!


poignant:Charmian: O Eastern star!
Cleopatra: Peace, peace!
Dost thou not see my baby at my breast
That sucks the nurse asleep?

Charmian: O, break! O, break!
Cleopatra:
As sweet as balm, as soft as air, as gentle-
O Antony! Nay, I will take thee too:
What should I stay –
Charmian:
In this vile world? So, fare thee well.
Now boast thee, death, in thy possession lies
A lass unparallel'd.

terrible:
Lear: Blow, wind, and crack your cheeks; rage, blow.
You cataracts and hurricanoes, spout
Till you have drench'd our steeples, drowned the cocks.
You sulph'rous and thought-executing fires,
Vaunt-couriers of oak-cleaving thunderbolts,
Singe my white head. And thou, all-shaking thunder,
Strike flat the thick rotundity o' th' world;
Crack nature's moulds, all germens spill at once,
That makes ingrateful man.

anguished:
Beatrice: Kill Claudio.
Benedick: Ha! Not for the wide world.
Beatrice:
You kill me to deny it.
O God, that I were a man! I would eat his heart i’the marketplace.

magnificent:
Antony: Let Rome in Tiber melt, and the wide arch
Of the ranged empire fall! Here is my space.
Kingdoms are clay.

tender:
Horatio: Now cracks a noble heart. Goodnight, sweet prince,
And flights of angels sing thee to thy rest:

foolish:
Dogberry: Dost thou not suspect my place? Dost thou not suspect my years? O that he were here to write me down an ass! But, masters, remember that I am an ass; though it be not written down, yet forget not that I am an ass.
or wise:
Edgar: Men must endure
Their going hence, even as their coming hither:
Ripeness is all.


Besides language we love stories. It is an enduring love, and Shakespeare's plays have memorable stories of many kinds: simple, happy, funny stories, dark, troubled stories, stories that terrify, that sadden, that console, that encourage…. What they all have in common is that they engage our emotions at deeper levels than most stories do. Perhaps only the great Greek dramatists etched their stories as deeply on the mind.
We have glanced at a few reasons why Shakespeare's plays are still loved, but there is another which was better understood, perhaps, by the playgoers of his own time. These were not primarily scholars, intellectuals and persons of cultivated taste, although numbers of them went to the theatre. For so did everyone else: apprentices, craftsmen, labourers, farmers come to London on business, lawyers and their clerks, shopkeepers and pedlars, priests and choristers, merchants, bankers, butchers, bakers, courtiers, soldiers, and university men. Nor was it men alone who went to the plays. They took wives, mothers, daughters, sweethearts along.

And Shakespeare had no difficulty in satisfying this diverse gathering of widely varying tastes and interests. Perhaps it was because his plays had to have something to please all; perhaps it was because Shakespeare himself had a heart and mind that embraced all of humanity with lively interest and understanding; perhaps it was a little of both, but in consequence his plays brought all the world – totus mundus - onto the stage, common man and hero, buffoon and philosopher, many kinds of sinners and even a few saints. It was as if Shakespeare's motto had been: "I am a man and reckon nothing human alien to me". His audience responded to that - how should they not? Sadly, the nature of that audience changed and for quite long the plays became the preserve of the learned and the wealthy; all too often of the snob. But now, from a number of causes, Shakespeare is accessible again to the plain, everyday citizen with no other object than to enjoy a good play. That is all the motive Shakespeare expected; he acknowledged it and strove to satisfy.

Shakespeare's characters frequently commit follies or worse. They suffer, change and are redeemed, or obstinately hold their course towards self-destruction. But whatever they do and however mixed our feelings about them, they move us. Most of the time they move us more deeply than their real-life counterparts would do, whether to tears or to laughter. They are real, yet larger than life and more concentrated. They haunt us, returning at moments of consequence to nudge us into heightened awareness. And suddenly there are truths we comprehend about ourselves or other people, because once a play by Shakespeare stirred us deeply and lodged in our memories. Phrases, lines, whole speeches surface slowly to illuminate a murky motive, a mystifying deed. Therefore, not only do his plays purge our emotions of those humours whose excess harms our minds and bodies, but they also exercise our intellects with insights keenly revealing but ultimately charitable, disturbing but finally consolatory, which enable us to endure the many shocks that are our daily lot.

When people anywhere, who take an uncomplicated pleasure in story, language and play-acting, overcome the quite unnecessary awe, and sense of inadequacy with which many regard Shakespeare, they find themselves experiencing more delight and lasting satisfaction than they have found in most other drama. If nothing else, at least they can see many of the world's finest actors and actresses exercise their skills to the uttermost in playing a Shakespearean role. It is surprising how many film and TV stars nourish an ambition to take up the challenge of such a role. As for the stage actors, it is by their achievements in Shakespeare's plays (and sometimes by their notable failures) that they are judged and remembered.

Ben Jonson called him a dramatist "not of an age but for all time", and so he is, but Shakespeare with his word-magic that gives wings to the mind, and his all-embracing sympathy, is also a dramatist for all hearts anywhere on this teeming globe.
FINIS
scribendi cacoethes

A Romp of Puppies

The first remembered puppy was Scamp, an Alsatian of impressive pedigree. When the pick of the litter was offered, the puppies were only days old. They were fat, furry & black, like bear-cubs. Every step they essayed ended – splat! – pup on its pink tummy, legs splayed out, mewling faintly as very young creatures do.

Scamp spent his first nights in a large cardboard carton placed beside Mother’s half of the bed. He required her to dangle her hand within easy reach of questing paw or muzzle. When Scamp arrived at the stage code-named ‘doglet’, signifying halfway to young adult, he found his way onto the bed, nestling between Father & Mother. Turfed out of their room, he consoled himself by twitching the quilt off the children’s bed & smartly rolling up in it, snug as a bug in a rug. But that came later. While still a pup, he began by crying piteously when first confronted by the staircase, but after he tried plopping down the stairs & then bouncing up them, he was content to make only the softest plaints.

After Scamp came Rufus, a Collie of equally impressive lineage. In adult life Rufus would turn out to be more than just a highbred beautiful dog, & then the children amused themselves with fantasizing that he was a skin-changer like the enchanted prince in Snow-white & Rose-red. But when he rode home under Father’s arm that first day, Rufus seemed all snout & distended tummy. De-worming corrected the latter & soon that long slender snout, with its Roman bump, was poking curiously at a rubber ball.

In an hour Rufus had invented doggie golf, to be played with nose & paws around the obstacle-strewn course of a family dwelling. Occasionally he vocalised a short scale in his light baritone, as he scrabbled to retrieve the ball. Rufus was never bored or out of sorts. That daylong (& sometimes night-time) game of golf saved his life when he was first afflicted with heat-stroke. Getting groggily off his charpoy as soon as he heard the muffled thud of his ball, Rufus gamely putted around his golf course.

Coco succeeded Rufus. He was a right demon as a pup. Coco was the largest in his litter – Big Brown his owner called him - & bullied his siblings as all such pups do. For a mongrel he was remarkably handsome, better looking than his highbred white Pomeranian father. From his woolly black ‘some-sort-of-Tibetan’ mother Coco inherited a violent temper. Also, large dark liquid eyes, & long black streamers on his ears, which gave him a charm that wholly belied his Artful Dodger ways.

Coco’s first Christmas in the household that acquired him, he seized a plaster angel from the Crib & sped into the garden with it, like the Devil carrying off a lost soul. He could crack pistachio kernels & eat the nuts as neat as you please; scouts’ honour. He had a vocabulary, too, that served his elementary purposes: “Coco, you are a bad boy.” – “Ang!” “Will you do it again?” - “Nah!” – “Next time I’ll beat you.” – “App!” (The last with a mock snap, delivered sideways, which made it all the more raffish.)

Palmerston had the most solemn face of any pup the family had seen. Yet there was a wiliness in it which, taken with his bristly side-whiskers, earned him this name among them. For Palmerston was a pup of passage & might well end his days answering to the name of Tinku. Why then is he remembered? It was that whiskery Victorian face atop the tiny doggy body.

En route to his new home, Palmerston attended a board meeting in company with Father. From the Chairman down, there was not a body at that meeting who was not distracted by the pup playing pat-ball among the legs under the board-room table. Next morning Father looked about the bedroom for his seemingly vanished charge. Palmerston’s whiskers gave him away. He had hidden in Father’s shoe, but his hairy face projected above its sides.


By some unlucky chance no photographs were taken of these dogs as pups. In due course the best of them as doglets &/or ‘doggers’ (young adults) & old dogs will be assembled, but until such time here are two delightful pups that not long since lighted up the morning news:




Ruth Heredia is the originator and holds the copyright to all material on this blog unless credited to some source. Please do not use it or pass it off as your own work. That is theft. If you wish to link it, quote it, or reprint in whole or in part, please be courteous enough to seek my permission.

1 comment:

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