Kafka's Unpublished Manuscripts Uncovered

Manuscripts and drawings of the writer Franz Kafka have just been released from a safe deposit box in Zurich, according the BBC News. The question now becomes, should these manuscripts be published? Kafka had ordered his friend and fellow writer Max Brod to burn his manuscripts after his death, but Brod ultimately ignored Kafka’s request. Many of Kafka’s works were in fact published posthumously after Brod had not burned the manuscripts.

The story is a reminder of the drama that ensued when Nabokov instructed his family to burn his final incomplete novel, The Original of Laura, written on 183 separate index cards. The novel was never burned and was held in a safe deposit box in Switzerland for 30 years until it was published by Knopf in 2009.

via BBC News – Newsnight – Should newly uncovered Kafka manuscripts be published?.

Remembering Arthur Ashe, Tennis Pioneer

A quick post to point out a date worth noting. On this day in 1993, the tennis star Arthur Ashe passed away from complications from the AIDS virus. (He contracted AIDS from a faulty blood transfusion.) Ashe had spent much if his life fighting against deeply entrenched discrimination in the tennis world. Look at the sport today and his efforts can be seen, though some would argue too sporadically. Tennis is far from diverse, but the rise of stars like Serena and Venus Williams and James Blake was aided in large part by Ashe’s dogged spirit, by his devotion to the sport and to equality.

To honor the day, here’s a video of Ashe playing Jimmy Connors in the legendary 1975 Wimbledon finals. Ashe won and the video captures this victory.

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via Arthur Ashe, Tennis Star, Is Dead at 49.

Interview: DJ Spooky, aka That Subliminal Kid, on Environmentalism, Music, and Multi-media Performance

Image via djspooky.com

DJ Spooky aka That Subliminal Kid, who also goes by Paul D. Miller, is a composer, multimedia artist, and writer. His written work has appeared in The Village Voice, The Source, Artforum, and Rapgun among other publications. Miller’s work as a media artist has appeared in the Whitney Biennial; The Venice Biennial for Architecture (2000); the Ludwig Museum in Cologne, Germany; Kunsthalle, Vienna; The Andy Warhol Museum in Pittsburgh and many other museums and galleries. His first collection of essays, entitled Rhythm Science, came out from MIT Press 2004. His book Sound Unbound, an anthology of writings on electronic music and digital media, was released in 2008 by MIT Press.

Miller’s most recent large scale multimedia performance work is an acoustic portrait of a rapidly changing continent. Sinfonia Antarctica transforms Miller’s first-person encounter with the harsh, dynamic landscape into multimedia portraits with music composed from the different geographies that make up the land mass. His field recordings from a portable studio, set up to capture the acoustic qualities of Antarctic ice forms, reflect a changing and even vanishing environment under duress. Coupled with historic, scientific, and geographical visual material, Terra Nova: Sinfonia Antarctica is a seventy minute performance, creating a unique and powerful moment around man’s relationship with nature.

I recently had a chance to discuss Sinfonia Antarctica and its influences with Miller. He will perform the work at the Brooklyn Academy of Music on Dec. 2, 4, and 5.

On James Guida's Marbles and the Aphorism

James Guida's Marbles. Image via Turtle Point Press

In the very first issue of Nature, which came out on November 4, 1869, T.H. Huxley, an English biologist, published translations of 28 aphorisms by the great German poet and polymath, Johann Wolfgang von Goethe. Huxley, a staunch advocate of the emerging theory of evolution and a supporter of Darwin’s work, was asked by the editor of Nature, Norman Lockyer, to contribute to the new journal. His first instinct was to submit Goethe’s aphorisms for publication in English.

Goethe’s aphorisms on nature are packed with quizzical observations and testimony to the overwhelming awe he felt toward his subject matter. Nature perplexed and inspired him, and the translated aphorisms published in Nature dovetailed chronologically with the growing Romantic movement in England. A few examples:

She is ever shaping new forms: what is, has never yet been; what has been, comes not again. Everything is new, and yet nought but the old.

NATURE! We are surrounded and embraced by her: powerless to separate ourselves from her, and powerless to penetrate beyond her.

The one thing she seems to aim at is Individuality; yet she cares nothing for individuals. She is always building up and destroying; but her workshop is inaccessible.”

Giant Marionettes and the Berlin Wall 20th Anniversary Celebration

September, October, and November of this year mark the twentieth anniversary of the events that downed the Berlin Wall. To celebrate the momentous rebellions that eventually toppled the Iron Curtain and opened Germany to itself, the country is pulling out all the stops. As Berlin is basically the center of the artistic world these days (see New York in the 1950s and 60s and Paris in the 1880s through WWII), there is no surprise that the city was host to this jaw-droppingly gorgeous and mind blowing marionette play by France’s Royal de Luxe street theatre company. The narrative that unfolds is a fantastical mirror of the saga that occurred 20 years ago.

For a whole slew of incredible photos, see the Boston Globe website. But here is a short video of one part of the several-day performance also.

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via The Berlin Reunion – The Big Picture – Boston.com.

The Empire State Building Celebrates Communist Rule

The Empire State Building, symbol of art deco architecture and prime example of grand, tenacious construction (it took only one year and five months to build), has got itself right in the middle of a debate about its latest lighting decision. As many a tourist and NYC resident has noticed, the lights, which comprise 1100 vertical and horizontal fluorescent tubes, often light up in a variety of colors recognizing special occasions or the passing of a loved icon. (Blue on blue when Frank Sinatra passed.) The lights keep things exciting in NY, and the colors, though many of us don’t know what they represent from one night to the next, brighten the city sky.

The decision that has a few organizations upset? Whereas the lights tend to honor more modest achievements (lavender, pink, and white to note the release of Mariah Carey’s 11th studio album. What?), tonight the Empire State Building will be lit up red and yellow to commemorate the 60th anniversary of the communist revolution in China. Human Rights Watch has an office in the Empire State Building and are not approving of the celebratory light display. And who can blame them. I know the Chinese pretty much own us at this point because we owe them billions of dollars, but do we really need to put on a splashy light show to celebrate what has been the rocky, human rights nightmare that is Chinese communist rule? Interesting side note: the Chinese National Tourism Office was once, but is no longer, a tenant in the building.

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via Empire State Building to glow red on Chinese anniversary | csmonitor.com.

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Philly's Near Loss of its Entire Library System

In 1731 Benjamin Franklin created the Library Company of Philadelphia, the first subscription service library and the predecessor to today’s ubiquitous lending library system. The Library Company of Philadelphia company, which still exists and serves the community with its impressive collection of books as well lectures, exhibitions, and conferences, was the result of pure altruism on the part of Franklin and his society friends. With the knowledge that no one patron could buy the library’s books alone, he and his privileged circle bought the first collection of books together at a time when scholarly texts were rare outside Europe.

Given this inspirational start, one would think the Philadelphia library system would be above any kind of fiscal trimming, no matter how bad the recession.

9/11, the Media, and our Collective Memory

Each year as the anniversary of 9/11 passes, we honor as a nation the people who lost their lives. We honor the entire country, acknowledging that what happened was an event through which we all lived. And as the years pass us by, the media and the people who write stories about the significance of that day do their unending duty to find new ways to talk about 9/11. MSNBC has for the past four years decided to air the unedited raw broadcast of the Today show from 9/11/2001. NPR did a story on how Twitter has become a home for people to share their memories of 9/11. This will go on forever, the various manifestations of 9/11 in the media, as will the discussion of how to approach covering of the day.

I do wonder, however, if this will ever fade. In sixty or seventy years, when much of the current generation that has lived through 9/11 has passed and their children and their grandchildren remain, will 9/11 be more than a moment of silence observed around the country. Will the new structure built on the site of the twin towers elicit an emotional response anywhere near what we feel today when we pass by that vacant, gaping chasm in the middle of so much hustle and bustle? I hope that the way Japan remembers the bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki is some indication. August 6, 2009 marked the 64th year since the bombings. To commemorate this anniversary, 50,000 gathered at Hiroshima’s Peace Memorial Park where a one-minute moment of silence was observed. Japanese artist, Seitaru Kuroda also projected the unequivocal image of a mushroom cloud onto the Atomic Bomb Dome in Hiroshima. Over the image he superimposed a large “X.”

For now, while we all still feel close enough to 9/11 that it strikes a devastating chord, here is a wonderful video of David Bowie singing Simon and Garfunkel’s “And the Moon Rose Over an Open Field.” It’s from The Concert for New York in October 2001, and thanks to Tom Watson for posting this on Sept. 11 of this year.

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via Tom Watson: And the Moon Rose Over an Open Field.