Under The Right Hands, Black And White Are Colours

Fig. 1. Josef Danhauser - Liszt at the Piano, 1840

'I sat near [Liszt] so that I could see both his hands and face. For the first time in my life I beheld real inspiration - for the first time I heard the true tones of the piano. He played one of his own compositions - one of a series of religious fantasies. There was nothing strange or excessive about his manner. His manipulation of the instrument was quiet and easy, and his face was simply grand - the lips compressed and the head thrown a little backward. When the music expressed quiet rapture or devotion a sweet smile flitted over his features; when it was triumphant the nostrils dilated. There was nothing petty or egoistic to mar the picture.'

George Eliot

Your Ears Will Orgasm #48a: Franz Liszt - Hungarian Rhapsodies 1-6, played by Michele Campanella (MixPod Player)

1. No. 1 in C sharp minor
2. No. 2 in C sharp minor
3. No. 3 in B flat
4. No. 4 in E flat
5. No. 5 in E minor (Héroide Elégiaque)
6. No. 6 in D flat

Addendum #1: My friend Jana - bless her heart - has corrected my embarrassing slackness-cum-ignorance with respect to the personages depicted in Josef Danhauser's painting of Liszt at the piano: and, since the information is so relevant to the quote from George Eliot, here it is, with a basketful of thanks:

Funny you should not know. This painting is featured more prominently in the history of music than the history of art, since it's a curious document: more an aesthetic manifesto than visual art.

The painting features Romanticism itself: a trio of musicians represented by Liszt on the piano, and Paganini and Rossini in the back. Then a trio of writers, from George Sand (drawing a line of attention from Liszt to the left, prominently stretching in the armchair), to Alexandre Dumas Sr on her left, and Victor Hugo leaning over the chair. But note the importance given to two major romantic artists: the bust of Beethoven on the piano, and the painting of Byron at the back wall.

The feminine-lookin' lady on the floor is the mother of Liszt's daughter, who married Richard Wagner. Wife? I wouldn't know. She is obviously not one of the compadres here.

PS: Folks, if you want to see a truly great mind at work, check out Jana's blog, guerrilla semiotics. (This is not a paid advertisement).

Addendum #2: Some More (And This May Bore) On Metaphor*

Fig. 2. Giuseppe Arcimboldo - Portrait with Vegetables (The Greengrocer), c. 1590

* Extract from Siri Hustvedt's Charles Dickens and the Morbid Fragment as a downloadable PDF.

Please Be A Witness To Love As A Thing Of Wonder*

Fig. 1. Quadricycle for two, 1886

Valentine's Day May Mean More To Retailers Than Lovers

Some holidays know who they are. Thanksgiving is about giving thanks; Independence Day celebrates freedom. But other holidays contradict themselves, and none more than Valentine's Day, which has about as much to do with love as the Easter Bunny has with resurrection.

For one thing, it's named after a martyr, which isn't a very promising start for a holiday meant to celebrate passion, not punishment.

In olden days, a typical observance involved bachelors pulling maiden's names out of an urn like a raffle. Nowadays, Valentine's Day is a favorite of 8-year-olds who come home from school with more candy than on any day other than Halloween, though this, too, seems a little odd for a holiday that shimmies into view in a pink feather boa and high heels.

Children alone can't account for the fact that a billion cards are sent every year - second only to Christmas - and 85 percent of them by women. For this, we can thank Esther Howland, a 1847 Mount Holyoke grad whose father owned a stationery store and who came up with the idea of mass-producing Valentines. The mother of the Valentine never married, but she did get very rich.

I'm suspicious of any holiday in which the greeting card business and the diamond cartel conspire. Greeting cards have their place - congratulations on the new baby, joy and peace in 2009 - but surely love should sing harmonies only you can hear, not the tinny pipe organ of the Hallmark serenade.

As for the diamonds, I like them as much as the next girl, but especially in this economy it would be nice for love to be associated with something warm and soft and accessible, not cold, hard and exorbitant.

My main frustration is that Valentine's Day only pretends to celebrate what we like about love while more often undermining it. Love is hope and madness and generosity; it asks for nothing in return. Valentine's Day easily evokes dread and duty and devotion put through a metal detector.

A million Web sites instruct men on what to give, lest they send the wrong signal or are reduced to relying on drugstore chocolates. Restaurants cue the violins and raise their prices. You can find matching Snoopy Valentine towels on eBay, not to mention naked Cupid refrigerator magnets.

There's nothing wrong with reveling in romance, and honoring friendship, and pausing in the bleak midwinter to tickle the people we love, but it's also a good sign of the state of your relationships if the day just saunters by and winks and you feel no need to pay much attention.

Love should fizz without champagne, should grow even in hard soil. The minute its expression feels like a duty, it has lost its bearings. "Love sought is good," Shakespeare observed, "but given unsought is better."

Nancy Gibbs (Time/PBS)

* 'I have always felt that there is a triangular quality to every love affair. There are two lovers and a third element - the idea of being in love itself. I wonder if it is possible to fall in love without this third presence, an imaginary witness to love as a thing of wonder, cast in the glow of our deepest stories about ourselves,' (Siri Hustvedt)

Addendum: Smoke Me Down To The Butt, Baby

My Bloody Valentine - Cigarette In Your Bed (click image to watch clip on YouTube)

The Aging Art Of Gazing Into The Simulacra Of Time

Fig. 1. René Magritte - The Eye, 1935


'Painting is there all at once. When I read a book, listen to music, or go to a movie, I experience these works over time. A novel, a symphony, a film, are meaningful only as a sequence of words, notes, and frames. Hours may pass but a painting will not gain or lose any part of itself. It has no beginning, no middle, and no end. I love painting because in its immutable stillness it seems to exist outside time in a way no other art can. The longer I live the more I would like to put the world in suspension and grip the present before it's eaten by the next second and becomes the past. A painting creates an illusion of an eternal present, a place where my eyes can rest as if the clock has magically stopped ticking.'

Siri Hustvedt (from Mysteries of the Rectangle)*

* This link will take you to a downloadable PDF version of the introductory chapter of Siri Hustvedt's Mysteries of the Rectangle.