On The Ning Nang Nong

Sorry for the mashup. But they are interconnected.

Reminds me of the founding father of Christianity Irenaeus of Lyon. Remember that 'God' thread? I was interested in historical and prevailing theories on theodicy. That was when I came across this dude who nicely cleaved generic evil into "moral" and "natural" evil and came up with his theory of maturation. The necessity of evil has been debated so heavily from alogon and akrasia of Greek philosophers to 'banality of evil' of Hannah Arendt. But this Irenaeus is something! A bridge, a walkway, or a zealous projectile towards the more famous Augustine of Hippo.

I know! You build skyscrapers and skycities in an attempt to invade the skies, thus, leave the underpinned planet unscathed.

Hmm, I don't know many Iras. That Ira Remsen who discovered saccharine and features as an entry, abutting Teflon, in books citing serendipitous discoverers. Kids, don't wash your hands and discover amazing stuff.

OK, resolmila (to continue), reesolmila (continuation), resoolmila (one who continues), resolmiila (continual), resolmilaa (continually). OK, in continuation of your con-language mention, no Nadsat, only Solresol. Why? Bitten by music these days.

Aye, and also tour those 4-7 year old kids in China. Tell them about the Monkey King and Lady Meng Jiang and gently nudge nudge wink wink at the absolute pitch cultivated in Far Eastern kids. Expose them to the tonal languages as early as possible. Heard, music comes natural to the speakers of these tonal languages, unlike the monotoned English speakers. Don't corrupt with Nadsat, teach them that 'Do-re-mi' Solresol. Tones! More here.

As tone languages go, Mandarin is by no means the most complicated. The Hmong language, spoken in China, Vietnam, Laos, and Thailand, can have seven or even eight tones. It’s dazzling, really. If you say paw like a statement, it means “female.” Say it like a question and it means “to throw.” Say it up high in an impatient way and you’re saying “ball.” Say it down low as if you ran into someone in a basement and didn’t want anyone upstairs to know you were down there, and it means “thorn.” Say it in a tone between the impatient high and the down-low and it means “pancreas.” If you say paw in a creaky way—kind of like the way one might imitate an elderly person’s voice—then it means “to see,” while if you say it in a breathy, amazed way as if you were seeing a horsey in the clouds, then it means “paternal grandmother.”

It is important to distinguish pancreas from granny. The earlier they learn to do that in a singsong manner the better to preclude embarrassment in family gatherings. Pack those tykes for a China tour next summer to acquire musical chops.

 

I am not big on music but I love catchy songs.

Few years ago, I heard of synth-styled devotional songs. I don't immerse myself in those Anuradha Paudwal devotional songs as I prefer upbeat spa-styled hummy muzak or the new-age chant or, er, rock chant. That's all the acquired devotion I can conjure up. Then, in my last India trip, I was travelling in the car when I asked my driver to play some music. He switched on the player and it hummed

om trayambakam yajaamahe
sugandhim pushti vardhanam
urvaarukamiva bandhana
mruthyo mukhshi yamamrataat

Jeez! No traditional devotional songs, that's a boatload of alien Sanskrit for me. I was about to interrupt, when the lyrics changed to

kehta ye pal
khud se nikal
jeete hain chal
jeete hain chal

I was hooked. What is this song? I found the source to be a song from the movie Neerja. I woke up today and recalled that incident and looked up the song again and played it.



talvon ke neeche hai thandi si ek dharti
kehti hai aaja daudenge
yaadon ke bakson mein zinda si khushboo hai
kehti hai sab peechhe chodenge
ungliyon se kal ki ret behne de
aaj aur abhi mein khud ko rehne de

What is "talvon"? I have never heard of that word. I looked up the translation .."under the feet there is a cold earth". Hmm, "talv" is "feet". That's interesting! Does "talv" mean "physical feet" or "standing" (metaphoric). I don't know. But I love the rhythmic chant and the persuasive lyrics with intense message.

Come on, the moment demands you to get out of yourself and live. Let's live out of the moment, out of your inhibitions and fears and run with those talvons. (I say, if you are confounded at least run with whatever talons or trotters or hooves you are endowed with.)

Just run! Just live!

 

There are people from whom we wrest sly pamper and tacit approval no matter how much we renounce such fetched infliction. “Oh! I am self-assured, I need no external spur” only upholds but does not propel or gratify one’s upswing motive.

When one such voice utters unawares, you have changed so much. I have observed you from the sidelines, you take that “change” as assertion of your growth.

What growth? Nothing professional or spiritual. However, your outlook and passion for life has surged. You transcend your fears and limitations and rejections. You are liberated of your self-imposed misgivings whether a spirited learning can be inculcated much later in life.

Can I revamp my expression, reform my aptitude and completely rehabilitate myself into something sturdier and much intense than I have ever been. The ascension is gradual, painstaking, methodical, yet when that sidelined voice notices it and remarks in a scant gesture “you have changed so much”, you trace the whimsical undertaking of 2017 and retort: No, I have not merely changed, I have evolved so much since then.

 

Tirant and Carmesina

There's Tristan! But, is there a Tirant? That was a find when I chanced on his love story. So I started skimming the narrative at Gutenberg Archive. Why? Because one must know such heroes who break not one but two legs for their iffy lover.

When Carmesina becomes aware of Tirant's presence, she screams awakening the court. Tirant flees through a window of the tower with the help of a rope. The rope is too short and he is forced to jump from a great height breaking one of his legs. The next day, Tirant tries to hide what had occurred, simulating a fall from a horse, but he breaks his other leg and ends up bedridden.

The plot is mildly picaresque set in Medieval Byzantine combating the Ottoman Turks. The character names are funny! Their disposition is not contrived. I like such arcane novels. And the seminal work has influenced Cervantes to conjure up his most well-recognized character Don Quixote. But nothing matters as Tirant deserves on his own a Ning mention for his fractured attempts to woo his ladylove.

 

Raphael's Marriage of the Virgin (The Golden Legend)

There's Golden Ass and Golden Bough. But there's also Golden Legend. Background: I just finished a course on High Renaissance.

In one of the episodes, Steven Zucker said to Beth Harris, "Beth, there's this medieval book with all the omissions of the Bible. Stories that are not conceived in Bible. Have you ever wondered, how people met and what happened and their missing narratives. What if there's a book that illustrates the gaps in scriptures? So, in Golden Legend we have invented the narrative of how Joseph and Mary met". He didn't exactly say those words to Beth, but he mentioned, Ira cranked up that fantastic dialogue.

Nevertheless, I found that mention interesting as I never questioned myself, how did they meet. Raphael's "Marriage of the Virgin" painting comes to your pictorial rescue. According to the narrative in the book The Golden Legend, the suitors of Mary were asked to grow a flower on a rod. Only Joseph's rod miraculously flowered. In that painting, you can see a man in the foreground flustered with his rod and breaks it and other men holding their forlorn rods. I liked the story, different from bending bows and shooting fish. Grow a flower on a stick and win the girl.

 

Veronese: The Family of Darius Before Alexander

Another painting that caught my attention more for its narrative than artistic fame is the Alexander painting by the Venetian painter Veronese.

People summon Fidus Achates to solemnise their friendship. But what about Alexander and Hephaestion.

Their tutor Aristotle described friendship as "... one soul abiding in two bodies". That they themselves considered their friendship to be of such a kind is shown by the stories of the morning after the battle of Issus. Alexander and Hephaestion went together to visit the captured Persian royal family. Its senior member, the queen Sisygambis, knelt to Hephaestion to plead for their lives, having mistaken him for Alexander because he was taller, and both young men were wearing similar clothes. When she realized her mistake she was acutely embarrassed, but Alexander pardoned her, saying "You were not mistaken, Mother; this man too is Alexander."

Alex made a chivalrous gesture to elevate a friend to his own regal status. Sssh this post is not to discuss the contentious Kallenbachs! Keep it to proper Yeh Dosti covort.

Our man Veronese was inspired by this narrative and rendered in bright paint. Remember, we are in Venice, the land of Titian and Correggio. So, its all colours furthered with sfumato and chiaroscuro from the earlier period. Look at that arm pointing to Hephaestion. He is also Alexander! I have no clue about the pilfering monkey on the left side of the painting. Alex should have introduced that monkey also so that we would have known its provenance.

 

Pandarus and Celestina

Pander? Pander to the needs? Pander ..

The plot function of the aging lech Pandarus in Chaucer's and Shakespeare's famous works has given rise to the English terms a pander (in later usage a panderer), from Chaucer, meaning a person who furthers other people's illicit sexual amours; and to pander, from Shakespeare, as a verb denoting the same activity. A panderer is, specifically, a bawd — a male who arranges access to female sexual favors, the manager of prostitutes. Thus, in law, the charge of pandering is an accusation that an individual has sold the sexual services of another. The verb "to pander" is also used in a more general sense to suggest active or implicit encouragement of someone's weaknesses.

If there's Telamon, there's also Caryatid. So, if there's Pandarus, there should be ....who? Celestina.

This Ning should have been written backward. I came across "The Comedy of Calisto and Melibea", also known in native Spain as La Celestina, in one of Peter Boxall's books.

The Comedy of Calisto and Melibea (Spanish: Comedia de Calisto y Melibea), known in Spain as La Celestina is a work entirely in dialogue published in 1499. It is attributed to Fernando de Rojas, a descendant of converted Jews, who practiced law and, later in life, served as an alderman of Talavera de la Reina, an important commercial center near Toledo. The book is considered to be one of the greatest works of all Spanish literature, and is usually regarded as marking the end of the medieval period and the beginning of the renaissance in Spanish literature. Although usually regarded as a novel, it is written as a continuous series of dialogues and can be taken as a play, having been staged as such and filmed. The story tells of a bachelor, Calisto, who uses the old procuress Celestina to start an affair with Melibea, an unmarried girl kept in seclusion by her parents. Though the two use the rhetoric of courtly love, sex — not marriage — is their aim. When he dies in an accident, she commits suicide. The name Celestina has become synonymous with "procuress" in Spanish, especially an older woman used to further an illicit affair, and is a literary archetype of this character, the masculine counterpart being Pandarus.

Celestina, Pandarus ....what would storytellers compose if Rojas and Chaucer and Shakespeare didn't have such characters to work with and embellish their exploits. And why no wily verb celestinize like pander? With some "z" and "s" American and British and French reconciliation.

 

The Cloverfield Paradox

Give me back my money! I could have outcried this in a movie theatre for a shabby production but one cannot claim refund from Netflix. That is how I felt on this smashed up genre-confusing film. Cloverfield Franchise should stick with their unruly monsters and not get their knees down in hard science fiction. A sacrificing captain, a troubled second in command, another tragic lovebirds, a dissenting Russian, and a shady German are the crew of a particle accelerator named "Shepard" suspended in space. I was enticed by JJ Abrams's name flashed on the trailer. The plot is jaded, the drama is weary, the science is missing! Stay away from the movie.

 

Peter Greenaway

A film maker who recently blew away my mind! He is intimidating, and rightly called the "cerebral" director. His narratives are stylised with distinction. Not very often you come across auteur directors who attest their foot mark on every frame in a movie. He and his "cerebral" canvas are written all over his produce. Don't miss him. Start with The Draftsman's Contract, then The Cook, the Thief, His Wife & Her Lover, then his other painterly films. He is a rare director to be reckoned with. Tsk.. I discovered him late.

 

Movie: Bellissima

"Does my child look like a dwarf to you? She is five! Why are you laughing and calling her a dwarf?

With that fire in her belly, Anna Magnani in the film Bellissima gripped my heart. She is gritty! The movie is a raw slice of Italian struggling class. The poignancy is not melodramatic but laced in humour and spirit. I liked the film.