Italics are mine

Blue Rider in the Lenbachhaus Munich

I bought this book at the Phillips Collection bookstore in D.C. this past spring and I am so glad I did. The book was issued to celebrate the reopening of the Lenbachhaus Munich after extensive renovations, and of course it features the painters who have made the Blue Rider group famous, such as Wassily Kandinsky and Franz Marc. I love the artistic movements at the beginning of the twentieth century, especially fauvism, that used new shapes and stunning colors to express their vision of the world, and the Blue Rider group has long been a favorite of mine. I only knew its most famous members, though, and the book greatly added to my understanding of the group.

I enjoyed most the detailed description of Kandinsky's relationship with fellow painter Gabriele Münter, whom I have to admit I hadn't known about before, and the discovery of wonderful painters who haven't benefited from the same name recognition as Kandinsky and Marc but stunned me with their innovative way of painting, such as August Macke and Alexei Jawlensky. That level of groundbreaking innovation amazes me. We talk about innovation in science and engineering, but the level of stunning creativity needed to bring an invention to market pales in comparison to music by Arnold Schoenberg or paintings by Franz Marc. Those were truly pioneers in their field, ostracized loners who were not afraid of stinging criticism to realize their vision. We could all learn from them.

For those of you interested in seeing the pictures at the Lenbachhaus but unable to make the trip, this YouTube video by ganz-muenchen.de offers an excellent overview of the art on display. Enjoy!

Nathan Englander's "Ministry of Special Cases"

I love this book. I just love this book. The story is heart-wrenching, but it is also masterfully told. I had obviously heard of Englander (for my non-US readers: he's a highly-publicized American writer with a powerhouse team of top agent and best-in-the-business editor) but I'd never read anything by him until I picked "The Ministry of Special Cases" at the Joseph Fox Bookshop in Philadelphia - in the end I read the book in three days sharp in the middle of the semester. If you ever want to know what a successful novel looks like, "The Ministry of Special Cases" has it all: three-dimensional characters both funny and tragic, vivid storytelling, a spell-binding plot set in Argentina in the mid-1970s (a dark period that saw the military junta grab power and "disappear" 10,000-30,000 people in the so-called Dirty War), where we follow a Jewish couple looking for their college-aged son. I will not give away the ending, but let me tell you, Englander knows how to write. Given the heaps of vapid trash that pass for novels these days, the book is obviously not for everybody, but it shows literature at its finest: fiction that brings back terrible times some would prefer to keep forgotten, fiction that makes us feel we are living through this absurb and deadly period alongside the desperate parents trying to get a hearing at the ministry of special cases. A masterpiece.

Pat Summitt's "Sum It Up"

I like to write about art and classical music on this blog, but for today you'll have to forgive me a little digression into sports. I picked up "Sum it up" in paperback during a recent trip to Philadelphia and couldn't put it down. It is a memoir by Pat Summitt, who coached the women's basketball team of the University of Tennessee (the Lady Vols) for thirty-eight seasons, leading them to eight NCAA national titles, and had to step down in 2012 after a diagnosis of early-onset Alzheimer's. The book is co-written with author Sally Jenkins, and it is just spellbinding. I don't follow college sports so I had never heard of Pat Summitt before I came across the book on a display in the bookstore, and yet I loved every single page and often laughed aloud. Of course, if you have read "Sum it up" and know me a little you'll figure out very fast why I found her memoir so appealing: she had very modest beginnings, just like my family, and used her coaching and tough love to make her players become better individuals - not just athletes. (Improving one's condition through hard work, especially when starting from almost nothing, is a theme that has always resonated with me, for obvious personal reasons.)

Yes, sometimes she comes across as a little extreme (for instance when she makes her players train in the middle of the night after a loss - I wonder how the university would react if I made my students write proofs at 4am because they made a mistake in the draft of a paper!), but I enormously respect people like her who go all out and try to make a difference in the lives of the underprivileged. Many of Coach Summitt's recruits lived in the projects or belonged to the lower middle class, and she taught them dedication and commitment and how to push yourself always further in the pursuit of your goal, although she avoids sounding too content with herself in the book. She also doesn't hesitate to say that her coaching methods didn't suit every player, but I liked the recurrent theme that she yelled at her players because she cared. When you stop confronting people about what they did wrong, it is the beginning of the end of that relationship.

All in all, Coach Summitt comes across as an inspiring woman with a big heart who did what she did for a reason, and gave everything 110%. I also found her insights on leadership to be widely applicable to teamwork outside sports, and I'll make sure to pick up her earlier, business-oriented book "Reach for the summit" when I get the chance. With her Alzheimer's diagnosis, she also reminds us to savor the joys we have in front of us while we can. 

The Commencement Speeches That Were Not

It was announced last week that I.M.F. Chief Christine Lagarde had withdrawn from giving the Commencement speech at Smith College, a few days after former Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice backed out from giving the Commencement speech at Rutgers University. Some Rutgers students had protested the invitation extended to Rice because they view her as a war criminal due to her role in the Iraq war, while the I.M.F. has come under heat for its loan practices toward developing economies. Commentators have generally expressed various degrees of dismay at this outcome, and I strongly believe that both Condoleezza Rice and Christine Lagarde would have had valuable insights to share with their respective audiences of graduates, but what has surprised me the most in the news coverage is how little attention has been given to the fact that these two accomplished women apparently chose to cave in to pressure, whether from the students or from administrators who didn't want to officially rescind the invitation.

I don't understand why they couldn't handle the heat - especially Lagarde, who is currently holding an important post where she has to make tough decisions. I could imagine Rice deciding that she's done with public service and doesn't have to put up with people protesting her invitation, but from Lagarde it just comes across as weak. So students would have protested at Commencement - what is the big deal? (Unless they were worried for their safety, which would obviously be a very big deal, but which I haven't seen anyone suggest so far.) Both Rice and Lagarde could still have read their remarks, and they could - and probably should - have donated the speaking fee to a non-controversial cause such as the Special Olympics, and perhaps they could also have met the student protesters outside Commencement to discuss their and the students' views. I don't agree with the minority who protested, but it seems to me that they had the right to do so. The Commencement speakers chose to back down, or agreed to give the appearance of backing down. I hope that at the very least, they will publish the speeches they would have given, whether controversial or not, although it is hard to believe that they would have used college graduation exercises to stir up controversy. Having one's voice silenced is never a good outcome.

The Heifetz-Piatigorsky Concerts

If you like chamber music, Get.This.Boxset.Now. It is a gem. The Heifetz-Piatigorsky concerts let us experience the concerts that violinist Jascha Heifetz and cellist Gregor Piatigorsky held starting in, when both music giants were in semi-retirement from the concert stage and wanted to continue performing music in small settings for their friends. The concerts came to an end in 1974 when Heifetz injured his shoulder. (Piatigorsky died 2 years later.) They are occasionally joined by musicians such as Artur Rubinstein at the piano and William Primrose at the viola. The boxset is a box of 21 CDs all individually encased in cardboard sleeves reproducing the exquisite original artwork, with an informative color booklet providing a short essay and a detailed description of the contents of each CD. I found the sound to be of excellent quality. Overall, an excellent purchase. At $56 on Amazon, this is absolutely a bargain for chamber music lovers.

Below is a detailed description of the CDs' content, since I didn't readily find one online.

CD1 Ravel: Trio in A minor; Mendelssohn: Trio No1 in D minor Op49 (with Artur Rubinstein)

CD2 Tchaikovsky: Trio in A minor Op50 (with Artur Rubinstein)

CD3 Beethoven: Trio for Violin, Viola and Cello in G major Op9/1; Trio for Violin, Viola and Cello in C minor, Op9/3 (with William Primrose)

CD4 Beethoven: Trio for Violin, Viola and Cello in E-flat major Op3 (with William Primrose)

CD5 Beethoven: Serenade for Violin, Viola and Cello in D major Op8 (with William Primrose); Kodaly: Duo for Violin and Cello Op7

CD6 Beethoven:  Trio for Violin, Viola and Cello in D major Op9/2; Bach: Sinfonia No4,9,3; Schubert: Trio for Violin, Viola and Cello in B-flat major D581 (with William Primrose)

CD7 Brahms: Concerto for Violin, Cello and Orchestra in A minor (with the RCA Victor Symphony Orchestra, Alfred Wallenstein conducting)

CD8 Schubert: Quintet for 2 Violins, Viola and 2 Cellos in C major D 956 (with Israel Baker, William Primrose, Gabor Rejto)

CD9 Franck: Quintet for Piano, 2 Violins, Viola and Cello in F minor (with Leonard Pennario, Israel Baker, William Primrose); Brahms: Sextet for 2 Violins, 2 Violas and 2 Cellos in G major op.36 (with Israel Baker, Virginia Majewski, William Primrose, Gabor Rejto)

CD10 Mendelssohn: Octet in E-flat major (with Israel Baker, Arnold Belnick, Joseph Stepansky, William Primrose, Virginia Majewski, Gabor Rejto); Mozart: Quintet for 2 Violins, 2 Violas and Cello No4 in G minor (with Israel Baker, William Primrose, Virginia Majewski)

CD11 Beethoven: Trio for Piano, Violin and Cello No 1 in E-flat major op.1/1 (with Jacob Lateiner); Haydn: Divertimento for Cello and Orchestra (with unnamed [RCA?] Chamber Orchestra); Rozsa: Tema con variazioni for Violin, Cello and Orchestra (with unnamed Chamber Orchestra)

CD12 Arensky: Trio for Piano, Violin and Cello No.1 in D minor (with Leonard Pennario); Vivaldi: Concerto for Violin, Cello, Strings and Continuo in B-flat major RV 547 (with Malcom Hamilton and Chamber Orchestra); Martinu: Duo for Violin and Cello No.1 H157

CD13 Mozart: Concerto for Violin and Orchestra No.5 in A major "Turkish" (with [RCA?] Chamber Orchestra); Turina: Trio for Piano, Violin and Cello No.1 (with Leonard Pennario)

CD14 Dvorak: Quintet for Piano, 2 Violins, Viola and Cello No.2 in A major (with Jacob Lateiner, Israel Baker, Joseph de Pasquale); Francaix: Trio for Violin, Viola and Cello in C major (with Joseph de Pasquale)

CD15 Brahms: Quartet for Piano, Violin, Viola and Cello No.3 in C minor op.60 (with Jacob Lateiner, Sanford Schonbach); Boccherini: Sonata for Violin and Cello in D major; Toch: Divertimento op.37/2

CD16 Mozart: Quintet for 2 Violins, 2 Violas and Cello No.3 in C major K.515 (with Israel Baker, Virginia Majewski, William Primrose); Mendelssohn: Trio for Piano, Violin and Cello No.2 in C minor op.66 (with Leonard Pennario)

CD17 Spohr: Double String Quartet in D minor op.65 (with Israel Baker, Pierre Amoyal, Paul Rosenthal, Milton Thomas, Allan Harshman, Laurence Lesser); Dvorak: Trio for Piano, Violin and Cello No.4 in E minor "Dumky" (with Jacob Lateiner)

CD18 Dvorak: Trio for Piano, Violin and Cello No.3 in F minor (with Leonard Pennario); Stravinsky: Suite italienne; Gliere: Prelude Op39/1; Handel: Passacaglia in G minor HWV432/6

CD19 Brahms: Quintet for 2 Violins, 2 Violas and Cello No.2 in G major op.111 (with Israel Baker, Paul Rosenthal, Milton Thomas); Beethoven: Trio for Piano, Violin and Cello No.6 in E-flat major op.70/2 (with Leonard Pennario) 

CD20 Schubert: Trio for Piano, Violin and Cello No.2 in E-flat major D929 (with Jacob Lateiner); Brahms: Trio for Piano, Violin and Cello No.2 in C major op.87 (with Leonard Pennario) 

CD21 Dvorak: Quintet for Piano, 2 Violins, Viola and Cello No.2 in A major op.81 (with Jacob Lateiner, Israel Baker, William Primrose); Tchaikovsky: Souvenir de Florence (with Israel Baker, Milton Thomas, Paul Rosenthal, Laurence Lesser)

"The Unwinding" by George Packer

 I picked up "The Unwinding" at the airport in Seattle one evening before the red-eye flight, unsure whether it was worth it to buy one more book because my suitcase was already full, I already had books to read and I was planning on sleeping for most of the flight anyway. In the end the bookchain's advertisements about the need to support bookstores in airports convinced me to buy the book, as well as the topic - what has been happening to middle-class America over the past few years - and the fact that the book won the National Book Award. In hindsight, I am really, really glad I did.

The structure is very original, with each chapter being devoted to a recurring real-life character or place, such as Tammy Thomas or Silicon Valley. This allows to see these people and entities evolve together over time, instead of covering one person's path and then "rewinding" to cover another one's. The narrative technique works really well, and it has to be said Packer is a master of powerful storytelling. The last chapter of Part II ("Tampa") and the first chapter of Part III ("Jeff Connaughton") really angered me because of the terrible behavior of the bankers, trying to make people lose their home while they didn't have the title or no one really knew who the money was owed to because of the mortgage securities that had spliced the debt. Packer provides a compelling portrait of middle-class America struggling against the system masterminded by the 1%.

He excels at the David vs Goliath narrative, where he unsurprisingly sides with David, even when David gets beaten up by the powers-that-be. On occasion his writing (in general, not referring to this particular book) could be more powerful if it wasn't quite so opinionated - in his much-discussed New Yorker portrait of Amazon, for instance, I thought he had produced an outstanding, heavy-hitting first half that showed journalism at its best, but became too stridently anti-Amazon in the second half, which for me diminished the impact of the whole piece. (He quotes someone comparing editors who go to work for Amazon with French collaborators supporting the Nazi regime during the 1940-44 Occupation. That was so outlandish I lost any sympathy for the anti-Amazon camp then and there. But I digress.)

In The Unwinding, Packer speaks very convincingly in favor of the little guy, and what he lets us see of the things going on in Washington, DC (such as: politicians preparing themselves for cushy positions as lobbyists instead of enacting meaningful reform for the everyday Joes who believed in the American dream before being taken advantage of) is positively revulsing. His book is an important read and asks the bigger question of the sort of society we want to sustain. 

Here are some additional resources about the book:

• New York Times review #1
• New York Times review #2
• Christian Science Monitor review
• The Nation review
• The Guardian review.

You can watch Packer read an excerpt of his book as part of the celebrations for the National Book Award finalists in November 2013 below. (The winner was announced the following day.)

But more than anything, I recommend reading more of his New Yorker writings. He has an exceptional gift to make us see familiar things anew. For instance, in "Change the world", he revisits the theme of benevolent Silicon Valley geeks-turned-philanthropists and describes the influence of their money in politics. He also writes fascinating blog posts on the New Yorker website, such as this one. Packer is definitely one of the more important voices in American journalism today. Read him.

"All the way", Part 2

I returned to see the play "All the way" on Broadway last week. It is actually the first time I see a play twice with the same cast in the same production, which was fun because I got to anticipate Eric Lenox Abrams's outstanding monologue after the funeral from the moment the play began, and it also allowed me to pay more attention to details and smaller roles. A lot of people go and see that play for Bryan Cranston, and he is very good, but frankly he is not my favorite actor in the cast by far.

In fact, I think he overplays LBJ, making him look more comical - pathetic? ridiculous? - than the man really was. I also can't stand his pseudo-Southern accent, and there was a lot of what he said that I didn't get when I saw the play in March (I write this as someone who has read plenty about LBJ through Robert Caro's biographies), but at least when I went back I understood his speech better, including the Comanche story. [When LBJ was a baby, Comanches attacked the Johnson farm and his mother hid with the baby in the cellar while the Indians rummaged through the house. I read that in Caro's first book on LBJ.]  

My take is that Cranston overshadows the other actors, and of course people wouldn't come and see the play if he wasn't headlining it, so at least he has dragged me and others inside the Neil Simon Theater and allowed us to discover such stunningly good actors as Brandon J. Dirden and William Jackson Harper. So Cranston serves an important purpose. But really you should go and see that play for the joy of seeing theater's rising stars at work.

By chance, I came across the review of the play in The New Yorker earlier today - it dates back from March 17, but I hadn't had a chance to read that issue of The New Yorker due to a hectic work schedule. The magazine's lead theater critic reviewed the play, and I know enough about theater to pay attention when Hilton Als reviews something. His review does underline Cranston's constant shouting (I guess you can call it "playing big", the way Texans are apparently supposed to be played on stage), and he has one positive sentence about Dirden, who plays Martin Luther King, and the actor who plays a Democratic senator from Georgia ("McMartin and Dirden fully realize their roles"), and that's it.

I was surprised when I read that review. I expected better from Als. He totally draws a blank on the excellent William Jackson Harper, who plays Stokely Carmichael, and the phenomenal Eric Lenox Abrams, the actor who gives the monologue after the funeral. Maybe Als left after the first half because of a deadline? You cannot not mention Lenox Abrams's monologue if you witnessed it, or the perfect interaction between Jackson Harper and Lenox Abrams, in roles of fiery African-American activists who want things to move at a faster pace than what Martin Luther King is ready for. You cannot not watch the play and not root for them - both the characters they portray but also the real-life actors, who are making their debut on Broadway. They make an excellent team together. 

When I saw the play for the second time, Lenox Abrams gave a great monologue but it wasn't quite as jaw-dropping as the first time I saw it, where he harangued the crowd without visibly catching his breath once (this is after the funeral of the black boy [James Chaney] among the three Freedom Summer workers murdered in Mississippi for trying to register black citizens to vote, a true story, and the character played by Lenox Abrams speaks powerfully of the anger in his heart that the people responsible won't be caught, after which he shouts "Are you angry?" repeatedly backstage while he strides from the balcony back to the stage). When I saw the play in March, sitting through that monologue after the funeral was basically like watching a home-run fly out of the park in slow motion with no warning. That was a Saturday matinee, though, and when I came back in April I attended the Saturday evening show, where the monologue was rock solid but not quite as jaw-dropping as the first time, perhaps because it is more tiring to repeat it in the same day. (I hope no one asked Lenox Abrams to tone it down. He deserves to become a star.)

Since I already knew the play and had already seen Cranston in his LBJ role, I had a great time observing the other actors in their performances. I thought in particular that William Harper Jackson was superb. He brings a wiry intensity to the role of Stokely Carmichael and his lines, with their deadpan sarcasm in just the right tone, got the most enthusiastic reactions from the audience when I saw the play for the second time. 

In other words, you can tell your friends you're going to see "All the way" for Bryan Cranston, but do yourself a favor while Cranston hams it up on stage and keep your eyes on Dirden, Lenox Abrams and Jackson Harper. When they become very famous five years from now you can look very smug and say you saw them before everyone else. 

Paintings I love by Qi Baishi

Below are a few ink paintings by a Chinese painter I recently discovered, Qi Baishi (1864-1957), who is most famous in the West for being an influence on Isamu Noguchi's style when the latter - only 26 and stepping out of Brancusi's shadow after a two-year apprenticeship - visited Beijing in 1930, but deserves to be known in his own right for his beautiful ink paintings. The exhibition "Isamu Noguchi and Qi Baishi" was on view at the Noguchi Museum in Queens in October after a first stop by the University of Michigan Museum of Art last summer; you can read the New York Times review here. I discovered when it traveled to the Frye Art Museum in Seattle. For more on Qi Baishi, I recommend the excellent exhibition catalog.

The first two ink scrolls pictured belong to the Tsao Family Collection of Modern Art. The third one belongs to the Katsuizumi Collection.

 Red Camellias 

 Autumn Landscape with Cormorants

 Wisteria

Aren't they stunning?

 

Korngold's Violin Concerto

I've been listening to Korngold's Violin Concerto a lot while I work on my current project, especially the recording that was made with Jascha Heifetz as soloist and Alfred Wallenstein conducting the LA Philharmonic in 1953. It so happens the concerto is available on YouTube thanks to Sinfoniette, so I have included the first movement below. The influence that composing Hollywood movie scores had on Korngold's artistry is readily apparent, and very enjoyable to listen to, although many classical-music critics sneered that he had "sold out" back in the days.

At home I listen to that exact same recording that I've bought on arkivmusic (I highly recommend this website, great service) - because you have to support being fair to composers, artists and their descendants. If you like the concerto, please consider buying the recording too!  

 

 

Ten years

Next month marks ten years since I graduated from MIT, and this summer ten years in the LV. It's been quite a ride. I read online that Elias Zerhouni, who was then the director of NIH, gave the Commencement speech - I have no memory of it, but it's an interesting coincidence, given the turn that my research has taken toward healthcare. I re-read the speech a few days ago, and Zerhouni made good points: I love his "relativity principle of time and aging," which is: "the older you are, the faster time seems to go by," something that I've found to be very true but was of course incapable of understanding back in 2004. I also appreciate Zerhouni's kind words toward the MIT president at the time, Charles Vest, who was in the last year of his tenure and recently passed away.

The key part of Zerhouni's speech is something that completely went over my head at the time: "What I will dare to say to you is that life sciences and their applications will be the defining challenge of the 21st century, bar none. And the reason is that we are changing our environment at a speed which will require us to understand life sciences to a degree we do not understand today. And let me tell you, it will require the intelligence and commitment of many classes of graduates like yours. The solution will not come from biology alone. It will come from the integration of biology and computer sciences and mathematics and physics and chemistry, and we want to encourage that to happen." Now this seems eerily prescient, but imagine saying that to a crowd of over 2,000 graduates back in 2004, many of whom - myself included - were not about to receive a degree remotely related to the biological sciences.

Zerhouni also provided some of his rules: 50% of what graduates know today will end up being wrong, many of your contributions will not come from your core discipline, try to have 50% of your friends from walks of life not related to yours and definitely have at least 50% of your friends smarter than you. (This is why living in the LV has been such a problem for me, by the way, but I've been fortunate to have NYC and DC nearby, and the fact that I write a lot has also helped, since the LV has been the perfect place for me in that respect: no distraction.) Zerhouni explains: "At least half of your life contributions will be stimulated by others that are interacting with you... Now look at laboratories around the world that have been very productive. They've been productive because they have, in fact, encouraged the clustering of people from diverse backgrounds, coming from diverse horizons, with different ideas."

And my favorite quote: "Last but not least, I would say you should have big dreams, full dreams, not half dreams. You know, it's very simple. You can't put a large box in a small box. Well, you cannot put a full life in a small dream box. What you need is to have a box, a dream box, in a life that is as full as the potential you have today." In hindsight, this was truly an amazing speech. 26-year-old me didn't understand it, but sometimes you get a second chance.

So yes, 10 years on the job, 10 years in the LV. Now that I'm getting ready to go on sabbatical, I can write about the LV in a more charitable way than I would if I were stuck here forever. The job at Lehigh has made a lot of good things possible over the past decade, and if I were brought back to the spring of 2004 with the offers I had and the knowledge of how the 10 years would go if I picked Lehigh, I'd still make the choice I made. I'm aware, though, that the things that have given me the most joy have been mostly those that have helped me get away from here, with going to NYC and DC leading the pack.

It's as if something hollow has made something delicious possible, and when I was trying to find a way to describe it, the image of a French "baba au rhum" actually came to mind. (I'm not kidding. I hope you didn't think of a donut. Baba au rhum is so much better! There is rhum in it - that settles it.) There have been a couple of constants in my life over the past ten years: the job, the apartment, the car, the fact that I wasn't going to get away from my highly disturbed mother as easily as I thought. In graduate school I wanted to become financially independent, i.e., get my degree, as fast as possible, but of course in hindsight it seems incredibly naive of me to believe it'd solve the problem. What can I say, I did what I could with what I had, and I did alright.

So there have been good things in those ten years, and some bad things, and I tell myself one day I'll make a play or a book out of it, so that it can serve a good cause. We all have our wounds to carry and mine made me what I am today.  I wouldn't be writing the books I'm currently writing now if I hadn't been through all that, and frankly, I like those books. Ten years, uh? They've been good. They've made a lot of things possible, including - yes - an odd feeling of happiness. They've been a great stepping stone. I can't imagine having the past 10 years go any other way. Hopefully the next 10 will be even better.