Little known Lithuanian Composer

Mikalojus Konstantin Ciurlionis (1873-1911) was a polymath, being a composer, painter, choirmaster, cultural figure & writer in Polish. In his short life, he composed about 400 pieces of music & about 300 paintings in the symbolic & art noveau tradition. He also produced many literary works & poems. 

He received a lot of posthumous recognition.

1944 State Museum of Art in Lithuania was 

          set up housing his paintings.

1957 Lithuanian community in Chicago

         opened Ciurlionis Art Gallery.

1964 Lithuanian alpinists climbed peaks of

          Pamir mountains in Tajikistan & named 

          the first one after him.

1968  Ciurlionis Quartet was formed.

1975  Crimean astrophysicist Chernykh          

          discovered a new asteroid & named

           it after Ciurlionis.

Two of his symphonic poems, "The Forest" & "The Sea" have been recorded & issued by the Russian label "Melodiya"

Haute Couture, Haute Cuisine but no Haute Culture?

Haute Couture means high fashion with custom made hand-stitched dresses. Some famous makers of these are Coco Chanel, Christian Dior, Givenchy, Pierre Cardin, Armani, Prada etc., Their brand names themselves are assurances of high quality.

Similarly Haute Cuisine is served in restaurants with Michelin starred quality. Michelin awards stars to restaurants serving exceptional food. One star means "very good cooking", two stars "excellent cooking" & the highest, three stars means "exceptional cuisine."

But while the above two are well-known in the western world (and creeping into the affluent elite in India also), there is no similar standard for haute culture, i.e., fine editions of classic books & high-end music systems.

Fine books like Barnes & Noble, Folio Society are unheard of & Linn, Marantz, Bang & Olufsen audios have made no inroads even into homes who can afford them.

The affluent Indian film stars, cricket stars & other "nouveau riche" cannot think beyond buying lavish houses & fleets of luxury cars. No use have they for fine books or gorgeous music, the more is the pity.

Gems from "The Golden Age"

The first half of the twentieth century is generally considered to be the Golden Age in two genres of fiction, namely Children's Literature & Detective Fiction.

Coincidentally, the year 1926 itself marked the publishing of two of the very greatest works in both genres. They were "Winnie the Pooh" by A.A. Milne & "The Murder of Roger Ackroyd" by Agatha Christie. Who can forget Winnie & his friends Rabbit, Piglet, Owl, Eeyore, Kanga, Roo & the boy Christopher Robin? They were joined in the later volume "The House at Pooh Corner" by the bouncy Tigger. The volumes were memorably "decorated" (illustrated) by E. H. Shepard. The books' influence was so wide that they even inspired a best selling Taoist interpretation "The Tao of Pooh & The Te of Piglet" by Benjamin Hoff.

In her third novel featuring Hercule Poirot, "The Murder of Roger Ackroyd", Agatha Christie created a tour de force, the solution of which, some critics considered illegitimate. However, her illustrious contemporary & fellow writer, Dorothy Sayers, felt that this opinion merely represents "a natural resentment at having been ingeniously bamboozled."

The year 1908 saw the publication of "The Wind in the Willows" by A.A. Milne. This classic about the immortal Mole, Water Rat, Badger & Mr.Toad leading the life of Edwardian gentlemen in a country setting has been illustrated by practically every illustrator of note. The appeal of this book is unbelievably  transcendental.

In 1939, Agatha  Christie came up with her most popular novel, "And Then There Were None." She herself admitted that it was the  most difficult to write. But it has enthralled millions of its readers. Ten people who have escaped from the law are inveigled to a lonely island & made to answer for their crimes, the last committing suicide, all to the words of an innocuous nursery rhyme!

Classic Literature produced by Slaves

The first was Aesop, born in Phrygia Major at about 620 B.C. He was a slave of Xanthus, who favoured him. He left Xanthus for the service of Iadmon, who employed him as a confidential advisor.

Plutarch (of "Parallel Lives" fame) writes that Aesop was also at the court of Croesus, king of Lydia, famed for his legendary wealth. Aesop also visited many places, teaching people by his Fables.

Once King Croesus, sent Aesop as his ambassador to distribute a large sum of silver  to the citizens of Delphi. But the Delphians were so greedy that no plan of Aesop for the equitable distribution of silver suited them. Disgusted, Aesop sent the silver back to the King. The enraged Delphians hurled Aesop from a high cliff. Thus he met his end in about 564 B.C.

About 330 fables are ascribed to him.

Unlike Aesop, who was a historical figure, Uncle Remus was a fictional Black slave created by Joel Chandler Harris. He narrates his tales of Brer Rabbit, Brer Fox & other anthropomorphic animals to the young son of his master. The stories appeared in late 19th Century onwards, set in the deep south of U.S.A & are unique in following the black oral tradition with its special dialect.

There are 185 stories in all & the uniqueness is in Brer Rabbit, being the most vulnerable animal of his predatory community, managing to survive, using his deviousness, much like the blacks of his time surviving, in spite of the odds being stacked against them.

Need of the hour: Culture Shaming

Nowadays, most are familiar with body shaming (unkindness towards obese people), status shaming (looking down on people lower down the social scale), contempt for those with a less paying or less powerful job, or even with those having a less expensive car. All these are only symptomatic of a mean, materialistic mind.

What is needed more in our society, is encouraging people to be more civilised,  cultured & interested in things which makes mankind different from animals. If need be, even culture shaming could be pressed into service into making philistines aware of their cultural inadequacies irrespective of their wealth or even academic education or status.

An example is in Agatha Christie's "Lord Edgware Dies". Lady Edgware, for reasons of her own, wants to dispose of his lordship. So she hires a famous impersonator & mimic to impersonate her at a dinner party (& give her an alibi) while she goes & kills her husband. The problem is one of these identical looking ladies is quite cultured & knows her Homer whereas the other is a philistine & knows Paris only as the city of fashion & not a Paris who abducted Helen of Troy in Homer's Iliad, & makes a fool of herself by exhibiting her ignorance of Homer.

This discrepancy leads eventually to solving the murder. So this shows how important it is to have at least a smattering of culture to be considered civilised.

The Antigone Complex - Ethics & the invention of feminine desire by Cecilia Sjoholm

What if psychoanalysis had chosen Antigone rather than Oedipus? 

Freud's notion of the Oedipus complex had proven to be an inadequate model for the understanding of femininity & feminine desire for many of those engaged in that issue from a social or political viewpoint, & Antigone enables us to discuss some of the most pertinent questions from new angles.

George Steiner, who considers Antigone to be the most canonical text of the West, posed the question. This book traces the relation between ethics & desire in important philosophical texts that focus on femininity & use Antigone as their model. It shows that the notion of feminine desire is conditioned by a view of women as being prone to excesses & deficiencies in relation to ethical norms & rules. Sjoholm explains Mary Wollstonecraft's work, as well as readings of Antigone by G.W.F.Hegel, Martin Heidegger, Luce Ingaray, Jacques Lacan & Judith Butler.

Table of contents:

1.⁠ ⁠Morality & the invention of feminine desire

2.⁠ ⁠Sexuality versus Recognition: Feminine Desire in the ethical order

3.⁠ ⁠The Purest Poem.... Heidegger's Antigone

4.⁠ ⁠From Oedipus to Antigone: Revisiting the question of feminine desire

5.⁠ ⁠Family Politics/Family Ethics: Butler, Lacan, & the Thing beyond the Object.

Institutionalising & Glorifying Slavery

The 21st Century phenomenon of accepting & hailing working hours beyond that mandated by International Labour Organisation has reached alarming heights. Work/Life Balance has become a dirty word, not even to be breathed during the hiring process.

In fact this is putting the clock back to the early days of industrial revolution, when 16 hour work days were common, even for children. Enlightened Europe has moved forward to 35-40 hours/week, with stringent penalties for employers who call employees by phone outside work hours.

As for the specious argument that it is all for "nation building", the rise & fall of nations is a cyclic phenomenon. The Romans were great (because of slavery) & later declined & fell as recounted by Gibbon. Of course, all this can be known only by those who have the leisure to read Gibbon. Hitler's 1000 years Third Reich also bit the dust. 

Actually corporate work culture is worse than slavery because it costs money to replace slaves, whereas in a free capitalist market, new labour can be hired for the asking.

From a pragmatic view, work is not a basic necessity like food, clothing & shelter. Employment is sought only to get money. Inherited wealth makes work redundant. Even now one can find modest jobs with decent working conditions.

The bitter irony is that instead of feeling ashamed of being used like slaves, without leisure to lead a civilised, cultured, cultivated life, people are feeling important because of an illusion that they are doing great work, with no time for any thing else, boosting their fragile little egos. Greed may also be a factor as well as the common belief that more money = more happiness.

It may be cogent here to mention that working for a living was considered shameful in the Regency era of Jane Austen's world. In her "Persuasion", Sir Walter Eliott had nothing but contempt for those who had to work for a living. When he had to rent out his house for economic reasons, to an Admiral of the Navy, no less, he was highly distraught. Even surgeons were very low in the social scale. Even during Queen Elizabeth II's reign, Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher was always referred to by the Royals as "that grocer's daughter."!

The sane thing to understand is that work alone is not the "raison d'etre" of human existence & man does not live by bread alone. A human being has need of active sport & cultural activities to differentiate him from mere animals. The sooner this is understood & man is allowed to regain his humanity, the better.