Which is to say, it’s already near the top of everything I’ve read in the last six months. I also read Ella Maillart’s The Cruel Way and Vita Sackville-West’s Twelve Days in Persia as a result, and Annamarie makes them both read like spoilt upper-class nobs whose only talent is the distinct whiff of colonial racism – I kept thinking if I was traveling with them I’d be obliged to leave them stranded and be off with their car and money because that’s all they’re good for. Perhaps being hooked on heroin gave Annamarie an empathy absent in these others; it did wonders for William Burroughs also. At very least, her translation into english adds a great deal to 20th century Central Asia writing.

25 April, 2012
20:00
Dialogue Books
Schönleinstraße 31
Berlin, Germany

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Journalist, novelist, antifascist, archaeologist, world traveler, the Swiss writer Annemarie Schwarzenbach (1908-1942) became a European cult figure following her rediscovery in the 1990s. At long last, her works are also appearing in English via Seagull Books.

To celebrate, join Dialogue Books as we host Alexis Schwarzenbach, the writer’s grandnephew and the leading expert on her life and work. He and Annemarie Schwarzenbach’s translators Lucy Renner Jones and Isabel Fargo Cole will also read from a selection of her works suggesting the breadth of her concerns and creativity. Lyric Novella is the tale of a young “man’s” love for a nightclub singer in decadent Weimar-era Berlin, while Death in Persia is a more open exploration of lesbian love and existential anguish against the background of 1930’s Teheran, and All the Roads Are Open is an account of Schwarzenbach’s epic journey in a Ford from Switzerland to Afghanistan on the eve of World War II.

ABOUT

Annemarie Schwarzenbach, born in 1908 to one of Switzerland’s most prominent families, published her first novel at the age of 23. Her friends Klaus and Erika Mann introduced her to artistic circles, and she scandalized her conservative family by living an openly lesbian lifestyle and supporting leftwing political causes. From 1933 to 1941 she took numerous trips in Europe, the USSR, the United States, the Near East and Africa as a photojournalist covering social and political issues, while also publishing novels and short fiction. After the outbreak of World War II she sought ways to take political action, helping the Manns’ anti-Fascist efforts, but increasingly succumbed to depression and drug addiction.

Annemarie Schwarzenbach died in 1942 in Switzerland following a bicycle accident.

Annamarie Schwarzenbach

Originally I wanted consciously to avoid having to review a book, as then the weight of obligation would leave me floundering in unread pages. But perhaps, perhaps … one paragraph or so, explaining a little why this book.

Will I manage to do it for all impending books? Well, anyway, perhaps it will make sense a little of why my reading habits tend to go Afghanistan, Afghanistan, China, Central Asia, China, science-fiction.

Joseph Stanton

Joseph Stanton ]]> http://supernaut.info/2011/08/joe-1/feed/ 0 http://supernaut.info/2011/07/process-unprocess-first-week-remainder/ http://supernaut.info/2011/07/process-unprocess-first-week-remainder/#comments Sat, 23 Jul 2011 12:39:05 +0000 frances http://supernaut.info/?p=2148 Continue reading →]]> Today is a day off, my first in two weeks, so I am sitting on a train, north of Antwerpen towards Amsterdam—a weekend (or rather a night in parentheses of two part-days) visit to see Lewis and wander a city I last visited after my first time at ImPulsTanz in Vienna.

How do I remember the week, then? The first three days were very much spent on working with rope. Our initial ideas and talks moved around making something of our shared idiocy, but what we were doing these days was quite serious. Out of which, came what?

An unsurprising proof, that one can, using all the messy tying (untying), quite easily suspend oneself. Really, it’s just a matter of getting enough rope between self and floor. It’s somehow more comfortable that traditional shibari figures, as well as being much looser—especially when I tied myself. Contra this, many of the ideas for working together fail once suspended. The tension on the rope is simply too great to allow for easy unthreading. Instead, thinking of the long tying (long, loose connections between limbs), and applying that to the ring and body, it’s possible to make a low suspension with a lot of movement in it.

We left this on Thursday—also Lewis’ last day with us. Thinking back to what had entertained us that night in La Monnaie, it was a single rope (or maybe two). So we tried long messings-around sometimes with one rope, sometimes with many, until some ideas began to appear. This became the kernel of Friday.

We also had ideas to work with texts from Niezsche (Gala) and Wittgenstein (me). I was thinking back to last time I spent a holiday with Ludwig, and what had interested me then. It wasn’t the Tractatus, though admittedly I have a fondness for that, which is also a fondness for his thinking. I was thinking of his later writing regarding that text, but could only find an unpublished collection of his writings that may have become a text had he not died first. It is titled Über Gewissheit — On Certainty. Much of it deals with Wittgenstein’s thoughts on Moore’s ‘Proof of the External World’, and ‘Defense of Common Sense’, in a manner immediately recongnisable as in his style.

Gala and I spent yesterday—in-between trips to the café for macrobiotic lunch, coffee and pauses—making some sense of what we’d done in the previous days. It seems to have resulted in perhaps 20 minutes of unrefined yet interesting enough things to be worth spending more time on. We dance even.

We dance a lot in fact, and probably shall dance some more. It won’t be a finished piece of course, but it seems to have something within which is what we were trying to find. How is it possible to reproduce stupidity without loosing the original enjoyment? Stupidity here being a kind of play, for example like children do which has elements of taunting, cruelty, nonsense, hyperactivity (probably also not stopping when we should and living to regret it). It also has a duo of Wagner and Nietzsche (well, me humming the Tannhäuser overture and Gala reading the aftersong From the High Mountain ending Beyond Good and Evil.

There are other things to try next week, but after a week of a process I went into completely and intentionally unprepared, it seems to have found something a small but useful distance away from failure.

As for unpreparedness, it’s normal for me to go into a new work with much reading, research (yes, that word), and some notebooks worth of ideas. I can usually talk about what I intend to do with some clarity and coherency, and have enough ideas to work on to ensure that we won’t all be sitting around waiting for me to feel inspired.

It’s a curious method then to start with barely anything. An idea to work on our shared amusements, another to have Wittgenstein and Nietzsche make a showing, a third to have something of rope and shibari. That’s all. Sure all of this is not unfamiliar to me and occupies for some years a part of my attention, but to have no notebook, no roll call of tasks to try, no real idea what the first day might hold, let alone what we might be trying for is an uncanny way to make performance.

Somehow it works. I certainly wouldn’t use it as a working method for most of my work (for example abjection has over a year of systematic research, enough notes and ideas for more than a couple of works and has reached a point where I can almost watch it in my head as a film), but for this work and with Gala, it seems to allow both of us a freedom to entertain ourselves.

It’s also very nice to return to making performance. I feel like I haven’t done anything the past three years, even though I’ve been busy with others’ projects. This weekend is to think about Ludwig and Friedrich a bit more, maybe they can have a conversation next week.

process/unprocess 4

process/unprocess 5

process/unprocess 6

process/unprocess 7

owen lattimore – inner asian frontiers of china

Also with this was a photo I took while in Brussels at La Monnaie, when we got onto the stage during the day, alone and made some suspensions and photos.

Mostly I only see my photos on screens, and this hides much, so seeing my photo of Gala and Dasniya, suspended while around the first act forest of Parsifal loomed, printed on high quality stock, gave me a smile.

You can enjoy it here scanned, or see it as it should, in print, in Mein lesbisches Auge 10 – Das lesbische Jahrbuch der Erotik from www.konkursbuch.com

(For those who would like copies of the embedded video and audio (with no easy or obvious download links) on some of these sites, I’ve downloaded it all. And for those who want any of this once the links expire, I have all the pages saved as they originally appeared as .pdf.)

Press & Print Media

[OPERA] Parsifal un enchantement musical – Culture – Nouvelobs.com
Avui+ – Notícia El camí solitari
BELGIENINFO.net Urenkelin Nike interpretiert Wagners “Parsifal”
Drammaturgia.it – Parsifal
Opéra Romeo Castellucci met en scène un “Parsifal” hallucinatoire – LeMonde.fr
FT.com – Arts – Parsifal, La Monnaie, Brussels
Review – Wagner’s ‘Parsifal’ at the Theatre de la Monnaie in Brussels – NYTimes.com
Rue du théâtre – Le roi Richard ! – Parsifal
Sind wir nicht alle ein bisschen Parsifal? – Nachrichten Print – DIE WELT – Kultur – WELT ONLINE

Blogs

Ars Super Omnia Parsifal em Bruxelas
Hadrian est où? Richard Wagner’s Parsifal @ De Munt 15-02
Ionarts Parsifal with Ropes
Leidmotief Lezingen rond Parsifal in Brussel
Leidmotief Parsifal in De Munt een recensie (3)
Leidmotief Parsifal in De Munt een recensie (4)
Leidmotief Parsifal in De Munt perscommentaren
Opera Cake Castellucci’s Parsifal in Brussels
Opera Today Parsifal in Brussels
Parsifal (Richard-Larsson-Haenchen-Castellucci) La Monnaie – Histoire de l’Opéra et vie culturelle parisienne pour fervents lecteurs
Recensie en foto’s  Parsifal  De Munt Brussel
recortes y periodismo Parsifal en Bruselas bajo “brillante trabajo” del director Romeo Castellucci
Richard Wagners Parsifal à la Castellucci in De Munt | Dupslog

Video & Audio

“Parsifal”, de Wagner, à Bruxelles – videos.arte.tv
VIDEO Romeo Castellucci Parsifal – Richard Wagner – Bruxelles | FILMS7 MUSIC

It’s almost 4am, I should be going to sleep but all I want to do is …

Hosni Mubarak resigns as Egypt prez: Video of Tahrir square first reaction

The Egyptian people have toppled Mubarak, an extraordinary moment, but the regime has not been toppled, not yet.
‘This Is Who Egyptians Are’
Iran: Hope, Joy, Envy as Egypt Breaks Free
Egypt: The Vlog before the Revolution
Egypt: The World Rejoices as Mubarak Resigns
Mubarak steps down. Egypt Uprising wins the first round…
Triumph as Mubarak quits
What next for Egypt?
Where does Mubarak go now? [Updated]
Timeline: Egypt unrest
Egypt: The Moment of Triumph
Twitter: #egypt, #jan25

Today I have read a number of articles and blog posts that are high exemplars of thoughtful analysis and to me underscore the brilliance of new media as it has grown in the past several years; individuals who are unabashedly passionate about their fields on interest and recognise the importance of their voices in providing not just a bulwark against the endless mediocrity and often willful disingenuousness of commercial media, but often altruistically providing considered, articulate, educated writing that could exist nowhere else.

Greg Downey at Neuroanthropology today wrote a piece that at its absolute minimum is all this: ‘The last free people on the planet’. It’s over 11000 words (and that’s before even clicking any of the extensive links or further reading), so find a spot in the sun if you’re in Brussels, along with something to drink, take an hour and read this.

On that note, in no particular order (nah, actually mostly alphabetically), and in several languages … Reviews!

(For those who would like copies of the embedded video and audio (with no easy or obvious download links) on some of these sites, I’ve downloaded it all. And for those who want any of this once the links expire, I have all the pages saved as they originally appeared as .pdf.)

Press & Print Media

“Parsifal” in Brüssel Gefesselt im Aquarium | Kultur | ZEIT ONLINE
”Parsifal” – DN.SE
Albino Snake, Bondage Enliven Lush Brussels ‘Parsifal’ Review – Bloomberg
Bizarre Parsifal uit Brussel – Lekker even uit! Alle evenementen op Film en Uitgaan van De Telegraaf. [Muziek]
BRF online – “Parsifal” in Brüssel Ein großartiger Opernabend
Controversiële Parsifal in De Munt – Cutting Edge
de opera van romeo castellucci
deredactie.be Castellucci bewerkt “Parsifal” in De Munt
Deutschlandfunk – Kultur heute – Opernferne junge Leute beleben “Parsifal”
ICA – International Classical Artists | Hartmut Haenchen conducts Parsifal
Il Parsifal di Romeo Castellucci
Lalibre.be – Camou flage, bondage, images
Lalibre.be – Parsifal et le secret des fem mes ligotées
Les Inrocks Opéra la beauté inouïe du “Parsifal” de Castellucci
Leute von heute (Kultur, Bühne und Konzert, NZZ Online)
Nordbayerischer-Kurier.de » Romeo Castellucci nähert sich in Brüssel Richard Wagners „Parsifal“ als reiner Tor
Oper Brüssel Ein Mensch im Wald | Musik - Frankfurter Rundschau
Parsifal secondo Romeo Castellucci – DelTeatro.it
Tiezzi e Castellucci un “Parsifal” per due- LASTAMPA.it
Un serpent chez Wagner – ROMEO CASTELLUCCI, Hartmut Haenchen – mouvement.net – l’indisciplinaire des arts vivants
Wagner réinventé – OPERA
Journal La Terrasse Classique – Opéra – Romeo Castellucci – numéro 184 – JANVIER – 2011
lesoir.be: Castellucci en quête du graal
lesoir.be: Les figurants au-devant de la scène
lesoir.be: Parsifal, humain, trop humain ?

Blogs

Opera Rocks: Castellucci Parsifal — From the 2011 La Monnaie production
Alles over Kunst Opera – De Munt Parsifal
Il Grand’ Inquisitor – Parsifal in de Munt
Intermezzo Parsifal – La Monnaie does it Romeo Castellucci’s way
international loner Long-awaited opera, Parsifal by Romeo Castellucci at the Royal Theatre La Monnaie in Brussels
La Monnaie Reviews | Parsifal | January 2011 | from The Opera Critic
Leidmotief: Parsifal in De Munt: een recensie (2)
Opera Cake La Monnaie Parsifal – and now for something completely different
Parsifal (Wagner-Haenchen-Castellucci)
Romeo Castellucci’s ‘Parsifal’ premieres tonight; first images « Utopia Parkway
Leidmotief: Parsifal in De Munt een recensie (1)
Leidmotief: Romeo Castellucci over Parsifal in De Munt
Leidmotief: De zwarte magie van Wagner

Video & Audio

Cobra.be — PARSIFAL À LA CASTELLUCCI IN DE MUNT
Castellucci herschept Parsifal voor De Munt | tvbrussel
De hand van Guido Parsifal in Brussel hoe een emmer cultuurfilosofie wordt leeggekieperd
Oper: Wagners “Parsifal” in Brüssels – videos.arte.tv
PARSIFAL IN BRUSSELS
Cobra.be: ROMEO CASTELLUCCI OVER ZIJN PARSIFAL