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« June 2009 |
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| August 2009 »
I am in an apartment or loft — possibly my home, in New York. I hear the freight elevator arriving — funny, I wasn’t expecting anyone. It is an old-style NY freight elevator, the kind you have to operate manually, with a scissors gate that has to be opened before the regular door. (Here’s a picture of one from my friends at Transportation Alternatives.) 
Anyway, the elevator in the dream arrives and inside is a gaggle of “bank robbers” (dressed in dark suits, I think) who are holding civilians in front of themselves as human shields. I grab an old pistol (a Colt-type revolver) out of a nearby desk drawer (I don’t own a gun) and begin to do what I have to do… unfortunately that means that some of the hostages get shot as well. I shoot one of the civilians, and as that person drops, the bad guys are revealed and exposed, and, as the elevator is manually operated, they’re too busy defending themselves to leave my floor. I eventually kill everyone, though I have regrets about those poor human shields who also had to die.
Dream 3
I am packing up the folding bikes and someone is watching me, commenting, “No, not like that… that’ll never work… those folding pedals are useless…”
I am in an African village, staying with a local family. It is a Sunday (or similar day off) and family, relatives and friends have all assembled for a backyard get together. There is a large table with food, and people are in attractive local dress (instead of the Western stuff worn during the regular week). After some festivities, I notice a high, mournful voice singing – not too far away. I follow the source of the singing, and just beyond the gathering I come upon a young African man, maybe 20 years old, at a keyboard singing Neil Young songs. He’s got the high, whiney voice down perfectly, and for a moment I am simply stunned. He sings one song, then goes on to the next one in the Neil Young songbook. I think to myself, “Some Peace Corps person must have left a Neil Young cassette behind, and this kid has taken it upon himself to learn all the songs.” My hosts and some others appear and ask me if I am impressed with the young man’s talent. “Is he not great?” I tell them yes, I am impressed, he’s amazing, but I politely omit the fact that his talent is, to me, completely useless. My hosts press on, “Since you recognize this man’s talent and skills, don’t you think he could surely be a success in your country?” I am flummoxed, and try to explain nicely that his talent is astounding and surprising — if you close your eyes it really could be Neil Young — but to me, it is of no interest past the moment of initial shock. My hosts aren’t having it. They KNOW this man is talented — and they’re right — and are therefore absolutely certain that he could be huge outside of their village and surrounds. I again try to explain that in my country, a Neil Young already exists, and an African copy, however faithful, is simply unnecessary. The discussion peters out in mutual misunderstanding and incomprehension.
We are staying in a large hotel that is very design-heavy — like a scene from 2001, the movie. We’ve stayed in boutique hotels before, and they typically feature dark hallways and clubby lounge music in the cafés and elevators, which are often also dimly lit. Philippe Starck and others have a lot to answer for, having been responsible for the top of the line and premier versions of this trend. This hotel puts the receptionists inside a kind of pod. 
The pod is less substantial than it seems — on approaching it one notices that it is a plywood shell wrapped in translucent fabric, stretched over a wire frame. If you leaned on it you’d sink into it. There are curving walkways outside the lobby and some chairs and ottomans that are oversized and bulbous like some weird Matthew Barney props. In the rooms, the built-in furniture is all white and a speckled shag rug completes the mid-century view of what the future will be like. The floors are padded rubber (!)… which is actually nice and cushiony on your feet, and practical in other ways we will eventually discover. A single black (!) moderne chair sits on the rug, and if you sat in it you’d find it would collapse on one side; we soon find out that like most things in this version of the future, a sleek, cool appearance belies a broken-down substance. 
The window blinds open via small motors, and they squeak loudly. So far, it’s all hilarious. We’re reminded of the Jacques Tati movie Mr. Hulot’s Holiday, in which the eponymous lead character visits his relatives who are living in a modern house with all the mod cons — and they all squeak, clank and gurgle. The door in this room bleats like a lamb in pain, and after leaving the room, I return to find that after numerous failed attempts at opening the door normally, the electronic keys don’t work — or, to be precise, one has to heave oneself at the door, at exactly the precise moment, to achieve entry. I guess the latch mechanism is in disrepair. The nice large bed floats in the middle of the room, and strangely, its wooden frame also encloses the bathtub! The frame is slim and must be made of teak or some other water-resistant wood as one is sure to splash water out of the tub occasionally. It is so slim, however, that there is nowhere to put bedside items like a book, newspaper or a glass of water… they have to be placed on the rubber floor or behind the bed, on the rim of the tub. A design that initially seems cool and inviting turns out to be somewhat ill considered and often impractical — besides being in disrepair. I don’t think the construction or maintenance here would pass muster with Mr. Starck. I plan to check my email etc. as I usually do upon arrival… but there is nowhere to sit at the “desk,” which doubles as the mini bar and TV stand. I clear a space near the edge and pull out a cube-shaped cushion to use as a chair. It sort of works. On the second day, the hot water turned brown. There are street works up the road, so maybe the ancient Roman plumbing was shaken, rust and sediment were loosened, and that explains the sudden brownness? No, that can’t be right, as it’s only the hot water that’s affected — so it must be something inside the hotel. It doesn’t stink — so it’s not sewage backing up, thank God… but it’s pretty disgusting. Here’s what a full tub of it looks like: 
You think that is disgusting? Here’s what was left after the water drained: 
It reminded me of one theory regarding the fall of the Roman Empire: that because their elaborate and innovative plumbing system was made of lead pipes, the entire population that lived within the exclusive precincts of the city therefore poisoned themselves and slowly went mad. I was told by some locals that when this hotel opened a couple of years ago, it was a sensation. The idea of a hip hotel/lounge hangout chic-spot was intriguing, and sure enough, on Sunday afternoon after we all arrive, the pool/bar on the roof is packed with handsome boys/men and lovely Italian beauties. It’s an Armani ad come to life, and we are scared off, as we are not familiar with the ways of their planet. On a bike trip to the Vatican to purchase kitschy gift items (e.g. a Popener — a beer bottle opener with the Pope on it), I was surprised to see some very non-religious merchandise. Here are the typical Davids as seen all over Firenze: 
In Roma there were many mosaics, framed and for sale, of Jesus, Mary, and the Pope — but also of Al Pacino, Obama and The Gladiator, Russell Crowe. 
Of course, there are ruins all over Roma — massive structures like the Coliseum or Hadrian’s tomb, walls, columns and bits of aqueducts. But there is a much larger number of minor ruins. If construction begins on a building and ruins are discovered while digging the foundation, one is by law obliged to stop and either revamp the building plans or somehow protect the ruins. Our 22nd century hotel has a glassed-in area, just to the left of the entrance, that looks like a diorama of a barely begun building site — there are wheelbarrows, plywood ramps and piles of dirt and rubble. They are, of course, ruins, so the hotel was built over them — and we never saw a single worker doing excavation in the time we were there. Like unopened time capsules, these things are all over the city, seen and unseen. The venue we played — an outdoor theater in the center of a cluster of pod-shaped concert halls designed by Renzo Piano — had to be rethought while the foundations were being dug. Construction ceased, and the whole design was revamped. Eventually the halls ended up being built on raised platforms rather than sleekly laid out on a piazza as originally planned. So, tucked behind the central auditorium around which the pods loom is what looks like a vacant, abandoned lot — but one can see that the weeds and grass have grown over a grid of partial excavations. Another time capsule. Most of the ruins around town are unremarkable, though plenty of tourists pose for photos in front of them, and they are rigorously protected. I wonder to myself what archaeologists and the rest of us hope to get out of these numerous crumbly bits. They’re everywhere — and while they might inform us of the size or hierarchy of former rooms, they can’t possibly offer us much else. The more substantial ruins of temples, sports palaces and circuses tell us quite a bit about how the Empire lived, governed, entertained and thought of itself — and how the more contemporary entertaining and infantile antics of Il Duce, Berlusconi and his ilk are therefore no surprise. Here’s Altare della Patria (altar of the nation), a temple built by the King of Italy (Vittorio Emanuele II) in the early 1900s more or less for himself — and designed stylistically to align himself with the glory of the Empire. I suspect most tourists think that this monument is as old as the other Roman temples nearby. (Thank you, Rosy G!) 
But what about all this other stuff — the crumbly bits? Do we have to respect every piece of rubble? What can we really hope to learn from these pathetic foundations and remaining stumpy bits of wall? Have the Italians sacrificed some part of their future in honoring and maintaining their glorious past? Am I being cynical? (I would certainly rather see ruins than block after block of ugly, concrete apartments!) The Italians must, I imagine, feel hamstrung by their past, which must justify in their minds the escape from the past represented by the ugly apartment and office buildings that fill these cities outside their historic zones. 
Love this city! Much of it is in remont (renovation), which calls to mind Berlin in the years right after the wall fell. In Berlin, and between West and East Germany, there was a huge financial surge meant to bring the East up to the functioning level of the shiny, capitalist West — so it all happened extremely quickly. Dumpy East Berlin apartments became squats became nice apartments became luxury goods stores within only a few years. Here the process is slower — there is less money — but there are squats that have transformed into funky lounges and cafés, little restaurants run by former actors and actresses, and crumbling buildings in the old Jewish and Roma (gypsy) ghettos that are fast being bought up. For now, everything is possible (sort of), and everything is in flux. Alternative arts spaces appear and disappear. Exhibitions and performances are held in former industrial spaces.
Thank You U2!
Mark E pointed out as we prepped for our show last night in Warsaw (at a not so big club/venue called Stodoła) that these undersized dates are in effect being subsidized by U2’s world tour. The promoter of these dates, and of much of the U2 stadium tour, is Live Nation, the global conglomerate. A venue like Stodoła could not possibly afford to pay for us, the catering, or even their local crew given the relatively small number of tickets to be sold here — and it’s not even an “exclusive” VIP-type venue. It’s not like they can charge $200 a seat and make up their losses that way — this is a standing room club… with a floor made of plywood. So in order to book our date, they must (we figure) be losing money now, then making it up with what they expect to earn on the upcoming U2 stadium dates. Those stadium shows may possibly be the most extravagant and expensive (production-wise) ever: $40 million to build the stage and, having done the math, we estimate 200 semi trucks crisscrossing Europe for the duration. It could be professional envy speaking here, but it sure looks like, well, overkill, and just a wee bit out of balance given all the starving people in Africa and all. Or maybe it’s the fact that we were booted off our Letterman spot so U2 could keep their exclusive week-long run that’s making me less than charitable? Take your pick — but thanks, guys!
My office was tipped by a local named Eva that the thing to see in Ostrava is the Vítkovice Iron Works… a massive former steel foundry/coal mine complex that fed the needs of the Austro-Hungarian empire, the Nazis and later the Soviet Empire (the last “heat” from the blast furnaces was in 1998). With the fall of that symbiotic/parasitic organism, the giant complex was broken up, passed to various owners, and only parts of it still function (Vítkovice Heavy Machinery is one). Like Pittsburgh, Bethlehem Steel and the giant complexes in the Ruhr Valley — Essen and Bochum — this industrial dragon made the town and fucked it over at the same time. Here’s a picture from the World Wide Web: 
[Source]
This area was earlier referred to as Moravia, and the whole region was incredibly rich in mineral wealth. History was, like in those other towns, written in advance by the lucky confluence of resources — the iron was here, the coal was nearby, and there was a river to carry stuff (end products and effluvia) in and out. The Witkowitz Mines and Iron Works, as it was called, really got going in 1828… and was co-owned by the Rothschilds, who were based in Austria. Oddly, it was a Scotsman who had the initial idea to build the complex here. John Baildon started it in 1810; the Rothschilds and others came in later, having leased the business. In the beginning, rails for future train lines were produced, enabling the expansion of the empire. By the mid-1800s the Rothschilds’ partners, the Gutmann brothers, also "supplied coal for all the railroads, for all the great factories throughout the empire, and for the cities of Vienna, Budapest, and Brünn." Here is one of the spots where the Earth gave up her riches — giving copiously so that other industries and empires could flourish. Although these areas were usually ugly and polluted, they made the glorious palaces and opera houses possible. "In 1887, a new plant for cast steel was built and arms production was expanded", as it was in the Krupp-owned plants that dotted the German Ruhr Valley. All was not hunky dory. In the 1870s Engels and others were influenced in their revolutionary writings by the workers’ conditions here, and their strike movements. The strikes were long and widespread, and the workers movement was gaining traction. However, many of the strikes were violently suppressed, as they were in the US and elsewhere. "Interference by troops and police compelled them to end a strike that commenced in early 1882." [Source] The ironworks became involved in the entire community. Shortly after the construction of the works, the face of Vítkovice began to change dramatically. From the very beginning, the rapidly growing population was catered for by the construction of company housing in the immediate vicinity of the works. A plan for the construction of ‘New Vítkovice’ was drawn up and gradually implemented. The aim was to build a modern housing complex that would not only provide easy access to the works, but would also offer a high standard of architecture and civic amenities making it truly ahead of its time. The owners of the works soon realized that besides providing accommodation, the company would also benefit if it paid attention to the health, education and cultural life of its employees and their families. [Source] From birth to death — the company owned you and “looked after” you. This “enlightened patronage” seemed to be going on at the same time as the strikes and their violent suppression… hmmm. Dr. Plener, the leader of the German Opposition, traced a sinister
parallel between events and the initial stages of the French
Revolution. This by no means exaggerated the situation in the mining
and industrial districts of Bohemia and Silesia. At one place in the
latter province, the center of a section producing half of the total
output of coal in the empire, there were 40,000 strikers encamped in an
open stretch of fields flanked by thick woods, whence raiding parties
went out in force to pillage the surrounding country, bringing in
cattle and supplies, quite often after bloody encounters with the
military. The whole district was being filled with troops to protect
the mines and factories, and there had been fatal collisions in half a
dozen different villages.
One of the most painful phases of this outbreak of disorder was that
the rabble of Czechs, Poles, and Socialist refugees from Germany who
were leading it were striving hard to turn it into an anti-Jewish
crusade. Many mill and mine owners in this locality were Jews, the
biggest iron and steel works at Witkowitz being the property of the
Rothschilds, which made it easy to mix up the Judenhetze with the
strikes. Throughout these provinces there was scarcely a town where, during the
last fortnight of April, Jewish shops had not been broken open and
looted, and on May Day there threatened to be a universal attack made
on the Hebrew.
[What can one say about this sad turn of events that presaged later horrors? Were the Rothschilds and others distant and heartless exploiters of the local workers? I suspect so, in which case they sadly may have set themselves up as inevitable targets, who became the “cause” of every injustice and misery. That the rising of the workers, a Romantic and noble cause as we view it from 100 years later, was also linked with anti-Semitism is a great tragedy.] [In the early 20th century] the boiler shop produced gas holders, equipment for coke cooling with
dry cooling towers, high pressure Löffler boilers and boiler units for
hydroelectric stations. The bridge building works realized deliveries
for high-rise constructions, bridges (in 1932, the largest European
bridge of that time was made, two stories tall over the Old Dnepr near Kiev, Ukraine) [who today could have imagined that Ukraine was leading the infrastructure of Europa under the Soviets!], an exhibition hall for the World Exhibition in Paris, as well as a railway station hall in Teheran.
Witkowitz was only 25 miles from the pre 1938 German/Czeck border. Marshal Göring had
advised State Secretary Weizsäcker that the territory beyond Teschen,
along the southeastern German Silesian frontier, should not go to
Poland unless Poland agreed to support the return of Danzig to Germany... It was decided to make
an effort to keep the Poles out of the industrial center of Witkowitz. While the Nazi officials were threatening and intimidating the
representatives of the Czech government, the Wehrmacht had in some
areas already crossed the Czech border. The Czech industrial centres of
Maehrisch-Ostrau and Witkowitz, close to the Silesian and Polish
borders, were occupied by German troops and SS units during the early
evening of 14 March 1939. At dawn on 15 March German troops poured into
Czechoslovakia from all sides. The owner of this company was the Viennese banker Baron Louis Nathaniel Rothschild (1882-1955). After the annexation of Austria, he received a visit: The Nazis wanted Witkowitzer to sell his works. Although the Nazis held him for a year in detention, where he remained with the explanation that he could not sell, it must be reviewed by London's Rothschild family branch - Alliance Assurance Co., Ltd., a London insurance company.
At the end the Germans paid the price demanded: 2 million pounds in cash and the release of Louis Nathaniel Rothschild. [Why didn’t they just take it by force and kill the Jews? That’s what we would expect in this story. What bit of information is missing that made the Nazis pay a Jew for his steel works?] When it was time for him to be released from prison, he asked for the time. "A little after 20 clock, Mr Baron." And he replied: "So! That's too late to disturb my friends. I go tomorrow. Good night, gentlemen."
After the end of the Second World War, the Baron Witkowitz did not return. The communists were in property matters rather less flexible than the Nazis… [ Source] 
Materials were then produced for the Soviet Empire — fulfilling their industrial, military and infrastructure needs — and in the ’70s, materials for the nuclear power industry were produced as well… and the wealth of this area was critical in keeping yet another bloated Empire afloat. 
In 2002 the entire premises were declared a site of National Cultural Heritage. In Essen many of the foundries were dismantled in the last few decades and shipped to China. In that enterprise, the Chinese sent over thousands of workers, built a temporary town for them, numbered all the parts and then took the entire factory apart — all the massive machines and buildings — and reassembled it in China. Voila! Instant steel industry! For some reason that hasn’t happened here. The Germans saved one complex from the Chinese scavengers as a reminder of their past, but here it seems everything remains. [Link to Journal from 2006] We biked over and were given a sort of “tour” — though our “guide” didn’t speak English and had little to say beyond “You can’t go in there!” There was a little bit of a holdup getting past the gatehouse. Our escort said, “Some elements of the communist era still persist — and this guard is one of them.” We were all issued hard hats and in we went. The place is awesome in its terrible beauty — similar to the works in Essen I visited a couple of years ago. Some of the turbine parts looked like aliens or the statues of Easter Island: 
Now rusted and overgrown with vegetation, the site is the ruins of our own civilization — as emotional for us to wander through and take in as viewing the ruins of Roma and Athens must have been for the Romantics of the late 19th century. How the mighty have fallen; what glorious and monstrous things they built. What strange Gods they worshipped. 
Not so far away is the Ostrava haunted house — the other side of the once mighty industrial region seen as in some weird distorted mirror — and another side of life and the local mindset floats into view like a strange dream. It’s a beautiful Mike Kelley-type installation — not scary in the intended way, but frightening in lots of other ways. 
Included is a trip into the belly of the “whale”: 
In Santa Fe we biked past what Robert Farris Thompson calls a “yard show” — and quite an amazing show it was. The part with naked figurines was hidden from the road/view by a hedge. I believe the street was called Agua Fria. 
While in NYC on a couple of days off, I saw a work by a Chinese artist named Song Dong at MoMA. He had saved all the crap that his mom had hoarded in her house and then displayed it all on the floor (as well as the wooden supports of the house). If many of us are dismayed at our parents’ pack rat tendencies we can get a little perspective from viewing this trove of useless, worn out stuff that Granny collected. Truly horrific and strangely beautiful — she saved old toothpaste tubes, shopping bags (oops, I do that too), Styrofoam and cardboard containers… how did she stash it all??!!
Also in NYC I popped in to see the Meth Lab at Deitch on Wooster St. A variation on this exhibition was shown previously in Marfa, Texas: Land O’Judd. I remember friends in Austin and elsewhere pointing out houses in their neighborhoods that were rumored to be meth labs — some of which would suddenly explode if the “chemists” weren’t careful, which they often aren’t. 
In Athens I went to three museums on my bike, despite the heat. The Cycladic Museum has a lovely collection of those alien-looking, proto-modern figures. We were reminded that the link to modern Brancusi-like sculptures is deceptive, since like many ancient figures, these were originally brightly colored; maybe now, at least conceptually, they’re more closely linked to less austere, post-modern, colorful sensibilities.
Of course, at the new Acropolis Museum and the massive, overwhelming National Archaeological Museum there are hundreds of more classical Greek figures that had been polychromed — painted in bright colors and who knows what else. (Were they dressed? Oiled and anointed, as sculptures in shrines often are?) I didn’t keep count, but it seemed like an awful lot of the male statues had had their penises whacked off… not that they were massive to begin with. One wonders if later cultures thought those appendices offensive — maybe the Christian and Orthodox went around whacking off dicks — and I wonder if somewhere on Mt. Athos some monk oversees a box full of “lost” classical penises. (Mt. Athos also maintains a significant seed bank, and houses the first photography archive of images taken in Greece and its surroundings.) 
I loved seeing the rooms in these museums where only bits (heh) of sculptures survive — and the fragments are displayed on sticks and metal rods, effectively floating in space: a part of a face, an elbow or some toes are all that remain. I wish they’d go one step further in their reimagining of these classical works — that there might be just one or two re-creations painted and polychromed as they would have been. (There are still bits of paint on some of the statues indicating their original colors.) Of course, they might run the risk of looking tacky and bizarre — like a waxworks museum full of naked people. Here is a fairly intact Siren — one of the creatures who almost lured Ulysses and his crew to his death with their strange and haunting singing. Freaky. 
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