Bohemianism

I grew up in a musical family and my grandfather was a professional musician.  While surrounded with musical instruments and daily talk about that earthly art of communication, I early on developed a love for string instruments, especially the Oud and the violin. Classical and popular “lament, prayer and celebration” on violin’s cords touched my soul as a child, and still do. The sounds of Bohemia, Armenia, Romania and Hungary seem to find their way into my understanding of the violin and its language.

So, it was no surprise that I was looking forward to a symphonic concert when Beethoven’s Violin Concerto in D Major, opus 61 started it and which ended with Mahler’s Symphony No. 4 in G Major. Perhaps more importantly, the soloist for Beethoven’s violin concerto was Pinchas Zuckerman.  I had never seen him play in person but consider the Duet for Two Violins (Itzhak Perlman and Pinchas Zuckerman) as one of the most beautiful recordings of our century.

After the concert, when the audience was slowing its heartbeat from Zuckerman’s performance, there was discussion about Mahler’s “bohemianism” compared to Beethoven’s “germanisism”.  I was intrigued by the various opinions, but especially by the difference in the understanding of what bohemian means.  For me a bohemian is an epicurean who worships the present and feels constrained by too many prescriptive rules of behavior. For many discussing Mahler’s work however, bohemianism was the precursor to America’s hippies and beatniks in the 1960s! Folks who rejected social order, were non-productive, and… took infrequent showers!

When I asked if they knew where Bohemia was, no one except one knew, and he exclaimed “Wasn’t that gypsy land somewhere in Europe?”

… This morning, I looked through my pictures wondering if I can find traces of bohemianism.

This one I took while watching Lago Como from the hills of Bellagio. It was the “Power of Now” as E. Tolle had wrote about; it was J.J Rousseau celebrating nature with no restraints.

Then I came across this shot I took in Buda, Hungary. Yes, Bohemia was part of the Hungarian-Austrian Empire, but on that rainy Sunday, I found nothing bohemian in that makeshift market. It was somber, cold, and even the few flowers they were selling seemed colourless.

Compare this to the view I had of a quiet street in Siena, Italy. It was a sunny day, and the street was full of Lilac trees’ exhale. The medieval structures harbored many Bed & Breakfast establishments. Can one live the present in unconventional ways there?

And now this uninviting “hotel” in a small town in Northern Maine, USA…. Will they understand what bohemianism can offer?

And since both Beethoven and Mahler created their best works in Vienna, here is a street moment from that city of music and art. 

… I do feel the bohemian lifestyle in Beethoven’s Violin Concerto; I do shut my eyes when listening to Mahler’s Symphony No. 4.  But at no time during these sensual and spiritual voyages upon the cords of a violin I see hippies and beatniks and their refusal to adhere to basic hygiene and social order….

September 21, 2014

© Vahé A. Kazandjian, 2014

Art for a Stoic

I had oysters for lunch with a friend.  “This has been a good season for these bivalve mollusks” he said. “With all the dangers we know about eating raw seafood, why do we do it?”

“Sensual pleasure,” I said, “no other reason.”

And then we talked about pleasure as a guiding principle. Not of the temporary types, but the pleasure as an art of celebrating life.

“We artists use canvas, photographic paper, computers, sound, scream, words and silence to feed our art,” he thoughtfully stated, “yet we die of tuberculosis, cirrhosis, depression, loneliness and forgotten. We age if we are lucky, yet do we age with artfulness?”

Then we talked about the art of living, the art of aging, and the art of dying.

… When I returned home, I parked my bicycle in its usual place, scratched my dog behind the ears, and recalled a few ideas from Simone de Beauvoir’s book La Vieillesse. I do not have a copy anymore, so went to the Web and found an English translation as “The Coming of Age”.  So I read the first chapter, this time in English.

A few passages reminded me of my original reading, while others were a new discovery. I reread these few lines:

“Great numbers of people, particularly old people, told me, kindly or angrily, but always at great length and again and again, that old age simply did not exist! There were some who were less young than others, and that was all it amounted to.”

My dog was sleeping under my desk and snoring. I reached for his head and touched his face. He opened one eye but did not raise his head. He knew it was me. That I was touching him to stop his snoring. Just like old couples do. We have been together now for ten years.

I looked at him and saw an old dog. Yet, every morning, the moment I put his leash on and open the front door, he jumps out looking for squirrels. For an hour or so he is like a young puppy running after every squirrel even if he had never caught one. It does not matter; it is the pleasure of chasing. When we come back home, he drinks water from his bowl, eats breakfast, goes to his favorite corner and sleeps for hours. And if I am around and writing, he comes to sleep under my desk, put his head on my foot and snore while seemingly dreaming of squirrels.

Is he, at some hours of the day, less old than other dogs? Or at other times less young than he used to be?

I wanted to read more. So I checked a reference to Seneca’s work. This passage, from his Letters from a Stoic written two thousand years ago made me smile:

“We should cherish old age and enjoy it. It is full of pleasure if you know how to use it. Fruit tastes most delicious just when its season is ending. The charms of youth are at their greatest at the time of its passing.”

What was my canvas? My dance, my photographic paper, my silence?

After a few minutes I realized that the answer was very apparent and simple: I was my own canvas, my secret dance, my own photographic paper in a darkroom full of unprinted pictures, and that it was my own silence that I share in my writings, my photos, and the whispers during walks on promenades at the edge of the Mediterranean, the North Sea, the Atlantic, the Irish Sea, the Pacific, Adriatic or China Sea.

… Do we age with artfulness? I do not know, but after having oysters for lunch, I felt like reading Simone de Beauvoir and taking my dog for a long walk on the promenade around the port of Baltimore.

September 17, 2014

© Vahé A. Kazandjian, 2104

PS/ The first picture was taken near a port celebrating the Atlantic Ocean. The second is from Prague on a rainy day.

Veronica's Veil

I received an email from an old friend last night, who had accidentally discovered my blog and decided to say hello. A philosopher and physician, he discovered later in life that medicine had no answers for him. Philosophy did not either, but at least helped him ask questions.

“I see you are also touching that veil many of us eventually do” he wrote “have you lived your life full enough to decide to lift that veil sometime soon?”

So, I left all other daily chores aside, made a tall cup of coffee and put my laptop on my lap.

“Some veils separate our questions from new questions” I replied, “or perhaps questions from answers. Other veils are said to heal; and some veils are so opaque that it is the fear of lifting them that stops our desire for discovery.”

The veil of Maya, the veil of ignorance, the veil of Veronica, and the veil of tears….

“Do you know the origin of the name Veronica?” he asked.

“It is a linguistic portmanteau” I tried to impress him. “Latin Vera for true and Greek Eikon for image. It is the True Image and that is why it is believed to heal.”

He replied by first sending happy faces, and then followed with his answer in a separate email.

“Ha! No, no, no portmanteau – leave that fancy lexicon to your academic colleagues. Veronica is derived from Greek only. It is a combination of Pherein and Nike, and in the case of a female it means “the woman who brings victory”. Now you know why Nike adopted that word for a sports product line.  No one seeks defeat, and Veronica is the anti-thesis of our daily struggles. She is victory over pain, fear, broken hearts and words we did not say in a train station. There is no healing, just the good feeling of doing it. Just like Nike said!”

Then he added:

“Veils do not heal, nor do they let you see through. The veils that haunt us at the end of our lives are different from the bridal veil – you will not kiss or make love after you lift those veils. Instead, these are the veils that make us wonder if we have lived our days in full, with respect, and often in excess. For it is when we face those veils that we wonder about our past and not as much about our future. Veils are our reality checks.”

My coffee was cold by the end of our email retrouvailles. He and I are at the same crossroads, but we seem to have a different attitude to crossing it: he is checking left and right, while I am delighted to be at the intersection of these roads.

… I took a sip and wondered who will cross first and let the other know what is beyond the veil…

September 2, 2014
© Vahé A. Kazandjian, 2014