the road to isenheim

This finger has been haunting me for decades now. Insanely long. Probing. Pointing. Poking. Quoting John 3:30. With whom should we identify. The pointer or the pointee?

Two more

OP Nayyar classic "Yeh hai reshmi zulfonka andhera" interpreted by Asha Bhosle for Mere Sanam (1965). The original recording has no reverb effect. Asha Parekh is the star in this clip. The movie also features a duet with ASha Bhosle and Mohammed Rafi.





"Chun chun ghunghroo bole" is the OP Nayyar song from Phagun (1958) in which Madhubala portrays a gypsie girl. Asha Bhosle's voice is enchanting. Ghungroos are the small bells tied to the legs of Indian dancers.

Bollywood oldies

As a little boy, on our family´s holidays to Spain, I would lie in my tent in the middle of the day tuning in to Moroccan or Algerian radio stations to listen to the strange and exotic music from across the Mediterranean. This knack for what is now called `world music´ (I guess as opposed to unworldly music, by Ligeti, Berio, Penderecki and the likes)has taken me from the Mahreb (Cheb Khaled) and Egypt (Um Khalsum) accross the Levant (Wadi al-Safi) and Pakistan (Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan) to India. It started with a compilation of Raj Kapoor's early work and it fanned out from there. By now the whole family can sing along tunes like "Mera Naam Chin Chin Choo" without knowing what the songs are all about. Much to my amazement, Youtube has recently seen a bunch of clips from Bollywood oldies. After decades, I finally get to see the faces that go with the music. Well, not actually, because the songs were performed by Mohammed Rafi, Geeta Dutt and Asha Bhosle.

Mad hatter from Leeuwarden

Famous Dutch opera singer Ernst Daniel Smid hosts “Wondrous Ways”, a television show on the serendipity of personal history. On April 21st, brothers of my former lodge were featured as extras in an episode on Adam Zelle.

Adam made his fortune as a hatter and stock broker in Leeuwarden. Nevertheless, he was denied membership of the prestigious Freemason’s lodge De Friesche Trouw (Frisian Faith), one of the first lodges founded in The Netherlands (it was the 20th in the year 1782, originally a soldier’s lodge associated with Prince Frederic). The ballot (ostracism) though, was against him, on account of his lack of intellectuality. He was tolerated only, as a visitor from a Rotterdam lodge. Unfortunately, he would never gain the prestige and acknowledgement he was looking for. His daughter Margaretha, however, did. She gained international fame as Mata Hari!

The television show doesn’t really explain the reason why Adam Zelle was denied membership. The records are confidential, but generally a candidate must be a free man of good reputation. Free meaning here: coming of free will, believing in a supreme being and being aware of one’s own limitations in knowing truth and not being drive by dogmas. Good reputation meaning here: being of good character and not obviously wanting to join the fraternity for reasons of prestige. After all, the lodge is a place where members compare insights, experiences and beliefs to help themselves find a way to become better husbands, fathers and members of society.

As the lodge in Leeuwarden is practically too remote for a weekly visit on the Friday evening, I have decided to join the ranks in one of Holland’s youngest lodges Herrezen Land (Land Reclaimed) where I’ve recently entered the columns as a master freemason. The lodge in Almere is young and has a rich and varied membership, with brothers from Greece, Egypt, Iran and Iraq.The tv show is online on: http://player.omroep.nl/?aflid=4442305. More information on freemasonry can be found on: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Freemasonry.

Sicko | tropical suicide

Jetzt sind wir nur noch hübsch.

sicko | swine lake

I am s l o w. Chuckling about the pun of "swine lake" until you discover it is as old as Pjotr Illjich's beard. (sigh)

sicko | masqué

Sometimes you come across a single sentence that makes you lay down a book and ponder the words for a day or more. It is in Andrew Miller's "Ingenious Pain" where the Reverend leaves the site of a post-mortem examination and looks at the landscape.

It serves him like the little painted screens Italian priests are said to hold before the eyes of condemned men to hide the approaching scaffold.

What must those screens have looked like? A Venetian cityscape, or a pastoral scene? Maybe one could even request a favourite work of art on the way to the executioner's workshop. A blinker as a final feast for the eyes.

Not much later I came across Project Facade, that features the reverse blinker: tin masks as facial prostetics for horribly wounded soldiers from the Great War.

At times one can only experience humanity by being presented a mask.