WhirledView

To Wish You A Very Glitzy and Merry Christmas

By Patricia H. Kushlis

Days before I left Singapore on November 12, the Christmas decorations were already up and lit.  The lower level of the Ngee Ann City shopping complex on Orchard Road had turned into a Christmas Markt – sans the real snow and freezing temperatures of its far older European counterparts.  Meanwhile, a towering, larger than life Christmas tree greeted shoppers and gawkers in the Mall’s  lobby. 

But what stood out even more was the lighted neon greeting strung across North Bridge Road wishing everyone a “glitzy Christmas.” This blazing banner stretched from Raffles City to the outdoor shopping arcade attached – but separate from the Raffles Hotel – Singapore’s most venerable landmark.  The only thing that stood between me and an otherwise unobstructed view of the “glitzy” greeting was the palm tree on the sidewalk – but I couldn’t very well dash into a busy street at night to photograph the sign and expect to live to tell the story.

I still find it hard to envision Christmas in the tropical heat and humidity that engulfs a city near the equator – but there it is.  After all, Jesus was not exactly born in snowy climes. His birth was celebrated with frankincense and myrrh amidst the palms - not hot mulled cider, Irish coffee or eggnog beside a fire – and the three Magi, so the story goes, arrived on camels not reindeer or accompanying Santa in his sleigh.

 So what’s wrong with wishing everyone a Glitzy Christmas in Southeast Asia’s glitziest shopping Mecca just because most Singaporeans aren’t Christians?  Who said Christmas can’t be for everyone: Certainly not the merchants.  Besides there are churches as well as mosques and Buddhist and Hindu temples in this port city of predominantly Buddhists (42.5%) even though no religion can claim to be a majority.   

Christmas in Manila

When we lived in Manila, a very Christian country except for three restive Muslim provinces in the south, Christmas lights and decorations festooned Makati – the main commercial center – beginning in October.  By the time Christmas rolled around, the monsoon season’s hot and sticky heat had given way to the “cool and dry season” – by far the most pleasant time of year.

For me, the best parts of a Manila Christmas were the concerts that took place in the lobbies of major Makati hotels performed by world class choruses from the city’s top universities.  If there’s one thing Filipinos do well, it’s performance in the western musical tradition and Christmas carols are as much a part of their repertoire as lounge music, jazz and rock.

Back to a Rocky Mountain Christmas

This year, however, it's back to the snowy, but hopefully sunny weather of the southern Rockies.  I will celebrate the holiday with extended family in northern New Mexico.  And yes, there is snow on the ground and ice in the driveway.  We’ll take the Farelito Walk along Santa Fe's Canyon Road on Christmas Eve, attend a concert by the Desert Chorale at the Basilica a couple of days earlier, ski, eat and just enjoy the holiday at one of America’s top tourist destinations. 

Meanwhile, here’s wishing you and yours “A Very Merry Glitzy Christmas” wherever you may be.

Photos of Singapore's Nge Ann City's Christmas tree and Glitzy Christmas greeting by PHKushlis, November 2009;  Photo of the Santa Fe Plaza and Basilica by PHKushlis December 2007.      

Meeting Gods and Godesses in Kolkata

By Patricia Lee Sharpe

For nearly two weeks, day and night, Bengalis have been paying homage to Durga their favorite goddess.  But now her effigies have been carried, carted or trucked from their places of honor to be tossed or toppled into the Houghly River.  Sic transit gloria.  All is transient.  Calcutta/Kolkata will return to hyper-crowded, high-energy normality, until the next puja, in honor of Kali or Manasa or Kartik or Saraswati or Ganesh or—the roster of honorees is practically countless.  Calcutta is almost always preparing for or recovering from one puja or another, as I discovered on Day One, for me, in the vibrant city that turned from Calcutta to Kolkata while I was living there.

Kartik

En route from the airport, I found myself being driven down a street along which everyone in sight seemed to have something to do with making effigies.  In open-front shop after shop, artisans were engaged in what turned out to be a four-part process.  (1) Make a humanoid armature of  bamboo strips.  (2) Flesh it out with straw.  (3) Cover it with papier mache.  (4) Paint it flamboyantly.

Kartik puja was days away, it seemed, and I had a decision to make.  Kartik, like the more widely known Ganesha, is a son of the Hindu god Shiva and his wife Parvati.  One of his modern duties is to serve as the god (eg patron saint) of mechanics and engineers.  I, as in-coming supervisor of team that included drivers, mechanics, audio-visual specialists and computer systems operators, had to say yea or nay to the business  of setting up an image of Kartik in our garage.  “Is it customary?” I asked.  The answer was  “Yes.”  So Kartik was duly installed, with a garland of marigolds around his neck.  Who wanted accidents or computer crashes over the next 12 months?  What’s more, if we could have Kartik in the garage, we could have a Christmas tree in the lobby when December rolled around.  Eid treats, in turn, would also be enjoyed by all, Muslim or not. Hurrah for festivals!

Durga

But Kartik puja had nothing, festival-wise, on Durga puja, when every intersection in the city was likely to offer a resplendent image of Durga off to the side, if not plumb in the center, traffic be damned.  In rich neighborhoods Durga images could soar to an awesome 20 feet.  Neighborhood associations collecting funds in less affluent areas would have to be content with a Durga closer to the measurements of an ordinary woman.  Always, however, she’d be lacquered in bright colors and dressed in gaudy glittery raiment.  That much was traditional.  Then came the strings of lights draped above and all around each and every one of her, and the huge loudspeakers with their gaping bells broadcasting Bollywood favorites and static incessantly. 

WhirledView Weekend - Sunday afternoon at the Lensic with Nobuyuki Tsujii and the Santa Fe Symphony

By Patricia H. Kushlis

The Santa Fe Symphony’s opening concert for the 2009-10 Season last Sunday featured Van Cliburn Competition winner Nobuyuki Tsujii performing Chopin’s Piano Concerto No. 1 in E Minor. The twenty one year old blind Japanese pianist is already a sensation in Japan. He burst onto the American scene at the 2009 Van Cliburn Competition in Ft. Worth, Texas where this crowd pleaser shared the gold medal with 19 year old Chinese pianist Haochen Zhang.   

 Tsujii is amazing – not just for overcoming his tremendous visual handicap – but for his wonderfully lyrical interpretation of Chopin, a welcome respite from the hard bitten pyrotechnics of far too many young celebrity pianists today.

 His performance in Santa Fe was filmed by Japanese television for inclusion in a documentary being made about Tsujii for broadcast in Japan.  How much of the  footage from Santa Fe’s Lensic Theater will make the final cut, of course, is another question but if filming a full house, multiple curtain calls, standing ovations, an excellent orchestra, an attractive and unique venue and an encore are indications of audience approval then at least a clip should appear. 

Tsujii’s win makes him the first Japanese ever to have won the 47 year old Van Cliburn Competition.  No wonder, then, that Japanese television decided to make the documentary.

The Musical Genius of Manos Hadjidakis

By Patricia H. Kushlis

I recently finished reading Alex Ross’ The Rest Is Noise, a nearly 600 page prize-winning history of 20th century music of Europe and the United States. It’s amazingly comprehensive and well written – but even comprehensive and well written books don’t capture everything.

What I found missing were not only Spanish and Latin American composers but also almost all of the Greeks. True, Ross mentioned Nikos Skalkottas once in passing and Yiannis Xenakis several times whereas he ignored the Iberian tradition entirely. But when I think of the most influential twentieth century Greek composers, Manos Hadjidakis (photo on right) (1925-1994) and Mikis Theodorakis (1925-) first come to mind.

The missing iconoclastic Greeks: Hadjidakis and Theodorakis

Both are best known for their award winning film scores - from Theodorakis’ Zorba the Greek to Hadjidakis’ Never on Sunday. Yet composing for film was or is just part of their professional lives - although presumably among the most lucrative.

I suppose one can argue that for Ross these composers don’t count because they wrote for the cinema or because they wrote outside the symphonic tradition or because their works were heavily influenced by the traditional music of the Eastern Mediterranean – foreign and cacophonous to many western ears. I don’t know. But I do know that they - through their compositions - brought the strains, rhythms and soul of Greek music to the West in ways others did not.

What I also know is that the largely self-trained Hadjidakis was - along with Theodorakis - the first to make the music of the Greek underclass respectable at home and abroad.

Bringing respectability to the music of the Greek underclass

They took the sometimes grating, mournful, wails and growls of the Greek rebetika singers and instrumentalists out of the hashish dens, the jail cells and the cafes and made their plaintive and anguished cries a part of the mainstream Greek musical vocabulary thereby forming the basis for much of contemporary Greek music.

That Hadjidakis first did this in the late 1940s was remarkable. The country was just recovering from the devastation of World War II and in the midst of a vicious civil war between left and right. The underclass from which the rebetika tradition sprang was far more aligned politically with the losing left than the winning right. To have made its music respectable was a major feat and perhaps incurred personal risk in itself.