Month: January 2014

Categories
Assorted Bob Books Transition Bob

Isabel Allende dazzles D.C.

Isabel AllendeWhen Isabel Allende asked how many Latinos were in the audience last night during her interview/book signing at the Washington Post, more than half the audience answered with raised hands. Very impressive. Almost as impressive as the interview. Allende was hilarious, mixing self-deprecating humor with broadsides against the patriarchy, smart women who refuse to identify as feminists and violence against women. At 71, she appears to be just hitting high gear.

Allende provided considerable insight into her artistic process, noting that she writes in Spanish and works in intense, focused stretches to craft her books. Equally impressive was how gracefully she handled the obligatory “magic realism” questions. Her latest book, Ripper, is a murder/mystery, and she’s bravely explored various genres during her prolific writing career. I have to admit, I expected her to answer a few quick questions and get on with the book signing. But she genuinely seemed to enjoy taking questions and engaging with her fans. It left me thinking that it’s time to pick up another one of her novels …

(An amusing aside: Before the event, Lara stood in front of the table where they were selling copies of Ripper, unable to bring herself to betray her “digital only” approach to book consumption. She didn’t break down and buy a copy, but I suspect it will show up on her Kindle any day now …)

 

 

 

 

Categories
Art Bob Assorted Bob Transition Bob Uncategorized

The marvels of ancient Angkor

Buddhist monks and other Cambodians protest at the White House on MLK day. They had dictator Hun Sen firmly in their sites. The former Khmer Rouge official now is prime minister.
Buddhist monks and other Cambodians protest at the White House on MLK day. They had dictator Hun Sen firmly in their sights. The former Khmer Rouge official now is prime minister.

My obsession with Cambodia began in the early ’90s in a stack of books at the Birmingham Post-Herald. I was ferreting through the review copies looking for something to read when I spotted To Destroy You Is No Loss, which details Teeda Butt Mam’s struggle to survive Pol Pot’s rein of terror in Cambodia. I’d been vaguely aware of the Khmer Rouge’s Holocaust, but this made it so human, so flesh and blood.

I think I came across the late, great Spalding Gray’s Swimming to Cambodia around the same time.

My Cambodia obsession snowballed from there as I devoured survivor accounts, histories (including Elizabeth Becker’s When the War Was Over) and a biography of Pol Pot. I also grew fascinated with ancient Khmer history and the incredible architecture of Angkor Wat.

That’s what landed me in a subterranean lecture hall at the Smithsonian in D.C. earlier this week listening to historian Robert DeCaroli’s Urban Architecture in Ancient Angkor: Old Temples and New Findings. While D.C. was shivering in a Polar Vortex up at street level, I was reviving my dream of going to tropical Cambodia to explore these ruins. It’s been on my list for a long time. Perhaps 2014 is the time …

Several interesting tidbits I picked up …

  • Ancient Angkor was the Dallas/Fort Worth of its day, boasting urban sprawl and low density development around a series of urban centers. DeCaroli said a professor of his once compared the development pattern to pot of boiling oatmeal where bubbles (urban centers) rise and fall.
  • The audience (me included) gasped when DeCaroli projected the image of a footless Hindu warrior and then the image below, showing the feet of pilfered statues that still remain at the original site.  The looted,  footless staLooted statue's feettue was put up for sale at Sotheby’s until international outrage prompted them to pull it and return it to Cambodia.
  • Drought is believed to have been a key cause of the decline of Khmer society, reminding me of a similar fate the Anasazi met in the American Southwest. It also explains the obsession with water — retention, management, irrigation, transportation — in Angkor.
  • Varman (armor or protector) is a suffix on the rulers’ names. For some reason, knowing that is making it easier for me to get my head around the individual rulers who built the temples.
  • Buddhism really didn’t enter Khmer architecture in a major way until Jayavarman VII built the Bayon temple, mashing up HIndu and Buddhist themes. But this was toward the end of the Khmer empire.
Categories
Assorted Bob Music Bob Transition Bob

Carrie Rodriquez at the Artisphere

Carrie Rodriguez
Three things I learned Saturday night at the Artisphere in Arlington:

  1. Carrie Rodriquez and Luke Jacobs are incredible. If you don’t already own one of her CDs, go download one. Now. If you already own one, order another. If she comes to your town, go see her.
  2. The DC Circulator can be a savior from Metro’s muddled weekends. Things were a mess on every line Saturday, prompting me to look for an alternative way to get to the show over in Arlington. The Circulator came to the rescue. For a buck each way (cheaper than Metro buses or rail), it’s a great deal and it functions more like an express bus. We boarded at 19th and N in Dupont Circle after having amazing mussels at St. Arnold’s and were at the Rossyln Metro station in about 15 minutes, leaving plenty of time for a few glasses of wine before Rodriquez took the stage.
  3. The Artisphere is an overlooked treasure. I had seen Beckett’s Happy Days there a few years ago and was impressed. (I also remember visiting way back when it was the Newseum, before they moved to the District.) But I never found a reason to go back. Carrie Rodriquez gave me that reason. I’m now looking at their upcoming calendar and plan to hit a few more performances at this venue. We’ll definitely be going to see their showing of Amelie in February. I’ve been wanting to see that film for a while since it features one of my favorite artworks, Renoir’s The Luncheon of the Boating Party. And even though it looks creepy strange, I might have to go see The Adventures of Alvin Sputnik, Deep Sea Explorer.

(Here’s the Washington Post’s review of Carrie Rodriquez …)