The film opens with a scene at Rashomon, a gate of abandoned grove in the forest where three strangers have taken shelter from rain– one is wood cutter, another is priest and they are later joined by a passerby. The woodcutter and priest start talking about the recent crime in the forest and subsequent trial and they narrate all contradictory versions to the curious passerby.

Subsequently movie moves to the trial scene where bandit and the raped victim give contradictory versions. According to the bandit he is mesmerized by the cache of ancient swords shown by samurai and ends up tying samurai to tree and then seduces his wife.  The shamed wife then entices him to fight a duel with her husband to death. The both men fight a duel and it is the bandit who wins the heroic battle by killing the samurai while the wife runs away. In bandit’s version he is not a killer but winner of a duel.

The film first runs through the bandit’s version and then through beautiful wife’s version where she demonizes both men for failing to keep her honor.  The bandit raped her and her husband treated her with contempt and loathing after bandit left the scene. She freed her husband but was shattered by her husband’s changed attitude and in a moment of madness had picked dagger only to faint instantly so is unable to remember the moment of murder.

The priest then decides to summon the spirit of dead samurai to know his version since dead have no reason to lie. But husband’s spirit says that the bandit had asked the wife to join him and she had agreed on the condition that he killed the husband. The bandit was shocked by the request and was sympathetic towards samurai and had even freed him giving him the choice of either killing the wife or letting her go. It was wife who had fled in panic fearing she would be killed and samurai had killed himself out of shame and disappointment.  So samurai doesn’t see himself defeated and killed in the encounter but he finds glory in suicide.

The passerby is confused by the versions and he seeks an account by third person who was not involved and had no reason to lie. There is an eyewitness account too and it is none other than the wood cutter who has witnessed it all but had avoided the trial. According to him bandit had indeed asked wife to travel with him after raping her but she had freed her husband instead and had asked the two men to fight for her love. Her husband was not keen to fight for a wife who had lost her honor and this had enraged the wife and she had criticized both men for being weak and they had fought reluctantly in which samurai got killed.  The wife had fled but bandit could not catch her. Bandit had left limping with the sword of the samurai.  There is a hint in the end that woodcutter had stolen the expensive dagger so there is a reason to doubt his version too.

Each version is equally convincing and true genius of Akira Kurosawa lies in not making viewers biased towards any of them. Viewers are left with the choice of accepting any perspective depending on their sympathy for the characters. The movie also reveals the nuances of human nature and the dark evil side of it. Kurosawa tries to redeem human soul by ending the film on an optimistic note when three men at Rashomon gate hear cries of an abandoned baby while the passerby steals baby’s kimono it is the wood cutter who takes baby home. There is hope in kindness.

Isn’t how things are in reality? We all have our minds and different perspectives.  We paint a picture of ourselves for ourselves and the world. But what we perceive or express may not be the truth or reality. We live in a complex distorted human world where ego and self interest dominates and only rare act of kindness redeems human soul.

While art reflects the mentality, social relations and ideology, the “advancement” of artistic techniques themselves reflect the historical period in which they operate.

In the case of literature, so that one can understand their transformations and innovations, its history was divided in a didactic manner. That’s why, at least in Portuguese, it was through literary styles or schools that many intellectuals shared the history of literature.

In Brazil there are only two schools of writing: the Colonial Era and the National Era which have their own internal divisions. While the beginning of the Colonial period saw some literary manifestations, it is only with the Baroque that the Brazilian literary production becomes relevant.

Baroque Style

Quite briefly, Baroque can be seen as an artistic expression or a reflection of the impact of the Counter-Reformation the Catholic Church, especially in Neo-Latin Europe. Therefore, it reflected a “fight” against Protestant ideas and growing rationalism in England, France and the Netherlands.

However, by no means can Baroque be seen as an attempt to return to pre-medieval mentality because it inherited many features from Renaissance classicists. Moreover, after all the changes in the Renaissance and with the rise of Mercantilism, there was a profound transformation in the daily social relations amongst individuals.

Among the main features of the Baroque literature, the most representative are these:

• Pessimism
• Imbalance between reason and emotion
• Duality and contradiction
• Illusion and subjectivity
• Tendency towards reference (indirect description)
• Predominance of figures of speech such as metaphor, antithesis, paradox, inversion, hyperbole and synaesthesia.

However, the characteristic that is most striking of this style is the “valorisation of form.” The complexity of the Baroque consists in the word games almost enigmatic, full of puns and the use of mixed semantic terms.

The theme of the text, the object is not named directly. Both in prose and in poetry, one can see the appreciation of the intellect in the development of a speech that should not be “commoner”, but “divine.”

In terms of ideas (Conceptism) and the level of words (Cultism) there is a rich effect in the rhetorical-psychological as well as the exploitation of bizarre “sound images”. It refers to the Art of sound images verging on obscurantism due to the linguistic complexity used. The use of words should reflect the “divine” and not “mundane”.

Precisely for this aspect that the post-Baroque style - Arcadia - criticized the Baroque rhetorical excess. The Baroque, above all, reflects a battle between a pre-capitalist Europe and aristocratic against the bourgeois rationalism at the time.

Gregorio de Matos: Mouth of Hell

Many scholars  consider Gregorio de Matos as the pioneer of Brazilian Literature. However, his work remained unpublished until the nineteenth century and only the beginning of the twentieth century is that he was published.

Gregorio (1636-1696) was a man who had a good humanistic training acquired at the University of Coimbra in Portugal.

His poetry is considered of high artistic level and is full of contradictions and has a theme that varied from what was the most “divine” to the must “mundane”. His influences are both conceptists (Quevedo), the cultists (Gongora). The diversity of his work was divided according to the themes developed in his life:

• Sacred poetry: full of religious themes, constriction and moral reflection.
• Satirical poem: as the name suggests, Matos made fun of everyone (which is why it was called Hell’s Mouth):  rich, poor, black, white, religious, politicians, friends and enemies. However, his satire was intended to criticize the “vices of society” which was composed of a gallery of types of individuals he met in Salvador (capital of Brazil at the time). He pointed to the moral decay through extremely mischievous humour.
• Lyrical poetry: in which speaking about love, there was the idealization of the lover with a certain amount of cynicism.
• Burlesque poetry: that which registered small events of everyday life in the city.

What’s common in this literature is the strength of the game sound (sometimes being debauched by assonance and alliteration, and other religious themes devoted through powerful metaphors), a very complex syntax and an incisive lexicon.

These three factors made Matos the greatest satirical poet of Brazil and perhaps in Portuguese literature.

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Readers may sometimes overlook the significance of the title of the novel, to the protagonist. For the usual reader, there are many negative qualities attributed to the troubled and cynical character. For instance, Holden is a misanthrope as he hates the entire world, which he considers phoney and has a host of adjustment problems due to which, he is not able to pass his exams. He gets the axe three times from three different schools and he remains flippant when it comes to studies and learning anything in school.

Rebellious Holden renegades against everything in the world and uses foul language. He swears at people very often and is also a consummate liar. Lying comes very natural to Holden and thus, from the pettiest matters to the most serious issues, Holden can put up an image and lie to his heart’s content. At 16, Holden already smokes and drinks, and tries to have a fling with a prostitute. Above all, Holden is a terrible loser. As a result, the phoney world labels him “crazy”.

Now, the interesting question is “Does Holden really deserved to be labelled crazy?” The answer predictably seems to be an emphatic “no”. If Holden is a misanthrope outwardly, he is an altruist in the truest sense. The fact that Holden loves children shows conspicuously that he is innocent within. He misses his dead younger brother, and this incident unhinges Holden to a large extent. Surprisingly, nobody in Holden’s family seems to be lamenting the death of his younger brother.

It’s only Holden who carries the sorrow with him and, he misses his brother quite often and appreciates Phoebe’s (his sister) innocence and loves her dearly. Phoebe means the world to Holden. His association with the innocent children is evident enough to justify that Holden is constantly in search of true love, affection and innocence, which the adult world (the phoney world) denies him. Hence, this leads to Holden’s angst.

There are a few instances in the book that proves Holden as an altruist. Although Holden is portrayed as a failure academically, one must also note that he is a genius per se. His love for literature and the fact that he writes creatively proves a point or two that Holden cannot be labelled as a loser. Holden is over-matured for his age and is able to gaze the adult’s world from its clearest picture. He understands that he will also one day fall into the same dirty phoney world and become a phoney himself. This affects his behaviour tremendously and, his wanting to be a recluse increases all the more.

When Holden tells his girlfriend that they should run away into the woods and live in a cabin, he means it from the heart. Holden believes running away from the phoney world is the only way to get away from it. Unfortunately, this simple dream never gets fulfilled.

Another incident that one can bring forth is Holden’s experience with the two nuns in the train. He truly appreciates the simplicity of the two nuns, and acknowledges their nobility. As it’s easy for Holden to strike up a conversation with anybody, he does it with ease with the nuns. When he finds out they work in some convent, he immediately assumes that they might need some charity. He quickly offers ten dollars to them. This simple act shows that Holden feels for them deeply as he is convinced that the nuns are polite and not phoney (most importantly).

His genuine answer to Phoebe of his wanting to be “The Catcher in the Rye” when asked by her what he wants to become in life proves that Holden clearly loves innocent souls (children). Holden is very concerned about the little innocent children falling into the adult’s phoney world. The only dream that he has in his life is to save these innocent children from becoming phoney. This is so evident when he saves some children from falling into the rye just in time. Another incident that can be brought in this light is when Holden removes the “Fuck You” sign printed on the wall of his sister’s school. He is so possessive about the innocent children that he fears they will be spoilt and influenced to become phoneys by the phoneys around.

Holden admits he misses his friends terribly including Ackley, Stradlater and even Maurice. This proves enough that Holden doesn’t hold any grudge against anybody. He weeps for the entire world as he sees it falling further into an abyss. Just like W.B. Yeats’ falcon, in his famous poem “The Second Coming” Holden is constantly trying to find the hook to hang his soul but doesn’t find in the phoney world. Just like the falconer in the same poem, the world fails to hear Holden’s voice and moves deeply into their phoniness leaving Holden completely shattered and psychologically handicapped (if the labelling theory means anything). Holden’s gyre is to obliterate the phoniness and make everybody innocent and not phoney but he fails.

Holden is terminally trapped in the vicious cycle of the phoney world leaving him no door to escape from it. Hence, his search for love and affection never gets fulfilled in this phoney world. On the contrary, the world is quick to judge Holden and label him as a deviant, a rebel, a cynic, a failure, etc. The question, “Does Holden Caulfield do justice to the title of the book?” can only be answered with a positive clarifier, “YES” and this is evident in Holden’s hidden image of an altruist beneath his outward appearance of a misanthrope. However, it’s the phoney world around Holden that fails to comprehend and accept Holden’s simple innocent world.

The book may be several decades old, but the character remains fresh and relevant to this day. It is perhaps Holden’s altruistic nature that makes every reader see a piece of himself or herself in the character. Cynical Holden turns out to be cynical because he is baffled by the shallowness of the world, and how people around him are trapped in a cycle of lies that society spins. This misfortune of getting trapped within the “system” is sadly a part of growing up, unless one consciously decides to not be a part of it.

In the name of societal obligations, civilization and being an adult, people tend to overlook the importance of innocence and the joy of simplicity. Holden feels terrible for those stuck in this system, but cannot articulate in a manner that the phonies can understand. It is this inability of his that leads him to being labelled a cynic, and a troubled truant.

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J D Salinger seems to have lived out dream of Holden, the young protagonist of The Catcher in the Rye by making the ‘dough’ with his novel, buying a remote home in Cornish, New Hampshire and shunning the world of phonies who relentlessly made attempts to invade his privacy. J D Salinger gave up public life but never gave up writing, it seems he had built a cement bunker on his property and would write everyday though he never published anything after 1965. There are rumors doing rounds that his works may be published posthumously.  Whether works should be published against the wishes of J D Salinger will be a matter of debate for coming few weeks and months.

Personally every young fan will see J D Salinger himself as The Catcher in the Rye. It was protagonist Holden’s cherished dream to become a Catcher in The Rye by appearing suddenly from nowhere to save small children playing near the cliff by catching them just in nick of time. With his novel J D Salinger will continue to reach out to millions of young readers, troubled minds and protagonist Holden will save them from falling off cliff in the world of phonies by helping them to connect to themselves.

Click Here for links of short stories of J D Salinger published in the  The New Yorker.

via The Telegraph

This golden flower of Haiti, or Anacaona dances in a blossomed area of the island, with cinchona garlands serving the purpose of her regal position. This happy princess of Haiti welcomes the white men from Spain, since they are tall and handsome, and fair compared to the dark skinned and short men of her own island.

The white men smile their friendly smiles at Anacaona, knowing her position and thus she shows them “pleasant places” as they wore knightly apparel. The tallness of the white men and their skin colour lured Anacaona from the darkness of her Island, into the non-existence resulting from the execution she faced at the hands of handsome, fair skinned men from Europe.

This is the description that Alfred Lord Tennyson gives us, in his poem “Anacaona” dedicated to the Queen of Haiti. Signs of colonial discourse, sexism and racism may quite be deduced from this seemingly well-meaning poem, in which he laments the destruction of Anacaona and her happiness at the hands of Spanish conquistadors. Anacaona was the Native Indian queen of the Taino people in Haiti, who was known to be friendly with the Spanish.

Anacaona: Golden Flower, Haiti, 1490 by Edwidge Danticat similarly tells the story of Anacaona and how she died a terrible death at the hands of the Spanish colonizers. While it may be disputed whether she truly loved her husband or she strayed after encountering the Spanish, she certainly was betrayed by the Spanish.

At a dinner party, Anacaona and her people were invited by the Spanish, fed with food and wine and once they were all intoxicated, they were murdered. Anacaona was later executed in a gruesome manner by the Spanish who systematically decimated the local native Indian population in Haiti.

Anacaona was no flower wearing, dancing belle-bimbette of an Island, but was groomed to be a warrior right from the day she started her education. Being born to a chief, she was to rule over a part of Haiti but married Caonabo, the cacique of the nearby province of Maguana.

Edwidge Danticat indicates that Anacaona was more than happy with her husband, and she felt betrayed when her husband Caonabo was shipped off to Spain on charges of on charges of attacking a Spanish settlement in northern Haiti. The book reveals how the discovery of the friendly Island by the Spanish led to the destruction of the native people through betrayal, deception and cold blooded murders, much like it happened in many other colonized regions.

Anacaona may have been pretty, and may have been friendly with the Spanish but she did not necessarily welcome the “tall, fair and handsome men” from Spain, nor did she dance her way to allow the colonization of the Island. Lord Tennyson’s romantic poem may certainly paint the picture of a damsel in distress, but it could be deemed sexist and racist at the same time.

The idea that she danced and was happy in a blissful and languorous lifestyle before the arrival of the Spanish hints at sexism, for she was a warrior, and a Queen who performed her military and political duties efficiently. When Lord Tennyson points out that she welcomed the Spanish rulers because they were “fair and tall” and assuming that she found them physically more attractive than the native men of Haiti is simply racist.

Though Alfred Lord Tennyson rues that Anacaona was destroyed by white people, he seems to have unwittingly led himself to believe that the Haitian queen was not content until the arrival of the Spanish, and that she was betrayed by them later. It almost hints at colonial discourse. In fact, the Tennyson poem alludes to modern Haiti, with Anacaona being a metaphor for the nation of Haiti.

After the gruesome murder of Anacaona and her people, the nation was populated by black slaves from Africa, and their descendants. Haiti was the first nation to free itself from slavery and it declared independence from France in 1697. The French and the Spanish left the Island ravaged, while the natives no longer existed. The Haitian nation was now populated with blacks and the new Haitian nation did not have it easy either.

Continued to be ruled by dictators and even the U.S., modern Haiti has seen immense political and military trauma. Much like Anacaona had to bear the brunt of the seemingly friendly Spanish, modern Haiti has suffered from dictators, corporate and, foreign powers and of course natural disasters. Anacaona is a woman, who is revered in Haiti even today, by the blacks and creoles alike.

Many voodoo traditions invoke Anacaona and her seduction and execution is a deconstructed metaphor for the seduction of Haiti several times over, and its destruction several times over. Perhaps, Lord Tennyson referred to Haiti, when he said Anacaona, for it was a happy island until the colonizers arrived. After the colonization, the betrayal of Haiti has reached epic proportions every other time.

Lord Tennyson’s Anacaona rues the betrayal of a happy woman and Anacaona: Golden Flower, Haiti, 1490 by Edwidge Danticat seems to speak of Anacaona as a strong willed woman who loved her country and her husband. While both may stray a bit from history that is known and unknown, Anacaona is certainly a startling metaphor for the nation of Haiti.

Unfortunately, after the earthquake struck Haiti on January 12, 2010, at 21:53 UTC, the metaphor seems to have fulfilled itself in the form of a natural disaster. This time around, though no colonizers were there to seduce and execute Anacaona, nature itself seduced and ravaged Anacaona’s beloved Haiti.

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Daniel Barenboim is also well known for his efforts to bring in musical reconciliation in Middle East with his West-Eastern Divan Orchestra which he co-founded with Edward Said. Young Arab and Israeli musicians from across the infamous divide get trained to perform and give concerts in different parts of Europe and Middle East every summer.  While Middle East remains divided and forever in conflict in Divan concerts music takes precedence and heals and builds bridges in young minds.

Daniel Barenboim has written books, conducted operas, played and conducted piano concerts for more than sixty years. It will certainly be a rare delight to watch him in action yet again on Jan 29 2010 at Festival Hall, London.

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Via Times On Line

On the contrary, women have been consigned to servitude, and often considered to have acquiescent nature. In order to strike a balance and bring equality between the gender roles, ‘feminism’ took place. Quite interestingly, feminism focuses entirely on empowering women and sidelines the possibilities that men too can be victimized by gender. Hence, victimization of men is often underplayed for patriarchy is associated with men.

However, what one fails to understand is that men too can be the victims of patriarchy. With patriarchy comes the perpetual responsibility to look after their families. Men are conditioned right through their socialization days beginning from their own homes to be independent and be the heads of their families. Sometimes (at least a few men) are victimized as they are indirectly forced or expected to fulfill their gender roles.

Willy Lowman, in Arthur Miller’s “Death of a Salesman” and The narrator in Nissim Ezekiel’s poem, “The Way it Went” are nothing but the victims of patriarchy. Miller presents Willy Lowman as the typical patriarch who is ingrained with every possible conventional characteristic of a patriarch. He is the father of two children, a husband to Linda Lowman (his wife) and Willy strives hard to make them happy. Although, Willy drowns himself in trying to fulfill the so-called “American Dreams” and is seen as a phony, he does it so to fulfill the needs of his family, and not really to make a mark of his own in life.

If he had to live for his own and fend only himself, he probably wouldn’t have committed suicide. However, being born as a man, Willy too is looked as “The Man of the House”. Hence, the responsibilities to look after his family falls almost entirely on him as Linda is only a home-maker, his two sons are dependent on him. The concept of ‘gender’ in the play talks more about victimization of women.

Linda is confined to within the four walls of the house, and she is cheated by her husband (Willy commits adultery with a kip in the hotel room). On the other hand, Linda seems to be leading a comfortable life (with a loving and an almost successful husband and with two young sons by her side) until the truth about Willy’s romp with a kip transpires. She nevertheless, is seen to be running the family except for doing the household chores. Whereas, Willy as a struggling salesman toils hard all day long only to keep his family happy.

Interestingly, one doesn’t quite feel the need to empathize with Willy’s character as he is  phony in every sense. However, what drives him to become one is a question, which is often not bothered about. Perhaps, he is victimized by the notion of patriarchy.

The narrator in “The Way it Went” by Nissim Ezekiel satirizes patriarchy. He deftly deconstructs the notion of the oppressor  associated with the term patriarchy. He satirizes patriarchy and attempts to prove its characteristics as only meretricious. The narrator in the poem is constantly seen being dumbstruck about how quickly time flies by.

While he ponders upon his confusion, he gets married to a woman, gives birth to a few children, and attends his daughter’s marriage. Soon after, a baby boy (his daughter’s son) sits and plays on his lap but he doesn’t realize it’s his grandson.

When he regains his consciousness, he is already old and encounters with  the shock that his family has consumed all the money he earned throughout his life. He narrates all of these in a very satirical manner and proves that there is no scintilla involved in patriarchy being the oppressor. Can men be victims of patriarchy as well?

A blogger’s opinion on male victims of patriarchy

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It may sound a little unglamorous, but art necessarily doesn’t have to appeal, and it could also lead you to think in a way that you did not expect. In fact, the veneer itself could be quite dynamic, and a slight scratch or a dent on a particular canvas could change the meaning of the painting, or the original expression. In a rather bizarre way to put things across, a newly painted car could suggest someone’s new found freedom to drive, or perhaps the ability get away from the familiar surroundings into the unknown.

However, a newly painted car that has been scratched could seem cacophonous and disorderly much like the observer’s own life could be. Thus, a simple layer of paint on a car could contain thousands of hidden meanings, emotions and depths which are as dynamic as our thoughts are. Thus, the painting receives meaning not only from the painter and the observer, but also by the situation in which it is found, and the condition in which it is observed.

With that in mind, concentrating on a particular painting or form of expression can result in a certain conclusive aspect of the art, and sometimes its inevitability, as Jamie Gibson puts it. His earlier works addressed the bridge that exists between everyday life and the abstract expressive nature of today’s society. He has now begun to experiment with ideas of emotions that cohabit within the veneers of layers of paint.

The depth that the different layers of paint create is almost like peeling the skin of an onion, only to find another layer and not expecting what pattern the underlying skin might possess. While the different layers of paint may not immediately suggest something as clear as a figurative work of art would, Jamie’s latest works provide the observer with the freedom to visually peel off the layers that exist and find meanings that point toward new forms, directions and heights.

Interestingly, such an experiment may not lead the observer to anything new, but Jamie Gibson feels it is a good risk to take. Thus, allowing the unconscious to interpret the layers that exist within a painting seems to be a better idea that offering an aesthetically pleasing art, which already serves the meaning to you on a platter without allowing you to experience the dynamics of artistic and interpretative freedom.

Jamie Gibson’s statement on his latest works

If you concentrate too much on the visual side of painting you become too conscious of its inevitability. It takes a bit of fine tuning to create a desired aesthetic; Paint something, paint it out, paint something else, paint it out, and repeat… This creates a wild new world of depth, movement and energy; my paintings are an expression of that notion.

Whilst studying at the league in New York I began experimenting with ideas of emotion represented in an act of expression. Often by breaking the structure you open new doors. Sometimes painting out your favourite part of an image leads to something else entirely different, a brand new form, a new direction, sometimes it doesn’t, but it’s a good risk to take.

The song may seem apparently optimistic but it has very dark connotations about uncertain future and human vulnerability. There is no way to know what future holds for any of us, there is no way to plan everything in advance, there is no certainty that plans will work or dreams will come true. But one cannot rule out possibilities of everything working out for the best either. The doomsday prediction may be too hideous, realities maybe grim too but it would be equally naïve to hold on to negative prophecies. Hope you will enjoy the song and find courage to hang on to the present moment!

YouTube link to Que Sera Sera

In the year 1985, they released “Homosexuality” which has often been described as the gayest disco song ever, and the single even featured the b-side “Thank God for Men”. The band remained in oblivion for a long time except for the time when Homosexuality was played at gay nightclubs. Most gay musicians had to fight mainstream stigma against them, as well as non-supportive record companies.

Thus, many talented musicians and singers never got to see the light of the day. It is perhaps because of those initial struggles that many musicians are successful today, regardless of their orientation. Nevertheless, this relative freedom of expression today can be enjoyed mostly by those who are involved in creative activities, which again succumbs to the stereotype of gay men being inclined towards performing arts.

Modern Rocketry Discography