Kurt Vonnegut gone
Mr. Bonzo is feeling old, very, very, old.

On Saturday night, Mr. and Mrs. Bonzo stepped out to the Heights to see a wonderful movie, "The Lives of Others," which got the Academy Award this year for best foreign film. The film is in German with subtitles. If you have ever taken German in college, you will love it. Very highly recommended. Mr. B., having had a birthday recently, got his first senior citizen discount to see the movie. But tonight, reading CNN, he got a further jolt about his limited time on the earth with CNN’s announcement that his second god (Shakespeare is first) had departed.

Vonnegut was born on Nov. 11, 1922, in Indianapolis, a "fourth-generation German-American religious skeptic Freethinker," and studied chemistry at Cornell University before joining the Army.

Ah, chemistry, it doesn’t get any better than this.

Mr. Bonzo will never forget Slaughterhouse-Five or the story (Cat's Cradle) about Ice Nine - a polymorphic form of ice that was stable above 0 (C) or 32 (F). His brother worked for GE and knew a thing or two about polymorphism. Kurt knew chemistry from his Cornell days, of which I was unaware until today. Vonnegut also worked briefly as a GE flack. I gather he did not like it.

Requiescant in pace, Kurt Vonnegut.

A sad Bonzo, who is grateful that people like Vonnegut exist and write to inspire us.

The evil that men do...
A new collection of Primo Levi stories on the twentieth anniversary of his death

Life causes all of us temporary bouts of cynicism. Even Shakespeare succumbed: “The evil that men do lives after them; the good is oft interred with their bones.”

Mr. Bonzo had a hard day. The forces of evil at BigU today manifested themselves in their full horror. But then a Turner-like moment occurred, a new Levi collection of stories. This review has some problems, but its appearance is a sign from God or Nature, depending on your persuasion, that ars is, indeed, longa:

Primo Levi's Defiance
Books

By ADAM KIRSCH
April 4, 2007

Born in Turin in 1919, Levi earned a doctorate in chemistry and spent most of his life as an industrial chemist, helping to formulate enamels and varnishes. Before 1943, he had done little more than dabble in writing, and if his life had continued on its normal course, it is possible that he would have remained a literary amateur.

But at the end of that year, as every reader of Levi's great memoirs will remember, he and the other members of his hapless partisan group were surprised in the mountains and taken prisoner. In the past, Fascist Italy had shown little interest in Nazi-style racism, and even when it followed Germany in promulgating anti-Semitic edicts, they were enforced without fervor. But now, with the northern part of the country under German occupation, the SS had a free hand in dealing with Italy's Jews. In February 1944, Levi and the other 600 Jews at the prison camp in Fossoli were loaded on transports to Auschwitz. Five hundred of them — the old and sick, women and children — were gassed immediately on arrival. Of the remaining able-bodied men, about 20 survived until the end of the war.

Levi was one of the survivors, making it back to Turin and his family at the end of 1945. He went back to work in a factory, resuming as best he could the interrupted course of his professional career. But what really possessed him, as he would later explain in "The Periodic Table," was an overwhelming need to write. "The things I had seen and suffered were burning inside of me. … I felt like Coleridge's Ancient Mariner, who waylays on the street the wedding guests going to the feast, inflicting on them the story of his misfortune."

"By writing," he remembered, "I found peace for a while and felt myself become a man again." This was the crucial step that turned Levi from a victim of the Holocaust to its chronicler and interpreter, and thus, in some small metaphorical way, its master.

The book that resulted from Levi's first burst of recollection was "If This Is a Man" (its unfortunate American title is "Survival in Auschwitz"), brought out by a small Italian publisher in 1947. At the time, with Europe still recovering from the war, the book made little impact, selling just 1,500 copies. Not until 1958, when it was republished by Einaudi, did "If This Is a Man" begin its life as one of the best-known and most powerful documents of the Holocaust. It was this delayed success, Levi once said, that allowed him to "see a future for my writing." It gave him the confidence to produce his second book — "The Truce" (known in America as "The Reawakening"), a sequel to "If This Is a Man" that told the story of Levi's trek home from Auschwitz.

Even as his reputation grew, however, Levi continued to work as a chemist. It was not until 1975, when his memoir "The Periodic Table" won prizes and acclaim in Italy, that he was able to retire from the factory and write full-time. In his last decade, he produced his fourth major work, "The Drowned and the Saved," a reconsideration of the Holocaust from a distance of 40 years. Yet his other writing — a novel, short stories, newspaper articles — never won as high a reputation as his memoirs. Even today, 20 years after his death — whose anniversary comes on April 11 — we tend to think of Levi not as a writer who had been through the Holocaust, but as a Holocaust writer.

The publication of a new collection of Levi's short stories, "A Tranquil Star" will not do much to change that; but to admirers of Levi's major works, it will nonetheless come as an unexpected gift. The book includes 17 stories, most of them about five pages long, that have never before appeared in English. A handful are directly autobiographical, based on episodes that Levi went on to treat at greater length in other works. The majority, however, are parables in a science fiction vein, little provocations that sometimes connect to Levi' s largest themes.

Readers of "The Periodic Table" will find the first two stories in "A Tranquil Star" familiar. "The Death of Marinese" is a brief, realistic narrative of a captured partisan's last moments, as he works up the nerve to pull the pin from his captors' hand grenade. It is a wishfully heroic variation on Levi's own experience. Writing about his capture in "The Periodic Table," he recalls, "I could easily have lifted the safety pin [of his guard's grenade], pulled the cord, and done away with myself and several of them, but I didn't have the courage." Marinese has that kind of courage; but, of course, his glorious death means that he never has to test the different kind of courage, moral and psychological as well as physical, that Levi displayed in Auschwitz.

The second story, "Bear Meat," is the tale of a mountain climb gone wrong, spoken here by an anonymous narrator by a campfire; but readers of "The Periodic Table" know it is Levi's own story. Getting lost at night on a freezing mountainside, for Levi, was a frightening but necessary trial, an early proof of his ability to survive. "Eating bear meat" is his friend's slang expression for being in trouble, but it is the kind of trouble that is good for you: "the taste of being strong and free, which means free to make mistakes."

[A link to the story in the New Yorker]

The best stories, however, use this sort of far-fetched premise to explore deeper, more searching questions. "In the Park," the longest piece in the book, is a jaunty description of a heaven where literary characters go after their authors die. Levi pokes gentle fun at literature's preference for the unusual, in landscape and in character. In this heaven there are several spectacular sunsets a night, and "you'll look in vain for a plumber, an electrician, a welder, a mechanic, or a chemist, and I wonder why."

But Levi has something more serious in mind when, in a list of the inhabitants of the "park" — "Kim with his sword, Iphigenia in Aulis," and so on — he includes Mordo Nahum, whom readers of "The Truce" will remember as the Greek black marketeer Levi encounters after leaving Auschwitz. If you put a real person in a book, Levi leaves us to wonder, do you somehow falsify him? And if posterity lets the book be forgotten, does that mean that the original might as well never have lived? It is a question that Levi, who spent his life memorializing "the drowned" of Auschwitz, must have asked himself many times. It seems typical of the man that he would ask it in such a playful and genial story. Here, as in all his work, Levi believed that writing must confront the most painful subjects, but never surrender to them.

A tribute to Primo Levi will take place tomorrow at 7 p.m. in the South Court Auditorium of the New York Public Library. Joan Acocella, Alessandra Bastagli, Ruth Franklin, Ann Goldstein, and Mr. Kirsch will speak about Levi's legacy, as well as discuss the stories collected in "A Tranquil Star." The actress Maria Tucci will also read from the collection.

So perhaps Shakespeare, Mr. Bonzo’s god, was correct after all. “Oft” is not the same as always and exceptions to generalization are crucial.

A sad but comforted Bonzo.

The Bonzos Step Out on Friday Night (Bonzo Nights)

Normally on Friday night, Mr. Bonzo likes to collapse at home after a hard week in the trenches of BigU. In the old days he used to go to the BigTen for a few (at least) beers after work, but those days are gone forever...

Occasionally Mrs. Bonzo manages to raise Himself from his lethargy to do something. Last night Herself managed to snag front row tickets for a concert by the SPCO which is a wonderful small orchestra that plays in smaller GemCity. Pinky Zuckerman, Dennis Russell Davies, and Bobby McFerrin [sic] among other luminaries have conducted the SPCO. Perhaps surprisingly they have a huge fan base for their cds in Japan and do a lot of touring around the world. They have gone over to some weird system of artistic directors rather than conductors. One of these is Josh Bell and last night it was announced that Dawn Upshaw would be a director next year. The individual orchestra players are outstanding.

Mr. B. likes seats close to the orchestra, although (because?) they are usually considered bad seats and thus are less expensive, another feature of interest to impoverished academics. Last year Mrs. B. snagged some tickets to hear Hilary Hahn an outstanding young violinist and we were about ten feet away. This was one of the best concerts Mr. B. has ever heard. The program she performed is available on cd from Amazon. (Brahms and Stravinsky violin concertos)

So what was interesting last night was that this small orchestra played Mahler's "Das Lied von Der Erde." You know the lush, heavily orchestrated, piece ? And the arrangement was by none other than Schoenberg (yes the twelve tone guy). It was a very unusual but effective performance. The soprano and tenor were both outstanding. The first part of the concert was an early Schoenberg piece that was not twelve tone and although it was a little jarring it still sounded wonderful to Mr. B.

We know, we know, Mr. B. is not a music critic. What was the concert like from the standpoint of someone who knows something about music? Michael Anthony writes for the newspaper in the other GemCity, and is a pretty critical guy. He's written a review ("SPCO's not-so-big Mahler delicate, lovely") in today's Strib.


Back to earth: It is snowing. A blizzard is being predicted. It is cold again. Mr. B. has to go off to work. It is graduate student recruiting week-end. ChemistryGS wannabes are in town and we are supposed to make them want to come to BigU. I hope they like music...

ps: Fortunately, the student Mr. B. talked to was from St. Cloud, which is an hour's drive from BigU. She's used to the weather, thankfully.

A Shameless Plug

Mrs. Bonzo has written, in collaboration with Caroline Swash, a book on Stained & Art Glass. More information about the book may be found on Amazon, where it is available for a pretty reasonable price considering the number of beautiful color illustrations. (To say nothing of the fabulous, unattributed, back of jacket portrait of Mrs. B. taken by Mr. B.)

From the only review so far on Amazon:

If you have any interest in the beauty of glass, you should have this book. With over 800 images in full color, this richly illustrated volume could be savored only as a visual experience, while at the same time it has been written with intelligence, style and grace for anyone with an interest in glass. That includes the casual browser of art books (like me) and also, I believe, professional scholars and serious collectors. As beautifully produced as any coffee table book, it also is an engaging and important study of a largely neglected aesthetic medium.

Another good review has appeared on the website of the Contemporary Glass Society:

The subject matter – stained and art glass – is also surprising. There are plenty of books on each individually but I know of no significant other that juxtaposes both. Each discipline has its own traditions and has often developed separately with barely a nod toward the other. In some respects this is really two books but that is its beauty. The book is priced so sensibly that even the most narrow-minded supporter of one school will find the book represents excellent value. Perhaps the best thing is that afficionados of studio or stained glass can easily read about the other. This can only help to remove barriers between the different schools. There are also substantial sections on architectural glass throughout the world, surely a major future area of evolution. If like me, your glass passions are catholic, the book is almost too good to be true.

A proud Mr. Bonzo signs off.

Bonzos in Bluest State

Last weeks’s trip to Bluest State was a combination of business and not-business. Mr. B. went first to LA for a medical devices conference where he was asked to say a few words about biomaterials, something he knows about. The meeting was in the Anaheim Convention Center about 15 minutes walk from Mr. B.’s temporary residence directly across from the main gate to Disneyland. (How fitting)

Everything went pretty well since Mr. B. had worked with the other presenters in the past and the topics make a nice package. The only thing a little intimidating was the ten lane streets (five on each side) that needed to be crossed occasionally. Mr. B., being basically a small town guy, was intimidated.

But the WEATHER! Mr. B. used to try to get away at least once a winter from the pretty oppressive cold and darkness of ColdState. Lately that’s not been possible, but this expedition is a good reminder to do it annually. From -15 F overnight to 50++ in a day is quite a pleasant shock. Later in the week, Mr. B. joined Mrs. B. in The City for Valentine’s Day – how romantic – hosted by AlexB and MdeTirtoff. The next day was a Bonzo art crawl to the deYoung which was most impressive. That evening AlexB and MdeTirtoff made dinner for all of us in the deTirtoff loft. Mr. B. always thinks of lofts as places where starving artists live, but this was a very elegant and tastefully decorated place that was still quite comfortable.

Next day was the Asian.

There was a quite good exhibit of Japanese bamboo artistry complete with a national treasure quality bamboo artist from Japan who demonstrated his craft and answered questions from the audience via an excellent translator. On the upper floors non-flash pictures are allowed and Mr. B. went nuts with the digital camera. The quality of the ceramics – a particular Bonzo interest – is spectacular.

That evening the Bonzo’s went to John’s Grill for dinner. The loss of the bird, the Maltese Falcon, did not seem to have slowed things down. (Mr. B. was amused to learn in a recent New Yorker that some HP hotshot had just named his new yacht, The Maltese Falcon.) Mr. B. had the Sam Spade special: grilled lamb chops, fresh tomatoes, and baked potato. Mrs. B. had cioppino and AlexB, sea bass. MdeTirtoff was not able to attend because she was slaving away at work. But she did join us for a San Francisco Orchestra concert that was excellent and ended up with an Astor Piazolla piece, complete with virtuoso bandoneon player.

We then went out for a drink or two as well as some food since MdeTirtoff had not eaten yet. Unfortunately, she was already starting to feel a little shaky and, as we learned next day, became quite ill. She works too hard. It is bad for your immune system to work that hard.

Next day, after confirmation that MdeTirtoff was in no condition to go along, we set off for Chinatown. It was a spectacular day in the low 70s. Since it was the day before the start of Chinese New Year, there were plenty of fireworks and sometimes you could look down a street and see nothing but smoke. There was a pilgrimage to the antiques part of town for Mrs. Bonzo as well as book stores including Ferlinghetti’s (in)famous City Lights.

Back to Chinatown for light lunch at AlexB’s new favorite Chinese Restaurant and then a fairly long walk back to the Rex, the Bonzo’s favorite place to stay in the City.

That evening we went to a pretty good production of Hedda Gabler at the ACT. Staging and acting were excellent although the way Hedda was played seemed a little eccentric. Unfortunately, Mr. B. has seen this play, done very well, at the Guthrie recently starring his favorite actress, Laila Robbins. If you know the ending of the play, it seems spoiled because you know what is going to happen and you can see it coming. The first time you see the play, the end is pretty shocking. [Mrs. B. comments that you know what is going to happen in most Shakespeare plays and that doesn't seem to dampen enthusiasm. And she's right, Bonzo knows how Lear ends but wouldn't miss any reasonable production.]

The next day the Bonzo’s had to get up very early and go back to ColdState after a wonderful time.

Postscript: Lest you feel too envious. Mrs. B. made an uneventful trip directly home. Mr. B. had to go to LA and then home. Both his flights were late. His luggage was lost and as of today (Thursday) he still does not have his stuff. Also, there was an inadvertent switch of computers at the LA airport security. Mr. B. had the bad fortune to pick up a laptop identical to his own on the other side of the scanner as did someone else on her way from Australia to Toronto. Negotiations are under way to swap laptops via international post.

"Ars longa, vita brevis, occasio praeceps, experimentum periculosum, iudicium difficile."
Life is short, [the] art long, opportunity fleeting, experiment treacherous, judgment difficult.

Mrs. Bonzo tries to keep Mr. Bonzo from ranting about BigU on the theory that if the Bonzos ignore it long enough, it will go away. So she tries to distract Mr. Bonzo now and then by sending him artsy stuff. Here from the LA Times is a little music review:

MUSIC REVIEW By Mark Swed, Times Staff Writer

For Deborah Voigt, less indeed is more
The slimmed-down soprano now has a compliant physique at the command of her flexible voice.

Like a character in a Mozart or Strauss opera, Deborah Voigt has undergone a transformation. She's lost weight and added glamour. At her Los Angeles Opera recital Sunday evening in the Dorothy Chandler Pavilion, she was a walking, talking, flirting, singing advertisement for gastric bypass surgery.

[Ouch, that hurt!]

What was immediately apparent at this recital — which worked its way through lesser-known Mozart, Verdi, Strauss and Respighi until reaching American music — is that Voigt is no fluke of nature. She is a technical singer, superbly trained. Her voice is not impressive for its bigness (although it is not small) as it is for its focus. The thrill of her high notes is that of a considerable athletic feat.

But my sense of the evening was of a singer whose real potential is untapped. Her accompanist, Brian Zeger, was just that, an accompanist. She needed someone to play off, not who plays for her, however well. She actually blew Zeger away when she sat down with him at the piano bench for an encore and rocked at the keyboard.

She also needs musical substance. Strauss and Wagner might be her meal ticket, but her soul is in American music and music of our time. Yet she is, instead, turning to trash. Now that she has the looks, she says she wants to sing "Adriana Lecouvreur," "Andrea Chenier" and other cheap Italian operas. The time has come for her to make Strauss, Wagner and Verdi relevant and to inspire new opera. She could do it.

Now this was “just” a recital. There is quite a nice picture of Ms. Voight in the review and she looks smashing in a black formal low-cut gown, but certainly she is not the extremely thin Callas who the reviewer thinks may have lost her edge by too strict a diet. The Bonzos were honored to hear Ms. Voigt sing in Chicago this last Fall where she did her performance in considerably less clothing as Salome in the Strauss opera. She also did a very convincing and credible Dance of the Seven Veils. [Bravo and two thumbs up from the Bonzos]. Some reviews:

Universally admired for her lustrous voice, charismatic stage presence and wicked sense of humor, Deborah Voigt arrives in LA fresh from her recent success as Salome with Lyric Opera of Chicago:

"A personal and artistic triumph. Ms. Voigt, who looked great, exuded confidence and won a tumultuous ovation. What matters, though, is that she sang thrillingly…I have never heard her sing with such fearless intensity." The New York Times

"Her singing was gleaming and voluptuous, its power and warm, womanly vocal quality undiminished…Voigt poured out the grueling final scene in mad exultation of opulent, radiant tone." Chicago Tribune

Now what all the fuss is about is that only a few years ago, Ms. Voigt was unceremoniously dumped by Covent Garden for being too large to fit in a little black dress.

The good news is:

Covent Garden Finally (Re-)Engages Deborah Voigt to Sing Ariadne

Not so long ago, the Royal Opera House in London caused a worldwide uproar when it released soprano Deborah Voigt from her contract to sing the title role in Strauss's Ariadne auf Naxos. But news broke over the weekend that the company has changed its mind - now that Voigt has changed her figure.

The Times of London, BBC News and Scotland on Sunday reported yesterday that the ROH has engaged the now-slimmer Voigt to sing Ariadne in the 2007-08 season.

— Read more at PlaybillArts

Now the loss of weight (100+ pounds) was due to gastric bypass surgery. Mr. Bonzo is a little concerned about this. However, he knows at least one other person who has benefitted immeasurably from such surgery (marriage, family...) so who’s to say nay.

Right on, Deborah!

Aside: Mr. Bonzo heard the Met travelling version in ColdState about thirty-five years ago. The Met used to come out to the provinces and people would come in from OutState and from TheDakotas to GemCities by the busload to hear the opera. Usually the stars would cancel out at the last minute, but not always. As a student Mr. Bonzo could only afford the cheap seats and sat with his back literally to the wall in a huge auditorium. He heard Martina Arroyo sing in Madame Butterfly. He was amazed to learn - when he used his binoculars - that Ms. Arroyo looked like a perfectly round little butterball. [Please God, let Ms. Arroyo never see this if she is still with us...] But she sang like the proverbial angel and could be heard perfectly well in the cheap seats of a huge auditorium. Mr. Bonzo loved it. In a way it is too bad that opera singers must also look like movie stars, nowadays. In the old days it seemed perfectly acceptable to just stand up there and belt and no one cared terribly much what you looked like. Thank you, Mrs. Bonzo, for bringing back pleasant memories of ars longa.

Wonderful Klimt piece

Mr. Bonzo loves Klimt and the Neue Gallerie. Mrs. Bonzo, an artsy type, took Mr. Bonzo to the Neue when it first opened. Lauder money makes it possible - see the recent New Yorker article on the acquisition of the golden girl (Adele Bloch-Bauer) for big bucks.

But the most interesting Klimt-related piece I've run across in a long while is to be found on a great blog, Slaves of Academe. The 21 January entry, "In the City", is highly recommended. The illustrations are beautifully selected and hopefully allowable by the fair use doctrine.

Highs and Lows in GeminiCities

Reaction to Jay Weiner's opinion piece in the Strib has started to come in. [It's time for 'U' to drop the ball. Startribune, January 14, 2007.] And it is not good. Today's Strib had the following comments in the letters section:

Should 'u' drop football?

Follow Chicago's lead

Jay Weiner is correct ("It's time for 'U' to drop the ball," Jan. 14).

Remove the burden of big-time football, and perhaps our great university can begin to match the intellectual vibrancy of the University of Chicago.

BRUCE KITTILSON, GOLDEN VALLEY

It had to be said

Bravo for Jay Weiner for having the courage to state the obvious truth about University of Minnesota athletics, with special attention to the football program.

Most of the public knows that his facts and his solution are correct, but it's impossible to find a politician with the nerve to state those truths out loud, and Weiner's column in the Jan. 14 Opinion Exchange section may be the first truly honest piece about university football ever written by a Minnesota journalist and published by a newspaper in the state.

JIM FULLER, MINNEAPOLIS

And address the stadium

I hope University of Minnesota President Robert Bruininks, the Board of Regents, Gov. Tim Pawlenty, the Minnesota Legislature and the taxpaying public consider seriously Jay Weiner's Jan. 14 proposal that the university drop football.

I believe that this could be the much-needed, long-overdue first step to scale back intercollegiate athletics at the university and put them in proper relation to the school's primary mission: educating our young people and serving as a multifaceted resource to the people of Minnesota.

Whether football is retained, scaled back or dropped, I also believe the Legislature should ASAP rescind its horrendous bill of last session authorizing construction -- mostly with taxpayer dollars -- of a new (and unneeded) football stadium.

WILL SHAPIRA, MINNEAPOLIS

On the "cultcha" front

The Bonzo's went to see a preview of the upcoming Michael Frayn play "Democracy" at the Park Square Theater. We are blessed in GeminiCities to have very good live theater. Being of low class in the culture business Mr. Bonzo had never heard of Park Square, but of course Mrs. Bonzo knew all about it. Mrs. Bonzo saw Copenhagen, another wonderful Frayn play, on stage in London. Mr. Bonzo has not see Copenhagen but has read the play. So we are Frayn fans. Having grown up in the time of Kennedy and Willy Brandt the play was fascinating to the Bonzos. The actors were outstanding, many of them being experienced actors from the Guthrie, another temple of cultcha in GeminiCities. AND the director was Jon Cranney of Children's Theater fame who has directed Copenhagen in the past with some of the same actors. The reviews are not out yet, but a la the old Siskel & Ebert show, Mr. and Mrs. Bonzo give two thumbs up. Futher information, but not a review, can be found here.

Note added (I-30-07): a mildly critical Strib review has now appeared.