Alfie? Why is everyone talking about Alfie, I wondered. It turns out I misheard. The topic of the day is Elphi, short for Elbphilharmonie, the concert house overlooking Hamburg Harbour. The building has been everything from hyped architectural marvel to fiscal bone of contention for the last 15 years. Planning started in 2001, construction in 2007, legal wrangling over cost and timing begins in 2010, in 2013 we learn that the ultimate cost will be 866 million Euros (that includes donations) – 1o times as much as originally budgeted. Late 2016 the first rehearsals in the cutting edge concert hall lead to applause for the director of acoustics – he’s been a magician.

It will be opened TOMORROW! With a mega light show, real-time TV transmissions and much fanfare when the Haute Volée appears on the carpets.  Concerts are booked out for the year(s) to come, as is the hotel located on one of the upper floors. A Westin that provides you for the pocket change of $3.500 per night with the best of the best, including harbor view. (Truth be told the range is more from the 300 to three thousand, and yes, you read that number right the first time.)

We mere mortals, however, can take the curved escalator to various levels where you can walk around the building, see Hamburg from 4 sides, and enjoy the reflections in the various surface structures that give the building some fluidity.  That is if you don’t fall over people restlessly emptying cartons of tchotchkes that are sold in the tourist trap store,

or the cables that are haphazardly strewn about for the millions of halogen lamps for the opening light show.

Lightshow equipment surrounds it

NOT recommended for people with fear of heights…..

much recommended for people interested in architectural gimmicks.

Escalator is curved; internal walls covered with a white plastic foil 

Actually, this quote from the Financial Times sums it up in a more generous fashion: Sophisticated and ugly, striking yet appropriate, brutal but open, it is a generous gesture and a magnificent paradox.

https://www.ft.com/content/9e14e66c-b313-11e6-9c37-5787335499a0

Gertrude Vanderbilt Whitney was a woman who defied expectation. Founder of the Whitney Museum she was a progressive and unflappable patron of the modern arts. Her husband, on the other hand, did not permit her portrait (painted by Robert Henri) to be hung in their house; he probably couldn’t stand all that assertiveness. Or a woman wearing the pants….

The new building of the Whitney is functional and delightfully unpretentious. Which can not necessarily be said for the museum visitors who seem to be inclined towards color coordination with the exhibits.

Two things caught my eye in particular. I had mentioned this piece before, turned upside down per request of the artist the day after Trump was elected. Not a peep about that in any vicinity of the artwork. People are left in the dark, probably to dark-adapt for the upcoming years…..

And then there is this wax sculpture of Julian Schnabel created by Swiss artist Urs Fischer. It has been burning as a candle since April, having been an intact image of the man at the beginning. I guess heads roll first – that, too, an ominous prep for our future. The poor guard’s job is to light the candle in the morning, extinguish in the evening at stand near a portable fire extinguisher for the rest of the day. Now do you feel better about what’s in store for you today?

Like mother like son, we documented our favorite sights, as well as the unconscionable tasteless ones.

The museum store offered the upscale advice of what I had found on the street earlier.

Not exactly the advice that hungry waifs or sumo babies could use – but one taken seriously by yours truly.

“Just see your servant’s suffering and misery. Just see his soul, a vulture in a trap.”

This self- description by Ibn Gabriel, one of the ancestors of Hebrew poetry, fits not just himself but really all the disenfranchised people I can think of. Just see your neighbor’s suffering and misery, your refugee’s, your homeless person’s. They might not appeal to a higher power, as Ibn Gabriel did, for enlightenment. They might just long for safety, a place to be, a meal to share to escape their cage. The Jewish poet, by the way, living a short and arduous life, with anger issues and a love for the grotesque, derived his quest for knowledge and philosophy from the Arab world that he lived in.

 “The large-scale absorption of cosmopolitan ideas and intellectual pursuits by Jewish intellectuals and religious leaders was one of the developments in Jewish culture that was made possible by the spread of Islam throughout the Mediterranean world. By the mid-tenth century, most of world Jewry lived in Islamic domains and spoke Arabic as their native language. Through Arabic, Jews had access to the high culture of the age, including, on the one hand, the metaphysics, medicine, astronomy, logic, and mathematics inherited from the Greeks.”

Or so I learn from an introduction to his works here: http://www.tabletmag.com/jewish-arts-and-culture/219518/vulture-in-a-cage?utm_source=tabletmagazinelist&utm_campaign=db7edbd121-EMAIL_CAMPAIGN_2017_01_01&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_c308bf8edb-db7edbd121-207667521

Vulture in a Cage

I strongly believe that art sets that vulture free from his cage, and never more so when done in solidarity and with a shared mission. Below is the perfect example. Why the title talks about vulnerability is a mystery to me. All I learned from that short clip was about the strength of a community whose soul did soar.

https://www.theatlantic.com/video/index/511085/when-art-becomes-an-exercise-in-vulnerability/

(Photographs from the Austin Tx Kite Festival)

Read it and laugh – or weep, as you please. The collection of quotes in the link below is priceless.

Weekend Words: Gift

Priceless like the best gifts, which depend on truly knowing each other.

My beloved sister sends me a calendar each year that celebrates the spirit of the season. It is published by a progressive group of German Christians and includes art, poetry, and teachings from a variety of religions. Mostly it is really about how to be a decent, thoughtful, committed and just person – all the things we try to be.

This week it taught me about something in this country, namely in Pittsburgh PA. For years now a restaurant named Conflict Kitchen has served food that is entirely devoted to nations with whom we are at conflict. So for several months each you get to eat food from Afghanistan, or Iran, or Cuba, or Venezuela, or North Korea, etc. Tied to the choice of national food are events that teach about the country, cooking courses for school children, and community outreach.

I think this is such a clever idea, using the psychological insight that we need to get to know each other to feel able to connect.  It is also a good sign that people who work for this kitchen get to attend free courses at Carnegie Mellon!  The kitchen’s website is a fount of information.

http://conflictkitchen.org

So this week I’ll delve into cultural differences, or the meeting of cultures, or culture as a tool of teaching and learning. At least that is the plan. We’ll see what I can find…..

Below are some perfect examples of Baumkuchen a German specialty that has been baked for special occasions for over 500 years now. Royalty around Europe orders from this shop in Salzwedel, a town in Eastern Germany.

http://www.baumkuchen-salzwedel.de/Ueber_uns.html

And for local fare from lands we are at peace with: https://www.pdxmonthly.com/features/2015/11/20/a-picture-perfect-meal-from-the-land-of-ice-and-snow    Try Broder Söder on Olsen Rd!