Written in Bone

"Do you watch CSI or Bones or any of those forensic dramas on TV?"

I posed that question to one of the FBI lab technicians who was demonstrating investigative techniques in a small room at the far end of a current exhibit called Written in Bone at the National Museum of Natural History (NMNH).

The young woman and her colleague exchanged a knowing glance and a sympathetic shaking of the head, like they had heard the question a thousand times before.  "It's never that easy," she said.

The five women and one young man from the FBI were available to explain how some of the forensic techniques used in putting together the Written in Bone exhibit are the same as those used in criminal investigative field and lab work.  They represented FBI divisions concerned with evidence provided by human remains, manufactured materials, and geologic traces in crime and terrorism cases.

The two technicians from the Forensic Geology division caught my attention first, since my wife taught for years at a mining engineering university.  Standing behind a table with a tray of soil and rock samples, their earnest gazes made me think of Dr. Jack Hodgins on Bones, the TV show--a weekly must-see for my wife, in or out of season.

"What is it that attracts women to this work? And why five women here and only one man?" I asked the one male Geo tech.

"He's just lucky," asserted his female colleague, before he could answer.  "Actually most divisions have primarily women, except for explosives," she smiled.  Her colleague had been trained as an environmental scientist, but had found the work routine.  His answer approximated what most of the other techs said as well.  One young woman from Puetro Rico had actually earned an undergraduate degree in forensic science and had interned at the FBI, but she was the exception.  The others had started out elsewhere, but had been drawn to criminal investigation.  That was even the case with one young lady who had an undergrad degree in biology and a masters in anti-terrorism/national security from Rochester Institute of Technology (the degree is no longer offered).   All agreed that although it was not anything as intense or dramatic as in a television series, investigating cases at the FBI was still very interesting work.

I asked the woman in Forensic Geology what her most interesting case to that point had been.

"My second week on the job Timothy McVeigh's truck was brought into the lab, ironically in a rented Ryder truck."  Because she was new to the work, she mostly took notes while other technicians combed the vehicle for soil evidence that could place it at sites associated with the Oklahoma City bombing suspects.  The thrill of working on such a high profile crime hooked her on forensic work, which she, too, admitted was mostly a far cry from TV dramas.

"Although one time I did do some interesting field work on the Centennial Bomber case."  That case involved a bomb which killed one person and injured more than 100 others at Centennial Park in Atlanta during the 1996 Summer Olympics.  FBI investigators found a trowel which the bomber, Eric Rudolph, had used to bury explosives while developing and testing them.  To link the trowel to places Rudolph had been known to frequent, "they kept sending back samples that I knew were from unlikely sites, so I asked to be sent down South to help lead the search.  With my background in geology I could look at an area and know immediately that it was impossible for the soil on the trowel to have come from there."  She smiled.  "It saved the FBI a lot of time and trouble in the end."

The chance to talk with working forensic scientists amplifies what the Written in Bone exhibit so ably demonstrates--that careful investigation of post-mortem evidence can reveal many things about the dead.  Like the character Dr. Temperance Brennan demonstrates in the Bones series, forensic work is a part of solving both current and long-standing mysteries.  In the case of the exhibit, those mysteries reside in skeletal remains discovered at Jamestown, Virginia, and St. Mary's City, Maryland, colonial sites first settled in the early 1600's.

NMNH scientists, led by Dr. Douglas Owsley, have been sifting through physical remains from both sites, trying to piece together what occurred many years ago.  In the case of Jamestown, examinations of skeletal evidence suggest that one young settler, who was probably about 14-15 years old, may have died from an arrow wound to the thigh.  An arrowhead discovered near his humerus (see small white object near the skeleton's left leg bone in the image above) most likely was still embedded in his thigh muscle when he was buried.  But further examination revealed that he would likely have died even if he had not been the victim of an attack.

The lad had evidence of severe abscesses caused by two broken front teeth in his lower jaw.  Since the teeth had not been capped or treated--medical treatment at the time was both primitive and unavailable to these adventurers--they had become infected to the point that the boy was certainly in severe pain.  He also would have been breathing in the infection, poisoning his lungs as well.  The attacker's arrow merely hastened his death.

In other instances, forensic scientists have been able to match diary notes and corroborating information with burial evidence, as in the case of two men who died on the same day and whose skeletal remains were discovered in a single grave.  They were determined to be males of European ancestry based on bone analysis related to ethnic and sexual features, as well as bone growth patterns related to diet.  The fact that only Native American pottery shards and no artifacts from after the early decades of the 17th century were discovered at the grave level pinpoints the deceased as among the first Jamestown settlers.  A diary entry from one of the original Jamestown settlers names two men--Edward Harrington and George Walker--as dying and being buried on the same day.  Thus, a positive ID to these two skeletons, all thanks to a combination of archaeological, historical, and forensic information.

I recommend a visit to this exhibit, but don't rush through.  The first rooms detail how bones tell tales and the kinds of tools forensic scientists have at their disposal to help them discover the story of those who lived long ago.  Although these tools are not as fantastical as those amazing computer-generated graphics available to lab tech Angela Montenegro on Bones, they still provide for sophisticated investigation into our past and into the solution of contemporary crimes.

View a video, narrated by Dr. Owsley, Head of Physical Anthropology at NMNH, introducing the Written in Bone exhibit at http://www.anthropology.si.edu/writteninbone

Art to celebrate the Cherry Blossom Festival

This year DC marks the 100th anniversary of the gift of cherry trees from Japan to the United States, an event that is celebrated each spring when visitors from around the world flock to the Tidal Basin area near the Capital Mall.

I stopped by there on the morning of March 19 to see this year's blossom display, as I was leaving later that day for a trip to visit the grandkids in Colorado.  Because we had had a dry winter and trees in our neighborhood had already started to bloom, my hope was that the same would be true of the cherries.  In a "normal" year (whatever that is) the cherries usually peak in late March or early April.   What a nice surprise awaited me when I arrived on that crisp, sunny spring morning.  I was neither too early nor too late for the blossoms.  The ancient cherry trees that surround the Tidal Basin were in their full splendor.

And just as wonderful, there was almost no one there to enjoy them.  I don't say that out of selfishness or possessiveness.  Coming to DC for the Cherry Blossom Festival should be on everyone's bucket list.  And judging from the crowds the four times I've been in town to see the blossoms, it is.  The usual throngs of out-of-town visitors gaping and oohing, young men photographing girlfriends in front of the showiest trees, families meandering in clumps on the narrow walkway, and kids teetering on the edge of the path a half step away from a plunge into the backwaters of the Anacostia--these always remind me of the Tokyo subway system.  You know, where there are so many commuters trying to squeeze into trains during rush hour, that the municipal authorities hire "shovers," who lean a shoulder into the mass of people, hoping to shoehorn one more lucky traveler in before the doors shut.

But, because it was a Monday and still early in the day, almost no one blocked my stroll along the Basin.  Of course in the rush to see the trees before packing and heading to the airport, I didn't bring my camera.  So I had to settle for a few cell phone photos.  And memories of nature bright and bountiful -- the sure harbinger of Spring.  When I returned to DC just over a week later, the blossoms were faded and falling.  But, two art exhibits connected with the Cherry Blossom Festival extended the celebration, more than compensating for the wilting blooms.

Colorful Realm of Living Beings, a collection of 33 silk paintings by Ito Jakuchu (1716-1800), and 36 Views of Mt. Fuji, woodblock prints by the Japanese artist Katsushika Hokusai (1760-1849), made as big an impression on crowds of viewers as the cherry blossoms, as unlikely as that sounds.   For starters, the Jakuchu exhibit marks the only time this entire group of silk paintings has been displayed together outside of Japan.  For six weeks, westerners can see a treasure of Japanese art, a gift from Japan to America on a par with the gift of cherry trees in 1912.

On my three visits to the exhibit hall, where Colorful Realm is displayed in the lower level of the National Gallery, I enter a subdued space, quiet despite the crowds, its lights dimmed to protect the delicate silk and organic paints.  At one end of the space hang 3 large silk paintings Jakuchu completed as a gift to the Shokokuji Monastery where he studied.  The central painting of the Buddha is flanked by paintings of two Bodhisattva's, all done in a formal style and with familiar props (elephants, thrones, hand gestures, miniature figures).  Then there are the 30 paintings that line the side walls of the hall--fifteen silk hangings in each glass-enclosed exhibit space--flanking the Buddha and designed as a form of tribute to him by the flora and fauna of the natural world.


Almost all of the silk hangings contain trees or flowers.  Jakuchu's attention to detail is evident in their depictions, no two blossoms alike, no pine needle a replica of another.  The exceptions are two paintings with a bestiary of fish and other denizens of the seas and rivers--cuttlefish, rays, sharks--both drawn against a blank background.  These creatures swim towards the Buddha, as if assembling for a blessing.  A painting of seashells, probably drawn from observation of a famous collection which would have been available to him, and another of insects and reptiles buzzing and slithering in an imaginary lotus pond, are among other starker compositions.  Two of my favorites are of roosters on blank backgrounds.  Jakuchu kept his own flock of chickens and his careful observations of them underlies their representation in the paintings.  Like Caravaggio, he used real life models so that his painting rose above traditional depictions and took on a visceral quality largely absent from Japanese art.

Among my favorites are two paintings depicting snow scenes, the snow hanging in globules from branches and spattered about using a technique developed by Jakuchu.  He painted on both the front and back of the silk to give the impression of depth to his winter scenes.  And it works!  I feel drawn into many of his paintings, but Mandarin ducks in snow and Golden pheasants in snow both reach out and pull me in with their sense of quiet and color and depth.  These works, as is true of almost all of the paintings, contain allegorical elements.  For example, Mandarin ducks mate for life, symbols of marital harmony. A flock of sparrows in Autumn millet contains a single white bird, white representing 100 and thus plentitude.  In Plum blossoms and small birds, plums are associated with fortitude and rejuvenation, since they bloom in later winter and are a harbinger of spring.  The moon rising behind plum trees in a related painting stands for enlightenment.  The cry of a rooster, as depicted in several paintings, suggests spiritual awakening.  And so on.

Jakuchu was the son of a merchant.  He retired from business in his 40's to study Buddhism and painting.  This connection between religious study and art elevates purpose for the artist, judging by the obvious care and deep thought evident in his paintings.  Every brush stroke--and there are many, piled layer upon layer, color upon color--is like a prayer.  If we think of them as prayer, then this is worship of a generous and thankful kind.  These paintings grow from Jakuchu's devotion to his faith, but also from his careful observation of the natural world.  Many of the paintings depict his beloved chickens, usually roosters, brilliantly colored and in various natural and Kabuki-like poses.  Largely self-taught, the level of detail provides proof positive of Jakuchu's observational powers and his delight in the colors and vitality of the natural world, as well as his study of oriental art and the patterns and designs of Kyoto textiles.

The exhibit closes April 29.

Also on display as a part of the Festival centennial are woodblock prints by the master artist, Hokusai.  These small works, most measuring about 15 x 20 inches, are delicately carved scenes that depict exactly what the exhibit title suggests--views of Mt. Fuji.  They are on display in the Sackler gallery through the summer.  The most famous of the prints--Under the Wave Off Kanagawa--is dominated by huge swells that hide two boats battling their way through the storm.  Mt. Fuji is a tiny bump in the middle of the scene, almost an afterthought.

Each of the prints features the mountain in various degrees of prominence.  In one drawing of the village of Edo, Fuji is again a small bump in the distance, melding into terraced hills that fill the foreground.  In another, the mountain dominates the top half of the picture and the bottom, as a reflection in Lake Mikasa.  Often the mountain rises out of mists or fog.  I am reminded of the Wallace Stevens poem, 13 Ways of Looking at a Blackbird, while viewing the exhibit.  Stevens' poem, like Hokusai's woodblock scenes, suggests that we cannot know the natural world from a single perspective. In fact, it is so rich and evocative, that it most certainly is unknowable.

This devotion to careful observation and persistent study of a craft are beautifully summarized by Hokusai, when referring to his project, which he envisioned as "100 views of Mt. Fuji."  He did not begin this endeavor until he was in his 70's, and only after many years of pursuing a living as an artist:

"Prior to my 70th year, nothing I drew was of particular note.  At the age of 73, I could somewhat understand the structure of animals, insects, and fish, and the vital nature of plants and trees.  Thus at 80 my art will have greatly improved, at 90 will have attained real depth, and at 100 will be divinely inspired.  At 110 my every dot and every stroke will come to life."

My friend Gabe, who is in his 80's, said after seeing these exhibits, "I had to rethink everything I thought I knew about understanding something."  I agree.  The pleasures of these two exhibits are many--artistic and philosophical, visceral and unearthly.  I plan to see them both again before they are spirited away, most likely never to grace a Capital spring again.

AARP The Magazine

A dozen tidbits from the latest issue of AARP The Magazine:

1. Swimming reduces blood pressure, according to a study in The American Journal of Cardiology.  No big surprise there.  But, related advice caught my attention:  When you have your blood pressure checked, get a reading from both arms.  "Differences in readings can indicate a narrowing of the arteries."
2. July and August are the best months to buy a new car, in advance of the new models.  Get an accurate price at True.com before heading in to a dealership.  
3. A study of 144 million airline ticket purchases shows that prices are lowest six weeks before departure.  
4. About 60 percent of The United Inventors Association of America are 50 or older.  "Older adults have more experience, plus the insight and persistence to get a product to market," says Jeffrey Dobkin, author of How to Market a Product for Under $500.  
5. You can get paid to lose weight.  Websites like HealthyWage.com and DietBet.com promote competitions to drop pounds.  StickK.com pits weight loss goals against forced giving.  If you don't meet your goals, you have to pony up to an organization you oppose!  (80% of dieters who choose this motivation meet their goals.)
6. Joint pain sufferers have new alternatives.  The most macabre is called prolotherapy, which involves a doctor injecting a known irritant via hypodermic needle into an injury site, causing the body to "wake up and respond to the injury."  This works even if just a dry needle is poked around for a bit in an inflamed joint.  Much better than cortisone, it turns out, which has some nasty side effects.
7. People eat less from a dark plate.  The Cornell Food and Brand Lab experimented with buffet diners.  With white plates poeple piled on 24 percent more food.  
8. Carry bigger bills in your wallet.  People are more reluctant to spend a $20 bill than a $5 bill.  This  can curb impulse buys.
9. Want a cheap thrill?  Cross a suspension bridge.  The swinging wooden Capilano suspension bridge above the Capilano River near Vancouver, the Wheeling bridge spanning the Ohio River in West Virginia, and the wood-planked bridge 1053 feet above the Royal Gorge near Canon City, Colorado, all will make your heart pound and provide some awesome photo ops.
10. In the early 1970's the five-year survival rate for all invasive cancers was 4.3 percent.  Today it is 67 percent.  
11. Before selecting a financial planner, go to FINRA.org and SEC.gov to see if regulatory actions have been taken against your planner.  Check to see whether he or she is registered with your state securities department at NASAA.org, where you will also see a history of complaints.
12. (And my favorite) Politeness can be bad for your health, especially in high stakes situations.  Research published in Current Directions in Psychological Science shows that people who use words like may, probably, or possibly to lighten the blow of a complaint or request, actually end up creating confusion and mis-understandings--a source of tension rather than mitigation.

My sad new barber

My local barbers have been pushed out of their shop.  The success of the restaurant/bar that took over three-quarters of the space in their building undoubtedly has the landlord dreaming of bigger rent checks.   So, when I needed a haircut today, I couldn't walk over to see my two buddies.  Instead I got in the car and floated downstream with the traffic towards an old familiar spot.

The apartment building in Arlington where we used to live rests above several street-level shops, among them a barbershop run by a bevy of Vietnamese women, ranging from a lady of about 45 who seems to be in charge, to girls who look no more than twenty.  Anywhere from six to ten young women at a time work the two rows of barber chairs against each wall.  The chairs face a central register nestled against a four-foot square structural pillar that sits in the middle of the space.  The shop almost always is packed with military and business men who live in the neighborhood.  When I step through the open doors today I recognize the faces of some of the same women who worked here seven years ago, a bit more stolid and timeworn but still smiling whenever customers enter. 

Today I arrive around 2 p.m. and only three of the ten or so barber chairs are occupied.  One older man in suspenders is just leaving.  "You look handsome now,"  the boss says to him in passing.  His sparse hair is combed straight back from his forehead, and as he leaves he looks at himself in mirror and rubs his hand over his head.  No matter how busy or how many chairs are open, one of the barbers always says, "Have a seat."  And that's what the boss tells me now, even though all but one of the barber stations in unoccupied..  So I head towards the closest waiting chair, next to a stack of men's magazines.  But, before I can sit down, a young lady is standing in front of me asking, "You ready?"  She looks barely adolescent.  The pale flawless skin of her face, arms and shoulders says maybe sixteen, but probably not much more.  She has a round face and like everyone in the shop is smiling, the red bow of her lips drawn back over brilliantly white teeth. 

After I make my request for a trim, she sets to work with electric shears and comb, reducing a mop of my snow white hair to a pile of clippings that settle like milkweed into the indentation in the lap of the maroon barber's cape draped over me and the arms of the barber chair.  She is wearing a scoop neck sleeveless red and white striped pullover knit and tight jeans.  Just a hint of the mounds of her small breasts rise above the scooped neckline when she leans in with the clippers, in an unselfconscious, non-provocative display that I self-consciously avoid ogling.

The haircut, as has been the case with every haircut I have received at this shop, is efficient and a marked improvement over whatever overgrown rat's nest I bring in the door.  Truth be told, for most of the men who patronize these girls, the haircut is simply an excuse for what follows--a dollop of hot shaving cream and straight razor trim, then a hot towel draped over the head and neck, followed by a neck and head and shoulder massage that can last several minutes, depending on the press of waiting customers. 

I have been watching the only other customer in the shop during my haircut succumb to the charms of a massage.  He sits across from me and the young barber who is rubbing his neck and temples, his scalp and shoulders, wears 4-inch heels that should threaten her balance.  Despite her footwear, she works her client over like a lumberjack, kneading and gripping, at times putting her hands together in a prayer-like position and pounding his shoulders and back, from one side to the other and back again, with a loud pop every time the meat of the sides of her hands meets his body.  The client is a sturdy younger man in business attire--white shirt and tie, tan slacks and polished dark brown dress shoes.  His eyes are closed.  He is leaned forward in the chair and moves a bit in whatever direction the pressure of the barber's massage is directed.  The massage lasts all through my haircut.  When he finally rises to pay at the register he says, without being asked, "I'll be back every day."  The young lady barber smiles, in on the joke, although it may not be a joke.  "See you tomorrow,"  she replies.  

The girl in stiletto heels comes over and sits in the empty chair next to my barber.  The two begin to talk in the mesmerizing sing song of Vietnamese.  A hot towel is draped over my head and I close my eyes and allow firm small hands to rub away all tension in my temples and scalp, my neck and shoulders.  The hands are strong, applying just enough pressure to produce a lessening of whatever tension or strain I have stored in my muscles.  The conversation continues, although it takes on a different feel, which I sense in the hands of my barber, as she talks less and pauses in her movements several times before starting again.  Her responses to the monologue from her co-worker become single words.  She seems to get distracted a couple of times, rubbing the spot between my brows over and over and over, a kind of perseveration.  Then she switches to pulling her fingers across the ridges of my eyebrows from inside to out, almost as if she is lost in thought.  

The massage goes on far longer than I expect, what seems at least 10 minutes.  The conversation, which is mostly the sound of her colleague's voice, continues with few pauses.  I finally open my eyes and sit up straighter, and she grabs my shoulders like she is holding on to something that she didn't quite realize was there a second before.  She removes the cape and brushes me off a final time and we both walk the few steps to the register.

"I like hearing you talk together," I say to the young woman who has been holding up most of the conversation.  

"Do you understand us?" she asks.

"No," I say.  "You speak Vietnamese right?"

"Yes," she says.  I hand my credit card to the girl who has cut my hair.  She is still smiling in that distinctly oriental way that others have described as inscrutable.  "We were talking about my younger sister who died two years ago," says her friend.  

"I'm so sorry," I say.  And I am both sorry and feeling a bit like I've intruded into something personal.  "And her father just died two weeks ago," continues the friend.  I look back at the girl, who is focused on the pen and credit slip she hands me to sign.  All I can think to say is, "I'm sorry."  And I sign the slip, but add "Life can be hard."  

The girl looks directly at me, a flicker of something in her gaze.  Assent?  Annoyance?  Offense?  I can't tell.

"How long have you been here in the States?" I ask.

"Six years."

"Was your father here or in Vietnam?"

"In Vietnam," she says, still smiling bravely, but her eyes tear up and she has to reach up to wipe away a tiny stream of her grief that has trailed down one cheek.  

I hand her a tip, bigger than usual, and feel at a loss.  I want to step around the register and give her a granfatherly hug and the same for the other woman who has lost her younger sister.  I want to draw out of them with a human touch what they draw out of all of us who spend a few minutes under the healing strength of their hands.  But I know that no matter how much I am moved this is not possible and would be as much to relieve my own small sorrow as to comfort their great ones.  

Without thinking I bring my hands together in the prayer posture and bow slightly to each of them, like I learned in Nepal, the all-purpose gesture that can signify greeting or well-wishes or thanks and maybe even sympathy --the Namaste.  I leave with a weight of sadness on my shoulders.    

The Chieftans

A tin whistle takes you places.  At least it does me.  When I hear one, it transports me to a rocky island in the Irish Sea.  In the hands of a master, like Paddy Maloney of the Chieftans, the sound turns me into an Irishman.  Not in the cheap way St, Patrick's Day makes Irishmen of anyone looking to spend a few hours pounding Guiness beers and Old Bushmills shots.  It's a tad more spiritual and it comes and leaves without the pounding headache.

We were lucky enough to hear Paddy and the Chieftans at the Kennedy Center on Friday.  They have been around 50 years.  Quite an accomplishment for any band.  Outside it was a muggy east coast spring night.  But the humidity somehow evaporated and an imaginary chill set in--the icy tingle that goes up your spine on hearing the ballad of a lost love--when the first penny whistle notes flowed from Paddy's instrument.  And there we were, safe and warm in the confines of an Irish pub,  After Paddy's tin whistle came Kevin Coneff's brassy Irish tenor, then the husky cooing of Scottish lass Alyth McCormack.  The shouts and cheers after every song were like the encouragement of friends for their favorite village balladeers.  I could almost smell wet tweed and spilled beer by the time brothers Nathan and Jon Pilatzke broke into their Irish dance routine, a few numbers into the evening's festivities.

By the end of the night, people were up and dancing in the aisles.  To add to the homey, pub vibe, the Chieftans had invited local musicians to perform, including astronaut, Cacy Coleman (who took one of Paddy's tin whistles and one of Matt Molloy's flutes for a 95 million mile ride in the space shuttle); the Rockville High School bagpipe band; and a bevy of talented tousel-headed Irish dance school beauties (with two lucky lads in the mix).

Like everyone around me, I clapped and shouted along with the music and dance.  We were in the first balcony, so I resisted the urge to swan dive down to the orchestra level to join the conga line of Irish dancers during the night's final number.  But I didn't resist the urge to be an Irishman for an evening.  Made me want to book a pub tour of the Emerald Isle.

Mozart's Requiem at the National Cathedral

We do not expect to plumb the depths and scale the heights when we buy seats to a performance of Mozart's Requiem at the National Cathedral.  But, a mild version of that sort of adventure is what metaphorically takes place on a night that thankfully ends closer to heaven than hell.

Things start solidly in the benign column.  I decide to drive despite having sworn I would never be behind the wheel of any vehicle in the District, especially when forced to travel an unfamiliar route.  In this case, unfamiliar does not look difficult.  The route that pops up on Mapquest appears to be straightforward.  Seven miles from our front door to the concert venue.  Two major turns.  Long stretches on the same roads.  But the minute I make the first turn onto M Street in Georgetown off the Key Bridge, I remember why I do not drive in DC.

Traffic is moving at a funereal pace.  Appropriate, I concede, for the evening's entertainment.  I can feel my blood pressure rising.  Cars inch forward, crammed bumper to bumper in both directions.  The good citizens of early America did not plan the streets of Georgetown for 21st century Saturday night traffic and hordes of pedestrians on an early March evening.   Dodging oncoming cars and disoriented tourists, we surge through the intersection at Wisconsin Avenue, our second turn, and triumphantly come to a complete stop for what seems like five minutes while the driver of an SUV the size of a battleship learns to parallel park a block ahead.

Of course we arrive late.  Barb gets out to pick up our tickets from Will Call.  I seek a parking place in the Cathedral's underground garage.   The traffic, once I pay and enter, circles slowly down, level after level.  I do not see anyone parking.  Everyone creeps forward, hoping for an open space on the next lower level.   The spiral descent feels like a trip through Dante's hell, an unwelcome thought on the way to a reqiuem.  I expect to find Adolph Hitler playing gin rummy with Torquemada when we reach the bottom.  Instead, just before the dead end on the lowest level the line of cars in front of me comes to a complete stop.  A driver gets out of a car a couple of vehicles in front of mine and shouts out that there are no more spaces.  I somehow manage to turn around and am the first car to return to the entrance, where a security guard on hearing my sad tale directs me to a reserved area to the left and I park 30 feet away from a stairway to the Cathedral entrance.

Barb is waiting on the steps, alone, tickets in hand.  The concert has started.  Every seat in the nave and both outside aisles is occupied.  Our seats are in the south balcony, high above the transept looking down on the choir and orchestra.  Ushers direct us to a passage in the empty baptistry in one arm of the transept and we circle upwards, one dizzying step at a time, ascending a stone stairwell.  A vision of skeletons in a turret prison crosses my mind as we make what seems a fifth or sixth spiral.  When we finally emerge it is into a maze of doors and passageways.  We pick the most likely and thankfully emerge onto the balcony.  Peeking into my program I find the choir is performing Song of Wisdom by Charles Villiers Stanford, a short work for chorus and organ.  When it ends and the audience applauds, we are ushered to our seats.

The concert, we discover from the program, is in two parts.  The first features ten short choral pieces by familiar, unfamiliar (like Stanford), and unexpected composers.  Most appear to be sacred music.  Haydn, Vivaldi, Purcells, Handel and Mozart pieces all bear distinctive elements that a classical music buff could recognize and use to identify the composer.  I enjoy the trumpets in Handel's Let the bright seraphim.  One of the soloists, soprano Rosa Lamoreaux, has an especially clear and sweet voice.  A choral and organ number by Pablo Casals (the unexpected composer), titled Nigra sum, fills the vast cathedral with beautiful minor harmonies.

After intermission, the Requiem begins.  It features choir, orchestra and soloists--soprano Lamoreaux; mezzo soprano Julia Mintzer, a fiery-looking sylph with curly, auburn, waist-length hair; tenor, Eric Barry; and robust bass, Nathan Stark.  Program notes thankfully include librettos for all of the evening's music.  Since my Latin is as insubstantial as great Caesar's ghost, being able to read the English translation of each movement of the Requiem mass--which is in the church Latin of Mozart's day--adds a welcome dimension to my enjoyment of the piece.  Isn't it grand to live in the age of information?

I know, like every pop culture hound who has seen the movie Amadeus, that Mozart was working on the Requiem while on his own deathbed, and that the piece was only about half completed.  The movie version of events, with Salieri lurking in the vestibule, waiting to steal the composition and claim it as its own, I also know to be patently false.  But, I do not know the real, more interesting story until reading the program notes.

Mozart's wife, Constanze, was keenly aware that her husband's death presented complications.  Now he would be unable to finish the Requiem, which had been commissioned by Count Franz von Walsegg (who, like Salieri in the movie, was himself was a notorious thief of other composer's works).  Stanze needed payment from Walsegg to reduce the mountain of debt left her by her beloved.  But he would only pay for a completed piece.  She called on one of her husband's trusted colleagues, Joseph Eybler, to finish it using Mozart's remaining notes and fragments.  But, Eybler backed out quickly, so she instead recruited, Franz Xaver Sussmayr, one of Mozart's students, to finish the task.  Not only did Sussmayr complete the Requiem, he did it in handwriting so like Mozart's that he was able to forge his mentor's name on the final copy.  Constanze was no fool.  Saving a copy for herself, she accepted payment for the completed piece, then arranged for a public performance of the Requiem before Walsegg had a chance to claim it as his own.

I have been to dozens of classical concerts and admit to having slept through a few, especially when the conductor finds it necessary to stop between each movement to adjust his suspenders and polish his baton, while the orchestra retunes and the soloists gargle.  But in tonight's performance guest conductor Norman Scribner not only starts each section of the Requiem mass almost immediately after the previous one finishes, but also paces the music so that it feels, although somber, uplifting and almost joyous in places.

Knowing that Mozart's student had a hand in composing the second half of the Requiem, I listen for differences from the first. Most noticeable to my tin ear is the disparity in the complexity of musical lines intertwining with each other (referred to as contrapuntal by musicians).   Sussmayr's sections fit with the tone of the whole, but they are noticeably less complex.  A melody dominates.  The other musical lines provide a workman-like harmony.  Mozart's music, by contrast, playfully weaves together multiple voices and melodies in interesting harmonies.  That is the overall impression I am left with at the end of the concert--the pleasure of hearing music that, no matter how familiar, sounds fresh and interesting.  That is Mozart's gift.

When the concert ends, we descend a circular stairway and end up at a locked iron gate, peering helplessly out at the disassembling orchestra and choir.  We retrace our steps to the balcony and descend again in the right stairwell.  We find our car quickly in the garage and, since we are so close to the exit, manage to be one of the first to leave the Cathedral grounds.   The traffic moves smoothly.  The evening sky is clear.  It has been a glorious evening.  Despite the night's literal and metaphorical ups and downs and the fact that the Requiem is a musical reminder of our mortality, I feel almost refreshed, completely in harmony with things as they are, not as I wish them to be.

Nicaragua diary: Granada Poetry Festival

The Granada International Festival of Poetry ends with a parade.  It is scheduled to begin at 2:00 in the afternoon, but locals have told me not to plan on anything happening until around 4:00.

That's about the time I step out of the Hotel Granada onto the Calle de Calzada, the pedestrian mall which runs through downtown and ends in front of the hotel.  The large crowd on the hotel steps and across the street around the Iglesia Guadalupe is a mix of young and old, families and tourists, street vendors and shopkeepers.  They are watching a group of mostly younger men in motley dress dragging heavy chains along the cobblestone street.  I have no idea what they represent.  All are masked and wear multi-colored paper hats.  They are dressed in an assortment of shorts and jeans and cloths tied around their waists like skirts, some also in torn nylon stockings.  The clatter of their chains on pavement makes a menacing sound.

Several of the masked revelers wielding chains are lifting and slamming them on the street while leering into the crowd, daring anyone to reign in what suddenly feels to me like a real threat.  One of the masked men fakes a move toward a group of boys, as if he is going to bullwhip them.  They scream and scatter.

Then I notice that many of the chains are connected to a young man in the middle of the pack, who is being dragged and jerked along like a prisoner.  His face is shrouded in a hood, his eyes covered in a yellow blindfold.  He is suddenly yanked so hard his head bounces off the pavement.  He pulls himself limply to a sitting position before his legs are pulled from under him.  I think of the Penitentes, the self-flagellating believers who voluntarily whip themselves in empathy for Christ's suffering on the way to the cross.   Maybe this prisoner is also a volunteer who suffers gladly for some unknown cause.  When I look around I see families and even little children smiling and shouting, but my adrenaline has kicked in and I still am on edge as the chain gang passes.

 

The group comes to a tree at the final intersection of the street across from the Iglesia.  By now it feels like things have slipped out of control, beyond entertainment, as the shouts and chain clanging grow louder and more threatening.  One of the masked men throws his chain over a large branch of the tree and he is joined by a dozen others who begin to heave and pull.  The hooded victim is hoisted into the air, flailing and shouting in what sounds like pain and desperation.   But, no sooner is he lifted high off the ground, than he is set back down, and the group of about two dozen men gather around him to pull him to his feet, remove his hood, and disconnect their chains.

I find a friend and ask what is going on.  She says the chains and hanging are part of a ceremony that ritually brings the poetry festival to a close each year.  The hanging of the metaphorical poet enacts the cycle of the festival--the death of festivities for this year to make way for next year's event.  The Nicaraguans are like many cultures with large numbers of poor.  They do not welcome, but neither do they shy away from death and violence.  Like the Mexican Day of the Dead, the poetry festival deals with the end of things head on.

But not everything here is so ghoulish.  The parade to follow and what I know of Nicaraguans and poetry tell a far broader story of the people and their country.   There is a saying in Nicaragua that everyone is a poet until proven otherwise.  The annual Festival of Poetry in Granada proves, if not that, at least the fact that a wide range of people respect what poetry represents.  The sheer size and variety of people in the crowds who come every night to listen to poets read their works in the plaza shows how universally admired poets are, even by those we would call common folks.  They applaud and talk with each other about the poems and poets, most of whom they are hearing for the first and most likely only time.  This year, I find from a festival flyer, over 110 poets from 62 countries have come to read their work to these large, appreciative crowds.  Poets are in attendance from India, Malaysia, China, Iceland, the United States and every Spanish-speaking country in the hemisphere and beyond.  Nobel prize winning poet, Derek Wolcott, and Pulitzer prize winner, Robert Pinsky, are two of the featured participants.

Every year the festival celebrates a poet connected with Spanish-language poetry, and this year it is Carlos Martinez Riva, a Guatemalan-born writer who spent most of his life in Nicaragua and who is buried in the city of Granada.  One of his poems is titled, "Poesia es insurrección solitaria" (Poetry is solitary insurrection).  That sentiment is echoed by the crowds who line the parade route, when a float that heads the procession stops at every corner of the Calzada to allow a woman to shout it through the public address system.  And the crowd shouts back:  "Poesia es insurrección solitaria," with a vigor that says they totally approve of the sentiment.  I picture a similar event taking place in the U.S. and can see the switchboard at the local police station light up with alarmed calls for someone to "stop this civil disorder" (although in language hardly that calm or polite).

Following the poet's float are groups representing smaller communities in and around Granada, each dressed in elaborate hand-sewn costumes, and all dancing to the accompaniment of small local bands.  Minus the floats, it is like the Rose Bowl Parade of poetry.  A small group, less than a dozen boys, passes by in black face and Grim Reaper capes, a couple carrying homemade scythes.  Another group dressed in everyday clothes carries placards protesting the government's failure to provide school supplies.  But most groups are there to dance and sing and twirl about in beautiful, colorful dresses and costumes.

Many of the dancers are children, primarily girls but also groups of young men; all smile and wave to families as they pass.  Almost no one refuses my request for a photo, something I have experienced every time I visit the country.  There is an innocence and joy in the Nicaraguan people that neither years of civil war and foreign intervention, nor ruthless governments can extinguish.  Despite poverty and the political maneuverings of current President Daniel Ortega, these are people who love poetry, which is far better than loving wealth or power or order, although some may love those as well.

When I see the crowds, the color, the celebration; when I hear the music and words of the poets; when see what grows and thrives from humble roots--then I realize what this festival means.  Where there is poetry there is hope.  Where there is poetry there is humanity.  Where there is poetry there is steely determination to search for and champion what is just and compassionate and right.

¡Viva la poesia!  ¡Viva la insurrección!