Sunny LA

After a terrific (but short), overnight visit with Eric and Karine and 3.5-year-old Liam in Montreal, I flew via Toronto to LAX. I checked in to a motel to get a good night's sleep. (I knew for sure I was in LA when, looking for something to read, I found a copy of the Bhagavad Gita in place of Gideon's Bible!).

The next day, my friend, Lev Rukhin, welcomed me to his loft and then left for New York. I am on my own for the weekend. Fine with me: Lever has a great library, wi-fi, and Netflix!

Lev Evgenievich Rukhin & daughter Evgenia Lvovna Rukhina

Lever, a fine cook,  also left directions to Fresh & Easy, his local grocer, which he described as the British version of Trader Joe's. The neighborhood is LA's version of Soho or our warehouse district - lots of converted space for lofts. But still lots of trucks and warehouses. lever's place is a big compound of conversions just for artists. Very cool.

Lever is a photographer:

His signature style is these big murals composed of smaller prints, which he calls "contextual photography." More on his website: check out the Galleries and Portraits menus for more fine pix, including several shot on his motorcycle tour through Russia, after which I met him by accident in 1999. 

We were both dumbfounded when we met at a cafe in Rome and discovered that we had met before in Leningrad! Lever's father, a noted Soviet Russian non-conformist painter, had invited the Yale Russian Chorus to a soiree at his apartment on the riverbank. Zhenia invited me back to meet a few friends the next day. Lever (short for Lev Evgenievich Rukhin) was six months old!

Lever and dad in Leningrad

Martinique, January, 2013

You wouldn't call Ste. Anne a “sleepy beach-front town”. There is nothing sleepy about it, except possibly in the mid-afternoon heat. The rest of the time the dozens of restaurants and tourist boutiques are going strong. And at night there is usually a live band somewhere around the square. It is a thoroughgoing tourist scene, even if most of the tourists are from the same country – France – or Quebec. Everyone speaks French and the euro is the currency, because Martinique is part of France, just like Hawaii is part of the United States.

“The Kingdom of the Banana” (la royaume du banane), and that is about it. There is still some sugar-cane, too – enough to support a dozen or so distilleries – but the Banana is King, for sure. 

The people are mostly poor (50% unemployment), but not miserable, due to the French socialist safety-net. This includes free universal health care and education, subsidized housing, and enough assistance so no one starves. The roads also get a lot of attention, which means work for a lot of people. In general, the Martiniquaises are doing a whole lot better than the Hatiians,  who freed themselves from French colonial control in the 19^th Century. Makes you wonder.

You also have to wonder about the Christmas decorations – still on the lampposts, not because they are laid-back, but because, I suppose, the custom is to observe the season right through Epiphany (La Fête des Rois). What is to wonder about is the shimmering, white, electric snowflakes! No one here has ever seen snow. What do you suppose people think when they see them? My favorite seaside restaurant also has a nice little artificial Christmas tree.

Among things not found in Martinique, in addition to snow, are trains, irrigation, cut flowers, and hotels. There are lots of small buses on all the roads; it rains almost every day or night, at least this time of year; there are so many brilliant blossoms growing everywhere wild that I suppose no one bothers to cut flowers that would wilt pretty fast in the heat, anyway. Of course there are tourist accommodations, but none that advertize or make themselves known along the road. I discovered this on my foray to the volcanic North, 

Mt. Pelée ~ active volcano

where I intended to find one and stay the night. I didn’t. Even towns marked “H” for hotel on the map kept them well-hidden. I suppose they are mostly resort-style facilities booked through agents or, now, online. Anyway, no motels or Holiday Inns. And no roadsigns inviting customers. Lots of signs for restaurants, but nothing about hotels. Not one. There is a Club Med right across the street from my rented studio, but no high-rise glamour-destinations. This ain’t Cabo or Cancun. I suspect the French have decided to keep it that way – low-key and under everybody-else’s radar. Still, it’s kind of odd. Every little town and suburb in metropolitan France, after all, has plenty of small hotels. I guess people here don’t get in their cars and drive around much, or if they do, they are never more than an hour or so from home. So, no motels.

The cuisine is pretty typically French: steak and fries, grilled chicken and fish, salads at the better places. Their local specialties are mainlyboudin noir (blood pudding), fluffy, light and mild, and acras, 



which are little fritters made of cod or shrimp. They seem to be a staple, sold at all restaurants and also by the side of the road, alongside BBQ brochettes and ribs. Bananas, of course, are to-die-for. I swear I have never had one as good. Could they be tree-ripened?

Jardin Majorelle of Yves St. Laurent

Mohammed Abdullah, my driver, strongly suggested I take a look at the late couturier, Yves St. Laurent's villa, which he bequeathed to the City. The garden is a forest of bamboo, banana, palm, and cactus [mostly Sonoran]. The house, now the Musee Berbere, is  painted the designer's favorite color - a deep, electric blue - accented with lemon-yellow:





      

Marrakesh

I am in my second week in Marrakesh, which is very much like AZ.  Architechturally, a cross between Santa Fe and Phoenix - in the new part - and pure Areabian nights in the old part. They seem to have a building code, so that everything - even high-rise hotels - have to look like adobe on the outside. The Medina (old walled city) seems authentic enough). lots of crenelated walls and square towers.

Since all they have beyond agriculture is tourism and phosphate, they are EXTREMELY jealous of their reputation for hospitality. They are very concerned that tourists have a good time. One feels utterly safe..  

Weather is beautiful, perfect. Great view of the Jupiter/venus conjunction from my balcony overlooking the pool. And birds. Birds, birds, birds. Noisy with birds in the garfdens surrounding the hotel, which has a rose garden, blooming oranges and lemons, lots of palms, of course, and  and a hibiscus hedge hugging the buildings. And this is costing me less than $30/day, including breakfast! Clean and luxurious.

But then,  as my students say, with nauseating persistence, "everything's relative". The Hotel Mamounia is luxurious at a level hard to imagine, with prices to match ($500-1,000/night). Have a look at their video. The first scene shows the table on one of their terraces where I had a $9 cup of coffee, while waiting for my $150 pedicure at the spa rated "best in the world" in 2011. Fortunately, it was all cosmetic, and they were unable to cut my toenails! So, I got a free foot-bath and foot-massage,, as a consolation prize. My $6 coffe was well worth it as trhe price of admission to this really unbelievable fantasy palace.

It is haerd to describe the "spa", but I'll try. First, I go into a kind of foyer: a long rectangular room, sheathed in white curtains, which blow in the breeze from the patio. There is a desk and a couple of white-clad attendants to show you to the elevator, which they summon and push the buttons for me. I come out in a dimly-lit cavern in deep, cobalt blue, named for some French-Moroccan designer. there are candle-lanterns on the floor of the arching hall-ways. eventually I arrive at the main desk, passing spacious, private massage rooms. The desk has a light-show projected on the wall behind it: a kind of kaleidescope, with arabesque patterns in many colors, slowly moving like fish in an aquarium. 

I am escorted to a room [about the size of my room at the cheap hotel], where I sit in a white-leather recliner. The masseuse starts to bathe my feet. Perfumed oil in the water, as I look at the odd, sharp-angled room design - light grey  walls, on which hang mirrors with coral, silver-studded frames. Then in came the matronly British manager to explain that the "best spa in the world" couldn't handle my toenails. But she was very gracious, calling a slightly less-seclusive spa to make an appointment for me [which worked out fine].

Moors in livery everywhere , opening doors, vigilant for ways to be helpful, kiosks carved out if marble, mosaics, tiles, elegant upholstery in the dark restaurants and bars, sunken fountains and water running out of faucets in the walls, acres oiof gardens witht he Atlas mountains in hte distance.

After this brush witih luxury and the "lifestyle" of the rich, I walked over to a souk (not a tourist trap, but where the Berbers actually buy stuff for themselves) and ate a humble but decent lunch with the ordinary citizens - for less than I paid for the luxury coffee.

Vegetarians would do well in Marrakesh. Most of my nightly dinners at the hotel consist of a beautifully-presented salad bar. easy enough to skip the chicken and beef, and just go for salads and pastries.

I took one excursion up into the mountains, where we visited a women's co-operative that produces all kinds of products based on the oil of a unique kind of almond. Cosmetics and cooking oil. The Atlas mountains are really spectacular, snow-covered, and high. They catch enough moisture to permit habitation to the west. East is the Sahara. I did see one Berber tent with camels!

we also had tea in a "typical" Berber house. Interesting enough. An adobe pueblo, for an extended family, with ceilings made out of vigas and  laterias, just like in AZ, only instead of saguaro ribs, the Berbers use bamboo for the laterias. 

An old guy made us some traditional ta in the patio.. First he put green tea into a big silver pot and added a bit if hot water. This he then poured out and added more hot water. When the second test was dark enough, he added loaf-sugar and stuffed in a whole fistful of mint branches. After a minute or so he gave ujs each a glass. Quite good.

They showed us the hamam, which is just a small, domed room built in such a way that there can be a fire under the floor, to heat it up for bathing.

I figured out that everyone here is really a Berber. It's just that the towns people have spoken Arabic for a thousand years, so the division is urban/rural. Berbers are what they call people whose native language is Berber. They are the indigenous people. The Moors (Arabs) are more cosmopolitan, with a bit of admixture from ethnic Arabs and black Africans.

Anyway, they are amiable people, and their government is benevolent despotism. They are poor, but not miserable. They are also young and energetic. Hassan II decided enough luxury was enough, and set a policy of one new dam a year, and universal education. the result is complete electrification and running water,k and a literacy rate of almost 70%. His son, the present king, Mohammed VI has promulgated a new constitution, which makes women and men completely equal, under law, and sets aside a block of parliamentary seats for women. School is free and open to all, but it is not compulsory, for some reason. Across the busy street from my hotel is the big technical university, and i see as many women as men going in and out.

So far, I have seen only three veiled women, and the rest seem to be evenly divided between those who wear hair-covering and those who don't. [It's kind of like Turkey, in this regard]. scarfless girls in blue-jeans tear around on motor-scooters. Obviously, no one is forcing anyone to wear anything. Lots of women wear scarves; lots of men wear  little Muslim caps. Lots more don't. It seems to be a matter of personal preference.

Apparently, there is a significant Sufi component in Moroccan Islam, never hassled by the government. Maybe this accounts for their fairly laid-back religious temperament. 

Now I'm off to arrange for a tailor-made jilaba (the hooded caftan that half the older men wear over their blue-jeans). They don't have my size off-the-rack, so I am having one made for not-very-much money, courtesy of a nice cab-driver. [All the cabbies are guides.]

here is the main square (where I saw actual snake-charmers, with shawms and live cobras!)

Russian Cathedral in Paris

St. Alexandre Nevsky is the cathedral of the Orthodox Church in France. it started out as a center for the numerous Russian émigré's in Paris in the mid-19th century. The revolution swelled its ranks with the "best and the brightest" of émigré Christians, including people with names like Berdyaev, Bulgakov, Evdokimov, and a couple of Saints: my own Starets Sophrony (before he moved to England), and the remarkable Mother Marya Skobtsova — now St. Maria of Paris.

Santa Maria, like Dorothy Day, was an actual mother, as well as a spiritual one. She devoted her life to the poor, rescued thousands of Jews, and died as a martyr in Ravensbrucke.

Now there seems to be a whole new generation of émigrés. The place was packed. There were plenty of young people and small children at the liturgy this morning, which was celebrated by Archbishop Gabriel.

The Cathedral is a fine example of the national style. The iconography has a flavor of the jugenstihl, which can be a little startling at first, but I have grown to like it. Russian painters little-known outside Russia (because they painted mostly religious paintings and then came the anti-religious revolution) — such as Nesterov and Vaznetsov.

Nesterov ~ The Angelic Liturgy, 

Vaznetsov Theotokos

These two are examples of this style in other places, nit Paris. Copy and  enlarge the following picture to see what I mean. This ikonostas, completed in 1861, shows the beginning of the style, I think.

Iconostasis at Alexandre Nevsky Cathedral

In the North and South "transepts" I found painting is unusual for an Orthodox Church: not icons, but gigantic paintings depicting events in the Gospels, by the Alexey Bogolyubov, the landscape painter.

The proto--Deacon had the name of the composer of one of the Yale Russian Chorus's liturgical pieces. Nikolai Kedrov was associated with this cathedral. I assume the deacon is his descendant. Here is a sample of the choir, in dialogue with Deacon Alexander.

Chilling in Paris

France is pretty cool — cold, actually, until last week. I went to see the huge Egyptian collection at the Louvre, the Impressionists at Musée d'Orsay, and a nice Cézanne exhibit at the  Musée Luxembourg. 

I went out to Chartres to stare at the windows, and I spent a day in Notre Dame de Paris. Half the windows in Ste. Chapelle are under repair, and there is always a big long line of Chinese tourists waiting to get through the much-enhanced security, so I am going to skip it this time. Anyway, I got to see the Crown of Thorns, which they now have out in an apsidal chapel in Notre Dame.

I have also been to my favorite restaurant several time's (the one where they serve the whole shoulder of lamb, cooked confit style  and served on a cutting board, covered with fried potato slices).

                      Les Diablotins

 I have also really gotten into French bread. And bismarcks (which they call beignet). The latter is not particularly good news, but I have been walking a lot more than I do at home, so maybe it balances out.

The house in Suresnes is really comfortable and it is only a couple of blocks from the main street with all the shops, including about five hairdressers, two butchers, one high-end delicatessen, a cheese shop, two gfree-grocers, a frozen-food shop, several unpretentious restaurants, including Asian ones, two supermarkets and three bakeries. Most of the apartments are public housing,  built in the 30s and 60s. But they are extremely well-built, and the older ones are even rather elegant-looking. Everything else is single-family, suburban houses, like this one. This is, after all, the "fashionable" West — the area is even known as Val d'Or or Golden Valley. But Suresnes is the poor cousin of St. Cloud, its southern neighbor, which is where all the ex-pats live, including Johnny Depp.

Last week I house-sat for a friend in the 13th (SE. of the center, up the river on the left bank). Her apartment is on the top floor of a skyscraper right at the edge of Paris proper. From her 28th floor windows, there is a great view of Paris, and at night you can watch the Eiffel Tower sparkle with its strobe lights, which they turn on for 10 minutes just before the hour until they shut it all down at 1 AM. The Invalides gleams, the Pantheon broods, and you can even see the towers of La Defense, on a clear day – although there weren't  many of those. Fortunately, another high-rise entirely blocks the view of the ghastly Basilique Sacre Couer! The neighborhood (Port d' Choisy) is the center of Paris's Chinatown (or, more precisely, Indo-Chinatown). dozens of Asian restaurants, mostly Vietnamese and Lao. lots of Asian and African people, too, and not many Frenchmen. (Notice how European racism  has rubbed off on me? As though the French of African and Asian descent were not really French!) 

                      Outside the front door!

In any case, there was something really appealing about Port d' Choisy - more cosmopolitan and less suburban, I suppose. I even had a nice conversation with a young butcher at the supermarket there, who was of European extraction. As I was stumbling over my French (so many people speak English now, that I have not been forced to practice) he switched to English. I grunted something, and he said  "you speak very good English". I thanked him and told him that it was it, in fact, my native tongue. He asked me where I was from and  I told him America, Minnesota. He brightened and said that he had never been there, but he did go to Georgetown University, where he earned a BA in political science! We chatted for while, which he was eager to do, and it was all very pleasant. This kind of thing would never happen in Suresnes.

Next Tuesday, I will fly to Morocco for two weeks. Everybody must be afraid or something, because there are some really good deals. I am paying about $700 for 14 days, including airfare! The hotel has a big pool, a Turkish bath, and a garden. It's a cab ride to the old-town, but I really just want to sit in the sun, anyway. Time to get out of the chill, and get a head-start on spring. It seems to be in the 70s in Marrakesh. When I get back here it should be pretty nice. Maybe even nice enough to go out to Jean-loup's retreat in Brittany. And Claude (of the high-rise apartment) wants to take me out to Fontainebleau. I expect to be home on March 29.

On the Anniversary of Hazrat Inayat Khan's Death (called by Sufis his URS, or "wedding")

 

<< There comes a time in the life of a man when he can see some good in the worst man in the world. And when he has reached that point, though the good were covered with a thousand covers, he would put his hand on what is good, because he looks for good and attracts what is good. >>
                                                                                     – Hazrat Inayat Khan

Pir-O-Murshid said words to the effect that "there is not a hair’s breadth of  difference between good and evil". I think he must have meant good and evil persons. This is related to our Lord's injunction not to judge, lest we be judged. Hazrat Inayat Khan says the same thing, when he observes that  << No one can speak ill of another without making it his own; because the one speaking ill of others is ill himself.  >>  And thus, there is really no moral difference between condemner  and condemned.

Human beings have a deep-seated inclination to criticize others and excuse themselves: to behold the speck in the eye of the brother while ignoring the log in their own. This is part of the illusion known as Samsara; perhaps it is the essence of that illusion. With practice, this propensity turns into the widespread madness in which I project all my own failings onto others. Eventually, in order to the rid the world of this evil, I have to kill the others. Thus,  as Starets Sophrony  said,” the absolute precondition of peace in this world is the profound recognition of one's own sin." This fact is also behind the Orthodox communion prayer, in which those about to receive communion describe themselves, individually, as "the chief of sinners".  If beholding the speck leads ultimately to death, so noticing the log leads to life.

But this does not mean that there is no difference between good and evil. After all, condemning others is worse than not doing so. (That is the whole point!) It does mean that there is very little difference between good and evil persons, from the divine point of view. Let me dare to suggest that from that point of view, persons are seen for what they are as opposed to what they are not. Human persons are the image of God, perfectly good. God does not behold distortion and disfiguration of the image. God sees what is; what is not, God does not see. Perhaps this is what the prophet meant, who said God is "of purer eyes than to behold evil and cannot look on iniquity " (Habakuk 1:13).

So, from the divine point of view, there is little to choose between – say – Adolf  Hitler and Mother Teresa, as human beings created in the image of God. This is not to say that there is no difference in their effect on the world. Love is good; malice is bad. But only God can know the inner conditions, motivations, and intentions of human beings. As the hadith puts it:

Every man acts according to his own understanding, and God alone knows who is rightly guided.