Luxembourg fall 2001
So off once again. At two hours + counting. I'm sure to be in for some
karmic punishment for having taken a cab here, have to do mass transit coming back. The
airport's just depopulated enough to be disconcerting. Sitting here listening to flights
being announced, feeling whatever resonances the places have for me, London, Egypt, Italy,
Denver. For all the traveling I've done, this is the first major trip I've ever taken
anywhere by myself, strange. Bethany's book which starts with someone sacrificing their
wife and children, is not likely to calm me any, my alternatives are Eldridge Cleaver
explaining his need to rape the ogre of the white woman (Soul on Ice), or hordes of
milling enlightened folk in the Lotus Sutra. I begin to regret not having brought
something light and cheery.
One wonders, if one sees the Buddha shooting light out of his head, how
one tells if one has reached enlightenment or simply lost it. Probably some application of
Bayes law considering the prior probabilities for loosing it and attaining enlightenment,
I doubt my chances would be good. I'll stop now, I always start rambling when I write in
airports.
e=enlightened b=Buddha shooting light c=crazy
p(e|b)=P(e)P(b|e)/P(b)
p(c|b)=P(c)P(b|c)/P(b) assume p(e|b)+p(c|b)=1
the question is what these prior probs. must be
Newark airport
9.5 hrs and counting, I'd say the plane is at about a third capacity, never been on a
flight this empty. Bizarre movie, The body, Antonio Banderas as a Jesuit priest
accompanying an Israeli archeologist who thinks she's found Jesus' body. Wasn't bad, Had
Derek Jacobi in it. Tho the belief on the part of Israelis and Palestinians depicted that
they can use this to coerce the Catholic church into backing their position, (and that
this will somehow do them any good, think they're at least 150 years off for the church
having major international influence) is a bit thin. As is the tried but true device of
the corrupt cardinals manipulating him. Seems unfair that in the end not only does he
decide to leave the priesthood but also doesn't get the nice Jewish girl. They even put a
plug in for liberation theology oy vey. Bethany's book is getting better as stuff starts
happening, I just don't deal well with books starring manly man types, prefer neurotic
heroes myself. What are candidates for my top 10 favorite books?-keep myself amused. In no
particular order
Till We Have Faces c. s. Lewis
The Master and Margarita Mikhail Bulgakov
Lord of the Rings Tolkien
Twice Told Tales Hawthorne
The Bridge of San Luis Re Thorton Wilder
The White Guard, Bulgakov
The Dream Quest of Unknown Kadath Lovecraft
Anything by PG Wodehouse
Pippi Longstocking
Silence, Susaku Endo
Captain Shigemot's Mother Junichiro Tanizaki
Italo Calvino If on a Winter's Night a Traveler
Giovanni Guareschi The little world of Don Camillo
That's more than 10. Note that even stretching it only 3 of these could be considered
fantasy. Think my objection to much contemporary fantasy is it makes magic prosaic, often
it's goal is overtly to depict the dirty workday realities of a world where magic is
real-there's no sense of wonder. Remember reading alot of the Thief's World series when
younger which really had that problem, and think that was one of the things that started
me away from fantasy. All the above are fantastical books in one sense or another,
Wodehouse's imaginary london of the 20's Calvino's reality that fades in and out of dreams
and visions, the spiritual wonder of finding meaning in darkest tragedy that underlies the
White guard, Silence and the Bridge of San Luis Re. But so often fantasy books are about
magic, but have no magic in them, not always of course, nor of course does everyone look
for transcendent experience in their reading material.
Somewhere over the Atlantic.
12 hours and counting now waiting in somewhat drab Brussels airport, recall last time I
was here, an amazing 5 years ago now, with the NYU scholars group, odd. Got stamped
heading to transfer gate, always have the silly feeling I'm getting something for free
when get a passport control stamp from a country I'm just passing through
Brussels airport
So plane to Luxembourg was probably the smallest plane I have ever been on, 6 steps up to
get in, I counted. I think the plane I took from Aswan to Cairo was propeller so it wasn't
the first time I'd been on a propeller but still, at least it had two engines. I believe I
have been in parking lots larger than the Luxembourg airport. I kept looking around
expecting to see more somewhere, but never did. Changed $200, cab, passed through some
pretty picturesque small town areas. Dropped off in a garden with no idea where I was
going. Wandered trying to find my way in, and attempting to be nonchalant in the presence
of several very very large dogs hanging about the place. Finally found my way in and found
staff, I wasn't on the rooms list but they stuck me in a random leftover room on my say
so. Talked with the only person I could find around, older British woman who was sitting
around and reading a Margaret Atwood novel. Couldn't find my room, got help, found it,
nice enough. Back down looked around the grounds a bit which were rather picturesque.
Lunch at which there were only a few people, kind of odd cole-slaw salad and fish with
rice and overcooked broccoli-I skipped the fish. People showed up, figured out someone was
going over to the exhibit after lunch, also discovered that nothing but the first page of
any of my faxes seems to have gotten through, and as a result they put me down for a hotel
room which they would now have to try and cancel. The moral of the story being never trust
your fax machine. So milled, waited for someone to take paintings over, finally the 1
Italian guy (Georgio) was going to drive there, with the Slovenian woman who spoke Italian
as navigator, taking me and the Elodie, the younger French woman, along with a bunch of
work, we got lost and I almost fell asleep in the car, got there in the end, place seems
to be a train station, but nice enough, dropped stuff off, back in car, got lost again I
almost fell asleep again, They have quite grotesque public announcement posters all around
showing a child's bloody mashed face with the caption 75km/h without a seatbelt. Opening
reception which involved alot of people giving very long speeches in German, and some of
them paraphrasing in English afterward, (all of them who paraphrased felt the need to
mention how Christian artists needed to band together in the face of the events of Sept
11th) Back to other building for champagne, which I sipped slowly, spent most of reception
talking to this tiny, 80 something American expat living in Paris, She downed at least 3
glasses while I was talking to her. Dinner sitting next to British priest, on who I
inflicted my enthusiasm for Pre-Raphaelitism. Minor crisis when someone decided to lead a
revolt against us having to bus our own plates, hindered by no one paying attention and
needing simultaneous translation into English and French from the German, in the end was
overruled, but one starts to see how two world wars started. After dinner wandered over
again, sat downstairs mostly with the Italian guy and Elodie, with mingling crowd of
others, inflicted my Italian on the Italian guy (specialist in church restoration from
near Milan, Bergemo I think) and description of my eyetracking work on Elodie. Pretty
wiped out, mostly from having been up for 32 hours straight, partly from a beer and two
glasses of wine. It is sort of comical watching this flow of French and German going on
around you and the negotiation process by which everyone attempting to hold a conversation
tries to choose a language everyone understands. (someone made the comment they should
have put languages spoken on our nametags. The idea of a lingua franca still holds water,
only 3 French here but alot (perhaps majority) of conversation goes on in it, even if
official languages are English and German-more German than English unfortunately. The
contrast between my usual evenings in front of the computer, and trying to follow animated
conversations in French while sleep deprived and half liqoured up is quite striking.
Breakfast, listened to Jan Reiger talking about refurbishing a church
in an African community in Brooklyn and how he thinks it's really important to incorporate
peoples culture, how he tried to do that, and how people reacted, perhaps surrounding the
tabernacle with fetish figures seems a bit much. Doing this missed the morning
'meditation' whatever that was. People showing off their art was next. Some interesting
stuff, a little nervous about showing my stuff, but it went ok, did a minimal description
of some of the slightly more upbeat slides, limited myself to 1 skull picture, seemed
relatively well received. Gave out two pseudo cards to people from the UK. One woman
involved in the English chapter, apparently her son is a great admirer of Watts and owns a
piece or two, talked Watts a bit . The American from Paris was talking to me about what
I'd shown, her quite valid point being that angels didn't have breasts, nor did they look
pissed or depressed which mine usually do. She was making the very valid point that their
'terribleness' doesn't come from anger but from the fact that they are pure spirit, and
have an immense power coming from love. I guess my approach is to leave it to the person
to infer that and just concentrate on making them not look bland and sugary, but perhaps I
loose site of it sometimes as well. A good reminder that I shouldn't be afraid of
abstraction or of depicting life and joy. Just because something is happy doesn't mean
it's vapid. Elodie's is sort of a good example, alot of smiling children, but not empty
smiles She was talking about it later, in French so I only half understood, saying that
India -the trip that inspired alot of the stuff- was the worst place on earth, a hell, but
also full of life and beauty, a place that if you didn't believe in anything was
unbearable, but did have it's beauties-actually maybe she said it in English, I doubt I
could have understood that much French, that I really can't remember shows how much the
language collage is playing tricks on me. By the end I of the trip I was trying to talk to
the Germans in Italian.
Another Dutch I believe, priest showed alot of slides of community
mural projects in South Africa he did design for. Modern dress biblical stories in the
traditional cartoonish fill in the lines mural style. Some interesting stuff, interesting
to see he was also involved in the same kind of project in Holland-so the technique is
apparently equally applicable to first world countries. He was talking to me later about
my work and asking if I was aware of its intensity of expression. Relating it to his
experience, saying when he was first deported from South Africa during apartheid,
presumably for political reasons, he subconsciously did alot of angry paintings, which he
didn't realize were angry, friends pointed it out. I was saying I thought the feeling in
my work was quite conscious and as far as I knew I had no unusual gripes with the world.
Which I think is true, I'm not unusually angry or depressed, there's always a little ache
of resentment that the world isn't a different place than it is, but I like to think that
everyone who hasn't just given up on the world has that feeling, what's important is what
you do with it.
The language thing is kind of funny. One guy started explaining his
stuff in English, the translator repeated it in German, then he started on the next bit in
German, stopped and the translator started repeating it in English before realizing what
had just happened. The poor Italian guy is also continually starting to talk to me in
French or the French woman in Italian, and it takes half a second of blank stares to catch
on. Snuck out of the afternoon organizational meeting, took a little walk into town then
back. Talked with Paula and another older English woman who was talking about working a
fishing boat during the war and fly fishing. Off to the exhibit which came out quite
nicely, some very interesting stuff especially sculpturally. Out for a quick tour of the
Dudelange neighborhood, traditionally Italian blue collar area, now alot of Portuguese but
depopulated with end of heavy industry there a 'bad neighborhood' by ridiculous European
standards, not a single piece of trash on the street and no gunfire to be heard. Back for
more wine and some little sandwiches at the reception, two long German speeches followed
by quick English recap. Milling around, talking to various folk, headed to restaurant
where I unfortunately got caught between people speaking in German so had a pretty
unconversatinal meal, which was a long time coming. I really though I had a chance in
getting something vegetarian since it was an Italian restaurant and the waiter spoke
Italian. But ran up against the lovely European certainty that vegetarianism means you're
afraid of mad cow disease and really want fish, so being weak willed I had fish. Which
actually wasn't bad a crunchy bread/pastry shell filled with squid, octopus and chunks of
salmon in a cream sauce, pretty tasty though goodness knows how many little sea creatures
went into it. Lovely ice cream with a fresh raspberry sauce for dessert. After alot of
confusion about how the bill was to be paid we headed back 7:18 PM 9/27/01
Breakfast, then the workshop, actually a quite interesting technique,
which I'd never heard of, exterior sculpture done in Styrofoam then coated with a latex
based stucco to create a tough, stonelike result, that's light, cheap and simple as well
as waterproof. A kind of awkward medium for sculpture in general but seems incredible for
large decorative work. Played with a test piece after he (Reiger) gave an explanation.
Interesting how the stucco becomes more workable as it dries, but it tends to form a film,
building up in layers is clearly the way to go. Lunch, so far I'd have called the food par
for bad, bottom dollar hotel food, but lunch, fish filled lasagna, stepped over the
boundary between what can be expected from the lowest bidder and active malice. I'd
actually eaten almost the whole thing thinking how fishy it tasted before someone said
something and I realized it tasted fishy because there was fish in it. It really would
never have occurred to me that someone would put bits of fish in lasagna as if it was meat
sauce.
Off for the city tour, the city is quite pretty and the guide was very
nice and enthusiastic but he talked too much and we saw too little, the ramparts, main
Catholic and Protestant churches, the cathedral had some very beautiful gothic oak
paneling but was otherwise a kind of odd mix of bits and pieces. Had my eye out for an ATM
but no luck. Back to bus, back to Dudelnage, where they cut us loose for a bit. In front
of the cathedral they have an American flag and a pile of flowers, wonder if any local
people were affected. Went with the Brit Pack in search of an ATM which we actually found
and got out probably more than I needed. Then off to get a drink settled for the safe
option of a beer. Sat drinking, on an empty stomach, so once again didn't manage to make
it till 8 without a buzz. I noticed most of the way through my beer that I was the only
one with a coaster and my coaster had a happy smiling becondomed penis on it, a condom
advertisement. I guess it's not quite surprising that the woman at the bar didn't give any
of the 60 something women condom adverts. Though one person flatteringly suggested it was
because I seemed a 'dreamy young man' for whom it was appropriate. Briefly considered
taking it with me but thought better. Back once again to the Italian restaurant where I
was careful to stick with the Brits and not get trapped again. Once again tried to argue
my way with the waiter, who this time took the effort to explain that he understood what I
wanted just didn't have the authority to give it to me, again escalating the issue didn't
seem worth it, again I wound up with fish, salmon steak, again with a cream sauce, again
not bad. A long discussion at dinner about World Trade center, Americans, their vices and
virtues, what's wrong with the world and what can be done to fix it. At one point I
randomly got this terrible knot of fear and uncertainty from that day back in my stomach,
though It was immediately liked with all the other things I'll forever associate that day
with. I fear I got a bit loud in defense of American plumbing and maybe in general which
is unusual for me. One of the Brits is in fact not a Brit, which I should have realized
from the accent but an expat from Canada via Penn. Was interesting in that I got the feel
these were the sort of people I knew in college, questioning, concerned with the world,
just 40 years along the line, a little depressing in that it seems that 40 years hasn't
given them the answers to the big questions. Heartening in that it seems to have provided
the answers to what often seem the more important small questions, they have, or have had,
husbands, families, things they're still passionate about, life continues. Lights randomly
went out for couple minutes, which was quite strange, and me caught without my flashlight.
Back again, The Italian has taken to referring to the American from Paris as 'la Madonna'
which is rather funny she has that saintly look. The Germans wanted to sing in the bar,
but the bar is full of Styrofoam still, instead was done upstairs without benefit of
drink. I have never seen someone try and sing the Our Father in German accompanied by a
klezmer. The seemed to be half practicing for something half playing around, I was dead
sober by then but I suppose some large proportion of them had been sucking it down all
through dinner. I sat next to the Slovenian woman and we kind of exchanged looks. I really
couldn't follow where they were in the words, had to admit felt like they must have
escaped from an institution of some sort though it was all in good fun. slipped off to bed
6:54 PM 9/28/01
Up breakfast, finishing up the Styrofoam workshop, Funny how
polystyrene has become a running joke. tried finishing up the head, not an easy medium by
any means but if I can get some foam I may try it. Lunch once again skipped out on the
meat. I do love the way all the British women pronounce my name Anton-e, sounds so exotic.
Back to Dudelange for the ecumenical service which was as most speechy parts of the
conference too long and mostly in German. The church itself is quite interesting, odd
exterior, interior an interesting 19th century mixture, gothic paneling, not as nice as
the other church's, sort of neo-Byzantine paintings on the walls, The whole interior was
painted sort of mauve and speckly blue which sounds odd but was quite interesting. The
service involved an excessive amount of speechmaking in German, though the bit they did in
English German and French was worse because it took 3 times as long and even the English
made no sense. It was sort of funny, maybe the speech made less sense because they broke
it up doing a sentence in each language. But John Armstrong seemed to be up there
deadpanning in precise British English a speech that made not the slightest bit of sense
in translation, one long non sequiter. A long interesting trek over odd pedestrian
walkways and past factories to place for the 'banquet' a sports club hall, with Astroturf
on the floor. Once again fish, this time I steered clear since it was family style, ate
alot of French fries salad and rice, had huge piles of those little whole fried fishes.
Was mortified by the posse stealing some of John Armstrong's (who's request for vegetarian
did get through) cheese on my behalf, rather embarrassing. Sat across from Muriel ('la
Madonna') and talked with her a bit, discussing my reading habits and she was saying that
it's good to read about mysteries, and the things lost in shadow (or words to that effect)
but you also need to experience the power of light. Deeper mysteries than the mysterious
if you will. Not for the first time this week I felt somewhat like I was being told to
beware the power of the dark side. She also commented again on my angel's 'bosom' which I
freely admit is more expansive than needed. Odd experience, she was telling me I should
read the divine comedy and that people say the inferno is more interesting but the
Paridiso is where it's at, said, not meaning it the way I took it, but said nevertheless
that no one has interpreted the Divine Comedy for the modern age. And was rather struck,
completely for the first time by the idea of doing that in painting. Silly but right there
it felt like a moment of inspiration, reminded me of the guy who Jane Morris was supposed
to have told he should go into book binding and with no previous experience quit his day
job and became a successful book binder. When she fixes those giant blue eyes on you, and
gives one of those beatific smiles, she is quite effective, must have had the boys killing
each other 60 years ago. Silly as it seems so much of the fun of this is how perfectly
everyone fits into stereotypes, British ladies behave exactly as they should, the loud
enthusiastic Germans behave exactly like loud enthusiastic Germans, the jolly English
priest behaves just as you'd imagine an eccentric jolly English priest to behave, it's
funny. I had the feeling a little bit in the beginning but it's just grown over time that
it really feels like I've seen these people before. After dinner made walk back to the
cathedral for concert, the klezmer group was ok, technically they were very good, couldn't
understand any of the intro's in German, caught the word Diaspora twice. Then African
drumming which was ok, 3 guys two African one local with hats sporting plumes of eagle
feathers, worked up through clapping to swaying side to side, was funny to see it in the
context of this somewhat overdone cathedral. Back, more singing was to be done but I'd had
enough so to bed.6:31 PM 9/29/01
Last day, breakfast, alot of waiting about, since everyone else seemed
to be doing it I got everyone that was hanging around to sign my catalogue. Georgio gave
me a copy of a booklet about his work which looked interesting. He gave a slideshow
showing a big work he had in progress the restoration of this large house originally
having a bunch of frescos in it. After that they had mass which was quite interestingly
done. First time I think I've seen a Catholic mass done with bread instead of hosts each
person gave it to the person next to them, sort of ultra casual in style. Also first time
I've seen a priest invite non-Catholics to take communion, which they're not technically
supposed to do I believe, though none of the priests at this thing strike one as the type
to tow the party line when it's arbitrary. Waited for bus to come, turns out that Georgio
had a flight back at 7:00 as well and had already called a cab so we'd share it. Some
debate about whether to head off to Dudelange or strike off to Luxembourg city and ditch
everything. Really did remind me of a NYU scholars trip this whole system of travelling
with people and little alliances that get made and negotiations that go on. Dudelange in
the end it was, further negotiations which finally led to a pretty nice pizza place with
Romula, Paula and Mary. Ate, talked, was sort of interesting, again was the kind of
random, half personal half philosophical discussions I associate with a few groups of
friends, but here with people a heck of a lot older, funny to see the issues never really
change. Off to wander, went through the main square with the mini festival in it everyone
stopped to look at a hat stand, I was surprisied to see a mantle and hood for sale, was
olive drab, polar fleece, sold as a completely unthemed, mainstream article of clothing,
unfortunately it was in children's size, actually asked (well got someone to ask in
French) if they had a larger one, but only had them without the hood. Sold a great variety
of whimsical type fleece hats. I actually subcumed to temptation and got a hood with two
dangling flaps with pockets you can either put your hands in or use as a scarf, semi
medieval looking, sort of like the things they wear in Odd Nerdrum paintings, and I can
never resist olive drab, certainly more practical than the bright red crab hat Fr John
wanted me to get, just about everyone in the group bought a hat, if not for themselves
more often for grandchildren. The person who ran the stand supposedly bought Fr John a
drink afterward. Wandered/talked, down to park, sat a bit, to cafe. sat a bit, definitely
like a scholars trip. Drawing griffins in the cafe, and explained why, to general
amusement, they seemed to think it was a good plan, so maybe it's not as psycho as it
seems. Headed back to the same Italian place, had gnocchi. Not too many people this time,
a subject of some conflict with staff, not sure, something of a theme speculating on
meaning of these foreign language conflicts. To the gallery, waited there a while and
eventually someone showed up to open the place, all went into the bus, dropped people off
at hotel, said good-byes, was wished good luck with the griffins. Back tried to pay Irmi,
but she wasn't in a taking money mood, wanted to take it afterward. So of course singing
was on the agenda. This night was much better than the other because they sang some in
English, not just German. I tried to help out in their trying to puzzle out the tune to
Suzanne, but can't sing, certainly not like Judy Collins, though as I was noting before
the sheet claims Leonard Cohen wrote it, never heard him do it, his version was the one
that the only person who seemed to have heard it was familiar with. I did succeed in
supplying the words to the last verse of I'll be a wild rover no more, kind of
embarrassing that I have to tell two Englishwomen and an Irishwoman the words to the
quintessential Irish drinking song, though it may not really be traditional. The Dutch
priest was more than energetic, clapping his hands, slapping his behind in time to the
music, quite a spectacle. Sergev sang several quite operatic things, both in Russian and
stuff other people seemed to know, is it just European artists that are this crazy or all
artists? Were at it till about 1:30 continually refilling the wine glasses, though I
didn't feel anything, I did however wind up doing a solo of the battle hymn of the
republic (they helped with the chorus), maybe that proves something, but it doesn't really
I've been known to sing it when sober if provoked, what probably proves something is
that I thought I sounded quite good. Finally paid Irmi plus used up bunch of extra francs
getting an actual SIAC membership, up to bed, saying final good-byes
Certain irony to the situation. Thought it would be a test of my paranoia to go to bed at
2:00 to get up at 5:30ish after having drunk a bit, but woke up at 4, got up at 5. got
ready, found Giorgio, We got outside at 6:00 and waited, If I'd been doing this by myself
I would have called a taxi for two hours before the flight even if the airport was 8 min
away, I'd thought about trying to convince Georgio to leave earlier, but didn't. A fine
lesson in the danger of trusting other people's judgment over your own, perhaps
especially when the other person is Italian. The taxi didn't show, when it was 5 min late
Georgio started calling the drivers cell which was off, finally called a second, the
language of Giorgio's commentary became more pungent. A taxi passed and didn't turn into
the drive, I was resigned to fate but he ran after it, somewhat amusing little Italian man
in a suit chugging up the gravel drive. The taxi continued on unconcerned, eventually it
came back, I can't recall if the driver gave Giorgio back his money when I paid the
difference between what he had with a 1000 if not he got a hell of a tip. Just missed
being able to check in for the flight. Giorgio who's flight left 5 min later caught his.
The people in British air have been pondering over my tickets for the past 45 min, the
appearance is that I'm going to be out an extra $150 and wind up on the flight that gets
in at 6:00 I rejected when changing my tickets the first time. Of course when they were on
the phone to London I heard something about there not being room on the flight, though I
cant imagine what they could be talking about, there's no way any flight to the US could
be full these days, Think I've wound up on the same flight as the Brits. Shall see,
having played the ImpossibleDream the airport muzak is now doing It Seems the Good Die
Young. Was indeed on the Gatwick flight, said at least 3 more good-byes to the Brit
Pack before finally getting everything straightened out. Nobody asked me for money when
changing my tickets so maybe I lucked out, got in at 6:00 took bus through scenic downtown
Newark, and nobody collected tickets on the train so trip back cost me a total of 1
dollar.
Final cost
524.16
150
50
200
177
1
-65