Winter morning

The first soft chords of Pärt's fourth symphony are wafting from my computer's loudspeakers. I turn around and see high rise apartment buildings framed in the window. A flock of pigeons goes back and forth from left to right and right to left,as if contained in invisible walls extending from the window frame, unable to escape. A scene of grey buildings and a wintry grey sky enlivened only by these desperate swirling birds is the ideal stage for Arvo Pärt's music. The swirling pattern of the flock is abruptly perturbed by a change of direction and it appears that the birds have found a way out of the glass-walled prison framed in my window. The birds are gone and I am left only with Pärt's music, a brooding meditation on a wintry day.

An Infantile and Artless Society - August 2010

Next Saturday, the first Youth Olympic Games will open in Singapore, and this arch has been erected over the entrance to Orchard Road, in the same spot where another arch can be seen every year for the Christmas and New Year festivities. This one is less ornate and supports fewer figures, but it seems to be similarly designed for children of a very young age, certainly younger than the athletes who will soon compete in those games.

Everywhere in downtown Singapore one can see the logo of the Games, visible here in the center of the arch and on the supporting columns, the blue silhouette of a person whose legs, arms and head (in the shape of a red flame) form the five points of a star. At the top of the columns are the mascots of the games, Lyo and Merly, which look like children's toys. They also can be seen in numerous places around town.

It is symptomatic of this city-state with a paternalistic government that organizers of this sport event can come up only with such infantile and artless symbols.

Singapore will celebrate tomorrow the 45th anniversary of its birth as a nation after its separation from Malaysia. It has accomplished much in 45 years and is one of the Asian economic miracles, but in a tightly controlled society (the People's Action Party has ruled for 45 years and has control of the media) in which the arts have not been a priority until relatively recently, creativity and an artistic sense are hard to come by ...

Sunbathing in Paris in April

The Wall Street Journal website regularly posts "Pictures of the Week", and it is there that I found this great shot of a woman sunbathing on a quay of the Seine last week. She certainly is not following the adage I heard as a child growing up in Paris:

Avril
Ne te découvre pas d'un fil
Mai
Fais ce qu'il te plait

(In April, do not take off a thread; in May, do as you wish)

The picture hardly seems natural ... it is rather studied and could have been shot for a commercial. But if this were the case, why would the WSJ present it as an interesting picture of the week? It must be a candid shot. Yet there are details that make you wonder. The large sheet spread under the woman and the pillow under her head could not possibly hold in the bag at her left arm ... but she may simply have carried them in her arms if she lives not too far from that spot. The flip-flops are a sign that this may be a candid shot; high heels would be more in keeping with a modeling photo-shoot.

On the whole, I prefer to think that, on a warm April day, this woman simply could not resist the temptation of celebrating the arrival of spring after an unusually long and harsh winter and decided to walk to the river to bask in the warmth of the sun.

She let her skirt fall down on her ankles, but she did not step out of it, and let it sit there, as if she wanted to be ready to quickly lift it back up if she had to leave in an emergency. This is probably also why she has kept her bag hanging at her arm. However, she certainly does not seem to be worried or vigilent. Her attitude is relaxed and there is a faint smile on her lips. Is she simply content or is she smiling at the photographer?

One thing is certain. This picture is quintessential Paris. Only in Paris would a woman dress with such sophisticated elegance (all in black: black skirt, black tight underwear shorts, black top, and black accessories: the handbag, the flip-flops, the bracelet on her right arm) to go sunbathe near the river.

Her pose reveals a tattoo on the inside of her right arm.

Prophet of Innovation

Prophet of Innovation is a biography of Joseph Schumpeter by Thomas McGraw.

In the chapter on this economist’s most famous work, Capitalism, Socialism and Democracy, the author notes Schumpeter’s psychological insight into the reasons why Marx had become so fashionable in the 1930s.

People embraced his “message of the terrestrial paradise of socialism” not only because it seemed such an improvement on current conditions but also because it addressed “that feeling of being thwarted and ill treated which is the auto-therapeutic attitude of the unsuccessful many.”

Schumpeter’s insight is elegantly worded but not new: it is another way of saying that a great many people blame their failure to achieve success (and to reap the economic benefits derived from it) on "The System" or on others rather than on themselves, as a way of avoiding to face the painful truth, which is their own inadequacy.

What is interesting is that Schumpeter uses this psychological truth to explain the popular appeal of Marx’s message.

Capitalism and the free market reward energy, focus, entrepreneurship, risk-taking and creativity, qualities that are found only in a small minority of individuals. It results in great inequalities of income, and in the frustrated ambitions of the many who entered the race without the personality, character and other attributes required to win it.

Socialism, which makes the utopian promise to take from every individual according to his abilities and to give to every individual according to his needs, has a great deal of appeal, because it implies that needs will be fulfilled even for those people whose abilities and exertions are insufficient to satisfy their needs on their own.

But the satisfaction of personal needs by the State has unfortunate consequences: a constant expansion of those needs, which become rights, and a loss of the personal sense of responsibility to provide for oneself (why should I work harder, since the State will provide for me?). The net result is a reduction in the total wealth of a nation, for sharing wealth through taxes on “the rich” (or the not so rich, for, as needs expand, it becomes insufficient to tax just the rich) does not create wealth, it just redistributes it, and it reduces incentives for further investment and risk-taking, which do create wealth.

It also results, in the worst case, in a totalitarian political system and, in the milder case of social democracy, in a loss of individual freedom, for, in order to give to some, the State has to take from others, and, as the scope of the government's activities and responsibilities constantly expands, it regulates in increasing detail the lives of the governed.

Vergelegen

Vergelegen V, this Cabernet of great distinction would compare favorably with some of the best wines I know. It is from a winery founded in 1700 in South Africa ... Who would think?

I am at Woods, an al fresco dining area behind The Wine Company of Dempsey Road, plunged in darkness. The noises of crickets and croaking frogs surround this place cloaked in the heavy humid mist that has settled over Singapore after a long and violent tropical storm.

The label in the back of the bottle informs me that Vergelegen means a place "far away" and that it was granted to the governor of the Cape in 1700. It reminds me of what I learned about wine making in South Africa from a chance encounter in a lodge in New Zealand in October last year. French Huguenots who had sailed to Cape Town asked The Dutch governor for the right to settle in the country. The governor sent them far away from the Cape so that they would not cause any trouble. It must have been Vergelegen ... and this is how wine making started in South Africa.

Brad Mehldau, Jazz pianist extraordinaire

One can make amazing finds at Starbucks.

A few months ago I bought at the Starbucks of the PSA Building a CD of piano jazz music entitled Upright, Grand and All Right. The first piece was Exit Music (For a Film) by the Brad Mehldau Trio and I was entranced by this piece, in which this Jazz pianist demonstrates an amazing mastery of counterpoint. The piece sounds like a jazzy Bach prelude, with the left hand playing the "bourdon" and the right hand the melody and, in time, an extraordinary improvisation. It starts with 40 seconds of a piano solo introduction of the melody. Then the drums comes in, very sweet and low key, and at one minute into the piece, the piano left hand starts the bourdon while the right hand gives variations on the melody as the double bass comes in as well, and you are immediately transported in a dreamy atmosphere. It goes on from there, with the pianist's left hand solid as a rock in the role of the bourdon of a baroque piece, while the right hand gets more and more creative and explores amazing improvisations resolving themselves in an avalanche of gorgeous piano sounds, until it quiets itself down slowly in a nice lullaby-like melody ... The whole thing lasts only slightly more than four minutes but you want it to go on forever.

Woww....

After this introduction, I bought from Amazon.com three CDs of Brad Mehldau, called The Art of the Trio. The third volume, Songs, is my favorite and contains this Exit piece, and nine other songs, all remarkable. It really is the art of the jazz trio, with an amazingly creative and talented pianist, and a solid accompaniment of elastic bouncing rhythms on the drums (oh, so subtle and intricate ... not too noisy ... just right) and beautiful improvisations and melody renditions on the double bass.

Bravo to Brad Mehldau, pianist, Larry Grenadier, bassist, and Jorge Rossy, drummer ... this is beautifully and so tastefully done ... You gave me and are still giving me much joy.

Strategic Error

The American public, by and large, is not ideological. Obama was elected president last year in spite of his record as a very liberal community organizer and senator, not because of it. Americans were weary of Bush, whom the liberal media loved to blame for everything, and the Republicans, and attracted by a charismatic, articulate, candidate who could speak a few good words (Hope ... Change), presented himself as a moderate, and offered redemption for the country's racist past.

But, once president, Obama revealed his true colors, surrounded himself with questionable people (such as the Green Jobs Czar Van Jones) and let the radical wing of the Democratic Party write bills that tilt the country towards socialism and ever growing government control (and national debt). On the international scene, he kowtows to the worst enemies of the US.

Domestically, Obama believes that he has a mandate to implement radical change, or has cynically decided that he has a unique opportunity to implement policies that would never have a chance under normal circumstances in the United States (never let a good crisis go to waste ...)

Internationally, he is naive and believes that extending a friendly hand will mollify dictators pursuing evil ends or bent on strengthening their positions by weakening the US.

These are strategic mistakes of huge proportions. He and the Democratic Party will pay dearly for it. Hopefully before the United States is damaged beyond repair.