Welcoming Winter

Photograph by Gene Cyr of Northern Maine Pictures

Two or three times a week, I walk with a dear friend, who is also a neighbor and a fellow writer. We cover three miles in a little less than an hour. We talk while walking, attempting to sort out aspects of our lives, including writing projects.

We take one of three loop walks through the neighborhood, up and down hills, under tall white pines and sturdy wild oaks. Twice, we cross a small stream that runs through the neighborhood. Along the way we encounter other walkers and runners, all kinds of dogs, and sometimes a few cats. The other day we came upon a neighborhood cat named Marshall, whom my husband and I had helped rescue from a tree a couple of years ago. He still responded when we called him by name.

Today my walking buddy couldn't make it, so I went alone. I missed her companionship, but was delighted to find many birds out and about, even on such a short December day. I saw and heard titmice, goldfinches, chickadees, and sparrows. I spotted a group of six wild turkeys tromping through the woods. They took their time, crunching oak leaves with every step. The squirrels were busy too.

Here, the seasons tend to lag the calendar by a few weeks, so even in mid-December most of the grass is still green. There is no snow on the ground yet. A recent warm spell brought a big moth hatch and a few still cling to the sides of houses and garage doors. The sun is shining, even though it's nearly at its weakest strength now.

It does my heart good to get out and find the animals active as we prepare to welcome winter. In a week or two the snows will come, and we'll adjust our walks to smaller loops where we don't need shoveled sidewalks. But those short walks have their rugged beauty too.

In the spirit of winter to come, here is a photograph by Mainer Gene Cyr. This photo won the Aroostook County Tourism Authority photo contest. His website is Northern Maine Pictures

I wish you all a wonder-filled holiday season, winter, and new year.

Oh Well and Oh My

So perhaps it's a function of getting older, but for whatever reason, I don't enjoy browsing in antique stores the way I used to. I used to love to soak up the atmosphere, listen to the classical music playing and the store owner's banter with customers. I browsed in slow motion, the way a heron wades in a stream looking for fish. I'd stop to look at 80% of the things on display, and I'd seriously consider buying things.

Now, I look for things that are new to me, in an antique way of course. Last week, the day after we spent a lovely Thanksgiving in Maine with dear friends, we stopped at an antique barn on Route 1 near Wiscasset. It was one of those places with many many dealers. The best ones specialize. There was one person who sold antique postcards, categorized by state. Another sold antique tools. Yet there was little else of interest and I found myself cruising through the entire building, my eye only caught by something unusual. My favorite thing was a 'cookie corner' chest of drawers from the early 1800's. The inside of the drawers were made of hardwood, and all the joints were extremely well made.  Then there were some nice rustic cider jugs. But aside from that, I could have left within ten minutes. I obliged my husband's interest in a slow perusal, which gave me a chance to notice more.

It was the art that finally got to me. Antique shops always seem to have an oversupply of old prints or original artwork that was never of gallery quality. Certainly there is a chance one might come upon a hidden masterpiece, but in New England, in the 'antique barn' type places, it's hard to find decent art. I really wonder who buys those old paintings. Maybe people collect them. To me, the value for money equation doesn't match up. I left the antique barn with a feeling of "Oh well."

Fortunately, there are plenty of living artists in Maine (and all over New England) who make their work available for reasonable prices. Earlier in the day we had visited the Tidemark Gallery in Waldoboro, and I was really taken by the paintings of Audrey Bechler on display there. Here is a sample of her work and you can link to her website here.  When I left the gallery, which is set up in a very small house (as opposed to a huge barn), my feelings were more like, "Oh my!"

Thursday Night Fever

What is it about Thursday nights?

This fall I've been double and even triple booked on Thursday nights. When I worked in banking, the 20 somethings told me that was the big night to go out with work colleagues and party. For them, Friday night was recovery night, and then Saturday night was 'couples' night. Not sure if that is still the case, but even then, Thursday night was very big.

This fall, Thursday nights have presented marvelous options, but I have stuck to my first commitments, while wondering if it's foolish to do so if something more interesting comes along. The possibilities have been tantalizing: music concerts; debut author book readings; literary association panels; author talks and all kinds of meetings.

I conclude that the Thursday Night pile-up is the usual super-heating of the greater Boston culture scene right before the holidays. It seems everyone wants to finish their events before Thanksgiving, Christmas and Hannukah. But even more importantly, before the snow begins to come down with conviction.

December is filled with holiday-related events. January is the Deep Freeze Month, but stalwart souls organize events and people actually show up at them. However, organizers are gambling that a big Nor'easter won't blow up and stop the city in its tracks. My friend Lisa Esperson and I are organizing a Khaliji (Gulf) women's folk dance workshop for the last Saturday in January on Cape Cod. Are we nuts? Only time will tell. I remember going to a church event on Cape Cod in mid-January when about two feet of snow had fallen the night before. The sun was out, it was as beautiful as a Christmas card, and despite the hassle of coming out in the winter, the church was packed. So I'll take heart from that.

My other blogs - you're welcome there too!

As a writer I have diverse interests - and most of those are reflected in this blog. However, in case you're interested, I write two other blogs that you might enjoy, so stop by and join them as well.

Cabin World is a blog I write with my husband about our treasured times spent in the northern Maine woods. It's about cabins, camps (as they are called in Maine) and cottages, as well as our daily lives in the woods.

Saudi Women Driving is a news blog where I try to keep track of and archive news stories about Saudi women driving. There is little editorial, it is mostly cutting and pasting the latest events related to this ongoing issue.

Master Bandsmen of the Ottoman Empire

This summer I finished a feature article for Saudi Aramco World Magazine on the Mehter Musicians of the Ottoman Empire. Inspired by a book on the subject written by a Boston-based musician, Mehmet Sanlikol, I endeavored to treat this subject in a manner that would appeal to a general audience that didn't have knowledge of Turkish or Middle Eastern music. It was fun to write - took many hours of research and interviews. But amazingly I was able to do it all from Boston because my subjects were all within the greater Boston area. That in itself is a testament to how culturally rich Boston is. That's a cliche perhaps, but it's also true. We are blessed to live in such a rich treasure trove filled with all kinds of artists and thinkers. For more information on Dunya, the group that sponsors a Mehter band in Boston, visit Dunya's website

You can link to my story in Saudi Aramco World here.

I've pasted in my favorite photograph from the article - caption below.

Caption: This young visitor to the Turkish Military Museum’s regular mehter heritage performance in Istanbul might agree with the Prussian soldier who, in the early 1700’s, complained that the mehter band “split the ears with its incredible charivari.”

Here are more Mehter audio links you can listen to and purchase:

1. Taqsim (Improvisation) in Maqam of Bayati: Listen
2. Pesrev in Maqam of Nakriz (processional instrumental): listen
3. Ey Gaziler: Listen
4. Cengi-i-Harbi: Cymbals of War: Link

Enjoy!

First Saudi Feature Film "Wadjda" Reviewed by Telegraph UK

Congratulations to Saudi director Haifaa Al Mansour on her directing the first feature film made in Saudi Arabia. "Wadjda" is about a Saudi girl growing up in conservative Riyadh...who wants a bicycle.

Below is the review of the film by Robbie Collin from the Telegraph in the UK, and a link to the review is here. I hope we get to see the film in the U.S. soon.

Wadjda, the first film to have been entirely filmed within Saudi Arabia, by the nation's first female director, is boundary-pushing cinema for Venice Film Festival 2012, writes Robbie Collin.

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Haifaa Al Mansour and Waad Mohammed in Wadjda, which premiered at Venice Film Festival 2012.  Photo: Tobias Kownatzki / RazorFilm

Dir: Haifaa Al Mansour; starring: Waad Mohammed, Reem Abdullah, Abdullrahman Al Gohani, Sultan Al Assaf. 97 min.

“A woman’s voice reveals her nakedness,” scolds Wadjda’s teacher, as she and a friend run laughing from a Riyadh sidestreet into their school playground. “What if a man had heard you?”

Well, plenty of men will hear her now. Wadjda is the first film to have been entirely filmed within Saudi Arabia, by that country’s first female director, no less. It tells the story of this ten-year-old schoolgirl, and many like her, and it is the best thing I have seen at this year’s Venice International Film Festival so far.

Haifaa Al Mansour’s picture has a kind of neorealist clarity and simplicity that feels like a welcome splash of ice water after the ponderous, muggy fare that has so far been screened in competition for the festival’s Golden Lion award. (Wadjda is showing in the Orrizonti strand, dedicated to new trends in world cinema.)

Like one of the great Italian neorealist films, it centres on a child and a bicycle. All Wadjda wants is a bike so she can race against the little boy who lives next door, but her mother (Reem Abdullah) refuses to buy her one: in Saudi Arabia, little girls do not ride bicycles. After careful consideration of the matter Wadjda cannot see the logic in this, so she takes matters into her own hands and decides to raise the money for a bicycle herself.

Wadjda is perplexed by the Kingdom’s restrictive culture, particularly where women are concerned: it seems incompatible with a child’s logic. Even though she covers herself up in accordance with modesty laws, an elderly man still leers at her openly in the street, and the confusion that flickers across her face speaks volumes.
Waad Mohammed, a 12-year-old born and raised in Riyadh, is utterly disarming in the title role: she strikes the perfect balance between cheek and impudence, and her tomboyish grin lights up the screen.The film largely consists of little vignettes in the home and at school, and while many of them are very funny, we get an acute sense of the little everyday frustrations and burdens that Saudi women have to shoulder.
Al Mansour reveals in the film’s production notes that she often had to direct from her production van via walkie-talkie when filming in more conservative areas, but Wadjda offers the hope that for the next generation of Saudi women, things might be different. Modest as it may look, this is boundary-pushing cinema in all the best ways, and what a thrill it is to hear those boundaries creak.

Beethoven and Ode to Joy Lyrics

I'm writing these days, jamming out an article on music. And it has to do with Beethoven, among about a gazillion other subjects. Writing this one is like trying to stuff an elephant into a pillow case. But it will be worth it.

I just listened to part of the last movement of Beethoven's Ninth Symphony Here is a link to a nice Youtube (audio) version. Link to Youtube audio version

And here are the lyrics, from the poem by Friedrich Schiller in 1785. They obviously speak for themselves. (I got them here.)

This symphony is said to be the greatest ever written.

Lyrics in English for "Ode to Joy"
("Ode An Die Freude")
Beethoven's 9th Symphony

O friends, no more these sounds!
Let us sing more cheerful songs,
more full of joy!

 
Joy, bright spark of divinity,
Daughter of Elysium,
Fire-inspired we tread
Thy sanctuary.

Thy magic power re-unites
All that custom has divided,
All men become brothers
Under the sway of thy gentle wings.

Whoever has created
An abiding friendship,
Or has won
A true and loving wife,
All who can call at least one soul theirs,
Join in our song of praise;
But any who cannot must creep tearfully
Away from our circle.

All creatures drink of joy
At nature's breast.
Just and unjust
Alike taste of her gift;

She gave us kisses and the fruit of the vine,
A tried friend to the end.
Even the worm can feel contentment,
And the cherub stands before God!

Gladly, like the heavenly bodies
Which He set on their courses
Through the splendor of the firmament;
Thus, brothers, you should run your race,
As a hero going to conquest.

You millions, I embrace you.
This kiss is for all the world!

Brothers, above the starry canopy
There must dwell a loving Father.

Do you fall in worship, you millions?
World, do you know your creator?

Seek him in the heavens;
Above the stars must He dwell.