Vienna, Nomad-Proof?

It is well known that Vienna was the last bastion of the "West" against the Ottoman Empire, and that a crescent-shaped pastry was developed there to celebrate the repulsion of the Turk.  That pastry, brought to Paris by the Austrian Marie Antoinette, became the croissant, propping up the bottom lines of cafes across the globe.

Recent reading reminded me of a not forgotten, but perhaps less celebrated fact, that Vienna also represented the western limit of the original conquests of the Mongols, who had easily taken control of Hungary under Batu Khan with a mixed Mongol and Tatar army.  But the death of Ögedei Khan [Өгэдэй хаан] led the Mongols to suddenly pack up and return home in anticipation of a fight for succession to the throne.  And so Vienna was never invaded.

Does that make it immune to any future nomadic invasions?  More likely, this kind of luck comes with an expiration date.

Crush v. First Love

It is said that a crush will typically fade out after about 4 months, in the absence of any "extenuating circumstances" that would either fan the flames or interrupt the process.  That seems about right, in the case of an ordinary crush. 

But the previous post was about first loves that never fade away, remaining forever luminous.  Some of these loves must seem to be crushes when they start.  When is a crush not a crush?

Like anything else, we can say that "time will tell" or follow the ancient Greeks in reserving judgement on anyone's fate until we see if they "die well".  But that doesn't help the poor souls trying to decide these things "on the fly".

What is a neverending crush like?  When is it something else?  Not sure that there are any infallible criteria to test this other than a gut feeling .  But somewhere it was recently published that the gut has more nerve endings than the brain, so a "gut feeling" may have some scientific basis.

NJ Kpopper is going to file this away under topics for reflection and report back if any "infallible criteria" are found.

First Love

First Love...Turgenev wrote a decent but not definitive piece about it...but it still seems like a difficult thing to write about.  This article, from the Daily Mail of all places, claims that most people never experience the intensity of their first love ever again.  That doesn't seem quite right.

The article describes later loves as diluted versions of the first.  And that seems all wrong.  Rather some things are more intense, and some things are less intense with each go round. But to capture that with precision in writing would be tricky.  Nothing wise or mild about love in NJ Kpopper's experience.  And to go back to an ex just sounds depressing to a bear that somehow hopes for more from the future than the familiarity of the past.

Music of the Soul

What does NJ Kpopper mean by music of the soul? There is music that is influential, music that is great, music that is fun, music that is memorable. All great categories of music. Some of the world's finest musicians fall into these categories. But I think that each person will have their own music of the soul, something that is very particular to them. There is music that influences a person, penetrates and changes them, but can retain its effect without requiring any relistening, or even remaining as an actual favorite. Music of the soul is something that you respond to EVERY time in a deep and visceral way. That music is somehow just right for evoking a sympathetic vibration in the heart of the listener. For NJ Kpopper, the few musicians that fall in that category are surprisingly different, but all exhibit Sincerity (as described in a previous post), искренность, as a paramount virtue. There can be no fakery or preening display in music of the soul. But there is something even beyond that which I am still struggling to put words to. One can only evoke it, in a poem or something, which would have to appear later in a place other than this blog.

Fox tale found

A previously unknown medieval manuscript was recently discovered during an inventory of the archives of a Buddhist monastery in Nagoya, Japan. How this manuscript found its way to Nagoya is unknown, but its origins appear to be from Inner Asia. It was written in Chagatai, the classical Turkish of Central Asia, although internal clues, such as particular Buddhist invocations and geographic references, suggest a strong Mongol element. This manuscript appears to date from the 1500s, although there are no precise clues, and is the earliest known reference to the legend of the fox spirit among Inner Asian nomads.

Took care of my problem!

Kumiko

NJ Kpopper had been aware of the film Kumiko, the Treasure Hunter for a while, mostly because of the attractive cover art and intriguing trailer.  But a random act of radio listening at a fortuitous moment triggered some deeper knowledge of this particular cultural case.

image by Astrid Caballeros

A very quick recap, since Google and Wikipedia can provide all the details. In the early 2000s, a minor news sensation was created when a Japanese girl was found dead on her way to Fargo, North Dakota.  Her interactions with the locals in Minnesota led police to believe that she was looking for the treasure buried in the movie, Fargo, through some kind of delusion believing it to be real.  This formed the basis for the story in the movie.  The movie is stylish in a minor key.

There is a wonderful small documentary, This is a True Story, and a wonderful small radio version of the documentary story on the delightful show Snap Judgment, that tell the TRUE story of what happened here.  The woman in question, Takako Konishi, had an American boyfriend, who she attempted to find again after her life in Japan fell apart.  Whether she was suicidal or carelessly froze to death in the Minnesota winter is still unknown, but the documentary version tells the subtle story of how perception of the foreign mixed with the imaginary elements in the locals' minds to create the myth of the woman looking for the treasure of Fargo. Watching the movie after learning this true story was certainly more interesting, but the true story is sadder and more tragic than the film version.  Watching/listening to all three of these things together makes for a very rich artistic experience.

What is the personal aspect of this case for NJ Kpopper?  This bear is very, very interested in capturing some of the kinds of subtle and bizarre twinkling recombinations of culture that can happen when "cultures collide".  But I am thinking not about car crashes, but the strange gravitational attractions that occur when the stars in two separate galaxies merge and recombine into something entirely unexpected.  Yes, that. Just that.

Say farewell to your fair weather friends

And not a second too soon...

As Spring ends, time to clean house and focus on what is most important for bears - taking care of all summer tasks required to prepare for winter.  "Fake, fake, empty-hearted fakes" are a relief to leave behind whenever possible.

Genghis Blues, Mongolian Bling

Genghis Blues was one of the original movies that pointed NJ Kpopper in the direction of Mongolia many years ago.  One sentence summary: blind blues musician Paul Pena learned throat singing and traveled to Tuva to compete in the national competition there, with the help of friend Kongar-ol Ondar.

Mongolian Bling is a newer take on the Ulaanbaatar rap scene, giving some insight into the life of rappers Gennie, Gee and others.

NJ Kpopper is not here to recap and review, but to reflect on more personal thoughts. Genghis Blues stood out for me from the beginning as a magnificent and moving example of a personal quest, something highly individualistic blossoming in one person's mind that could then become externalized into the world through determined action.  I have thought about that movie often over the years, to the point that I had to acquire the decidedly non-HD DVD to watch it again.  

Tuva, of course, is somewhat removed from Mongolia or even Buryatia, but the call of the raw landscapes of Inner Asia have always acted upon me in a mysterious way.  So now the bear is going to stop resisting and give in to that call.

Mongolian Bling presents an antidote to any romantic idealizing of ancient nomadic lifestyles (so typical in Mongolian documentaries) by getting up close to urban life in the ger districts of Ulaanbaatar.  But the theme of dreaming still permeates this film, as some kind of underlying substrate to the human struggle and striving depicted.  We should all seek to exceed in dreaming in our own way.

Perhaps one day NJ Kpopper will produce a memoir called "My Mongolia" that is more about the imagined landscape of the mind and the moods that my version of Mongolia produces than about the actual lived experience there.  But it will require some on the ground research to merge reality and imagination into something bigger and larger, or at least longer lasting, than life.

Dostoevsky on Meth

As a bear grows older, it tends to revisit old haunts and reinterpret them in the light of new experiences.  This bear has recently done that with the works of Knut Hamsun (Hunger, Mysteries, Pan, Victoria, etc.).  When Hamsun was first encountered in the wild, his energetic and elevated descriptions of emotional states were just what a young bear would like, especially a bear without a great store of literary archetypes or well-formed aesthetic ideals.

But now Hamsun seems to have worn out his welcome.  Dostoevsky is also an emotionally overwrought writer, but his emotion comes from some deeply authentic place in the psyche, and suggests that his way is the truth, even if "you can't handle the truth".  Dostoevsky's stories are too rich and significant to cast aside in any case.

Hamsun, on the other hand, veers from overwrought to insanity. The antics of his characters now seem immature and misguided, and the Hamsunesque hero is always trying to contort himself into a position that allows him to appear to himself as selfless, heroic, and authentic, all while admiring himself in the looking glass.  But viewed from the outside, these actions are drunken, insane, and threatening.  His writing likewise is neither raw enough to be fully opened up, like a Kerouac or Dostoevsky, nor is it polished to highlight its unique qualities (e.g., Alexander Grin).  Dostoevsky seemed to handle the emotional swings of white nights and dark winters better, it seems.

Among his works, Victoria is the one with the least histrionics, and it benefits from some effort to bound itself by its focus on the nature of love, albeit with a particuliarly Hamsunian flavor of unreal self-sacrifice.

Asked what love is, some reply: It is only a wind whispering among the roses and dying away. But often it is an inviolable seal that endures for life, endures till death.  God has fashioned it of many kinds and seen it endure or perish. [from Victoria]

Ultimately, the Norwegian village setting provides a limited canvas for the characters to play on, with much action constrained by poverty, hunger, and rigid class roles.  Hamsun is rightly celebrated for smashing away at those constraints, and he certainly is unique and worthwhile as an artist, but this bear is now seeking guidance from other sources than an unstable and addled Scandinavian who, if not hopped up on meth, was certainly on something that took him to places that an older, more reflective bear is not seeking to go.