the cassandra pages

So the year slides to its end in the calm silence of these icy northern nights, and in crushing violence -- this year in the Middle East. Is it any wonder the stories we recite have become sentimentalized fables, as removed from the original text's setting of Roman oppression, militarism, and human poverty as our modern Christmas pageant creche scenes, acted out by children wearing homemade white wings and fake-fur sheep's ears, are from what our own governments and taxes now support in the lands of those poor shepherds? In spite of the Gospel message of peace, reconciliation between peoples, and an end to treating anyone as "less" or "other", we have 2000 years of intervening human history to show just how much we've learned.

So I've felt depressed and discouraged these last few days, by the news itself, and the way it's being reported in North America, and the lack of first-hand accounts. Is there indeed any cure for "our warring madness?" For all of human history we've seen wars waged, and disproportionate violence committed against the weak by the strong, in order to "stop violence" and teach rebellious subjects a lesson. Instead both the combattants become more vulnerable, more angry, more vindictive and bent on revenge - especially when young men on both sides watch their mothers, wives, old fathers and young children die, and proud and stubborn older men continue to hold the reins of power. I am a woman, and I suffer with all my sisters, on every side of every conflict; I have grown intensely weary of male anger and its effects.

Christmas and holiday cards arrive from far-flung friends, many expressing hope that Obama will truly represent change. I share their hope, but I am skeptical -- or rather, I think I'm realistic about what this good, decent, talented man will be able to achieve.

So I sit here, near a beautiful little Christmas tree shining with lights, and look out at the dark night, wondering about my own life and the use I've made of it. What have I done with the talents left in my safe-keeping? This is not the happiest thing to be pondering as yet another year slips away, but I'm afraid I'm apt to do it at least once during this season, worn down by too much holiday partying, too little sleep, and Montreal's bitter winds and brief days. For a time, I allow myself to tearfully miss my mother and the naive, carefree holidays of my childhood. I recite a bitter litany of personal griefs; seethe helplessly at the waste and violence of our societies and my part in it; deplore my own failures and weaknesses, my concessions and compromises.

And then I start to pull myself up, to face the new year rightly.

Thank you for being my companions, willing to share the days as they come and to read my attempts to write of them. Happy New Year, Bonne année. May we help each other to live it wholly, honestly, creatively, and with joy.

O Magnum Mysterium

Side door of old parish church, rural Quebec

The sun has set on this Christmas day, but the roast is yet to go into the oven, the fire to be lit, the small pile of presents still to be unwrapped. It's quiet here in the late afternoon of a much-needed restful day. I didn't get to bed last night until 1:45 am, after singing two services with rehearsals that began at 2:30 in the afternoon. I was tired but exhilarated, and although my shoulders and back still ached this morning from standing many hours holding my music folder I felt happy to have this aspect of Christmas back in my life. We're glad, too, to be celebrating the holiday here in Montreal for the first time. Although we miss the three parents who are no longer with us, there's a sense of relief and release at not worrying about a mother or father who is declining or ill - which has been a constant reality for us this entire decade. My father drove up last week to meet us in Vermont, and we visited some of our old friends who've also known him now for many years. At 84, he's absolutely remarkable, and for the first time since my mother died he is starting - cautiously - to date a little bit. And while there is some sadness in the letting-go and change that that entails - for both him and me - there's a lightness and spirited hopefulness in him that I haven't seen for years.

In his sermon at the midnight service, the Dean, who is nearing the end of his formal ministry career, spoke about his disappointment in the institution of the church - still so invested in power and the preservation of a formal structure - and so resistant to change. But in reflecting on what this night can mean to us, beyond the traditional stories and the pagan rituals of solstice they incorporated, he suggested that it was a time to think about what needs to be born in each of us, as we pass out of darkness into light, with hope. Of course I thought about my father, and other family members who seem to be emerging from long difficulties, and the way that - later in life - you can't return to a former untouched innocence, but instead go on somehow holding the darkness and light in both hands. I also looked around at the red-robed choir members around me in the organ loft, some listening to the sermon, some reading or reviewing their music, some leaning their heads back, eyes closed, trying to catch a few minutes of rest after a long day, and felt a surge of affection for all of them. What has needed to be born in me again, and what I felt so grateful for last night, is music.

At the end of the midnight service, we sang a setting of "O magnum mysterium" by Malcolm Archer, organist and choirmaster of Wells Cathedral. This text, which tells of "the great mystery" of Christ's birth and is taken from the Christmas Day responses for the service of Matins (morning prayer), has been set by many composers through the centuries. Malcolm Archer had this to say about his own composition:

O magnum Mysterium is a very still and homophonic setting of arguably the most inspiring of Christmas texts, a text which I have wanted to set for some time. The piece was not a commission but a response to a feeling of the moment, where I wished to create a timeless mood where pulse loses significance and where the harmony unfolds slowly and voices are held in suspension rather than urged forward. It has always struck me that the great settings of Victoria and Poulenc managed this, in their own way, with consummate success and I wanted to try and achieve the same effect using my own language. These great words transport you from earth and give, for a moment at least, a glimpse of heaven.

We had sung the piece earlier, at the 4:00 service, and it went very well. But in the night, after communion, our choir stood in the baptistry - where the acoustics are best both for the audience and for us to hear one another - and sang Archer's beautiful music again. I don't know, of course, what the composer means personally by "a glimpse of heaven", but for me, it is the experience of unity, and that is what happened during O magnum mysterium last night.

I've made music with other people all my life, for the challenge and enjoyment of it, but also because it affords an opportunity for those rare moments when a group of people and the conductor become one organism, all our attention and preparation and skill centered on a single experience. Breathing together, feeling one another, and - most of all - entering with heightened awareness into the music, the group moves together through a final door that has before been closed, or only partly ajar. You feel it happening - all of you feel it - but there is a suspension of conscious thought, akin to meditation, where you know but aren't distracted. And the gift you are receiving becomes a gift you are also giving, so the unity - that momentary glimpse - expands to the listeners, if they are open to receiving it.

O great mystery: seen in the dark eyes of a well-dressed middle-aged woman that met mine during the recessional, and in the clear blue ones of the homeless man in camouflage fatigues who had come inside for the service and who would later go out to sleep not in a stable but on the stone steps of an inner city cathedral.

---

I couldn't find a performance of the Archer setting, but here is one of the Victoria Magnum that inspired him, along with a modern setting by Morten Lauridsen, somewhat similar to the Archer but better known. (headphones recommended.) Happy Christmas to all of you!

Io at the Bospor

Classics geek that I am, I've started the project of reading and re-reading most of the ancient Greek plays this winter. The other day, in the middle of Aeschylus' Prometheus Bound, I learned that the Bosporus strait was named for Io, a girl who had been desired by Zeus. The story has several variations, but essentially goes this way: Zeus tries to hide Io by making himself into a white cloud and turning Io into a beautiful white heifer, but his perpetually jealous wife, Hera, discovers the deception and demands the heifer as a gift. She then sets Io wandering incessantly, pursued by a gadfly to the point of madness. (Interestingly, the word for gadfly in Greek is Οίστρος or oestrus, which came to mean "frenzied desire". It wasn't until 1900 that the word began to be used to mean "in heat.")

Prometheus, the Titan who loved humankind, had among his gifts the ability to foresee the future. When Io wanders near the rock where he has been chained, also by Zeus, she asks him to tell her "the limit of her wanderings." At first he refuses: "better not to know than to know this," but eventually gives in, reciting a long list of places she must travel before she can rest. She learns she must cross the Caucasus and take the road south until she reaches the land of the Amazons, the tribe of women who hate men:

The Amazons will set you on your way

and gladly; you will reach Cimmeria

the isthmus, at the narrow gates of the lake.

Leave this with a good heart and cross the channel,

the channel of Maeotis: and hereafter

for all time men shall talk about your crossing,

and they shall call the place Cow's-ford. (Bosporous/Βόσπορος)

Leave Europe's mainland then, and go to Asia.

The story does have a happy ending of sorts; after many years of wandering, Prometheus tells her, Io will eventually come to rest in the land of the Nile, be turned back into human form, and become the ancestress of Hercules -- who will finally liberate Prometheus from his torment on the rock. 

(While we're at it, let's note that Io is a moon of Jupiter - Jupiter being the Roman name for Zeus - and there is an active volcano on Io called Prometheus - you can see the plume of sulpherous volcanic gas rising above the surface of Io in this photograph from the Galileo project. The reason Prometheus got chained to the rock was that he gave fire to human beings. So who says classics isn't fun?)

But back to this place of "crossing into Asia" (Bospor, Bosfor, Bosporous, Bosphorous) which has held a long fascination for me too. I'm not alone: Istanbul/Constantinople seems to be exerting a pull on others these days. Even if you're snowed-in, as we are today in Montreal, you can still wander alongside Io:

Maciej at Idle Words is back with one of his wonderfully-written travelogues, this time about a trip on the Bosfor, the aptly-named Turkish train he recently took between Bucharest and Istanbul.

With the sun already descending in the sky the train reaches the Romanian border. There is a brief stop for exit formalities, and then we are on our way way across the enormous Friendship Bridge into Bulgaria.   The Danube plays tricks here, pretending to be a small river until the train has crossed a wooded island, where it reveals its full Mississippi-like breadth and an enormous, backlit Mad Max panorama that extends as far as the eye can see on the Bulgarian shore.  

In Ruse, the industrial wonderland across the river, the train takes its first long rest. Semi-official Bulgarians amble along the sides of the cars with metal spikes and hammers in hand, perhaps looking to drive a stake through the heart of any Romanian vampire they find still clinging to the undercarriage of the train.   Meanwhile, border guards have entered the car and are making their way down the corridor, rapping on doors to check passports. I hand mine over first...

Or perhaps you'd like to read a post from Lekshe at Walking with Celebi, about how the Turkish language deals with hearsay, dreams and fairy tales.

Udge has been reading the same book as Lekshe, Orhan Pamuk's memoir Istanbul, which I wrote about here a couple of years ago.

Language Hat quotes Pamuk, writing about book-buying in Istanbul, and building a library.

And Szerelem, who often visits, describes, and photographs this enigmatic and beautiful city, shows us Istanbullu kediler, the cats of Istanbul.

So...how many of you have felt the occasional sting of Io's gadfly, or perhaps been to the Bosphor in your own wanderings? Please, let's sit by the fire and hear another story...

8 Degrees in the Crystal Palace

I wish I could show you what Parc Lafontaine looks like this morning - every branch encased in glass and sparkling as the pale sunlight over the river to the south shines through and refracts. None of the photographs I've tried to take have captured the view at all, and I felt a little better about my failures when my professional-photographer husband declined to go out this morning, saying he was never satisfied with his attempts either. Of course the temperature might have had something to do with it too!

Yesterday afternoon we walked up to Mont-Royal and bought a Christmas tree - our first in probably five years of running back and forth between places and never feeling at home for Christmas. We were all excited, and the tree - a perfect little balsam - is now set up and awaiting lights and ornaments, which we'll put on tonight with my sister-in-law who's visiting this weekend.

The man we bought the tree from sets up an enclosed sales area every year up on the main street of the neighborhood; he brings a camper and seems to live there, open for sales day and night, during the entire season. I had never met him before, and when he came out and greeted us I was absolutely stunned. "Have you ever seen such a beautiful face?" I whispered to J. as we examined the trees. "He's incredible!" he agreed.  He was medium height, and wearing a brown snowmobile-coverall, but it was the eyes that struck us, set in a chiseled but gentle countenance, surrounded by luxuriant white and sandy curls barely contained by a Santa-hat: a Renaissance face with a Zen vibe.

Another angel to go with the last ones, I think, but don't angels always visit in threes?

We got our Christmas music at rehearsal on Thursday - another folder full of gorgeous anthems and carols for a 4:00 pm service on Christmas Eve, and then the festival midnight mass.

Meanwhile, here's the music for tomorrow afternoon's broadcast:

Evensong, 4:00 pm EST

Prelude: Partita: Lo, how a rose, James Woodman (b. 1957)

Introit: Lo, how a rose e’er blooming, Michael Praetorius (1571-1621), arr. Phil Mattson

Preces and Responses: Thomas Ebdon (1738-1811)

Psalm: 102 (Wesley, Davy)

Canticles: Service in D, Ernest John Moeran (1894-1950)

Anthem: O quickly come, Antony Pitts (b. 1969) 

Postlude: Partita: Lo, how a rose, Joseph Ahrens (1904-97)

 

Three Encounters

Downtown Montreal, corner of McGill and St. Catherine, December 7, 2008

I saw her as I crossed rue Cherrier to head down Amherst on foot: standing up on the pedals of her bike to climb the last few meters of the hill, her dark shoulder-length hair glossy and perfect around a pale face in which serene black eyes gazed out evenly from beneath arched brows. She was wearing a camel-colored wool coat, fitted at the waist, double-breasted with gold military buttons -- probably from a vintage shop somewhere in the city -- tight jeans, and knee-high leather boots, and riding without a hat despite the cold wind that morning, just that shiny helmet of dark hair and those eyes that conveyed an enigmatic, untouchable elegance capable of turning heads in a busy morning intersection, let alone any small room she might have entered. Days later, she keeps riding into my thoughts.

The young woman who walked up the aisle of the cathedral in the middle of Evensong late that afternoon, her boyfriend in tow, to take a seat in the front was beautiful too but of a different species: cheeks ruddy from walking in the wind, unruly curls tumbling from a wooly hat, hands in mittens, her body bundled in a parka that she never took off. From my place in the choir, on the front steps below the altar, I could peer over my music folder and watch as she found her place in the service bulletin and pointed to the words of the hymn we were singing, eyes shining at her companion as if they had just discovered something unknown and amazing. She stood holding the leaflet, taking in a little more of the scene, and then spotted the youngest child in the treble choir, a little Asian girl barely old enough to hold her own music, who was fidgeting and swaying and turning her music upside down as she lifted her face toward the high coffered ceiling and yawned. The young woman pressed closer to her companion, delighted, nudging him to look. The hymn ended, the congregation sat, and the next anthem began. My attention shifted to the music and the conductor, and when I glanced again at the audience, the couple had disappeared.

It took until the next day, though, to remember the third encounter. I’d just come out of the metro onto St. Catherine Street to go into the cathedral for the afternoon rehearsal when I saw the young man standing in a corner by the stone wall near the steps, holding a large hand-lettered cardboard sign in front of his chest. He wore a wool toque and a non-descript grey jacket, jeans, and well-worn boots, and stood quite still, not making eye contact with anyone or saying a word. “FREE SEX” said his sign, in large capital letters, and beneath them, the word “Hetero.” No attempt at the bilingual signage here, I thought, slowing up and smiling, as the usual crowd of afternoon shoppers and visitors swirled around. I wondered if he was one of the homeless men with a particularly well-developed sense of humor, or a traveler looking for entertainment. Later I decided it was Diogenes himself, probably hopping busses and spending a day or two in different cities, with his sign and deadpan expression, looking for an honest woman with some time to spare.

Thanksgiving

 

Found in Translation

Via Language Hat, not only this list of the best literature in translation published in 2008, but the host site, at the University of Rochester, which focuses on world literature - the stuff I tend to read. I've gotten a little tired of (or disillusioned with) World Literature Today. I want to read about literary books and their authors, not about Yo-Yo Ma on the Silk Road, or to have one issue devoted to comics, and another to crime thrillers with a beautful and sexy author on the cover, as it was in the year I let my subscription lapse. This tendency toward celebrity and popularization seems to be an editorial direction there. So, thanks, LH, I'll be bookmarking this site.

Veni, Veni Emmanuel

(left: The Annunciation, from the Maesta by Duccio)

This Sunday, December 7, at 4:00 pm is a special time at our cathedral; it's the day of Advent Lessons and Carols, sung in procession in different parts of the church. I'm not sure if the broadcast will be as good quality as usual due to the changing location of the choir, but even so it would be a fine time to tune in and hear some glorious Advent music and sing along with some familiar hymns and carols.

We've just learned an exciting piece, a setting of the poem "Earthquake" by Thomas Merton, composed for the choir by the director and organist, Patrick Wedd. It's unlike anything I've ever sung, with twenty bells rung in chords by choir members and free-form chanting of the text in some places, where each of us starts and ends a phrase individually before the choir comes together again on a following phrase. (After we were solid on the vocal parts the other night, Patrick said, "OK, grab a bell!" and lots of people jumped to their feet. Never having been a bell-ringer, I stayed glued to my chair; we use the bells during the chanting of psalms and it never occurred to me that I might have to someday play one myself. Not tomorrow, thankfully, I've got my hands full enough with all this new music.

Each lesson is preceded by an antiphon, sung in Gregorian chant. When we got our folders of Advent music, I noticed that the plainchants were just that - written in the original neumes. I've never learned how to read neumes, so I had to go online and study them - how great is the internet?

After a lifetime of music, I definitely feel like I've jumped in at the deep end, especially since I joined right before a big fundraising concert and then Advent. It's exciting, challenging, a little nerve-wracking, and fun. The experienced people in my section, especially the professional singer who heads it, have been very kind and patient, and I'm trying to soak everything up and learn fast. Meanwhile, the music is truly beautiful and I feel privileged to be able to be part of making it.

Sunday Evensong is broadcast live and on the internet from 4:00 - 5:00 pm. Here's the URL for Radio Ville-Marie (click on "Nous ecouter en direct) and the musical program:

 A Procession with Lessons and Carols for Advent,  4:00 pm
 

Preludes: Veni, Emmanuel, Daniel Pinkham (1923-2006)

 “A Lovely Rose is Blooming”  Johannes Brahms (1833-1897)

 Introit: Earthquake (Isaiah 52) [text], Patrick Wedd (b.1948) 

 Antiphon: O Emmanuel 

Carol: Conditor alme siderum , Orlande de Lassus (1532-1594) 

Antiphon: O Radix Jesse

Carols: Lo, how a rose e’er blooming  Michael Praetorius (1571-1621)

Zion, at thy shining gates , Bohm Bruder (1566), arr. George Guest

Antiphon: O Virgo virginum

Carols: Nova! Nova! Ave fit ex Eva , English 15^th cent.

O quickly come,  Antony Pitts (b. 1969)

Antiphon: O Oriens 

Carols: Canite Tuba, Giovanni Pierluigi da Palestrina(1525-94)

People, look east , French traditional, arr. Martin Shaw (1875-1958) 

Antiphon: O Rex Gentium 

Carols: Never weather-beaten sail, Richard Shephard (b. 1949)

Gaudete omnes et laetamini  Jan Pieterszoon Sweelinck (1562-1621)

Postlude : Helmsley (Lo, he comes with clouds descending) from Six Fantasies on Hymn Tunes, Op. 72, Kenneth Leighton (1929-1988)

(Thank you to Donal Ward, who maintains the cathedral music calendar, for all the links.)

Accountability

 When John Ashcroft, Cheney, Powell, Rice, Rumsfeld and Tenet met in 2002 to formally approve the application of specific torture methods, Ashcroft said, "Why are we talking about this in the White House? History will not judge this kindly."

There’s an excellent piece in the December issue of Harper's Magazine by NYC attorney Scott Horton about the possibility of prosecuting the current administration for, as the author puts it, "waging war against the law itself." The article is only available online to paid subscribers - it's worth picking up a copy at your newsstand -  but I'll try to summarize the main points here.

Why, and on what grounds, should or could the administration be prosecuted?

"No prior administration has been so systematically or so brazenly lawless. Yet it is no simple matter to prosecute a former president of his senior officers. There is no precedent for such a prosecution, and even if there was, the very breadth and audacity of the administration's activities would make the process so complex as to defy systems of justice far less fragmented than our own. But that only means choices must be made. Indeed, weighing the enormity of the administration's transgressions against the realistic prospect of justice, it is possible to determine not only the crime that calls most clearly for prosecution but also the crime that is most likely to be successfully prosecuted. In both cases, that crime is torture."

I agree with Horton, and his further assessment that not only is torture "profoundly un-American" (this doesn't mean Americans haven't used it before - but that torture was explicitly banned in the statements and beliefs of the founding fathers) but that our use of torture has been instrumental in undermined our credibility in the world. I feel that the release of the photographs from Abu Ghraib was a major turning point; even our allies could no longer cover their own eyes and pretend not to see our hypocrisy. The damage was incalculable, both at home and worldwide. Nothing I had seen my country do - and we had done plenty of awful things - made me as sick as this.

The article goes on to discuss the consequences of inaction, and then various possible methods of sanction. For interesting reasons, Horton ends up ruling out both international courts and domestic courts, and suggests instead a "commission of inquiry" similar to the processes that have taken place in South Africa, Argentina, Chile, East Timor, and Peru. In the first three countries, he says the process served one function especially well :

"...the public was educated about the wretched practices of the prior regime, and demands for a clear separation from these practices - often including the rehabilitation of victims and the punishment of perpetrators - changed the landscape of public opinion."

Ideally, Horton would like to see a two-part process, which he thinks would take at least two years, and probably longer: the appointment of a commission of inquiry, and then a special prosecutor whose task would be to go after not only information but justice. These functions could be established by executive order, or created by an act of Congress that draws upon the power of the executive branch. The rest of the article talks about how the commission could be implemented.

With the massive and urgent problems facing the new administration, I very much doubt that such an accounting will happen, but I fervently wish it would. My personal reason is not a desire for vengeance (what many people really mean when they say "justice") against Bush, Cheney, and their colleagues, but for a light that would illuminate, both for us and for history, exactly how this administration has trampled on human rights and on the law that is the base on which true democracy rests. Restorative justice works when crimes are exposed to public scrutiny  -- the process is an admission, first of all, that these are crimes which should concern us because they are actually crimes against us. But the process also works the other way: the public assumes its proper role as controllers of their own government, with responsibility for the actions that take place in our name.  In such a public  process there usually follows a demand for reparations, apology, collective repentance, and prescription for societal change and renewal that will help prevent a recurrence.

Without such a process, I doubt if true change, let alone healing, can ever take place. However, rather than taking our collective responsibility beyond the voting booth, I don't see America taking such a task seriously; instead, we are investing all our hopes in one man's ability to make change happen; we are already in a hurry to move on.

But what do you think?

Improbably Serene

Chris Corrigan's rock-balancing photos. Settle down, take some deep breaths, and watch the slideshow.

I came upon these after reading Chris's excellent comments following the recent Canadian political reversals, "The new politics in North America." (Via Marja-Leena Rathje.)