Prague - July 2016

 The 'Fred and Ginger' building by Frank Gehry - Prague July 2016

Miles - The Autobiography

 

 

I am reading a new book this week.  The autobiography of Miles Davis.  I never knew this book existed until I accidentally saw it in a list of  'best music bios'.  I'm up to about 1958 and Miles has just recorded Milestones with his sextet at the time, which featured the great saxophinists John Coltrane and Cannonball Adderley.

It's an entertaining read and not at all what I expected.  I'm not sure I'd put it up a list of 'greats', but if you have a vague interest in his life and the music of his era then put it on your list.  There's great passages about Charlie Parker, John Coltrane and other greats.  Miles doesn't hold back in the criticism of people who he thought were undeserving of attention.  He has no time for the racist attitudes in America either and expresses his views in strong terms.

Recommended for music lovers.

Until next time, peace and love.

 Postscript: I finished this book and have to say I really enjoyed it.  What a life he lived.  Although as a human being Miles Davis made a great musician.  There's no doubt he was a very difficult person and some of the story casts him in a very unfavourable way.  And yet it his story and he was willing to tell it in all its ugliness and rawness.  Above everything else he was all about finding new sounds and exploring his art to the end.  I highly recommend this book.

Richard Flanagan - The Living Sea of Waking Dreams

 

Richard Flanagan has a new book - The Living Sea of Waking Dreams.  As I think he is one of Australia's greatest authors I ordered a copy as soon as it was released and read it in a couple of days.  Set at the time of Australia's 2020 bushfire season, the story centres around a dying elderly mother and the 'management' of her decline by her three children.  

As the apocalyptic bushfires consume Australia a strange phenomenon affects some of the central characters - parts of their bodies start to disappear; their fingers, a knee, eyes even.   More strangely, other people do not notice these absent features.  The seemingly imminent extinction of the orange bellied parrot also features in the story.  While these events occur, characters disappear into their phones, consuming news and social media, all so they can escape having to acknowledge the terrible events surrounding them.

This is a book about our culture of indifference to suffering and the seemingly inexorable death of the planet.  At times I found it grim reading, but Flanagan's wonderful writing kept me hooked.  For me there was a note of hope in the ending which pulled me out of the darkness.

Recommended reading to anyone who can read.

Until next time, peace and love.

The Hare with Amber Eyes and the Ephrussi family

The Palais Ephrussi in Vienna in August 2016

In 2013 I read a fascinating book by Edmund De Waal titled The Hare with Amber Eyes which tells the story of the Ephrussi family and their descendants, of which De Waal is one, from the early 19th century through to the present day.  The title of the book is taken from a netsuke (pronounced nets-skay) in De Waal's posession which has been passed down to him through the family.  A netsuke is a small hand carved figurine from Japan typically made from wood or in some cases ivory.  Netsuke can be centuries old and extremely valuable as pieces of art.  De Waal inherited a collection of 264 netsuke from an uncle.

De Waal tracks the history of how the netsuke came to be in the family and in doing so goes back to the origins of the Ephrussi family in Odessa in Russia.  The Ephrussi family became wealthy from the grain business in Russia and sent their sons off the to the capitals of Europe to make their fortunes in banking and business.  One of the sons settles in Paris and not having much interest in business becomes a patron of the arts and a fixture in the Paris salons.  This happens to coincide with the Meiji era in Japan where that country started to open up to the rest of the world after centuries of isolation.  Japanese objet d'art became all the rage among the elites in Paris and the Ephrussi family soon acquired Japanese art, including the collection of netsuke, to go along with their growing collection of European art.

 The Hare with Amber Eyes on exhibition*

Jumping forward to the 1930's the netsuke are passed down through the family and end up in Vienna.  The Ephrussi family by this stage are wealthy financiers and art collectors and reside in grand Palais Ephrussi on the Vienna Ringstrasse in the centre of the city.  In 1938 the Nazis annex Austria (the Anschluss) and establish their headquarters in the Palais Ephrussi, evicting the family and taking possession of the family's artworks and valuables, including the netsuke.  The family lose everything and spend what money they have in escaping to Britain.

I won't reveal anymore, but how the netsuke come to return to the Ephrussi family is extraordinary and tragic at the same time.  Of the family fortune nothing was ever repatriated to the family and the artworks disappeared across Europe.  After the war the Austrian Government also refused to hand back the Palais Ephrussi to the family.  It still stands in the centre of Vienna and the photo above is one I took when I visited the city in 2016.  After having read the book it was a wonderful experience to find the Palais and reflect on the history which played out within its walls.

In 2014 I visited Japan and found some netsuke for sale in a shop in Nikko.  A beautiful  little town which has a rich history itself.  I never purchased the netsuke, a decision I regret now, but one I hope to rectify one day if I ever travel again to Japan.

I cannot recommend The Hare with Amber Eyes enough as a book.  It spans a tumultuous time in European history and is beautiful and tragic and never less than fascinating.

Here's a short video of Edmund De Waal speaking about netsuke.

Until next time, peace and love.

 *By Gryffindor - Own work, CC BY-SA 4.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=53413030