An outtake from the 1971 film, “Nicholas And Alexandra”.
The film is not very good, but Pauline Kael was unnecessarily unkind to the film in her notorious New Yorker review.
Wednesday, August 1, 2012
“Two Dunces Sitting On A Volcano”
An outtake from the 1971 film, “Nicholas And Alexandra”.
The film is not very good, but Pauline Kael was unnecessarily unkind to the film in her notorious New Yorker review.
Three Years Ago Today
Three years ago today, we were in Munich.
In the early morning, while exploring churches, we caught a portion of the morning mass at Saint Anna Damenstiftskirche, a small 18th-Century Baroque church in central Munich.
Four Years Ago Today
Four years ago today, we were in London.
In the late afternoon, we attended Evensong Service at Westminster Abbey.
The Westminster Abbey Evensong turned out to be an eyeball-rolling multicultural affair. We were appalled at the twaddle on offer.
“One is required to check one’s IQ at the door in order to make it through this” was Andrew’s father’s characterization of the service.
Myself, I got through the proceedings by reading Pauline Kael’s celebrated “Come Dressed As The Sick Soul Of Europe” essay from 1963.
Still, I nearly lost it at the Abbey.
Tuesday, July 31, 2012
Three Years Ago Today
Three years ago today, we were in Munich, Germany.
We spent most of that day simply walking around the center of the city as well as visiting churches.
One of the historic attractions we visited that day was Hofbräuhaus, which my father particularly wanted to see because of its associations with Adolf Hitler. We examined the exterior of Hofbräuhaus, but we did not go inside to examine the interior, as Hofbräuhaus still serves as a beer hall—and we are, basically, teetotalers.
We saw most Munich attractions associated with Hitler in our long, self-guided walk through the streets of Munich that day, a walk that made us thoroughly exhausted by late afternoon.
Friday, July 27, 2012
Sereny’s Final Interview With Stangl
After already conducting more than 70 hours of interviews with Franz Stangl, former Commandant of Sobibor and Treblinka, author Gitta Sereny scheduled her final visit with Stangl for June 27, 1971.
For her final visit, Sereny determined that she must press Stangl, one final time, for an answer on the question of guilt.
________________________________________________
"My conscience is clear about what I did, myself," he said, in the same stiffly spoken words he had used countless times at his trial, and in the past weeks, when we had always come back to this subject, over and over again.
But this time I said nothing.
He paused and waited, but the room remained silent.
"I have never intentionally hurt anyone, myself," he said, with a different, less incisive emphasis, and waited again—for a long time.
For the first time, in all these many days, I had given him no help. There was no more time.
He gripped the table with both hands as if he was holding onto it.
"But I was there," he said then, in a curiously dry and tired tone of resignation.
These few sentences had taken almost half an hour to pronounce.
"So, yes," he said finally, very quietly. “In reality, I share the guilt. Because my guilt . . . my guilt . . . only now in these talks . . . now that I have talked about it all for the first time . . ."
He stopped.
He had pronounced the words "my guilt"—but more than the words, the finality of it was in the sagging of his body, and on his face.
After more than a minute, he started again, a half-hearted attempt, in a dull voice. "My guilt," he said, "is that I am still here. That is my guilt.”
________________________________________________
A few hours after Sereny's final interview with Stangl had concluded, Stangl, age 63, suffered a massive coronary and died.
For her final visit, Sereny determined that she must press Stangl, one final time, for an answer on the question of guilt.
________________________________________________
"My conscience is clear about what I did, myself," he said, in the same stiffly spoken words he had used countless times at his trial, and in the past weeks, when we had always come back to this subject, over and over again.
But this time I said nothing.
He paused and waited, but the room remained silent.
"I have never intentionally hurt anyone, myself," he said, with a different, less incisive emphasis, and waited again—for a long time.
For the first time, in all these many days, I had given him no help. There was no more time.
He gripped the table with both hands as if he was holding onto it.
"But I was there," he said then, in a curiously dry and tired tone of resignation.
These few sentences had taken almost half an hour to pronounce.
"So, yes," he said finally, very quietly. “In reality, I share the guilt. Because my guilt . . . my guilt . . . only now in these talks . . . now that I have talked about it all for the first time . . ."
He stopped.
He had pronounced the words "my guilt"—but more than the words, the finality of it was in the sagging of his body, and on his face.
After more than a minute, he started again, a half-hearted attempt, in a dull voice. "My guilt," he said, "is that I am still here. That is my guilt.”
________________________________________________
A few hours after Sereny's final interview with Stangl had concluded, Stangl, age 63, suffered a massive coronary and died.
Thursday, July 26, 2012
Cargo
Franz Stangl, Commandant of Sobibor and Treblinka, probably no more anti-Semitic than most Austrian provincials of the time, became entirely conditioned to violence and disastrously corrupted by it.
Toward the end of our long conversations in Düsseldorf prison in 1971, I asked Stangl whether it would be true to say that he got used to the liquidations.
“To tell the truth, one did become used to it” he said slowly.
“Would it be true to say that you finally felt they weren’t really human beings?” I asked.
He answered, “When I was on a trip once years later in Brazil, my train stopped next to a slaughter house. The cattle in the pens trotted up to the fence and stared at the steaming, hissing train. They were very close to my window, one crowding the other, looking at me through that fence. I thought then: Look at this. This reminds me of Poland. That’s just how the people looked, trustingly, before they went into the tins.”
I interrupted. “You said ‘tins’. What do you mean?”
But he went on without hearing or answering me.
“I couldn’t eat tinned meat after that” was his only response.
“So you didn’t feel they were human beings?” I asked again.
He said tonelessly, “Cargo. They were cargo.”
Gitta Sereny, recounting her conversations with Stangl while conducting research for her book, “Into That Darkness: An Examination Of Conscience”
Toward the end of our long conversations in Düsseldorf prison in 1971, I asked Stangl whether it would be true to say that he got used to the liquidations.
“To tell the truth, one did become used to it” he said slowly.
“Would it be true to say that you finally felt they weren’t really human beings?” I asked.
He answered, “When I was on a trip once years later in Brazil, my train stopped next to a slaughter house. The cattle in the pens trotted up to the fence and stared at the steaming, hissing train. They were very close to my window, one crowding the other, looking at me through that fence. I thought then: Look at this. This reminds me of Poland. That’s just how the people looked, trustingly, before they went into the tins.”
I interrupted. “You said ‘tins’. What do you mean?”
But he went on without hearing or answering me.
“I couldn’t eat tinned meat after that” was his only response.
“So you didn’t feel they were human beings?” I asked again.
He said tonelessly, “Cargo. They were cargo.”
Gitta Sereny, recounting her conversations with Stangl while conducting research for her book, “Into That Darkness: An Examination Of Conscience”
Tuesday, July 24, 2012
Monday, July 23, 2012
Saturday, July 21, 2012
Twinkle Toes Tiddly Pooh: The Elaborate Can-Can
A visitor from Sutton Coldfield, United Kingdom, entered a comment on an earlier post that deserves its own special recognition.
We are up at the lake this weekend—it is the first of three consecutive weekends we shall spend at the lake—and we are sitting out on the deck that overlooks the water, playing with our laptops (there is no television at the lake house).
It is dark, the kids are in bed, asleep, and the dog is snoozing—or at least he was until a very short time ago, when we all began laughing ourselves silly.
The comment I reproduce is hilarious. We are all howling, trying to keep the volume down so as not to wake the kids. The dog is excited, seeing that we are having fun, but he cannot understand what the fuss is about.
Even Andrew’s mother, the world’s most graceful and elegant and refined woman, is beside herself, joking that she may need to be hospitalized if she cannot stop herself laughing soon.
Lizbeth, a psychiatrist, is prepared heartily to affirm the commenter’s diagnosis at the end of his remarks.
________________________________________________
I have a great story to tell. I think you’ll like it.
My wife and I live in Birmingham. In December, we went to hear CBSO play Bruckner’s Seventh Symphony.
Nikolaj Znaider was called in to conduct as last-minute replacement. In the UK, Znaider is always the conductor called in at the last minute because his engagement book is never filled. He is always available. Halle, Liverpool, Birmingham: all can call him at the last minute, knowing he is free and his fee is low.
We bought our tickets before Znaider was booked as replacement conductor. With some reluctance, and no enthusiasm, we attended the concert.
I would not have missed the concert for the world.
Znaider came onstage and started flashing his jacket to show the audience that its linings were bright red. He played with the flaps for two minutes, maybe three, swishing around repeatedly, to show everyone the sparkly red. It was as if he were a contestant in a beauty contest. Only when Znaider was done flashing and swishing was the concert allowed to start.
The first half of the concert was a new organ symphony. Was the performance good? I have no idea. It was a new work.
The second half of the concert was Bruckner.
Znaider came out after the interval and stood on the podium. With swashbuckling showmanship and sweeping motions, he raised his arms as if to begin. The musicians raised their instruments.
Then, with great ostentation, Znaider picked up the conductor’s music stand and made a soaring, storklike, excessively dramatic waving gesture. Two musicians had to rise, take the music stand from him, and place it behind him.
Naturally, all this had been arranged in advance. Znaider obviously knew he was going to conduct without a score, but nevertheless had insisted that a music stand be present so that it could be dramatically and ostentatiously removed in full view of the audience.
Need I mention that once he lifted the music stand, Znaider could easily have moved it himself, and placed it anywhere he wanted? He could have simply turned around and placed the stand behind him. Instead, he had to have two musicians do it for him, with much ceremony and fanfare, so that no one in the hall could possibly miss his pretentiousness.
It gets better.
During the Bruckner, in addition to flashing his jacket so that the audience could continue to see the sparkly red, Znaider started swishing around and playing with his feet so that he could constantly show the soles of his shoes to the audience.
The soles of his shoes were bright red.
He would display his soles to the right, and then to the left, and then straight behind. Then he would start all over again. He made sure that every single person in the hall knew he was wearing shoes with bright red soles. This elaborate can-can went on for 70 minutes, the duration of the symphony.
It was all we could do to keep from devolving into hysteria. People all around us were suppressing giggles, stuffing handkerchiefs down their throats, while watching Twinkle Toes Tiddly Pooh manhandle Bruckner, more concerned with flashing his jacket and flashing his shoes than holding a performance together.
In more than thirty years of concerts, I have never seen anything like it. It was Monty Pythonesque.
Need I add that the performance of the Bruckner was incomparably incompetent?
Znaider quite clearly has numerous psychiatric issues to address.
And I’m qualified to make that diagnosis. I work at Birmingham’s Queen Elizabeth Psychiatric Hospital.
We are up at the lake this weekend—it is the first of three consecutive weekends we shall spend at the lake—and we are sitting out on the deck that overlooks the water, playing with our laptops (there is no television at the lake house).
It is dark, the kids are in bed, asleep, and the dog is snoozing—or at least he was until a very short time ago, when we all began laughing ourselves silly.
The comment I reproduce is hilarious. We are all howling, trying to keep the volume down so as not to wake the kids. The dog is excited, seeing that we are having fun, but he cannot understand what the fuss is about.
Even Andrew’s mother, the world’s most graceful and elegant and refined woman, is beside herself, joking that she may need to be hospitalized if she cannot stop herself laughing soon.
Lizbeth, a psychiatrist, is prepared heartily to affirm the commenter’s diagnosis at the end of his remarks.
________________________________________________
I have a great story to tell. I think you’ll like it.
My wife and I live in Birmingham. In December, we went to hear CBSO play Bruckner’s Seventh Symphony.
Nikolaj Znaider was called in to conduct as last-minute replacement. In the UK, Znaider is always the conductor called in at the last minute because his engagement book is never filled. He is always available. Halle, Liverpool, Birmingham: all can call him at the last minute, knowing he is free and his fee is low.
We bought our tickets before Znaider was booked as replacement conductor. With some reluctance, and no enthusiasm, we attended the concert.
I would not have missed the concert for the world.
Znaider came onstage and started flashing his jacket to show the audience that its linings were bright red. He played with the flaps for two minutes, maybe three, swishing around repeatedly, to show everyone the sparkly red. It was as if he were a contestant in a beauty contest. Only when Znaider was done flashing and swishing was the concert allowed to start.
The first half of the concert was a new organ symphony. Was the performance good? I have no idea. It was a new work.
The second half of the concert was Bruckner.
Znaider came out after the interval and stood on the podium. With swashbuckling showmanship and sweeping motions, he raised his arms as if to begin. The musicians raised their instruments.
Then, with great ostentation, Znaider picked up the conductor’s music stand and made a soaring, storklike, excessively dramatic waving gesture. Two musicians had to rise, take the music stand from him, and place it behind him.
Naturally, all this had been arranged in advance. Znaider obviously knew he was going to conduct without a score, but nevertheless had insisted that a music stand be present so that it could be dramatically and ostentatiously removed in full view of the audience.
Need I mention that once he lifted the music stand, Znaider could easily have moved it himself, and placed it anywhere he wanted? He could have simply turned around and placed the stand behind him. Instead, he had to have two musicians do it for him, with much ceremony and fanfare, so that no one in the hall could possibly miss his pretentiousness.
It gets better.
During the Bruckner, in addition to flashing his jacket so that the audience could continue to see the sparkly red, Znaider started swishing around and playing with his feet so that he could constantly show the soles of his shoes to the audience.
The soles of his shoes were bright red.
He would display his soles to the right, and then to the left, and then straight behind. Then he would start all over again. He made sure that every single person in the hall knew he was wearing shoes with bright red soles. This elaborate can-can went on for 70 minutes, the duration of the symphony.
It was all we could do to keep from devolving into hysteria. People all around us were suppressing giggles, stuffing handkerchiefs down their throats, while watching Twinkle Toes Tiddly Pooh manhandle Bruckner, more concerned with flashing his jacket and flashing his shoes than holding a performance together.
In more than thirty years of concerts, I have never seen anything like it. It was Monty Pythonesque.
Need I add that the performance of the Bruckner was incomparably incompetent?
Znaider quite clearly has numerous psychiatric issues to address.
And I’m qualified to make that diagnosis. I work at Birmingham’s Queen Elizabeth Psychiatric Hospital.
Thursday, July 19, 2012
. . . But He Wears A Great Lipstick
The man may have fatal character flaws . . . but he wears a GREAT lipstick.
It is undeniable that Nikolaj Znaider can CARRY the fully-made-up look!
Have readers seen any other man who can do it half so well?
Happily, Znaider does not confine himself to one shade of lipstick.
And, I believe, such is the right choice for him.
After all, why would a man want to restrict himself to painting his lips pink, and only pink, when he can wear other colors, too?
And with such flair!
In fairness, Znaider’s primary makeup designer deserves some credit, too. Her name is Mindy Saad.
Ms. Saad’s job cannot have been an easy one, because Znaider looks like one person while sporting makeup and like an entirely different person when caught “without”.
Admirable as is the work of Ms. Saad (whose clientele, Znaider aside, is overwhelmingly female), Znaider uses other makeup designers, too. Znaider’s makeup needs are too substantial to be satisfied by one—and only one—makeup artist.
In fact, I am going to reveal a secret: Andrew has been working, on and off, for more than three months, on a weblog post devoted to the subject of Znaider’s makeup design and makeup history.
It surely will be the only such entry on the worldwide web!
The post promises to be a veritable encyclopedia on the subject of Znaider and makeup, going back to the mid-1990s. The post will feature before-and-after photographs as well as comprehensive makeup-designer and photographic credits.
More enticing still, the post will include an analysis of Znaider’s rapid weight gains and losses since the early 2000s; his changing hair styles and hair colors (as will be seen, Znaider has laid out a small fortune in hair dye and home permanents over the years); and a history of the evolution of Znaider’s concert attire, from white-tie-and-tails at the beginning of his career, onto three succeeding generations of what can only be described as bizarre, Liberace-style getups, until arriving at the cheap, off-the-rack business suits he wears today. (Znaider’s fees are much, much, much lower than Anne-Sophie Mutter’s or Maxim Vengerov’s fees—and Znaider has far more urgent uses for his cash than spending it on concert attire.)
Andrew’s post will conclude with a series of photographs of Znaider over the last six years, in which the photographs will demonstrate, almost month-by-month, the fewer and fewer highs and more and more lows of Znaider’s life—and the vast deterioration that has set in since 2006. Some of the photographs, in fact, are painfully sad to examine; they almost make me feel sorry for Znaider, although his problems are entirely of his own making.
The bounteous cornucopia of delights described above will be anchored by what may prove to be Andrew’s funniest narrative ever. I have seen the first couple of drafts, in the works since April, and I practically went into conniption fits both times.
Andrew says he won’t have time to finish the project until sometime in September, because he has too many briefs to write at work. I believe, however, that patience will be rewarded.
Until Andrew’s weblog post emerges, readers will have to sustain themselves by imagining they are in Caracas, Venezuela, tomorrow night, attending a benefit concert for one of Hugo Chavez’s favorite charities. Znaider, heavily made-up and wearing a cheap suit, will—according to Reuters—be whisked through the pothole-riven streets of Caracas, passing numerous hand-sprayed anti-Semitic signs that mar the building facades of the decaying metropolis, finally to be delivered at the door of the main concert hall, where Znaider will perform alongside Chavez’s leading propagandistic tool to the outside world, the Simon Bolivar Orchestra.
This assumes, of course, that Znaider will not be the victim of an anti-Semitic assault on his person between now and tomorrow night.
This also assumes that Znaider will not cancel at the last minute, which he has been exceedingly prone to do the last couple of years.
Tickets to the concert are still available.
The exercise will be repeated on Sunday.
Think pink.
It is undeniable that Nikolaj Znaider can CARRY the fully-made-up look!
Have readers seen any other man who can do it half so well?
Happily, Znaider does not confine himself to one shade of lipstick.
And, I believe, such is the right choice for him.
After all, why would a man want to restrict himself to painting his lips pink, and only pink, when he can wear other colors, too?
And with such flair!
In fairness, Znaider’s primary makeup designer deserves some credit, too. Her name is Mindy Saad.
Ms. Saad’s job cannot have been an easy one, because Znaider looks like one person while sporting makeup and like an entirely different person when caught “without”.
Admirable as is the work of Ms. Saad (whose clientele, Znaider aside, is overwhelmingly female), Znaider uses other makeup designers, too. Znaider’s makeup needs are too substantial to be satisfied by one—and only one—makeup artist.
In fact, I am going to reveal a secret: Andrew has been working, on and off, for more than three months, on a weblog post devoted to the subject of Znaider’s makeup design and makeup history.
It surely will be the only such entry on the worldwide web!
The post promises to be a veritable encyclopedia on the subject of Znaider and makeup, going back to the mid-1990s. The post will feature before-and-after photographs as well as comprehensive makeup-designer and photographic credits.
More enticing still, the post will include an analysis of Znaider’s rapid weight gains and losses since the early 2000s; his changing hair styles and hair colors (as will be seen, Znaider has laid out a small fortune in hair dye and home permanents over the years); and a history of the evolution of Znaider’s concert attire, from white-tie-and-tails at the beginning of his career, onto three succeeding generations of what can only be described as bizarre, Liberace-style getups, until arriving at the cheap, off-the-rack business suits he wears today. (Znaider’s fees are much, much, much lower than Anne-Sophie Mutter’s or Maxim Vengerov’s fees—and Znaider has far more urgent uses for his cash than spending it on concert attire.)
Andrew’s post will conclude with a series of photographs of Znaider over the last six years, in which the photographs will demonstrate, almost month-by-month, the fewer and fewer highs and more and more lows of Znaider’s life—and the vast deterioration that has set in since 2006. Some of the photographs, in fact, are painfully sad to examine; they almost make me feel sorry for Znaider, although his problems are entirely of his own making.
The bounteous cornucopia of delights described above will be anchored by what may prove to be Andrew’s funniest narrative ever. I have seen the first couple of drafts, in the works since April, and I practically went into conniption fits both times.
Andrew says he won’t have time to finish the project until sometime in September, because he has too many briefs to write at work. I believe, however, that patience will be rewarded.
Until Andrew’s weblog post emerges, readers will have to sustain themselves by imagining they are in Caracas, Venezuela, tomorrow night, attending a benefit concert for one of Hugo Chavez’s favorite charities. Znaider, heavily made-up and wearing a cheap suit, will—according to Reuters—be whisked through the pothole-riven streets of Caracas, passing numerous hand-sprayed anti-Semitic signs that mar the building facades of the decaying metropolis, finally to be delivered at the door of the main concert hall, where Znaider will perform alongside Chavez’s leading propagandistic tool to the outside world, the Simon Bolivar Orchestra.
This assumes, of course, that Znaider will not be the victim of an anti-Semitic assault on his person between now and tomorrow night.
This also assumes that Znaider will not cancel at the last minute, which he has been exceedingly prone to do the last couple of years.
Tickets to the concert are still available.
The exercise will be repeated on Sunday.
Think pink.