Hi everyone: (or one or two people as the case may be) I’ve added another episode to the ongoing saga of my stay in France. The story will soon veer into the realm of gothic horror, but for now it’s still a slightly comical tale of frivolous mishaps. You can find all episodes under the Travel Blog tab.

I was supposed to be drafting yet another agent submission but instead I became captivated by the music I had chosen to listen to while I worked. I had to watch the entire Concerto and was transfixed by the pianist, Daniil Trifonov. He did not play the Concerto, he was the Concerto. This diabolically difficult piece took every ounce of energy he possessed such that, in the few rests, he sat bowed over the piano in total stillness without even pausing to wipe his brow, though he was bathed in sweat throughout the performance. I don’t think that running a marathon would generate such complete and utter physical exhaustion or demand what Trifonov goes through in generating this monumental piece through the very DNA of his being. The music seemed to run through him like an electrical current. A marathon runner expends physical energy but only needs to keep calm mentally, a pianist of this calibre must not only be able to endure the physical demands of the piece but also has to experience every emotion, no matter how painful, without being able to protect himself from it. He must suffer as Rachmaninov suffered and he must also somehow remember all 30, 000 notes of it. Watching him one is faced with the dizzying prospect of the years of work this must have taken him to master, the relentless hours of study, repetition, interpretation, and emotional attention to every nuance of the piece. Such a life must be one of almost total self-denial, complete devotion to the craft, with very little time left for a normal life.

Very few people have the character to give themselves over to an art in such an absolute way, without thought for their own needs. It is frightening to watch him play. You worry that this is too much for a frail human body to undertake, too arduous, this is music that exists at such heights that the human body is not equipped to survive at this altitude and yet, he does. The Rachmaninov 3 is a pianist’s Everest and Trifonov has just summited without the aid of oxygen.

Watch the concert here: http://bit.ly/2meStzA

A public service announcement for the other section of this website which doesn’t get as much traffic as the Home Page: I’ve just posted a new entry from my Travel Journal, a memoir of Six Harrowing Months spent in the south of France. If you don’t believe such a thing is possible, read on…

My friend, John Luna, posted this eerie account about Robert Desnos and of how,  on what would have been his last day, he changed his fate: A firsthand account about Robert Desnos, then a political prisoner in the camps: Even in the grimmest of circumstances, a shift in perspective can create startling change. I am thinking of a story I heard a few years ago from my friend Odette, a writer and a survivor of the holocaust. Along with many others who crowd the bed of a large truck, she tells me, Robert Desnos is being taken away from the barracks of the concentration camp where he has been held prisoner. Leaving the barracks, the mood is somber; everyone knows the truck is headed for the gas chambers. And when the truck arrives no one can speak at all; even the guards fall silent. But this silence is soon interrupted by an energetic man, who jumps into the line and grabs one of the condemned. Improbable as it is, Odette explains, Desnos reads the man’s palm. Oh, he says, I see you have a very long lifeline. And you are going to have three children. He is exuberant. And his excitement is contagious. First one man, then another, offers up his hand, and the prediction is for longevity, more children, abundant joy.
As Desnos reads more palms, not only does the mood of the prisoners change but that of the guards too. How can one explain it? Perhaps the element of surprise has planted a shadow of doubt in their minds. If they told themselves these deaths were inevitable, this no longer seems so inarguable. They are in any case so disoriented by this sudden change of mood among those they are about to kill that they are unable to go through with the executions. So all the men, along with Desnos, are packed back onto the truck and taken back to the barracks. Desnos has saved his own life and the lives of others by using his imagination.

Over the last few weeks I became completely addicted to this Turkish Period Drama, Kurt Seyit and Shura, some 46 episodes of emotional and political turmoil. The drama is cast with extravagantly beautiful actors who float through the gorgeous sets and locations in spectacular costumes and proceed to rip your heart to shreds with a complex and agonizingly drawn-out plot that gives no quarter. Star-crossed lovers indeed. This makes Romeo and Juliet look like a walk in the proverbial park of love.

Kurt Seyit is a gallant officer in the Tsar’s army fighting during WWI, but he’s from Crimea and of Turkish extraction. He falls in love with the lovely but very young and naive Shura, a Russian aristocrat. Their families are against the match and, to make things worse, Seyit’s friend, Petro, has a bad case of envy and resentment against his old school and army friend.

The role of Shura is played by the lovely Farah Zeynep Abdullah, who is somehow able to portray a young girl falling in love without coming across as sentimental or silly. Her acting is very natural, believable and emotionally searing. She truly makes you believe that she is this naive young girl who goes through a painful transformation to adulthood in the course of one tragedy after another. By the end she is quite a different person, flawed in her handling of the difficulties she and Seyit face, but very compelling.

Kurt Seyit, played by  Kivanc Tatlitug, for some reason described as the Turkish Brad Pitt, is too much himself to be compared to any other actor: not only handsome and magnetic, he is also a natural actor: you forget he is acting. For an extremely handsome man he is also somehow devoid of ego and has a natural nobility that goes beyond star power. He quite simply is Kurt Seyit and you believe him all the way. The man could carry a dramatized version of the Tax Code – you would watch it to the end and enjoy it. I defy any woman to finish this series without developing a hopeless crush on this character.

The story is fascinating, well-acted (except for a few rather stiff secondary roles) and although the director makes a few odd decisions when it comes to the use of  flashbacks, etc, the series has a powerful emotional intensity and a heartbreaking chemistry between Kurt Seyit (his nickname is Seyit the Wolf) and Shura. The first 8 episodes are probably the most romantic television you will ever watch.

The plot is quite complex and the writer has made an effort to flesh out the characters and go into their backstories. We are shown Seyit’s family in Crimea and it becomes evident that there is a vast cultural gulf between the Russian aristocrats of Petersburg and the wealthy Turkish landowners of Crimea. The scenes in Crimea explain much about Seyit’s character and his profound attachment to his family, especially to his autocratic father.

And now that I have emerged after 46 episodes, I have to get back to reading War and Peace, doing housework and maybe cooking something other than toast. During my addiction, I somehow acquired a working knowledge of the Turkish language…

“Character is destiny.” I don’t think we can get away from this absolute truth. Even if your fate sometimes shapes your life, how you react to the vagaries of fate is defined by your character. Some people keel over at the slightest setback, others stand firm even when life hits them over the head with a metaphorical plank.

The following excerpt will put our current troubles into perspective. This is what people in the Middle Ages had to contend with: “In France’s misfortunes a young man of twenty, Charles, King of Navarre, grandson of Louis X, saw his opportunity. Whether he really aimed at the French crown, or at revenge for wrongs done him, or at stirring trouble for its own sake like Iago, is a riddle concealed in one of the most complex characters of the 14th century. A small slight youth with glistening eyes and a voluble flow of words, he was volatile, intelligent, charming, violent, cunning as a fox, ambitious as Lucifer, and more truly than Byron “mad, bad and dangerous to know.” Seductive and eloquent, he could persuade his peers or sway a mob. He allowed himself the same unbridled acts of passion as Jean and other rulers, but, unlike Jean, he was a plotter, subtle, bold, absolutely without scruple, but so swerving and unfixed of purpose as to undo his own plots. His only constancy was hate. He is known to history as Charles the Bad.” From Barbara Tuchman’s brilliant history of the 14th Century.

From War and Peace by Leo Tolstoy – Prince Andrey has been wounded in battle against Napoleon’s troops and lies in a French field hospital. Napoleon himself stops at his bedside during an inspection.

“And you, young man,” (asks Napoleon), “how are you feeling, mon brave?”

Although five minutes previously Prince Andrey had been able to say a few words to the soldiers who were carrying him, he was silent now, with his eyes fastened directly upon Napoleon. So trivial seemed to him at that moment all the interests that were engrossing Napoleon, so petty seemed to him his hero, with his paltry vanity and glee of victory, in comparison with that lofty, righteous, and kindly sky which he had seen and comprehended, that he could not answer him. And all indeed seemed to him so trifling and unprofitable beside the stern and solemn train of thought aroused in him by weakness from loss of blood, by suffering and the nearness of death. Gazing into Napoleon’s eyes, Prince Andrey mused on the nothingness of greatness, on the nothingness of life, of which no one could comprehend the significance, and on the nothingness —still more—of death, the meaning of which could be understood and explained by none of the living.”

I thought this was a relevant quote given the US 2016 election results.

Some of the earliest words of the Buddha to be written down:

“Let no one deceive another, nor despise anyone anywhere.

As a mother protects her child with boundless love and kindness,

cherish the world, love without limit.”

Something to provide comfort in this strife-torn world.

“Our minds are instruments of transcendence.”

– Thomas Nagel, American philosopher