A Very Fine Romance

Heavenly Beautiful Helen Mirren

2008-02-25T16:16:00.000-08:00

I am going to be disobedient only for today and write because of a statement I saw in the newpaper this morning.

Last night I did not watch The Academy Awards. Actually I have not viewed the show since the early 1990s, and that was when I was in Peace Corps in Botswana. There a condensed two hour version of the show was beamed in from South Africa. Those Batswana with television sets soaked up the program.

Over the years I have become less and less of a TV watcher since there is so little on the tube that interests me. Also TV watching is so passive, and I love to partake in activities where I can participate and contribute. The fare on US television is so pedestrian or too salacious nowadays that I really do not want to waste my time.

Anyhow, this morning when I glanced at the section of my town's/city's newspaper, I rather liked the comment made about award winning actress Helen Mirren (62), "A-A-R-P and H-O-T!" AARP is an abbreviation for the American Association of Retired Persons a non-profit organization whose mission is to enhance the lives of people over 50. My parents receive their monthly magazine. Dame Helen Mirren is a British citizen, so she would not qualify for the organization's services.

I have been fascinated by Helen Mirren since I first saw her playing the part of King Arthur's evil sister Morgana in the 1981 movie Excalibur. She could easily pass for an older sister of my Russian friend Tanya. As it so happens, Ms. Mirren is the paternal granddaughter of a Russian nobleman, soldier, and diplomat who was stranded with his family in England when the Russian Revolution broke out in 1917, and her great great grandfather Mikhail Kamensky was a hero during the Napoleonic Wars. Dame Helen's stage name is Helen Mirren but her birth name is the very Russian Ilyena Vasilievna Mironov. However, she is not fluent in Russian.

It is said that as wine ages it gets better. Helen Mirren shows that this can also be true with some people. She was stunning and stately last night as more photos which can be seen here can attest.

Helen Mirren describes herself as being "famous for being cool about not being gorgeous."

Baghdad In the Past

2008-02-24T23:45:00.000-08:00

This is a video of sights in old Baghdad. Most of what is seen here is long before the Saddam era.

Night Ride Across the Caucasus

2008-02-24T16:00:00.000-08:00

The photo above was taken by the Russian photographer Sergei Mikhailovich Prokudin-Gorski in the early 1900s in Dagestan in the Caucasus.

Though small the Caucasus or Caucasia is one of the most linguistically, ethnically, and culturally diverse regions on earth. The region is bordered by Russia, Turkey, Iran, and the Caspian and Black Seas.

The following video is called Night Ride Across the Caucasus. The singer is Loreena McKennitt.

Some Americans may remember what some call Russia's equivalent to 9/11, the Beslan School Massacre, where over 300 civilians who were mostly children were killed by Chechen militants on September 1, 2004. Beslan is in the northern Caucasus.

Also for the readers of this blog, I plan to write posts here only on weekends.

Enjoy this positively breathtaking video.

Three Romantically Handsome American Actors

2008-02-24T09:03:00.000-08:00

Three Romantically handsome American actors who give me chills not solely because of their good looks but also because of their immense talents are Denzel Washington, George Clooney, and Johnny Depp.

Denzel who is the eldest at 53 is a two time Academy Award winner.

George, who is 46, has received an Oscar once. Johnny (44) has been nomimated three times.

In tonight's 2008 Oscars, both Clooney and Depp are nominees, with Clooney for his role in Michael Clayton and Depp as Sweeney Todd.

Like me Clooney and Depp are southerners. Both were born in Kentucky. Also like me, Depp is of partial Native American ancestry. As for age, I am right in the middle between Clooney and Depp.

I see all three gentlemen as Renaissance men who are different and unique in their own way and with qualities that I admire. Clooney is not only an actor, producer, director, and screenwriter, he is also an activist. Depp has chosen to go his own way not only in the roles he chooses to play, but he has decided to not live the typical lifestyle of existing in vapid Hollywood, but resides in France immensed in old world charm with his lover French actress and singer Vanessa Paradis. Washington is also a director now, and unlike his counterparts he is married and has never been divorced, an extreme rarity in Hollywood. His church going grounds him, for he is a devout Christian. His father, Denzel Washington, Sr. was a Pentecostal minister He was born in New York, but his mother came from Georgia, my state.

Looks are not everything, but if I could pick a man with all the accoutrements that I like, I would pick one of these three. It is not about money for me either. It is about hard work, dedication, charisma, and sophistication, and all three have these qualities.

With the state of the African-American male being so pathetic with high incarceration rates, illiteracy, and irresponsibility, Denzel Washington is a rarity in so many ways just like Barack Obama. My mother has said several times that if I had been able to meet Denzel before he married and we had been attracted to each other, he would have been the perfect man for me.

An American and Napoleonic Romance: Jerome Bonaparte and Elizabeth Patterson

2008-02-24T01:46:00.000-08:00

In my post on Prince Charles Napoleon the great great nephew of Napoleon, I promised to write about the great grandfather of the "latest Bonaparte" on the scene.

Prince Charles Napoleon's grandfather was Jerome Bonaparte the youngest sibling of Napoleon. He was born in Ajaccio, Corsica in 1784. Jerome entered the French navy, and while on a stop over in Maryland, he was welcomed into Baltimore high society where he met a beautiful young woman named Elizabeth "Betsy" Patterson (born 1785).

Betsy was the daughter of the second richest man in the state, William Patterson, a merchant who was an immigrant from Ireland. When they met in August 1803 it was love at first sight for the handsome, dashing Jerome and the lovely, witty, and cultured Betsy who was fluent in French. The two were captivated with each other, but Betsy's father was extremely cautious. Though he did not entirely doubt the sincerity of Jerome's love for Betsy, he doubted that the ambitious Napoleon who was rapidly rising in Europe would approve of his young brother marrying an American without noble blood and without his permission. Jerome's prospects seemed too good for him to get bogged down in America, so Betsy's father hesitated for at least for awhile. However, by Christmas Eve 1803 William Patterson's reluctance had evaporated, and Jerome and Betsy were married. Jerome had just turned 20, and Betsy was 18.

Once Jerome's family had learned about the union, almost everyone seemed to approve, except Napoleon. Even though Napoleon was not the eldest Bonaparte child, he had long before pushed aside his older brother Joseph to establish himself as the family's head. He made the final decision on everything including whom his brothers and sisters could marry.

When Napoleon declared himself Emperor of the French in May 1804 he ordered Jerome to come home, "without the young person to whom you have connected yourself." Sympathic to your younger brother's plight, Joseph and another brother Lucien encouraged Jerome to get American citizenship, as did also Betsy's brother. However, Napoleon was having none of it and ordered Jerome to come home immediately and for Betsy to not even think of setting foot in France.

The couple finally realized that they could not continue to ignore Napoleon's demands, so they sailed from America in one of William Patterson's ships. Betsy was pregnant. Once they arrived in Lisbon, Portugal, they saw to their dismay that Napoleon had sent a French frigate to prevent Betsy from disembarking. During their journey, Betsy had been convinced that with her charm and learning she might be able to plead their cause with Napoleon since Jerone had told her that his older brother was very susceptible to feminine beauty. But adamant, Napoleon had shown by sending a frigate to block her way, he did not want to see or speak to Betsy.

Reluctantly, Jerome left his wife to go on alone to Paris to beg Napoleon to allow them to stay together. In the meantime, Napoleon had been working fiercely to get the marriage annulled. He had gone to the pope with his demands, but had been rejected. Nevertheless, cowed by Napoleon, the imperial council of state had agreed to have the marriage declared null and void. On hearing that Jerome was on his way to Paris to see him, Napoleon wrote this letter to him:

My brother,

Your letter of this morning informs me of your arrival in Alexandria. There are no faults that a true repentance will not efface in my eyes.

Your union with Mademoiselle Paterson is null, alike in the eyes of religion and of the law. Write Mademoiselle Paterson to return to America. I will grant her a pension of 60,000 francs during her lifetime, on condition that she will under no circumstances bear my name,--she has no right to do so owing to the non-existence of her marriage.

You must yourself give her to understand that you are powerless to change the nature of things. Your marriage being thus annulled by your own consent, I will restore to you my friendship and continue to feel for you as I have done since your infancy, hoping that you will prove yourself worthy by the efforts you make to acquire my gratitude and to distinguish yourself in armies.

After Jerome's departure, Betsy's ship sailed to Amsterdam, but once again she was not allowed entry on land since now two men-of-war ships blocked her way. Seeing that she could not receive entry on this route as well, Betsy's ship sailed to England where she gave gave birth to a baby boy, Jerome Napoleon Bonaparte, whom she called "Bo."

Jerome and Betsy were to never see one another again. Jerome was remarried on Napoleon's orders to a German princess, Catherine of Wurttemburg, and he was crowned King of Westphalia also in Germany. Prince Charles Napoleon whom I wrote about comes from this union of Jerome and his German princess.

Betsy never remarried. After the fall of the Napoleonic dynasty under Napoleon I, she left America for awhile and traveled in Europe being welcomed and feted in European high society as a beautiful, tragic, and intelligent curiosity. For decades she fought to have her marriage to Jerome recognized as legal and her son listed as legitimate. Oddly enough, Jerome seemed to had forgotten all feeling he once had for Betsy because he actively fought against Betsy's son having the surname of Bonaparte. With three children from his royal wife, he wanted Betsy's son to be known only as Jerome Patterson. After Jerome's death in 1860, Betsy's case was resolved and her son was recognized as a legitimate child of France. Still Betsy's long time desire that her son be accepted as a member of the Napoleonic dynasty of Europe would never come to pass. She died in 1879.

Because of the short lived union of these star-crossed lovers, there was the American Bonapartes, the line of which ended in 1945 when the last male Bonaparte died. Betsy's grandson, also named Jerome Napoleon Bonaparte, was a soldier who served on the Texas frontier and who also joined the imperial French army. He received medals for his valiance in the Crimean War from not only France and the queen of England, but he even received a medal from the sultan of Turkey. Another grandson, Charles Joseph Bonaparte, served as US Secretary of the Navy and US Attorney General and was the founder of the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI).

Where Have I Been, Where Am I Going

2008-02-19T00:32:00.000-08:00

The past few days have been hectic, baffling, and exciting for me. I have not taken the time to write because so much has been going on, plus I decided to downgrade my amount of writing here. Recently I received the stimulus to finally go after my passion less here on the blogosphere and more in the privacy of spiral notebooks and Microsoft Word. After years of just dreaming about it, I am going to pursue my dream of writing a book and doing freelance writing. I began my memoir 15 years ago, but I was not mature enough then or had overcome some of life's difficulties to really present a complete and interesting portrayal of my life to fill a book. I had been inspired to take on such an endeavor of writing a memoir after reading the unique and inspiring Maya Angelou's series of autobiographies of her life. Nevertheless, I just was not ready.

I began this blog on November 22 after returning from Turkey less than 2 months before. I was reeling from so much disappointment. I had been paid far less than I had been promised by the family who had hired me as a live-in English tutor to their unruly daughter. I had languished for close to 2 months in a new affluent development on the outskirts of Istanbul with these people who saw me more as a family member and just ignored my calls to study. They really did not want a professional around. The Ottoman Turks were fond of and fascinated by blacks and this fondness still exits in Turkey in a number of quarters. But I will not go on with this. I have diverted myself from what I was going to present in this post.

After so many ups and down and peace and quiet, I began this blog. In a short time I have been honored to have two published authors making comments here. When I did the post Quest For Romance Ended in Murder, two authors Ellen R. Sheeley who wrote Reclaiming Honor in Jordan: A National Public Opinion Survey on "Honor" Killings and
Karen Tintori who has written Unto the Daughters a book about an honor killing which actually occurred her family nearly a century ago both of these authors made comments which have graced my effort here. I was intensely elated when I discovered both. I found Ms. Tintori's comment last week while bored, down, and preoccupied I scrolled back to my honor killing post. Ms. Tintori had left her comment almost two weeks after the post, so I might have never discovered it because it had moved from the main page of my blog. I had thought about writing to Ms. Sheeley shortly after I saw her comment, but I got too busy and later lost courage. I did not know how to approach her at the time with my question of what suggestions could she give me on what to do to become a published writer. When I discovered Ms. Tintori's comments I was spurred on to write her because at the time I felt a little world weary. I wrote her last week and last night she wrote back to me. This morning on firing up the internet and checking my e-mail, I received this very warm letter of encouragement which other aspiring writers should read. I hope the author does not mind I am sharing this.

Dear Sincerae,

I am thrilled to learn that my comment on your blog lifted your spirits. I was impressed not only with your blog post, but by the fact that you invited participation by asking those who visited to lend their voices to the discussion. It was a friendly, and engaging way to elicit comments. It was "hey, don't just run in and out of my house, stay and converse with me." I was impressed by that.

If you itch and burn to write every minute you are awake, concentrate on it. Focus on the book you want to write, and don't divert all that energy to the blogs -- you know? We have only so much creative juice in a day, so give the greater part of it to the book, and the rest to the blog. You are right in your comment that the blog is a way to perfect the craft of writing. Anything you write makes you a better writer as you think about words, sentences, structure.

If you haven't read Writers Market 2008, from Writers Digest Books, go buy it or borrow it from your library. It is filled with markets for writing -- from which publisher buys what kind of book, to which magazines buy, to whom to pitch and how they want the query sent. It is the bible of getting published. Format, substance, how to find an agent, etc., it's all there. And Writers Digest updates the book annually, so I'm thinking 2008 is the most current edition.

If you have some short pieces to sell to magazines, etc., and can do that while working on a book, great. It will add to your resume and be a hook for an editor. I have only done some freelance journalism articles locally, and eight books.

Keep writing, keep sending stuff out and lots of good luck to you and many blessings.

It is obvious you have overcome a lot in your life, and so I know you are a person who isn't dissuaded easily and doesn't give up. All the better to have those attributes if you want to be a published writer. There's a lot of rejection sometimes before that one editor says "yes," but those who stick it out and have some talent will succeed.

God bless and good luck! Keep writing.

All my best,
Karen

This e-mail made my day before it barely began. I was thrilled, honored, and uplifted. Today was a holiday for me because it was a planning day for the regular district's teachers, and I am only a substitute teacher, rather like an itinerant teacher for those outside the US who are not familiar with the term. I immediately decided to take Ms. Tintori's advice and get a copy of Writer's Market 2008, a massive tome of articles of how to get into the writing business and listings of hundreds of places to send your work from publishing houses and magazines to greeting card companies. Years ago I had bought a copy of Writer's Market, but my readiness to be a writer was not there. Since that time I have had articles and letters to the editor published in newspapers in my town, but I just did not have the courage to branch out. I was not ready no matter how much I dreamed and dreamed. Blogging has actually gotten me in shape to write regularly, so in the right hands and for the right reasons it is not a trivial exercise.

This afterrnoon I bought the 2008 edition of Writer's Market. I have a customer membership with the store where I made the purchase, so this morning to my good financial fortune I received in my e-mail a 40% off coupon from them and I was able to use it towards the purchase of my volume of Writer's Market.

Other excitement that has cropped up is I was given another job in the school district as an assistant to the afterschool program director which will pay more then my current position. Now I just have to find a school that needs me. Hopefully tomorrow I will.

Like my mother says, "Turkey will always be a part of your life. You will not escape the Turks." Saturday night when I called the time of day service, which is a recorded message offered by a local bank giving the time and the weather our house phone was not working, so I decided to use my cell phone. Someone had left a message on Friday and Saturday afternoons on my voicemail. I usually keep my phone off or just on vibrate, so it might have been days before I checked if the house phone had not been out. Shocker of shockers it was a former Turkish friend in distress. I will not put her name here, but she had jumped up on a humbug, like my mom likes to say, and married some guy here. I had written her a letter of invitation last summer even though she had developed a very rude and cocky attitude towards me. I will not put all the details here, but suffice it to say, she has been thoroughly humbled since she found out that one cannot get instant US citizenship by just marrying an American citizen. She has also learned that getting a job in her profession is not likely to happen either without a green card. She has learned that it all is a long uncertain process especially in post 9/11 America.

Yesterday and last night when I spoke to her, she sounded listless, broken, and slightly frighten. I have no idea who this guy is that she has gotten connected with. Gone are the snide, cocky, arrogant, know-it-all, rude, and insulting remarks. She has learned that Hollywood movies and her own dreams do not always mesh with reality. It is a sad story really, the complete details of which I still do not know every thing about. The irony of her situation can be seen in her lack of access to a phone. In Turkey she had 2 cellphones. Here she really does not have one except the one her husband uses and which he takes sometimes with him to work leaving her without access to a phone.

It is a very different ballgame here from in Turkey where it was easier for me to make friends with people there. I heard it once said that it is easier to go to the moon than to get to know your neighbors across the street in America. I guess she sees the difference. Families are not as close knit in the states as in Turkey.

My former friend has begged me to come and see her and stay a couple of days. She said she calls friends in Turkey, so I wonder does her husband not allow her to have the phone at times. I called her this morning just like she asked me too, but there was no answer and the voicemail said the number was not available. She told me last night that if her husband did not leave the phone with her to leave a message with him. I left a message on the voicemail, but she never called me. When I she told me yesterday to call back, her husband sounded a little angry and hostile when I asked for her, answering the phone with not a "hello" but with, "May I help you!" When she came to the phone she sounded listless and a littled scared and told me that she had to do yard work. She told me she would call me back in about 2 hours, but it was 5 hours later before I heard from her again.

Abuse is a problem for women everywhere, so I just hope and pray she has not gotten herself in a terrible situation where this man is controlling, terrorizing, and abusing her. I just wish I had not written the letter of invitation for her to get a visa. I sent that letter to very irresponsible, immature, and uninformed hands.

This poor young woman was very obsessed with getting her a black husband, and I know how some black men are abusive, controlling, and very uncaring about anything but their own selfish needs. My father was never verbally or physically abusive to my mother, but he never allowed her to control her finances and more recently when she sold some property, he scorned both her and my advise about investing it. He took most of it and spent it all to pay off his debts. I am a very forgiving person, so I am here again for this young woman who had been my colleague and friend, but who ruined our friendship by her arrogance. I fear for her, but I am powerless.

So I am taking Ms. Tintori's advise, and I will not be posting here as frequently. I am not putting myself on a definite schedule, but I will say that I will be writing here from 1 to 2 days a week. From afar I am trying to help a responsible Turkish friend who loves me like a sister and I am also being morally supportive of my Turkish boyfriend who says he is going back to Istanbul after taking care of his sick mother for over a year in his home town of Edirne near the Greek and Bulgarian border. An American friend of mine who hired me there last year to work in the language school where he was once one of the managers has offered my boyfriend a place to stay until he can get back on his feet. My Turk with the reddish brown hair and blue gray eyes has expressed a desire to come here and meet my family, but that will be in the far future, if ever.

Therefore much is going on. I will be changing jobs and taking on more responsibilities once I can find a school here that needs me for the position the school board has hired me for. I have been spending more time reading again, and I must get myself into the mood and mode to do all the things Ms. Tintori told me to do.

Sometimes I run across very good blogs that were abandoned without any comment on why. Then I see blogs that are an insult to the blogosphere and classy and sophisticated bloggers everywhere that should be abandoned.

I am not abandoning this blog that I take pride in, but I will be spending less time here . Nevertheless, I will continue to offer my usual eclectic mix once or twice a week when I have time.

Ciao for now:)

The Legend of St. Valentine

2008-02-14T00:00:00.000-08:00

The Valentine's Day that we celebrate today concerning Romantic love came about probably in the late Middle Ages. This day of Romance has only an ounce of similarity to the original meaning of who Saint or Saints Valentine was or were. One thing is known is that Valentine or Valentinus was the name of several Christian saints martyred in ancient Rome.

I have an old Hallmark Valentine card with the story of one of these martyrs. Since I do not have time to put the story into my own words, I will begin it below from a website I found it on. This is the exact same version word for word of the story of St. Valentine that is on my card.

Story of St. Valentine

"The story of Valentine's Day begins in the third century with an oppressive Roman emperor and a humble Christian Martyr. The emperor was Claudius II. The Christian was Valentinus.
Claudius had ordered all Romans to worship twelve gods, and had made it a crime punishable by death to associate with Christians. But Valentinus was dedicated to the ideals of Christ; not even the threat of death could keep him from practicing his beliefs. He was arrested and imprisoned.

(continue)

Romance: Not Welcome In Saudi Arabia

2008-02-13T00:24:00.000-08:00

Seems that even the concept of a red rose is a threat to morals in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia. Read here what the moral police is doing to make sure there are no thoughts of Romance for Valentine's Day.

In preparation for Thursday, Emma Alvarez has posted about that loveable bad boy of mythology and symbol of love and Valentines, Cupid. In my next post I will write about the legend of St. Valentine.

FYROM/Macedonian Bellydance?!!!

2008-02-13T00:00:00.000-08:00

I love bellydance or oriental dance. I think it is a great exercise for women. Marvelous for the figure!

Here in my town there is one place which regularly offered bellydance classes on different levels. Places like the YWCA (Young Women's Christian Association) and The University Georgia's Continuing Education Center occasionally offers classes.

I own bellydance exercise video cassettes and a DVD by bellydancing twins Veena and Neena Bidasha and Suhaila Salimpour . I think bellydance should be learned by all women in America. Too many of us have been come so liberated that we lack that grace and femininity and Romantic aspect that I feel a woman needs in the way she moves. I have noticed graceful aspects in women while living in Turkey and Botswana. You rarely see it here.

The Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia is a Balkan nation bordered by Albania, Bulgaria, Serbia, Montenegro, and Greece. The country's population consists of Macedonians who are Slavic people, Albanians, Turks, Romani people (Gypsies), Serbs, Valachs (similar to the Romanians) and others. I never expected that Macedonia has a tradition of bellydance. Usually when one thinks of bellydance the Middle East, Turkey, and on slim occasions India are thought of. Bellydance is rooted in these countries, but it also has roots in Macedonia and Greece.

Bellydance probably was brought to the Balkans by the Romani people. The art of bellydance is thousands of years old originating from tribal, temple, ritual, and social dances and even in exercises to prepare women for childbirth. Two years ago when looking for CDs to add to my collection of Arabic music I ran across this unexpected find. Below I have included two videos of bellydancers in possibly Macedonia. Notice that Balkan bellydance music has slight similarities in rhythm to Middle Eastern bellydance music, but the instrumentation is different. Brass instruments like trumpets, saxophones, trombones, and clarinets are played in this form of bellydance music. Macedonian bellydance was a refreshing surprise for me. If you notice in the two clips at the end, there is a kind of vivaciousness in Macedonian bellydance that you do not see in its' Middle Eastern or Indian counterparts.

I learned in Turkey that though there are plenty of places to see bellydance especially in cities like Istanbul, Turks are not interested. Why? Their answer is, "That is for the tourists."

I have not gone to a bellydance performance yet in Turkey, but in 2006 I went to a bellydance charity performance here in my town to benefit African children. The dancers performed mainly Indian forms of bellydance.

The Latest Bonaparte

2008-02-11T00:28:00.000-08:00

This man is the pretender to the imperial throne of France, but he knows there will be no imperial throne again. The age of the old empires ended with the first world war. Nevertheless, His Imperial Highness Charles Marie Jerome Victor Napoleon is the great great great nephew of Napoleon I. The remaining bloodline of the Bonapartes comes from Napoleon's youngest brother Jerome and his second wife from which Prince Charles Napoleon comes. I plan in a future post to write about Jerome's American connection.

Prince Charles Napoleon who was born in 1950 in France holds a doctorate in economics from the Sorbonne. He is an author, essayist, and a politician. Over the years he has worked in banking, financial planning, and real estate. He has been married twice and has four children. In Ajaccio, Corsica which is the birthplace of his great grandfather and uncle, Prince Charles Napoleon has also been politically active.

Can you see a resemblance between him and his great grandfather Jerome?

King Ludwig II and My Two Favorite Castles

2008-02-10T12:02:00.000-08:00

19th century/Basje posted on her delightfully informative blog on the Victoria Era an article today about a German king whom some call "Mad King Ludwig." If the term "mad" or "insane" are too harsh for him, Ludwig II of the Bavaria (1845-1886) was certainly an eccentric and a Romantic. He commissioned several fairy tale like castles, but the most famous of them all is Neuschwanstein Castle which is my first favorite castle in the world. The official website for the castle can be visited here.

Ludwig was inspired to build Neuschwanstein because of his friendship with the composer Richard Wagner.

My second favorite castle is the Alcazar or Segovia Castle in Segovia, Spain.

The Alcazar was first built during Moorish times. Over the centuries it was repeatedly renovated. Throughout the Middle Ages it was the favorite residence of the rulers of Castile. It was also one of the key fortresses in the defense of the region. One of the last major renovations was done during the reign of Philip II.

(As an aside, I am trying to finish a rather bland biography of the life of this king. The book is written by Henry Kamen who presents a different portrait of the king than the usual one of the cold-blooded, religious fanatic making human torches of heretics whereever he was present. The traditional Philip that has come down to us is the one more recently presented in the movie Elizabeth: The Golden Age starring Cate Blanchette and the Spanish actor Jordi Molla as Philip. What is wrong with Kamen's book is that it speaks too much about King Philip's administrative duties, particularly about his always being flooded with paper work. Otherwise, I have read worse. Still this one has been a slow go.)

Neuschwanstein and the Alcazar are in my opinion examples of perfect castles. Both are built on high, which give them an otherworldly affect. Both look like they came straight out of a fairytale. I hope that I can eventually visit both castles one day.

Carla Bruni: The Finale

2008-02-10T11:56:00.000-08:00

Okay, I am going to leave Carla Bruni alone after this. I have low rated her enough, so now I will say a few positive things about her in closing. Instead of condemning her (which she probably gets all the time) some of us of the female sex need to sit her down and tell her in a kind manner to try and meet a sweet natured, mature guy who loves her for herself and not as a trophy or sex icon. She should drop the eternal boy types off her list and get her a real man. And if she is thinking about reforming Nicholas, guess again. Too many women think they can reform bad boys, or in Nick's case an old bad boy. Men have to see the need to reform.

Fellow blogger Internation Musing/Hans posted more private photos of the new first lady of France yesterday. In looking for more interesting photos of her, I found her own website on which one of her songs is played. I actually like the song and the layout of her website. Her voice is rather good, with a kind of mellow huskiness. Hans did say she is multi-talented.

Here is the Carla Bruni website with more of her private photos. She has even put some of Emily Dickinson's and Christina Rossetti's poems to music. These two women were exact opposites to her in behavior, but she must identify with them in a way, because why would she bother to put some of their poems to music? Perhaps she has a hidden wish to be a little purer.

Even though I disagree with her lifestyle and life decisions, I have to admit the woman is intriguing.

Here are more photos of her alone and with Sarko in Egypt.

The Empress Josephine @ MySpace.com

2008-02-09T13:27:00.000-08:00

While looking up information on Josephine's best friend during her society "girl" years, whom I will present in an upcoming post, I happened to run across on Google information about a MySpace page for the empress. The page is a beautiful and delightful place to explore for those who are Josephine lovers and other things and people who are French. Here you can also see some of Josephine's personal treasures.

I feel I am too mature to haunt places like MySpace, but in the future, I will be seeking out other historical figures there.

Enjoy, and also read my other two posts for today;)!

Empress Josephine de Beauharnais

For some reason Josephine's surname from her first marriage is used more often even in history books than her maiden name or her surname from her second marriage to Napoleon.

Aimee du Buc de Rivery: Cousin of the Empress Josephine & The Ottoman Turkish Connection

2008-02-09T12:31:00.000-08:00

No one will know the actual fate of Aimee du Buc de Rivery who was the empress Josephine's cousin. Nevertheless for almost two hundred years there has been so much speculation that the story of two empresses who were related and ruled simultaneously has captured the imaginations of writers as diverse as Prince Michael of Greece to the African-American fiction writer Barbara Chase-Riboud.

The story of Aimee du Buc de Rivery runs basically that she was a cousin of the empress Josephine, and like her more well-known cousin was born on the island of Martinique . When both were 12 they went to a famous black fortune teller on their island who told Josephine that her second husband would be so powerful and glorious that she would be more prestigious than the queen of France. Aimee was told an even more incredible prophesy. She would be captured by pirates and sold to a powerful ruler who because of her beauty, would make her his mistress and favorite. When she had a son by this ruler this would increase her position. Through her son, she would have great power and influence.

The legend of Aimee goes on to say that when she was returning to Martinique from studying in a convent in France, her ship was hijacked by Barbary pirates. She was captured and given to the Bey of Algiers. In order to garner favor with the Ottoman sultan, this girl of great beauty was sold into the harem in Topkapi Palace in Istanbul. There Aimee captured the eye of the sultan and became his wife. She was given the name of Nakshedil, and is said to have taught her husband French, thus opening up the Ottoman Empire to France and ultimately the west. Because of her, other reforms were introduced during her husband's and son's reign.

Aimee proved to be a survivor in the violent, political atmosphere of the harem and Topkapi Palace. Though she converted to Islam, she was always in her a heart a Christian. When she was dying, her son allowed for the first time for a priest to come into the palace to administer the last rites to his mother. So ends the story of the girl whom history and legend says was a cousin of Josephine, born to a wealthy family on Martinique and who died in a palace in Istanbul, the most powerful woman among the Turks.

I first heard about Aimee du Buc de Rivery when I read Barbara Chase-Riboud's novel, Valide: A Novel of the Harem while I was a graduate student. A black Muslim woman, whom I am not sure was orthodox or a member of The Nation of Islam, told me about Aimee and the book. Life is unpredictable, so when I read this novel of Romance, violence, and intrigue, I had no way of knowing that Turkey would become a part of my life in so many ways years later.

In conclusion, here is a long, but interesting article from Journal of World History entitled Royal French Women in the Ottoman Sultans' Harem .

The Original French Romance: Napoleon and Josephine

2008-02-09T11:04:00.000-08:00

My title is not quite accurate because really the original French Romance could be said to have been between the medieval Heloise and Abelard, which hopefully I will get around to writing about in the future.

The present first couple of France Nick Sarkozy and Carla B. seem to have inflated egos too along with all their other unappealing qualities, so I would not be surprised if they start advertising themselves as the new Napoleon and Josephine. Well, these two do not have an ounce of class compared to Napoleon I and his first empress.

Napoleon and Josephine are my favorite of all the Romantic couples of history. Their's was a passionate, but extremely rocky Romance. In the beginning Josephine was the one who supposedly cheated. Disillusioned and angered by her unfaithfulness, Napoleon took on a string of lovers, but his attachment to them was never as passionate or enduring as his feelings for Josephine. In the 1987 Emmy nominated mini-series, Napoleon and Josephine: A Love Story, Napoleon played by Armand Assante tells Josephine played by Jacqueline Bisset, "You are my obsession; my addiction." To me, Assante and Bisset will always be Napoleon and Josephine. They brought the two historical lovers completely to life.

Both Napoleon and Josephine were born on islands. Napoleon was born on the island of Corsica in 1769. His family was of the minor Italian nobility. Josephine was born on the Caribbean island of Martinique in 1763. Her family was also well to do, but had fallen on hard times after a hurricane wiped out their sugar plantation. Napoleon's family had also fallen on difficult times when his father, and attorney, died. However he was rescued some from hardship at home when he was sent as a child to study at a military academy in France. Napoleon's first language was Italian. He was never able to relinquish his Italian accent even though he ruled the French people, and actually became more French than the French. Josephine was rescued from her family's circumstances by marriage to a cousin, Alexandre de Beauharnais, who was a part of the French nobility. Josephine had two children, but had to endure the unhappiness of having a husband who was a habitual womanizer. Once the French Revolution brewed, she, her husband, and their children were imprisoned. Her husband was condemned to death and was executed on the guillotine. Josephine and her children just narrowly escaped the knife.
After the Revolution and she was freed, Josephine become a celebrated socialite and the reputed mistress of several men in the French government. While being kept by the top man in the government at the time, Paul Barras, Josephine met Napoleon. For the younger, extremely serious and ambitious Napoleon, it was love at first sight. He was already a general in his 20s when he met the older more sophisticated Josephine. For Josephine, it was just another seduction. She had been hurt so much in her marriage and had gone through so much doing the Revolution, that she had developed a carefree cynicism about life and men. But undeterred by her slight indifference, Napoleon wrote to her not long afterwards:

"I awake full of you. Your image and the memory of last night’s intoxicating pleasures has left no rest to my senses."

The painfully passionate love letters would keep pouring in. In this, Paul Barras saw his chance. He really wanted Josephine off his hands because she was proving too expensive to keep, so he encouraged the affair between Napoleon and Josephine, keeping his fingers crossed that the end result would be marriage. They did marry, and the rest is history.

Napoleon eventually divorced Josephine, not because of the turbulence in their relationship, but because she could not produce the heir he needed to carry on the Napoleonic line. Napoleon had wrestled with the issue of Josephine's or his possible infertility for years. He had even designated Josephine's daughter Hortense's son as his heir. Hortense was married to Napoleon's younger brother Louis. Steadfast in his hope for an heir, Napoleon coaxed Josephine into seeing his logic, and so she agreed to a divorce.

When Napoleon divorced Josephine, it seemed that his star began to wan. Before he had been unstoppable in his conquests and moves to unite Europe. After the divorce came the disasterous Russian campaign, which destroyed his Grand Army. Of the 690,000 men who marched in this army only 93,000 survived the retreat from the Russian steppes.

Josephine did not live to see Napoleon go into his final defeat and second exile. She caught a chill and died in 1814 at age 50. Napoleon died in exile on the island of St. Helena off the coast of Africa in 1821 of stomach cancer. There have been occasional disputes that he was not ill with the disease but was actually poisoned. On his deathbed Napoleon's final words were:

"France, the Army, the Head of the Army, Josephine."

In 2003 another mini-series was shown in the US. It was called Napoleon and starred Isabella Rossellini as Josephine and the French actor Christian Clavier as Napoleon. These two were not as softly cute and youthful as Assante and Bisset had been in the 1987 mini-series; plus I did not get to watch this version of the lives of my favorite Romantic couple. I still have the series with Assante and Bisset on a cassette which I recorded from the original program. I plan to eventually buy or rent the Napoleon DVD. I hope also that Amazon will eventually offer the 1987 series before my cassette disintegrates.

This video with scenes from Napoleon is wonderful to watch if you are a fan of N & J and a Romantic. The song Anytime, Anywhere is sung by Sarah Brightman.

More of Carla Bruni

2008-02-08T12:05:00.000-08:00

Internation Musing/Hans posted private photos of the new first lady of France, Carla Bruni, on his new blog. They can be accessed here. Please note the apparent themes of the photos: primness, purity, the intellect, modernity, music, and a hint of sensuality...

Are these photos a prelude to a better, responsible, and dignified Bruni, a woman worthy of her position? Let's hope that if she changes, her husband will have sense enough to realize that he needs to grow up and be responsible too.

There is an old saying, "There's no fool like an old fool."

Shameless "Romance"

2008-02-08T11:00:00.000-08:00

Nicholas Sarkozy, the current president of France, and his new wife former model Carla Bruni are not the kind of people I have warm feelings for or respect. In this day and age I can understand where some people who see themselves as progressive and hip might feel enthusiasm for these two. One blogger mentioned in a post weeks ago "that the only good thing about Nicholas Sarkozy was Carla Bruni." Another one who seems to see himself as Don Juan but is really a Don Quixote or perhaps better Sancho Panza, said he would love to go with Sarkozy on a tour of the wine country in his area. I am being cruel here... But these comments were written.

Some people don't know how to pick friends or spouses carefully, which Sarkozy showed last weekend when he married Ms. Bruni after only knowing her for 11 weeks. Perhaps the times have moved too fast for me and I am out of touch, but Carla Bruni with an illegitimate child and past numerous lovers including Donald Trump and Mick Jagger is just not first lady material. Sarkozy's mama must not have told him that "son, there are some you marry, and others just you have a good time with."

I see Sarkozy and Bruni as the king and queen of shameless "Romance" and just bad taste. There is an arrogance about both that is very unsavory. Bruni luxruriates in her bad and shallow reputation. On her man-eating persona she has said:

“I’d rather be called a predator than an old flea-bag. Predator — it’s not that bad for a woman.”

and

“I’m monogamous occasionally but I prefer polygamy and polyandry.

MADAM, it is not about being a stuffed shirt, but it is about having class and being a lady. But perhaps my ideas on life like beauty, truth, class, and dignity are concepts that are alien to this era and therefore, gone with the wind. And I will not even bring up the term honor, because that went out in the 19th century, but still it should apply to your position, MADAM.

Sarkozy has shown a level of immaturity and recklessness which has already hurt his position with the older French citizenry. Most French presidents have conducted discreet affairs. The late Francois Mitterand even had an illegitimate child. With French men, c'est la vie la affaire. Nicholas Sarkozy needs to know that when you are in a position of leadership, you should try to set a good example. Have some dignity, and stop intentionally creating a public soap opera!

Nicholas Sarkozy has tried to bring the office of the president of France far too down to earth. Sadly, President Bush has shown himself to be too down to earth also at inappropriate times on several occasions, but not in the unfaithfulness department. Bush's last publicly shocking faux pas was winking at the Queen when she was here in 2007. The queen played it off well with only an, "Oh dear." I cringed.

So will this quicky marriage between "Speedy Sarko" with his Napoleonic height (5'5") and his femme fatale with the lovely eyes last? I doubt it. Some have predicted that it will be over with "Sarbruni" or "Brunkozy" (my own inventions:)) by 2009.

Other heads of state have married shady dames but some of the dames calmed down considerably and became honest women. Look at Evita, once she settled down with Juan Peron. Or remember the Byzantine emperor Justinian the Great who married Theodora? Both Evita and Theodora were actresses who were said by some to have slept their way to the top. Both women cleaned up their acts. Theodora made such a monumental change that she is a saint in the Eastern Orthodox church. Some have even pushed to have Evita canonized as saint in the Catholic church because of her philanthropy and kindness to the poor.

Being in the current generation, I do not see Carla Bruni moving beyond a selfish, self serving vision of herself. I may be wrong, but when one has a husband like Nicholas Sarkozy whose ex-wife Cecilia, whom he recently divorced, and who has accused him of being a stingy philanderer who is indifferent to his children, I do not see anything good happening in the end for these two. There is no one on either side doing rational thinking. They do not strike me as two people who want to change their ways. At their ages (Sarkozy is 52 and Bruni just turned 40) they are probably too set in their ways to really change.

France is having economic problems, but its' president continues to live a trivial jetsetting lifestyle. I guess for Nicholas Sarkozy and Carla Bruni, Paris can burn. Here in America, we witnessed a train wreck on a different level for 8 years next year. For the French people who have had Sarkozy for their leader for less than a year, I seems the train wreck has just begun.

Here is a video of little Nicky in all his glory.

Here is the new first lady of the French showing one of her talents outside the bedchamber.

The Legend of A Female Pope

2008-02-07T15:02:00.000-08:00

For centuries there have been whispers of a woman of great learning who donned the clothes of a man and was elected pope by cardinals who had no idea that they had chosen someone of the "weaker sex" to sit on the highest throne of the Roman Catholic Church. This legend of a female pope had largely been unknown to most in the current generation until Donna Woolfolk Cross resurrected it in her amazing and controversial novel, Pope Joan, published in 1997. I read Pope Joan a few years ago, and the novel is one of a few books where I actually saw aspects of myself in the character.

Pope Joan is the story of a girl born in the 9th century to an English canon and his Saxon wife in Frankland in what is now Germany. The canon had come to Frankland as a Christian missionary to convert the heathen people to Christ. There he had spotted and fallen reluctantly in love with a pagan Saxon woman. The marriage is very unhappy because the canon despises his wife because he sees her as an instrument of the devil, seducing him away from his Godly mission and causing him to lose his purity in the possess. He goes into violent rages when his wife seems to hang on to her heathen gods and passes the stories on their daughter. He hates just about every thing about women because like the Biblical Eve, he believes women are always the impetus for sin and trouble. He is abusive of his wife and daughter, whereas he is more lenient with his two sons whom he encourages to be scholars.

Early on Joan has strong curiosity about learning. When a Greek scholar in exile from Constantinople (modern day Istanbul) comes to their town, he teaches Joan's brothers not only about the great authors of the church like Augustine, but also those from classical Greek and Roman history like Plato, Seneca, Ovid, and Homer which were almost unknown or banned by the western church, but appreciated by the church in the east. The 9th century is at the tail end of the Dark Ages in Europe. Learning and scholarship have moved east to Constantinople which is the capital of Byzantium which was the Byzantine Empire (Rome in the east). The Greek scholar witnesses Joan passion for learning and stands up to her father, demanding that he be allowed to teach her as well. Like the slogan for the National Negro College Fund here in the US, to him "a mind is a terrible thing to waste," even if it is a female mind.

The patience, devotion, and attention that the Greek gives Joan plants a seed that will eventually carry her to a Benedictine monastery where she will further her learning. After her last surviving brother is killed in a Viking attack she cuts her hair and dresses in his clothing. No longer does the questions she has asked herself plague her, "Why am I different? What is wrong with me?" She has come to terms with the fact that she and no woman with potential should be confined to a life dictated by men and society. She will go her own way, but living as man because she knows that in her world, women are confined to the home as only wife and mother. Learning and scholarship are not an option.

In time, Joan goes to Rome posing as John Anglicus. She wins the respect and envy of many. During her years of study she has become a physician, eventually becoming the personal doctor of the current pope. She is the one person who inspires this pope who is a fat overeater and a crybaby to be courageous. The Rome of Joan's era is a place of piety, corruption, nepotism, sexual licence, competition, and murder, even in the halls of the Vatican. In the meantime, Joan has also fallen in love with a handsome, open-minded German landowner and minor noble named Gerold. Gerold was married when she first met him, but his family and estate is wiped out in the same Viking attack in which Joan's brother was killed. Gerold follows Joan to Rome, and when she is elected pope he remains faithfully by her side, keeping the secret that the most powerful personage in Christendom is a woman.

Joan's robes and mien conceals her deception until she becomes pregnant by Gerold. Joan is so ambitious that she is set on never allowing her secret to come out, even to him. She knows that Gerold would tell her to stop her act, vacant the papal throne, and marry him. Stubbornly Joan concocts a potion that she takes to abort her child. The potion does not work until a terribly violent tragedy happens in the streets of Rome one day to Gerold right within Joan's view. Now without her lover and best friend, Joan miscarries and dies in the street to the horror and fascination of the people in her papal entourage and the general populace. As Joan dies moving from grief to fear to peace, the people around her nearly riot believing that it is witchcraft that has gripped their beloved pope or that "he" is possessed by a devil. Others think it is a miracle because a tiny premature infant has appeared beneath the pope's robes. For almost 2 years, Joan named Pope John, has been the supreme leader of the church. She had come a long way, extracting herself from a limited life to a life of power and prestige. But in the end, in her 40s, even though she had played the role of a man, the reality of her sex had come to haunt her in a way she had not expected at her age to have happened. Since Gerold her friend, adviser, protector and lover was even older than she, she never believed that she might become pregnant.

The legend of Pope Joan has been around since the Middle Ages. The legend was once as popular as that of King Arthur. Writers such as Boccaccio even mentioned the female pope. However, the Catholic church has vehemently denied the existence of an amazingly scholarly woman who tricked the church establishment and ascended to the throne of St. Peter over 1000 years ago. The Catholic church has viewed the legend as a weapon of the Protestant Reformation to discredit the church. Arguments by some who say that the church waged an active campaign after Joan's death to expunge her from history are championed by other scholars as unfounded. They feel she never existed. The first mention of La Popessa was in the 13th century 400 years after the time of Joan. So the skepticism remains, but I love the idea of a woman who overcame the chains of her age to go out into the world to seek her fortune.

In 1972 the Swedish actress Liv Ullman starred in a filmed entitled Pope Joan.

Now I have learned that next year Donna Woolfolk Cross' novel is slated to be brought to the big scene. Franke Potente, a German actress, recently seen in the US movies Blow and The Bourne series starring Matt Damon will be playing Joan.

The novel Pope Joan brought to life a time of savagery, brutality, and Romance. The novel is a fast read even though it is a little over 400 pages. All the elements of human drama, life in The Dark Ages, and of even our time can be found in the novel. Joan's story is timeless and universal, because as Cross said in an interview at the back of the novel:

"I want readers--particularly women--to understand one basic truth: to empower yourself in this world you must learn. Joan armed herself with the power of knowledge. This knowledge allowed her to rise to the very highest rank of the most powerful institution of her day. Even today in countries such as Iran, Afghanistan, Algeria, the first priviledge that is taken away from a subservient group such as women is the right to an education."

As an African-American woman and being a part of an group where too many now encourage mediocrity and low achievement because to learn and to be articulate is "being white" or to be a "real woman" you must have a child before you are 15 or 16 by some immature teenager or some worthless guy with no intention of being a man and responsible, Cross' words speak volumes to me. Most of my life, I have gone against the grain of what it means to be a black woman in America. I have flown and fell down, but always with the determination to be unique and to go totally against the grain.

British sculptor Philip Jackson's piece called Pope Joan.

The official website for Joan Woolfolk Cross' novel Pope Joan can be accessed here.

A Rare Love: Sergei Grinkov and Ekaterina Gordeeva

2008-02-06T01:18:00.000-08:00

I wonder what he would have been like if he had lived, but Sergei Grinkov died at 28. On Monday, February 4th he would have been 41.

Sergei and his wife Ekaterina Gordeeva or Katia were two of the greatest figure skating pairs in history, winning gold medals at the 1988 Winter Olympics in Calgary and in 1994 in Lillehammer. They literally grew up together on the ice and fell in love skating. Both were Russians born in Moscow, Sergei in 1967 and Katia in 1971. Like many children born in the Soviet Union who appeared to have talent, both Sergei and Katia began training early in their craft. Sergei was 5 when he began ice skating. Katia was only four with feet so tiny that ice skates to fit her were impossible to come by, so her mother had her wear several pairs of socks in order to keep her too big skates on her feet. Katia would remain alway petite even into adulthood which would be an advantage for the much taller, bigger, and athletic Sergei who would in the future lift and toss her as if she were light as a feather. Katia's father had planned for her to go into ballet, but Katia was determined to do otherwise. Her determination to go her own way would put her and a boy she was yet to meet in the history books, and also lead to the creation of one of the great love stories of our time.

Alone Sergei showed early signs that he would have only been an mediocre skater, but when he was paired with 11 year Katia when he was 15, the magic began. By 1985, Sergei and Katia had burst onto the world scene. Throughout their career, they rarely faltered and lost a competition.

Katia was the first to fall in love, developing a shy, but intense secret crush on Sergei. In 1989 while touring in Europe, they had fallen in madly in love with one another. 1991 was the year they married in Moscow. Sergei and Katia became professional skaters with the show Stars on Ice. They relocated to the US where their daughter Daria was born in New Jersey. The family finally settled in Connecticut.

This happy family did not know that over them a very dark cloud hung. In 1990, Sergei's father had died of a heart attack because of a weak heart. Sergei unknowingly carried the same propensity for heart attacks like his father. On November 20, 1995 in Lake Placid, New York Sergei collapsed and died of a heart attack while practicing with Katia for an upcoming Stars on Ice tour. His body was later taken to Moscow where he was buried.

Watching Sergei and Katia skate was to see their grace, artistry, professionalism, and love. They were artists of the highest level and order. Few ranked with them before or since. Fans and admirers of their art and love have created sites honoring them like Ekaterina Gordeeva & Sergei Grinkov , gg-corner.de and Ekaterina Gordeeva: A Kind of Magic.

During their brief time in the international spotlight, Sergei and Katia offered a rare example of love and Romance both on and off the ice.

One of my favorites of their performances can be seen in this video.

A Film Called Smile

2008-02-02T23:29:00.000-08:00

As I wrote in the previous post, I hear regularly from people in Turkey. Today when I checked my e-mail I had received a post for Facebook from a friend who is an American in Istanbul. His name is David, and he hired me in 2006 for an English teacher position at the language school where he was then the education manager. What he sent me today was especially moving. It is a Turkish short film called Gulumse or Smile. I hope he is not using this as bait to get me to come back there.

Smile is an uplifting film which I believe is set in the Turkish port city of Izmir, not Istanbul.

Smile brings back fond memories. It made me smile!

The Romance and Beauty of Turkish Commercials

2008-02-02T18:49:00.000-08:00

There are some people who reside in Turkey who have to face up to the fact that I have no plans of returning there in the near future. My last sojourn to their nation exhausted me and terminated the love affair I once had with the country. Still I have some very fond memories of this bewildering nation which is a labyrinth of the good, the bad, and the ugly on so many levels, and for now, a mixture of east and west. Instead of dwelling on the negative there, these days I remember with gratitude the warm acts of kindness and hospitality I received from people I saw regularly on to the kindness and help of total strangers. If the Turks can ever get their system together and change some of their thinking, they could progress.

Not a week goes by when I do not get an e-mail from someone Turkish openly or subtly beckoning for me to come thither. I am sorry to let my friends and lover know that I have no plans to. I had my fill last year, and the thrill is just gone unless a miracle happens.

Anyway, on my last trip there in August through October of last year, I saw these two commercials which I found captivatingly creative. I think some Turkish commercials are far more intriguing and Romantic than their American counterparts. In the first commercial below, which is from a panty hose and tights company called Penti, I think the idea to have the patterns on some of the hose and tights metamorphose was very creative. I still own a pair of Penti black tights with a geometric pattern which I bought in Turkey in early 2007 when I was there for the fourth time teaching English at a language school.

This commercial is from a window company, I believe. Correct me if I am wrong...:) On seeing this it was the first time I ever experienced sand art.
Enjoy!

Quest For Romance Ended In Murder

2008-02-01T08:16:00.000-08:00

Reports of honor killings, if they are reported, tend to come out of Middle Eastern nations. Two stories of young women of Kurdish heritage who were murdered in their quest for Romance and love appeared in the news last year. One was the case of Banaz Mahmood who was murdered in Britain. The other was of a teenaged Kurdish Yazidi girl named Doa (May 2, 2007 post) or Du'a or Doa'a depending on how some bloggers spell her name. On the blog where this girl's name is spelled Du'a is the actual video of her slaughter which some brutish person video taped on their cell phone. I watched a portion of if it, but was too afraid to finish it. So if you choose to watch, watch with extreme caution.

The average American is not familiar with the term "honor killings" since we have a culture where generally women's minds and bodies are not controlled to the extent which the minds and bodies of women are controlled in some cultures. Such cultures in which women are treated this way are more feudal, patriarchial, and tribal based. Honor killing is when a woman, and occasionally a man, is killed by family members or associates of the family. The reason for the instigation of the killing is when a family's status or honor is blemished by the actions or perceived actions of the family member. In some Middle Eastern cultures family members will kill a girl or woman if they believe she has lost her virginity outside marriage, committed adultery, is raped, wants to divorce a husband even if he is abusive, decides to adopt a more liberal lifestyle or seek a better education, or who just refuses to obey the dictates of what the male members of her family want. Sometimes such murders are encouraged by females in a family when another female member refuses to enter an arranged marriage which is seen as advantageous to the family's well-being. Men who are homosexual or who are accused of being so are sometimes killed. Nevertheless, the case of honor killings of females receives more attention.

Concern about honor killings has become a big issue in Turkey in recent years, perhaps because of its' bid for membership in the European Union. Turkey also has a growing number of feminists who want to bring attention to the problem which occurs more often in the country's eastern and southeastern sectors, regions which are predominately Kurdish. In recent years, Turkey has witnessed cases which are honor suicides. If a person commits an honor killing in Turkey they can be sentenced to life in prison, so some people who want to engage in this blood sport have tried to cut corners, so to speak. Cases of young Kurdish girls who are seemingly the victims of suicide or accidents have occurred. There was the case of a woman who came up pregnant while her husband was away in the military, so her family told her that in order for the family's honor to be cleansed, she should just commit suicide since no male member wanted to spend the rest of his life in jail. Also in Turkey there was the case of a woman who spoke out on a talk show about abuse she had suffered at the hands of her husband. When she returned to her home in the eastern part of the country, her adolescent son was pushed up to shoot her because she had stained the family's good name by going on television to speak publicly of her plight. In December Turkish Daily News ran an article Natural Born Killers (and Victims) about a Turkish female producer who is trying to shed light on the problem of honor killings in her country.

Often honor killings are seem in the west as a problem mainly against women in Muslim communities, but in some rural Christian areas of Jordan, Egypt, and the Palestinian Authority, there have been some rare cases. In India, some families have killed women in rages because of dowries which they felt were insufficient. The first honor killing I ever read about was against a prince in The Bible and all the men in his city. Prince Shechem ravished Dinah, the daughter of Jacob, but fell in love with her in the process and wanted to marry her, but in an act of deception, one night Dinah's brothers raided Shechem's city in retaliation for their sister's honor and killed all of the men. In 1997, Anita Diamant's The Red Tent was a best seller about this Biblical incident. In the New Testament, Jesus showed his belief in the rights of women when he stopped the stoning of a woman supposedly caught in the act of adultery .

The stories of Banaz and Doa are issues of human rights and ignorance. Cases like this are common in rural areas or where people are too unenlighten to see that some cultural practices and traditions should be left to die in the past.

In Iraq where Doa was killed for her quest for love and Romance, last year these words once came from the former and late president of Iraq, Saddam Hussein 30 years ago:

The most important thing about marriage is that the man must not let the woman feel downtrodden simply because she is a woman and he is a man.
----Interview with the Al-Mar'a magazine in 1978.

Lady With A Unicorn, by Raphael

2008-01-31T00:59:00.000-08:00

I just wrote about the wonders of Dover Publications. With some of the samples they e-mailed me this week came a painting from their 120 Italian Renaissance Paintings CD-ROM and book called Lady With A Unicorn, by Raphael. Amazingly, last week Emma Alvarez posted a very interesting and informative article about unicorns on her blog entitled Unicorns, Symbols of Purity .

With unicorns mentioned in a number of cultures, literature, and even nines times in The Bible, did these mythical animals really trot and gallop here on earth?

Romance and Beauty Offered By Dover Publications

2008-01-31T00:38:00.000-08:00

Amazon.com gets plenty of attention from many book lovers like myself, but Dover is a rare treasure that is probably overlooked.

I discovered Dover Publications a number of years ago after running across a copy of one Andrew Lang's colorful fairy tale books at the public library. Lang's fairy tale series is published by Dover, and after getting four of his books, I went on to purchase other books on the subject of Islamic art.

Dover publishs books on a wide range of subject matter. If you are particularly interested in the arts, literature, and just the plain Romantic, Dover provides items for plenty of escapism, craft, artistic, literary, and learning ideas. Since I ordered several items from them last summer, including the Braun and Schneider book on historical fashion on which my Monday post was about, Dover sends me weekly e-mails of samples from some of their book and CD-ROM collections.

Below is what I have recently received.

If you are an aficionado of the Romantic and the beautiful go to Dover and explore other interesting and inexpensive rarities.

From Erte's Theatrical Costumes

Nautical Vignettes

Pet Illustrations

Celtic Stencil Designs

Geometrical Patterns and Designs for Artists and Craftspeople

African Designs

Victorian Houses

Historic Textile Design

Mehndi Designs

Floral Ornament

Fashion of the 1930s

Murasaki of Japan

2008-01-29T00:06:00.000-08:00

Long ago in the mists of time in feudal Japan a daughter was born to a provincial governor and his wife. They named her Murasaki Shikibu.

Not only was the governor an official, but he was also a scholar. The traits of the enjoyment of learning and curiosity was passed on to his daughter who from a young age showed a remarkable ability to grasp and understand literature and languages. This was a miracle and a source of pride and disappointment for Murasaki's father who once said to her, "If only you were a boy, how happy I should be!"

Murasaki's brother, unlike her, did not display her swiftness in learning. In ancient Japan, women were allowed to do some basic learning, but the realm of the classics which were in Chinese was the province of men. Being a man with an open mind and appreciating his daughter's singularity, Murasaki's father allowed her to sit in on her brother's private tutoring sessions.

When Murasaki came of age, she was married off to a distant relative. She bore him a daughter. In time, plague appeared in the land, and Murasaki's husband was carried off in the epidemic. Alone, except now for her daughter, Murasaki began to write a book. Since she was the daughter of a prominent man and quite a curiosity herself, she captured the attention of the empress. She was brought to court, where she became the special companion to the empress, even teaching her Chinese in secret. She is given the title of "lady."

Lady Murasaki continues to write her book which is about a prince named Genji, getting ideas for the plot from her surroundings. She also keeps a diary which is a vivid description of life at the Japanese court and also expresses her distaste for what she sees as a vapid existence of nobles intriguing, backbiting, and focusing mainly on the silly and trivial. She writes one day in her diary, "Pretty and coy, shrinking from sight, unsociable, fond of old tales, conceited, so wrapped up in poetry that other people hardly exist, spitefully looking down on the whole world-such is the unpleasant opinion that people have of me. Yet when they come to know me they say that I am strangely gentle, quite unlike what they had been led to believe. I know that people look down on me like some old outcast, but I have become accustomed to all this, and tell myself, 'My nature is as it is."Despite her indifference and dislike of court life she becomes a reluctant celebrity when her novel, The Tale of Genji, is discovered. It is presented as a serial and read orally. Lady Murasaki writes this in her diary, "His Excellency saw The Tale of Genji laying about in the Empress's apartments. He made his usual stupid jibes, and then handed me a poem written on a piece of paper to which he had attached a branch of plum-blossom: 'What with these ardent tales of love, little can I think that men have passed you by, as they might this plum-tree's sour fruit.' And so I replied, 'If no man has tasted, who can say if the fruit is sour, or if the writer of these tales herself has known such love?'' Is the novel's hero, Prince Genji, Lady Murasaki's alter ego?

Unlike most at court who live only for the moment, Lady Murasaki knows winds of change are moving inside Japan. The decadent lifestyle of the court will eventually be swept away by the samurai who will install a military dictatorship ruled by a shogun.

At age 50, Lady Murasaki asks to retire from the court, leaving it for the peace and serenity of a convent. Finally, she is at peace.

This is my personal rendition of the life of Lady Murasaki (973-1025?) She is believed to have written the first modern novel, The Tale of Genji. Both Genji and the Diary of Lady Murasaki can be purchased on Amazon.com. The quotes listed in my tale are from Lady Murasaki's diary.

In 2001, Liza Dalby, an anthropologist and the only westerner to have been trained as a geisha, wrote the novel The Tale of Murasaki which is a fictionalized account of the life of Murasaki Shikibu.

Ideas for the writing style in this post were inspired by entries in the blogs The Victorian Era and Emma Alvarez Site, Hans Christian Anderson, The Brothers Grimm, and The Thousand and One Nights.

Flowers In Africa

2008-01-28T00:40:00.000-08:00

This is bougainvillea which was a flower both Africans and expats planted at their homes when I was a Peace Corps volunteer in Botswana. Africainement, a blogger in Senegal, posted some unusual and beautiful flowers native to various African countries on her blog last week. You can see them here. Africa is known for its fauna (animal life), but its' flora (plant life) is overlooked.

Well, it is too delightful and Romantic looking for me to overlook:)

The Romance of Historical Fashion

2008-01-28T00:00:00.000-08:00

When I was a child I would spend hours looking in the historical fashion section of our Britannica and Collier encyclopedias. I am fascinated by historical costumes from ancient times on up to the early 20th century. My favorite period of historical dress was during the Empire and Regency periods of the late 18th and early 19th centuries when women let go of so much tight corseting and put on dresses and gowns inspired by the ancient Romans and Greeks. The high Empire waist line from that time is currently back in style again, and I love it.

In the last 4 decades, fashion has basically been recycled over and over. This was not the case through the centuries. Braun and Schneider's historical fashion plates published in the late 1880s attested to diversity of fashion throughout the ages. Last year I bought Dover's edition of Braun and Schneider's work called Historic Costume in Pictures which can be seen here. All 125 plates which were published from 1861 until 1880 can be seen online. A prelude to all of the costumes are the ladies dancing above, these Turkish Ottoman ladies and an ancient Egyptian ruler and his servants.

Enjoy!

Excerpt From The Africans: A Triple Heritage

2008-01-27T00:30:00.000-08:00

Yesterday in my post Ali A. Mazrui: Intellectual and Romantic, I mentioned his documentary The Africans: A Triple Heritage. On YouTube I was able to locate an excerpt from the 9 hour documentary where Dr. Mazrui explains why Africa has failed to advance technologically. I am sure there have been many changes since 1986 when this series was produced, but Africa still lags behind many places.

Shirley Chisholm: The Forgotten Presidential Candidate

2008-01-27T00:00:00.000-08:00

We Americans are not very good about recalling events and people from very far in the past. Many young Americans tend to see anything prior to the 1980s as nearly prehistoric, so when the name Shirley Chisholm is mentioned a blank is probably drawn. I remember her well because she was the first serious African American candidate to run for president. This was before Jesse Jackson or Al Sharpton who both lacked even the appeal she had over 35 years ago. In 2005 the year when she died the documentary Chisholm 72: Unbought and Unbossed premiered on PBS.

Like Barack Obama, Shirley Chisholm came from an exotic background. Her mother was from Barbados and her father was from Guyana.

Though many Americans may have forgotten her, a little over two years ago one of my Turkish students named Musa proved he had not. A man in his 50s, he told me that he was a great admirer of Shirley Chisholm. I was very moved to hear this.

Three Coliseums

2008-01-26T17:33:00.000-08:00

The University of Georgia where I did both my undergraduate and graduate studies periodically sends me travel brochures of their annual trips around the world. The trips are always to exotic and beautiful locations dripping with Romance and history. Two years ago, I received a brochure that stunned me. On it was a photo of a structure that the average person is probably not aware of. Most everyone has heard of and seen photos of the coliseum in Rome, famous for its gladiatorial fights and notorious for the martyrdom of many early Christians. I was stunned to see on a brochure about a trip to Croatia that there is another ancient coliseum still in existence which is in better condition than the one in Rome. This second coliseum is located in the city of Pula and can be seen here.

Even in my mundane southern town, there is also a coliseum on the campus of my old university. Here is an old post card of it. It can be said that I graduated from high school in a coliseum because the building below is where I and my 12th grade classmates gathered on evening in early June to end one phase of our lives and to begin another.

Ali A. Mazrui: Intellectual and Romantic

2008-01-26T13:33:00.000-08:00

I am a great admirer of Dr. Ali A. Mazrui, and have been so since I first became familiar with him when I was a university student in the 1980s. Dr. Mazrui came onto the American scene through the PBS series The Africans: A Triple Heritage produced by the BBC and shown on the Public Broadcasting System here in the states. Alex Haley’s Roots got Americans both black and white thinking about our collective heritage here in the US. Ali A. Mazrui’s The Africans showed the world, especially we Americans who have little or no knowledge of the outside world and who have long held a profound fear of “Darkest Africa” that Africa has many little known and positive aspects. In my encounters with Africans over the years, I have marveled at the differences between their drive and ambition and the often lack of drive and ambition which too many African Americans display, especially in the younger generation whose credo has become “under achievement, mediocrity, indifference, and having a good time.” When I was Peace Corps I met Africans who were pained by what they saw as too many African Americans focusing far too much on racism and not on using the opportunities which at lay at hand in the most prosperous nation in the world. They wished with all their hearts that their countries offered opportunities like America

Getting back to Ali A. Mazrui. He was born in Mombasa, Kenya and is Swahili and Sunni Muslim. Dr. Mazrui received his doctorate from Oxford University. He has taught in Africa, Europe, and the US and is one of the world’s top intellectuals. His series The Africans: A Triple Heritage also has a companion book. Dr. Mazrui is a liberal Muslim who has written a number of books and hundreds of articles about Africa and how capitalism as it is now practiced exploits and cripples Africa. He is a critic of the treatment of the Palestinians by the Israelis and compares what is happening in Israel to the apartheid system which once reigned over black South Africans. Also he is a critic of fundamentalist Islam, but praises aspects of it which is anti-imperialistic. In his opinion, Islamic sharia law is not compatible with a modern democratically structured society. I do not agree with all of Dr. Mazrui’s views, but we do have much common ground which is shared. Here is a very thought provoking article by him written over 10 years ago called Islamic and Western Values.

In recent years Dr. Mazrui has been targeted by a neoconservative student group here in the US and has been labelled as a left wing extremist and an anti-Semite because of some of his comments. Also he has been targeted by the Department of Homeland Security and the US State Department, not for any links to terrorism, but for allegations of corruption.

I think Dr. Mazrui might be the victim of the paranoid and fearful climate that developed after September 11th. The climate has abated to a degree and the intense fear mongering that was driving everything has been toned down especially since so many supporters of President Bush and his star chamber has lost most of its’ public support.

I also have long thought that Ali A. Mazrui looks very much like my late uncle Robert, which everyone called “Rag.”

Dr. Ali A. Mazrui, a world class and classy, exotic intellectual, scholar, an African and a Romantic.

Cutely Romantic: Barack Obama

2008-01-26T10:15:00.000-08:00

He may not get the Democratic nomination for president and become the next president because despite all of our greatness and advancement America still has not matured in certain areas, but I have the optimism that if the world stand we might get there. Nevertheless, Barack Obama is the first serious, mainstream, and classy African American candidate we have had in a long, long time. In a post tomorrow I will mention the other long forgotten serious black candidate.

Because presidential hopeful Hillary Clinton is using her husband as her own personal attack dog and the mud is really flying now from the direction of the Clinton camp, Barack Obama has told his African American supporters to not get angry and bitter and view the Clintons as racists because this is politics, not something that should be perceived as personal. I agree with him, because Barack Obama knows our people must stop being stifled and stopped by words or even something as hideous and sick as an empty noose. We must start back progressing the way we did in the days of Dr. King. There can be no retreat for us; we must keep our eyes on the prize.

What Barack Obama is doing is symbolic and will open the doors for more progressive blacks in the future if we hold on. I am very proud of him. He is a symbol of hope at a time which often seems bleak, trivial, hopeless, and unRomantic. The other week a news clip showed him speaking in that deep mellow voice of his, and when someone in the audience fell behind him he forgot about himself and what he was saying, but turned around and asked, “Is everybody OK?” What a sweetie and a Romantic and cute to boot and so is his wife Michelle and his kids.
My mother thinks that Hillary has a secret crush on Barack Obama, and all this picking and mudslinging has a Romantic element. We both think Hillary has never fully forgiven Bill for his Don Juan escapades but ambition makes her hold on to him. Now that Bill is not cute anymore, she really has a crush on Obama. Mom jokes that Hillary says she is only using Bill to get what she wants, and once she gets in the White House, Bill can move to Harlem if he wants. I very seriously doubt that she will get in the White House again. Bill knows this, but is playing the game with her being the devoted husband. Once she is defeated and destroyed by the Republicans, Bill knows she will need him and Chelsea more than ever. He might even have to put Hillary in mental health treatment for awhile, but he cares for her and will always be there for her even though she rides a VERY high horse.

The Romance of Cameos

2008-01-25T20:41:00.000-08:00

Today when I was out, a woman came up to me and just stared at my throat because from it hung one of my most treasured pieces of jewelry, a genuine, hand engraved shell cameo pendant of Mary Queen of Scots. Since I was a girl I have adored cameos. The woman who approached me was a nurse, and said she has long wanted to own a cameo. I told her that what I had on was the real thing, not some mass produced junk.

When some people think of cameos they probably envision prim Victoria ladies in high collars with a cameo pinned on their collars at their necks. I envision them too in my mind’s eye, but my imagination also takes me further back in time to ancient Roman patrician ladies in elaborately circled hairdos with cameo earrings dangling from their earlobes and with intricate necklaces composed of a number cameos around their necks.

The making of handmade cameos is an ancient and dying art which began in the 6th century in ancient Greece. After ancient Roman times cameos enjoyed revivals during the Renaissance, the 17th and 18th centuries and in Victorian times. For a time they were produced and were quite poplar in post World War II Germany.

M + M Scognamiglio is run by Amedeo Scognamiglio who is keeping the cameo tradition alive and well in Italy as are a few other families there. Amedeo comes to the US several times a year and appears on the Home Shopping Network to present new batches of his company’s cameos once they are produced. Some of his available cameos can be seen here. The production of cameos is a painstaking process. Since each piece is made by hand, no two items are exactly alike. Most cameos today are made out of shell, but in the past, cameos were sometimes made out of precious or semi-precious stones. Engraving cameos in stone is more difficult than in shell.

The word “cameo” means “to engrave,” and is believed to be to come from the ancient Hebrew or Arabic word “kamea” which means “charm” or “amulet.” Folkloric claims say that cameos bring on good fortune and or health.

Here is my own cameo which I bought nearly two years ago from M + M Scognamiglio of the tragic and beautiful Mary Queen of Scots.

Last year my mom and I went to see an exhibition of Byzantine artifacts at The Georgia Museum of Art here in Athens on The University of Georgia campus. The collection contained a good quantity of jewelry with pieces that were cameos in semi-precious stone. Over the centuries the subject matter of cameos has tended to be from classical mythology and the profiles of rulers. The Byzantine cameos were not only from Greek mythology, but also on Christian themes since the Byzantine Empire was the Christian offshoot of the Roman Empire. I had a very special and full feeling in the rooms where those pieces were on display because of their mystic and ancient beauty. I wondered about the long dead people who wore those cameos. Most of the pieces which came from what is now Turkey, Syria, and Iraq were well over 1000 years old.

Amedeo Scognamiglio has said that people who appreciate cameos today are those who live history, tradition, art, and beauty. The art of cameo making is a Romantic craft that I hope will never die. I hope to increase my collection someday.

Happy Official Birthday Dr. King!

2008-01-21T11:59:00.000-08:00

Today Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.'s birthday is observed. His vision of non-violent social change did not apply to just blacks in America or those in South Africa, it can be applied globally. His vision is not a classically Romantic vision, but one that is highly important if humanity is to survive.

It is very easy to be a murderer. It is very difficult to love one's enemy. Hate the enemy's deeds, not the enemy.

To Die So Young A Hero

2008-01-20T19:54:00.000-08:00

Today fellow blogger Hans posted a story about a Turkish Muslim who will be playing Anne Frank in a stage production of The Diary of Anne Frank.

Besides having read Anne Frank's diary in middle school, I have become familiar in more latter years of a Jewish diarist and poet whose writing was equally if not more powerful than Anne Frank's masterpiece. The creator of this other great Holocaust document was Hannah Senesh (1921-1944). In fact, I am an even greater fan of Senesh's diary than I am of Frank's because of its' maturity and depth. More about Hannah and her poetry can be read here.

My most favorite of all her poems is this one.

Walk To Caesaerea

God---may there be no end
to sea, to sand,
water's splash,
lightning's flash,
the prayer of man

Eternal Love In China

2008-01-20T14:17:00.000-08:00

The age we live in is a cynical, selfish, and insensitive one and also quite tacky, tasteless, vulgar, and very unRomantic at times. Like a character in one of my favorite Romantic films Mississippi Masala mused, 'There is so little love in the world, yet so much.' And like the old song says, "What the world needs now is love, sweet love. That's the only thing that there's just too little of."I discovered a love story that was the talk of China concerning the couple above. To begin their story, the husband carved his wife 6000 steps! The rest can be read here.It should be remembered that love like hate or indifference is a CHOICE.

A Turkish Armenian Romantic Is Cut Down Too Soon

2008-01-19T17:33:00.000-08:00

A year ago I was in Turkey when a tragically grave event happened the significance, of which I was to slowly come to understand. A journalist was killed on the streets of Istanbul. His name was Hrant Dink. The man, his ideals, and some of his writings can be read here. I saw the news reports of his murder on television at work, but it really did not mean very much to me at the time. One of my colleagues who was a young teacher from Britain was a little concerned about any unrest that might possibly occur. He apparently knew who this journalist was who was cut down by a bullet outside his office.

Hrant Dink was one of the most prominent figures of the Armenian community in Turkey. His vision was as brilliant, correct, and beautiful as Martin Luther King's. Like Dr. King, he was gunned down by a fanatic. For decades Turkey has been dealing with demons both self-imposed and imposed from without. One of its' biggest demons is the controversy over the Armenian Genocide which occurred in 1915. The events are well documented from a number of sources, not just Armenians but from westerners, including American missionaries and even Arab eyewitnesses. This is an extremely thorny subject in Turkey which can get you prosecuted under the infamous Article 301 of the Turkish penal code. Dink's belief in the Genocide is what got him murdered in the end.

Being American and with our lack of media coverage of many important figures outside our borders, I had never heard of Hrant Dink until his death. I was very familiar with the topic of the Armenian Genocide, however. Since 2003 when I first traveled to Turkey, I had developed a love and an identification with the Turkish people. I felt, how could it be possible that such nice, hospitable people could be some of the offspring of barbarous murderers? Many Turkish people are grappling with the issue too of what I now believe happened in their history. I do not blame the current generation for what happened, but I blame those in the current generation who cry out repeatedly that Turkey is always the innocent victim, that Turkish history is stainless and totally glorious, and that Turkey's only issues is the racism it is subjected to from outside. I have people whom I care about in Turkey, TURKISH people. I do NOT want Turkey to fall apart.

When Dink was killed, I received a text message from my Turkish boyfriend, "I sad because they killed Dink." (sic) At the time, I wondered, "Who the heck is Dink?" My knowledge of him began to grow on the day of his funeral. I had to cross one of Istanbul's main streets in the heart of the city on my way to work. That day, I saw something I had only witnessed on news reports on TV. There were hundreds of armed and shielded riot police, busloads of more and more were coming in, and personnel carriers with water cannon were all creeping down that wide street. Thankfully, Dink's funeral turned out peaceful, but the scars remain one year later.

Turkey is not a free society. There are unwritten codes of conduct that people know and adhere to even though places like Istanbul seem slightly more European than Middle Eastern.

One thing that will always live with me are the beggars I saw in the streets of Istanbul day after day. I gave them money whenever I could. When I did not, I feel terribly guilty and uncaring.

Though some try to cover up Turkey's problems, I have friends who talk in general terms about the difficulty of living that country. I feel so powerless and bad for them, and from my end I try to do what I can, but it is not enough for them, the beggars, the system that is keeping Turkey only half alive and looking more and more like another place with less and less of a bright future.

One year after the murder of Hrant Dink, Turkey is still reeling as this article on BBC News online shows.

Like my Turkish boyfriend wrote me in a recent e-mail, "You know Turkey now." I do.

Africa's Tragic Romantic: Bessie Head

2008-01-19T01:08:00.000-08:00

"Love is so powerful, it's like unseen flowers under your feet as you walk"
----Bessie Head

It is my desire that this blog will never become stale in its' subject matter, and even though my blog has a theme, there is a world of Romance out there both past and present to be written about.

Ardent's latest blog entry got me to thinking about my very first international sojourn, as a Peace Corps volunteer in the African nation of Botswana. African nations south of the Sahara get such bad press. It is always about disease, war, poverty, or genocide. There is little mention of the good of the extraordinary. The most recent case of bad news are the elections in Kenya. It has hit home with one of my neighbors, because presently he is hosting a student in his home who is Kenyan.

Botswana is one of the richest countries in Africa because of its' diamond resources. It does not get much attention because the people are quiet and peaceful with their neighbors. Also there are not a conglomeration of tribes there, so no tribal problems. The Batswana are very tolerant. I used to silently laugh when some Batswana would tell me, "Botswana is not true Africa. You have to got to West Africa, to see true Africa."

I was in Botswana when apartheid was running its' course in neighboring South Africa. In fact, depending on where I was, I sometimes lived as close as 15 miles from the South African border. As a non-white person I went to South Africa only once, because the climate there was very tense and even some British friends of mine who went were harassed by white South African soldiers.

There were a number of people both black and white whom the Batswana like to talk about when I was there. One of them was a person they held in high regard, the writer, Bessie Head. Bessie Head is one of Africa's greatest authors, dying at age 49 just when she was about to come into her own and get the recognition she deserved. Her life was short, difficult, lonely, and tragic. Nevertheless, out of her hardship, she birthed writing of get power and sometimes disturbing beauty.

Bessie Head was the daughter of a white South mother of patrician background and a black South African father who was a stable hand to her mother's family. The relationship was totally illicit because it broke apartheid laws which applied more to white women and black men than to white men and black women. According to my Batswana students and friends who related Head's story to me, when Bessie Head's white grandparents learned that their daughter was pregnant by their black stable hand, they had her committed to an insane asylum. There Bessie Head was born in 1937. Life was tough from the beginning. Of course, her mother's family did not want her, and neither did her father's family. Therefore, Bessie was placed in an orphanage where she grew up.

Having showed strong intelligence, Bessie went to school to become a teacher. Later she married a journalist and had a son, but she eventually became a divorcee.

Unable to tolerate life under apartheid, Bessie Head went to neighboring Botswana where she became a refugee. Even in Botswana life was hard, and Head lived in extreme poverty. She ended up in the village of Serowe, one of Botswana's most famous villages one reason of which is because it is the home of Botswana's first president, Sir Seretse Khama, another person common on the lips of many Batswana. In Botswana, Head found her calling and began writing. Also in the process she became an alcoholic and died of hepatitis in 1986.

Bessie Head's work is hard to classify under one genre. Unlike many African writer's her work is not very political. Her novels tend to be semi-autobiographical, with Biblical and classical imagery. She was also influenced by D. H. Lawrence.

Here can be seen an online project by students at the University of Botswana (which was spic and span and new when I visited it) concerning Bessie Head.

Kenize Mourad: A Romantic Heritage Discovered

2008-01-17T00:07:00.000-08:00

From time to time here I will continue to compose posts about books that have made a profound impression on me. In her bestselling memoir on books, Reading Lolita in Tehran, Iranian author and professor Azar Nafisi wrote about the freeing power of books in an oppressive society. Books can free us and change our lives.

A few years back before a planned trip to Turkey I decided to read Regards from the Dead Princess: Novel of A Life (1989) which I had taken off the shelf several times at our public library over a two year period, but had not pushed myself to reading. One day I finally decided to check it out it and read it. Once I got it home, I devoured the novel.

The author of Regards from the Dead Princess is Kenize Mourad. Kenize Mourad is a French journalist and writer with an extraordinarily Romantic background that she learned about when she was 20. She discovered that she is the daughter of an Ottoman princess named Selma who was the granddaughter of the last Sultan of Turkey, Murad V. Mourad's father was an Indian rajah. Regards is Kenize Mourad's fictionalized effort to sort out her background. It must have been earth moving to find out as an adult that one is descended from royalty and one of the longest ruling familys in world history, the Ottoman or Osmanli family who ruled Turkish for 500 years.

Mourad's mother Selma grew up in Ortakoy Palace in Istanbul. She is pampered and spoiled by family and servants. Her mother is a princess, and her father is her mother's second husband, a magnificently handsome man which Selma's mother picks for his manly beauty. Inside this insulated environment, Selma is unaware that her country is in turmoil. She hears of a man whom everyone is hoping will be Turkey's saviour, a general named Mustafa Kemal. People call him "the Golden Rose," because unlike most Turks he has blonde hair. Selma dreams that one day she will marry Mustafa Kemal who will become known to world history as Mustafa Kemal Ataturk, the founder of modern day Turkey. Little does she know that in a very short time once he assumes power, in order to drag Turkey into the modern world and the west, Mustafa Kemal will erase from his country most links the Turks have with their Ottoman past. He sends Selma and her family into exile. Selma and her mother go to Lebanon. Her father decides to seek his fortune alone and becomes a drifter and adventurer cutting all ties to Selma and her mother.

As a young woman, Selma discovers that she can rather relate to the French community in Lebanon. Still there is the aching feeling that she is an outsider. Her mother retreats further into herself and her memories. Though they are losing their wealth fast, she is determined that Selma makes a good marriage. First she looks to European nobility. When hopes there fade, she turns to a Muslim rajah in India. During this time, Selma lives with the hope that her beloved handsome father will return. He writes occasionally, promising to see her, but he never keeps his promises and never sees his daughter again. Feeling rejected and the emptiness of the exile, Selma suffers a nervous breakdown. She eventually recovers and goes on to India to marry a man she has never seen before.

Her Indian husband is handsome and kind, but for years Selma had lived freely, going out to parties and socializing in western dress in Beirut. Though her mother lived the life of a recluse, she allows Selma to have a degree of freedom. In her husband's house, Selma is put in purdah. Though her husband is kind and patient, she is sexually frigid. She tries with all her power to adjust to being in this restrictive world. She learns about the poverty and squalor of so many people who live near by and dreams of helping the poor. In her own way she tries, but she is so terribly unhappy and restricted that her husband agrees to let her go to Paris on a vacation. Selma does not tell him she is finally pregnant because she knows he might not let her go and breathe if he knows her secret.

In Paris the Nazis are near and they finally occupy Paris. Selma meets an American business man who falls in love with her. She decides to never return to her husband. But under the occupation it becomes a struggle for survival, and Selma has her baby one day. She dies nearly alone with only the baby and an aging black eunuch who had become her surrogate father.

Being only a few days old when her mother died, Kenize Mourad, of course, does not remember her beautiful, auburn haired mother. However, after writing Regards, she later had the opportunity to meet her Indian father, and writes about him in the second half of her family's life story, The Garden of Badalpur, which has apparently not been translated into English.

Regards From the Dead Princess is a magnificent portrait of several cultures, and a tragic tale of a young woman who is never really able to find her place in the world.

A Romantic Revolutionary

2008-01-15T00:54:00.000-08:00

Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. was born on this date in 1929 in Atlanta, Georgia. Next Monday, on the 21st, will be the official national holiday in celebration of his birthday.

Dr. King was a Romantic revolutionary because his vision to bring about change nonviolently was very unique to history. Few leaders in the history of the world have tried to initiate change without violence, but Dr. King was unique in this aspect. His ideas to elevate the existence of African-Americans and to usher in change was inspired by his admiration of Mahatma Gandhi's nonviolent struggle to free India from British rule and by, of course, the teachings of Jesus Christ.

I was 6 years old when Dr. King was assassinated, and I remember exactly where I was in our house the night we heard the news on the radio. When Dr. King was cut down, he was only 39. Along with playing his jazz albums, my father played over and over Dr. King's I Have A Dream speech when I was a girl. The words of this powerful speech became engrained in my memory. There was a period when I could almost recite the entire speech by heart.

My maternal grandfather's stepfather was related to the King family. When she was a girl my cousin Maxine, the daughter of one of my grandfather's half sisters, was invited and stayed for several weeks with Dr. King's widow Coretta and their children. My first year as an undergraduate, I attended Spelman College in Atlanta, which is the sister college to Morehouse College, which Dr. King attended. At the time, his younger son Dexter was a student at Morehouse, and he would come over to our school to attend classes. I passed him a few times on the sidewalk. As for getting very close to Martin Luther King, Jr. himself, my family and I have visited his grave and The King Center which is in Atlanta.

Dr. King's vision probably looks very naive and unsophisticated to many today who seem to understand only trying to bring about change violently, but I feel that if the human race is to survive, we had better get over our bloodthirsty tendencies and remember and emulate the ways of Dr. King.

A moving tribute to Dr. King can be seen on YouTube here. The song in the video is called Black Butterfly and is sung by Deniece Williams.

Martin Luther King, Jr. understood the price he might have to pay, just the way I believe Benazir Bhutto who was assassinated a few weeks ago understood too.

Mexican Romantic: Alejandro Fernandez

2008-01-14T00:00:00.000-08:00

Like many singers I love, I just happened upon Alejandro Fernandez by hearing one of his songs I liked on a CD I bought of Grammy Award Winning Latin singers.

Alejandro Fernandez is one of Mexico's most popular singers. He began his career singing mostly ranchera and mariachi music like his father Vicente Fernandez, another singer famous throughout Latin America. Alejandro has the nickname "El Potrillo" which means "the little colt." His father Vicente, is called "El Gran Garanon" meaning "the great stallion."

In the last several years, Alejandro Fernandez has changed his style to Romantic pop ballads, always sung in Spanish. He has partnered with singers like Gloria Estefan, Placido Domingo, Marc Anthony, and more recently with Beyonce.

At 36, Fernandez has been married twice and twice divorced. He has five children. He says of his music and himself, "“Romanticism is something that will never die. I’m super, ultra passionate."
I think of Alejandro Fernandez as a kind of Mexican Elvis, but sans (without) the moves. The following video is one of my favorite songs by him and is from his first acting effort Zapata: El sueno de un heroe; translated into English, "Zapata: The Dream of a Hero."

Aphrodite and Apollo Post Moderne

2008-01-13T22:33:00.000-08:00

This is slightly old news, but 41 year old Halle Berry's wish has come true; she is now pregnant by her French Canadian boyfriend, model Gabriel Aubry. They are reputed to have met at a Versace fashion show. Halle says that Aubry, 31, was initially rather shy, but he obviously overcame his impediment.

After two failed marriages to black men, Halle Berry stopped seeking marriage and instead found someone she says she is happy with, who has shown her real love, and has given her her wish, a baby. Personally I believe for a number of reasons that it is best to have kids inside the context of marriage. Still because people are imperfect, with even a married father around, there is no guarantee raising children will go smoothly. It all has to do with having a level head, and a lot of men and women in this day and time don't even bother to have any balance in their outlook on life. Seems those who should have never gone the route of producing kids are the first ones to plunge in having them. The most blatant current public example of this is Britney Spears. In my most recent sojourn in Turkey, the family I worked briefly for as a live-in English tutor showed horrible parenting skills, this in a country which still holds on to traditional marriage and family. Some people are just not cut out to be parents even in such places too.

Hopefully, with her age, Halle will display some common sense and skill. But wisdom does not always come with age. But for the child's sake, I hope she does. It is said that older parents tend to be better than those who are young. Older parents don't take things for granted where having a child later in life is concerned. To older parents, a longed for child which finally appears on the scene is a blessing.

A couple of weeks ago, I watched a YouTube video of a Christian Lebanese woman whose parents had been married for over 30 years and had remained childless. When they had gave up hope, her mom became pregnant. When she was born, her mother was 55 and her dad was 60! I bet they were wonderful parents. This was in the days before fertility treatments, and being in one of the Bible lands, I am not surprised. Remember Abraham and Sarah or Elizabeth and Zachariah, both elderly Biblical couples who had a child when all hope was lost?

Halle Berry is the product of an African-American father and an English mother. With their good looks Berry's and Aubry's child may be very attractive. African-American, English, and French.

In their beauty, I think of Halle Berry and Gabriel Aubry as a post modern Aphrodite and Apollo. Here are more photos of them.

The Romance of Women in Western Art

2008-01-13T21:22:00.000-08:00

Sometime last summer I discovered and saved to my YouTube favorites the following video, Women in Art. For the art lover and Romantic, it is a spectacular compilation of female artistic forms in western art over the last five centuries. As I have mentioned before, I minored in art (drawing & painting) when I was an undergraduate. Emma Alvarez whose blog I have listed under my Blogs With Class section presented the video on her site several months ago, I believe. Her comments about it can be read here. So here is Women in Art along with Bach's Sarabande from Suite for Solo Cello No. 1.

A companion to Women in Art is this also beautiful and breathtaking video also called Women in Art with Romantic imagery of women by a number of 19th century European artists like William Adolphe Bouguereau and the Pre-Raphaelites.

When God and The Prophets Were Black

2008-01-12T13:22:00.000-08:00

The Green Pastures was a movie produced in Hollywood in 1936, the year my maternal grandparenst were married. It was adapted from the Pultizer Prize winning play of the same name. Like Disney's 1997 TV version of Rodgers and Hammerstein's Cinderella which I wrote about in my December 30th post, the casting for The Green Pastures was like nothing the world had seen before or since at the cinema. The entire cast is African-American. God, the angels, the prophets, Adam and Eve, the King of Babylon, etc. are all blacks who speak in "old" black southern dialect. All of the stories in the film come from The Bible and are played out in the mind of a little black girl.

The characters of The Green Pastures may be offensive to some who despise old Hollywood films which too often portrayed blacks as ignorant, unlettered servants or slaves, or excessively comical, but the characters of The Green Pastures have a kind of dignity which is too lacking in what is considered by some to be "black culture" in America today. Current popular culture which is held too much in adulation by young African-Americans is a negative pool of gangsta's (gangsters), pimps, and ho's (whores). This, with a number of other issues, has damaged the black community in America. Even abroad some people believe current black stereotypes and cannot understand African-Americans who do not act "black." I would feel so ashamed sometimes when I was in Turkey and see some rap videos. Being someone who was 18 or 19 when the first rap songs went mainstream, I continue to view with distaste what rap has become since the first rappers I heard were The Sugar Hill Gang and

Kurtis Blow. They did not spew vulgarities, praise the gangster and thug life, and denigerate women. Not being a total prude, however, I do view some of the 1990s rappers like Tupac Shakur, The Notorious B.I.G., and Bone, Thugs, and Harmony as rap artists inspite of everything.

When I saw The Green Pastures on Turner Classic Movies (TCM) about 3 years ago, I did not find it offensive. Here were black people who spoke like my rural grandparents and others I would be around during my summer vacations in Greene County, Georgia, the county seat of my mother's family. In fact, I understand less the dialect that young African-Americans speak today than I do these people's in the film.

The Green Pastures is rated with 5 stars on Amazon where it can be purchased in DVD here. Here is also an excerpt from the film.

Controversial still, stereotypical, naive, sentimental, whatever your opinion, The Green Pastures is a classic artifact of African-American cinema, and I recommend it as a Romantic, moving, heartwarming, creative take on The Bible, and a work of art.

The Brutal Romance of Sigrid Undset

2008-01-11T13:20:00.000-08:00

Sigrid Undset (1882-1949) was a Norwegian novelist born in Denmark who received the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1928 mainly for her trilogy Kristin Lavransdatter about the life of a woman in 14th century Norway. Undset is largely unknown today outside of Norway and except by a few Catholic scholars which is a shame because her writing is truly some of the most powerful, beautiful, realistic, and brutally Romantic works ever written. She is my all time favorite writer not only because I revel bathing in the Romantic, obscure, and the beautiful, but because she is indeed one of the giants of western literature.

Sigrid Undset's power as a writer was influenced by several sources. Her father was an archaeologist, and she developed an extensive knowledge of the old Norse and Icelandic Sagas. She was also influenced by several prominent Scandinavian writers of the 19th century like August Strindberg , the playwright Henrik Ibsen, and other writers like the Brontes, Jane Austen, Leo Tolstoy, and William Shakespeare. Though she became renowned for her novels set during the Middle Ages in Norway, Undset's early novels and short stories dealt with the lives of young women living and working in Kristiania, which is now Oslo. Her modern characters show an alienation and lack any spiritual base to help them survive life's often boisterous and brutal storms.

Her novel Jenny (1911) caused a scandal because of it dealt with sexual issues. The main character Jenny is a young artist living in a community of young expatriate artists in Rome. She is loved by a fellow Norwegian artist, but cannot bring herself to respond to him; still she becomes engaged to him. When she returns to Norway, she meets her father, a rather weak man who is hounded by his wife. Jenny feels sorry for him, but does not love him. After a brief liasion with the father, she learns that she is pregnant. The story ends tragically like most of Undset's novels and short stories. Jenny, unlike, Kristin Lavransdatter which is Undset's masterpiece, was out of print until 1997 when I had the longed for opportunity to read it in Tiina Nunnally's collection called The Unknown Sigrid Undset. The descriptions of Rome and the countryside outside the city are breathtaking. You can almost hear, breathe, and smell nature in Undset's stories. You can also relate to the character's feelings and passions.

For years Kristin Lavransdatter could only be read in an older version of English, but in 1997 Tiina Nunnally translated the it into simplier modern English. Kristin Lavransdatter is in three volumes and a must read. It is the story of Kristin the daughter of a wealthy Norwegian landowner in the 1300s, her passionate love affair with the darkly handsome, erotic, and reckless Erlend, who seduces her when she is taking a spiritual retreat at a convent, their turbulent marriage, her decision to become a nun after the death of Erlend, and her and a number of her children's deaths during the Black Death. This novel is a beautiful but difficult read because of the amount of tragedy. It contains passionate love scenes (without sex described in detail), violence, the death and injury of young children, and lush descriptions of nature. The saintly and the sinful are presented. Kristin's spiritual journey is told just as it is in Undset's other medieval masterpiece The Master of Hestviken whose protagonist is male, a highly moral person, who passionately loves the same woman from childhood, but even though he is a highly decent person, goes on to commit murder when the honor of the woman he loves is wrecked.

Sigrid Undset soaked up life. The realism, beauty, passion, Romance, despair, and raw brutality of her works are a reflection of her own life and spiritual journey. When her father died, she had to abandon her dream of getting a university education. For 10 years she was an diligent office worker and secretary, feeling frustrated in having to do work that really did not reflect her talents. Early on, she dreamed of being a writer, devouring works by her favorite authors, and trying her hand at writing a novel set in the Middle Ages. Her first published work was set during the modern era and dealt with adultery. Later she distanced herself from modern themes and placed her characters in medieval settings, but gave them range and emotions that people in all times and places can relate to.

Being rather shy and reserved, Undset probably did not have a relationship until she was 30 when she met a Norwegian painter Anders Castus Svarstad during a trip to Rome. Svarstad was 9 years older and married with a wife and 3 children back in Norway. It was probably love at first sight, and they began to live together, marrying about 3 years later once he was able to get a divorce. The marriage produced children, but eventually broke up. During the time, Undset, because of the demands of being a wife and mother was not able to write. She also had the first rumblings of a spiritual crisis which would lead her to reject Lutherism and become a Roman Catholic.

When Germany invaded Norway in 1940, Sigrid Undset fled first to Sweden and then to the US. While in America she pleaded for her country's liberation through her writings. After the fall of the Nazis, she returned to Norway, but for whatever reason never wrote again. Why she never wrote again is a mystery, maybe she was just too worn out and the creative juices had just dried up. So much had occurred in her life, that she was probably also rather disillusioned.

The article Reading Sigrid Undset gives more insight into her writings as also articles and speechs on Nobelprize.org which can be viewed here.

Oprah Winfrey's endorsement of Tolstoy's Anna Karenina in 2004 (Boy, did I ache with thrills that an African-American woman would promote and recognize a classic of world literature!) helped it to be an bestseller even though Anna, the main character commits suicide and the novel was published in the 19th century . So like Oprah I endorse the Romance and realism of Sigrid Undset.

Discover.

The Money Tree

2008-01-10T10:58:00.000-08:00

I have a little time on my hands today since bronchitis has creeped back up on me and grabbed me in the last two days. I don't smoke, but if there is a swift change of weather, I get sick. Our weather went from the 20s at night, to a little over 70 degrees F in the last couple of day during daylight hours. According to my dermatologist, people here in Georgia, are more prone than anyway else on the planet to have skin and breathing allergies. This year I have not experienced any skin allergies which dry out and make dark blotches on my cheeks. Two years ago, my dermatologist gave me the weapons I needed to moisturize, so this year my skin has not been a problem.

Bronchitis hasn't been much of a problem either. Each time I go to Turkey, my lungs seem to get cleared out, I guess because of the proximity of the sea. Strangely, the excessive smoking of some Turks don't seem to aggravate my allergies very much. It is just when I come back to Georgia....Still this year my bouts with bronchitis have been few and far between with me rarely having to use my inhaler.

This week has been pretty good. On my evening job, I am displaying well that I have a special touch with customers, and my sells conversions have been exceptionally good. Like my mom continues to say, "There will always be some Turks in your life." Maybe there will be. Suffice it to say, there is one who has tried to hold on to me for close to 2 years now. And now that I am becoming convinced of his sincerity, I now no longer want it or hope it to be off again on again between us.

Last Sunday, we had the centennial birthday celebration for Miss Lizzie Swanson which I mentioned in my Saturday post. The highlight of the event was that Miss Lizzie's church decided to make a money tree for her. The tree was brought after she arrived from church with the people who took her there. A tall, green artificial plant was made into a money tree with bills attached by straight pins to each leaf. In the end, the money which was collected by adults and children at her church came to $834. $834 won't go an enormously long way with today's inflation, but at 100, Miss Lizzie's needs are frugal. It was a great day for her, and she looks great at 100. Still feisty at 100!

A New Discovery, Sort Of...

2008-01-10T00:31:00.000-08:00

When I was an undergraduate at The University of Georgia, I almost majored in anthropology. At the time my alma mater was seeking or claimed to be diligently seeking minorities especially African Americans to major in fields which did not usually attract blacks. Among my choice of electives I picked anthropology since then as now I was extremely interested in world cultures. The professor I studied under encouraged me to consider majoring in the field because I did so well in my studies, getting all A's. I evaded her urgings for reasons I will not go into here.

Around 2003 or 2004 when I was hunting online for any information I could find on Iraqi reactions to what was happening to their country, I found a site called Iraq4u.com which catered to Iraqis who no longer resided in Iraq. On the site were some Iraqi music by various singers, and because of my search there I fell in love with the music of Ilham al Madfai. I subsequently bought one of his CDs. But besides discovering al Madfai, I learned from the site that a people whom I thought had vanished in the pages of Biblical history still existed in Iraq. These people are the Assyrians, the fearsome warriors spoken of over and over in the Old Testament portion of The Bible. The ancient capital of the Assyrians was Nineveh, and even today in Iraq there is a province called Nineveh (Ninawa). There is very little left of what was once the ancient city of Nineveh, however, the descendents of these ancient people who had one of the first Middle Eastern high cultures live on, not as the worshippers of pagan gods like their ancestors millenia ago, but as Christian people. The Assyrians live dispersed throughout the world now. Assyrian minorities who still live in the regions which is their homeland are threatened by Arabization and Islamic extremism. About 400,000 live in the US.

The Assyrians are a Semitic people, whose native language is a form of Aramaic called called Neo-Aramaic or Syriac. Jesus is believed to have spoken Aramaic, so I am sure knowledge of this gives the Assyrian people a lot of pride. When I was Turkey in September, I watched a program on Al Jazeera English one afternoon, about a soccer team for the Assyrian community in Sweden. In this report, I heard for the first time about the Turkish genocide against the Assyrians who lived in eastern Turkey. I was well aware of stories of the Armenian Genocide, but here was a second group who apparently is not fighting as aggressively to get Turkey to admit to crimes as the Armenians are doing. At least I have not heard of any uproar coming from the Assyrian quarter to the degree it does from the Armenians.

What I am learning about the modern day Assyrian people is fascinating along with their music. One of their top singers who was born in Baghdad, but now lives in California is Linda George. She sings in Syriac (Neo-Aramaic) and English and has been inspired by such singers as Anita Baker and Barbara Streisand. Her official website can be accessed here.

The Assyrian people are very proud of their heritage and dream of being able to reclaim their homeland. They were after all the old kids on the block before the Babylons, Medes, Persians, Arabs, and Turks showed up in their territories. Nevertheless, the Assyrians are a mixed "race" of people. I personally think the ones I have viewed online resemble the Turkish people more than they do Arabs, Iranians, or Kurds.

It is said that Assyrian culture was around over 6,000 years ago. They had converted to Christianity before Islam existed. When I look at the products of Assyrian nationalism, it is a interesting mixture of their pagan and Christian heritage. These people are proud, ancient, and becoming a group which is a rare entity in the Middle East: they are Christians.

Here is a video by Linda George about Iraq.

A video by Assyrian singer Faris Esho with a lively couple dancing in traditional Assyrian costume.

A nationalist Assyrian video with (can you believe it?!) the rapper 50 Cent wearing a muscle shirt with the Assyrian flag on it. Is he Assyrian? :) Or does he even know that what he is wearing is the Assyrian flag? Perhaps an Assyrian fan gave it to him.

Here is another Assyrian nationalist video which has art referencing ancient Assyrian civilization.

Finally this video explains Assyrian traditional clothing

I really hope this ancient people can survive because the world will be less colorful without them.

Where Am I Going?

2008-01-05T23:42:00.000-08:00

I hope I can continue to blog semi-regularly since I have two jobs, one of which can be rather stressful; both of which I find rather unchallenging according to my intellect. Also, I am torn about blogging because here I really cannot sit down and craft my writing the way I would in a personal journal.

The temptation of blogging is not to really tailor your writing meticulously because there is always the underlying desire to get what you write out immediately if only to see it in sitting online. Also looking at the statistics of where your readers are coming from only adds to the ego, but leaves those of us who have dreamed of and have been encouraged over the years to take up the writing life professionally feeling a little empty as if we wasting valuable time. I have also noticed that I do a very poor job of editing when I write online, much worse then when I keep a journal or a diary.

I was encouraged when I was a 24 year graduate student by the then editor of a local newspaper to write after he printed a column I wrote about teenage pregnancy in his paper. That editor was Philip Lee Williams, and you can read his biography on Wikipedia right here. He later became a published novelist, and at his first book signing, I was there where I met his agent who showed an interest in me and who asked me if I might have something written that she might look at. Those days seem like eons ago. I have gone through so much and experienced so much which a blog is painfully too small and restrictive to contain. My life has been rather extraordinary for its' ups and down and degree of adventure when I come to think of it, though everyday I feel I still have not done enough despite choosing years ago to not live an average life. I stepped out of the box as an African American woman and developed my own style and uniqueness, and I feel I am so much the better for it.

So where am I now? I am in a place (not really the physical location) that is too small for me, and where I am wasting a little too much time just "piddling" away. I need to be refreshing my knowledge of Spanish which is an important language to have here, and I need to be working on learning how to play that guitar I bought two Christmas' ago. I feel empty sometimes because I need to get back to just old fashioned journal writing far from the maddening crowd of the internet. I will continue to write here though, but entries may come down to only 2 or 3 times a week at most because of my jobs and also because I need to focus on what I expressed above.

Sometimes I think that if Phil Williams remembers me, he is wondering, "Where is her book?" Life is short, and I had better get on the two I have started. Yes, I have started two, and it pains me that I have got them here lying around like neglected children.

Tomorrow will be an event. I have to work tomorrow morning for 5 hours, but after I get off, I will go to the home of one of our neighbors who sold us the land on on which our home was built back in 1966 when I was only 4 years old. Our Miss Lizzie Swanson will be 100 years old tomorrow. The neighborhood is giving her a centennial celebration. Miss Lizzie, as everyone calls her, is a widow whose husband Jack committed suicide during my first year in college when he discovered that he had cancer. He just blew his brains out in their yard one day. Miss Lizzie never had any children and most of her family members have now passed away, so she has a number of people she views as her adopted children, some of whom are my parents. I knew she was nearing the 100 mark, but it was not until a few minutes ago when I asked mom did I learn about her landmark age. It seems that Miss Lizzie just keeps going and going like the Energizer Bunny.

Where as with most things, I guess the same applies to blogs: quality is more important than quantity. Of course, I do subscribe to the belief that if you have a blog, don't go for months on end not writing in it and permit it to die if you can at all help it. Write, by all means, as regularly as possible.

I will end here pointing to a blog with lovely photos which speaks volumes on the Romantic, beauty, exoticism, eroticism, mysticism, just the plain cute, the gritty, the edgy, you name it if you are a Romantic and a connoisseur of beauty like I am. This is an eclectic mix, and I also adore the eclectic along with the Romantic. While searching for blogs that fit my perception of the some of the best of what the blogosphere has to offer on the arts, history, the personal, Romance, etc., I found Images That Speak to Me that can be seen here. These images are a real treat:)

From Volodya, With Love

2008-01-02T21:39:00.000-08:00

Volodya is the diminutive of the Russian name Vladimir. Russian names can have several short forms. My friend and "sister" Tatiana's is Tanya. Her long time boyfriend Nickolai is Kolya or Nick. Anastasia can be Nastia, Stasia, Tasia, Nastenka, and more.

However, here I am writing about a Volodya named Vladimir Putin, the new "Tsar of all the Russias" which is currently the Russian Federation. I was mightly surprised when out picking up some things this evening to see the current issue of Time magazine with Putin's face on it. 'So Time thinks Putin should the person of the year,' I wondered. Well certainly Vladimir Putin was an unexpected choice winning out over Al Gore, J.K. Rowling, General David Petraeus and China's paramount leader Hu Jintao. After my initial mild shock, I thought it all made sense and goes right along with our times. There is a bad, cold, and calculated sort of Romanticism about Putin just like it was with Saddam Hussein.

I read Vladimir Putin's autobiography back in the late 1990s. One thing that came out was the man was a man of authority and iron conviction similar to the old Russian autocrats. Putin, I learned then, was quite disciplined, tough, and saw himself as a Christian even though he had been a member of the KGB and had grown up knowing nothing be an atheistic Soviet Russia. A warmth once existed between President Bush and Putin because the former no doubtedly saw in the latter a follower of the Good Book. Over the years both men has shown some dictatorial tendencies and a tendency to get into wars they cannot nor have the desire to extricate themselves from. Under Putin some Russians feel that Russia never had it so good with a vibrant nouveau riche and luxury stores and items that would have made the Communists and Bolsheviks puke. But the rich is getting richer in Russia and the poor are not seeing the fruits of capitalism like they had hoped. Corruption is rampant. The mafia runs plenty behind the scenes. Journalists are learning fast to not criticize and make waves against Putin's methods or accidents or bullets may happen.

So is Putin a new Tsar? If one has read the histories of some of the Russian Tsars, I would say that Putin is a throw back to them having the characteristics of a strong sense of destiny for Russia, purpose, authortarianism, and perhaps even silent feelings of his own divine right. When Putin was first elected president, I asked my Russian friend what did she think about Russia's possibilities with this man. "Putin was with the KGB," she said with concern and wariness in her voice. "We don't know about this man." Last year the director of studies at the language school I taught at in Istanbul who is a Russian citizen, said to me, "Putin looks like a rat! The man is terrible! Russia was destroyed because of people like him before. Those who ruled there during Communist times were mainly drunken soldiers and peasants. The Romanovs at least had some class. They were cultured and learned, but Putin comes from this same group that caused so much suffering in Russia."

In the prelude to Times' article "A Tsar is Born" which can be read here, it is written, that Putin is "no ordinary politician. He is charmless yet adored by his nation. He took a country in chaos and remade it in his own image: tough, aggrieved, defiant." (12/31/07-1/7/08 issue)

According to Time, Vladimir Putin has never sent an e-mail in his life.

Perhaps a new Tsar HAS been born...

My Wish For the New Year

2008-01-01T23:31:00.000-08:00

I have a wish for the New Year that some way, somehow things will get better in this world. I am not very optimistic that it will, but still I hope.

Peace and hope seem to be ephemeral for so many. People look to groups and government to bring them peace, when so many fail to recognize that if each individual could seriously and without fear look at their own failures and remedy them, it would be a start towards a better existence. Each and every individual that is old enough to know the difference between right and wrong really need everyday to look at the man or woman in the mirror and ask what he or she can do to make this world a better place?

Making the world a better place is not about running away from challenges, being cowardly, being constantly critical and seeing everyone else's fault, not facing up to reality, or isolating. Some of the world's ills are the result of too few of us examing our hearts and finding out what is wrong there. This year what many of us need to do is make resolutions we can keep. This year the first place where every person can begin is to forgive all hurts and to ask for forgiveness. Just thinking I'm going to move on is not the way to go. The baggage from failed relationships and friends just accumulates and carries over to other relationships to only destroy them too in the long run.

Over the years my best friendships have been very fine in quality indeed because they all involved transparency, honesty, respect, and similar high principles. I only offer advise to my friends when they ask for it and vice versa.

It all begins with the individual. Start asking yourself each day, "How can I make someone else's day?" Not always, "How can someone make MY day?" Just a kind or delightful word, gesture, and look can go a long way in helping people. Listening helps too. No one cares much for a person who turns a conversation into a one dimensional exercise. Just listen sometimes. Tonight I just sat and listened at work to an woman who told me how she had to move to Georgia because she and husband lost their business and their home in Michigan. She is having to start over at 57. I hope my listening to her helped. I think it did. I was very happy to oblige by hearing her tale.

Last night I chatted with my best friend in Turkey just before New Year's here. We share each other's secrets and dreams, and I think it helps my friend just to have someone to listen who does not judge her. She thinks my off again on again Turkish boyfriend who lives in Turkey is being ridiculous in some of his overly emotional and Romantic comments he makes in e-mails to me, but she is like a sister to me and is free to say what she wants. I even joked with her that she can have him, even though I do care for him and is concerned about what might happen to him and his country. I have begged him to stop smoking, but he says he can't.

I do make the time to think about myself. I know when I need attention, and I know when it is time to focus on others. It is never fully about me. I hope it never becomes that way.

I had never met any Iraqis until last winter when I was Istanbul when I met a young woman name Waa'fa. Waa'fa and her family were the children of an Iraqi father and a Turkish mother. She was born in Baghdad. Before I meet her and her two brothers I had still felt very troubled about the plight of the people of Iraq. You don't have to physically meet a people to care about what happens to them. For the four years that the war in Iraq has raged, not a day has passed when my heart did not ache for that country. Some American citizens have long seemed to be only concerned about our troops, but the Iraqis are people too with hopes, dreams, and aspirations. I did not believe the surge would be big enough to help, but it seems now that perhaps it is working. I feel some happiness and hope for Iraq, a thing a year ago this time, I most certainly did not feel.

So I will end this rambling piece before midnight strikes and it is January 2nd with a very nice video of pre-war Iraq. Some of the refugees have started coming back. The walls between Sunni and Shiite communities which were erected by American forces are being brought down it is said. An Iraqi Romeo and Juliet who are "living happily ever after" now can be seen here.

Here too is my favorite video of Baghdad as it once was. The beautiful song in the video is sung by Hussein al Jasmi as in my previous post.

I wish all humankind a peaceful and a USEFUL 2008, and especially so for the people of Iraq.

Romance of the Despot

2007-12-30T23:52:00.000-08:00

As you get older it seems that years just wisk by leaving you to wonder how a year seemed to drag on when one is a child or teenager, but once you pass 30 or 40 how it just seems without explanation to speed up. Well, one year ago one of the most blustering and dramatic of the world's strongmen was executed: Saddam Hussein al-Tikriti.

Saddam Hussein, "The Butcher of Baghdad," "The New Nasser," "Liberator of Palestine," "The Godfather," "The Anointed," "Great Uncle," along with other titles he probably reveled in and loathed, really had an amazing career which was Romantic by its' rise from the dirt and desolation of the Iraqi village of al-Ouja to "great" Arab lion and leader with over 30 palaces scattered throughout Iraq to the gallows of one of his former prisons. Saddam's story was definitely one of the poor boy who makes good, but his own pride and miscalculations along with the pride and miscalculations of others led to the suffering of millions of Iraqi innocents. There has been much written about Saddam, much of which is only rumor, speculation, and sensationalism. Feelings about him run from passionately for him to passionately against him. Just look at YouTube in the last year where there are more and more videos put on in honor of the man. The comments about him after these videos run the gamut from calling him a saint and martyr to a dog and bastard. Some think he is either in Heaven or Muslim Paradise and others think he is burning in Hell with his two sons Uday and Qusay who preceded him in death. Rarely is there a middle ground reached where Saddam is concerned.

Today in Tikrit which is basically Saddam's hometown (al-Ouja is where he was born and apparently in close proximity) he was honored with songs and chants by children, many of whom are so young they don't remember him. There were also fiery speeches. Saddam was loved and hated by many. When he was executed last year, demonstrations broke in of all places, India. India has the largest Muslim population of an country on earth even though the chief religion is Hinduism, but for some reason there was a lot of outrage there on December 30th last year. Some of it was certainly because Saddam was executed on the first day of

Eid, but Saddam has also been rumored to have given aid to India in the past. The reason why Indian demonstrated may have been because his personal physician is said to have been Indian. Saddam was also said to be generous to those whom he felt honored or liked him. Here is a photo of him back in the 1970s on a visit to India when he was vice president of Iraq.That is Indira Gandhi, the prime minister of India, beside him. Like her counterpart in Pakistan, Benazir Bhutto, who died on Thursday, Indira met a tragic end. Bhutto's father who was president and prime minister was executed by hanging like Saddam. The real relationship between Saddam and the Indians is unknown to me. I do know that over the years, Saddam actively courted friendships with some countries in Africa. He was a friend of Castro and Qaddafi, and near the end of his rule was visited by Hugo Chavez of Venezuela as this photo attests.

Saddam was a Romantic Despot and once the special glowing friend of the US in the region. At one point, before Iraq entered the war with Iran in 1980, Iraq was the most advanced nation of the region with a highly literate population, many of whom had university educations. Saddam, himself, always aspired to the best. He listed himself as both a lawyer and a general, but both titles were false. As a young man, Saddam allowed his penchant for politics to interfere with his quest to become an attorney. He tried to get into the military academy in Baghdad, but he was rejected. Being a tall man at 6'2" who at different periods of his life was strikingly handsome, he might have done his country a better service if he had become an actor. Saddam loved to dress up and would don the robes of the Bedouin chieftain, the general, or the look of the 1930s style gangster. He was a family man who loved to swim and play with his children, or at least he created this image for the public.His youngest daughter Hala was his favorite and was often seen with him even at political meetings when she was a little girl. She is reputed to have been a very sweet girl who loved Iraq and the Iraqi people, even stealing money and jewelry from her parents to hand out to poor people. Here is Saddam playing with Hala.

Here is Saddam sewing the sleeve on the dress of his eldest daughter Raghad, but it may possibly be Hala.

Here is Saddam and family in an old photo from the 1970s or 80s. The little girl beside him sucking her thumb is Hala.Saddam was said to have been married possibly 4 times. The photo above is with his first wife Sajida, who was also his cousin. She is the blonde lady. Saddam's and Sajida's marriage was arranged when he was only 3 years old. They met when he was about 10 and had run away from home to be with Sajida's family where he would be allowed to go to school, Sajida's father being a school teacher. Saddam's stepfather was totally against him receiving an education, beat and abused him, and felt Saddam should only aspire to be a farmer. Saddam obviously thought otherwise and hit the road to find his destiny.

Saddam Hussein saw himself as a Renaissance man, a throwback to leaders of old like Nebuchadnezzar and Saladin. Like Old King Neb, Saddam promoted colossal building programs for his country with many monuments to himself also thrown in. When he began modernizing his country while still vice president, he had electricity put in place throughout Iraq, plus he also made sure that every family received a television set and a refrigerator. More darkly, Saddam also got ideas from Joseph Stalin to whom he bore a slight physical resemblance. Saddam had the ancient city of Babylon reconstructed. He claimed to be a direct descendent of the prophet Muhammad. He was a patron of the arts with artists constantly using him in their subject matter as the "New Saladin" on a white horse leading Arab armies into victory or dressed in the garb of a Babylonian or Assyrian warrior in a chariot firing arrows. Saddam forged and forced a common identity on Iraq, a country pieced togther and created by the British. Out of Sunni, Shiites, Christians, Bedouins, Yazidis, Kurds, Arabs, Assyrians, Persians, Turkmen, Syriacs, Chaldeans, and even Jews Saddam demanded that they all see themselves as not just inheritors of an Arab state, but as descendants of the ancient empires of the Babylonians and Assyrians.

Saddam saw himself as a poet and also as a novelist, writing about 5 Romantic novels with political and allegorical themes. One of his first was Zabibah and the King. Even in his second and final imprisonment, Saddam was writing poetry.

Over the years we have heard mostly about the very bad Saddam Hussein, a man viewed by many as a brutal criminal, but don't we all have our faults, some of us with small and others with gargantuan. Saddam was a big promoter of the importance of education and pushed for women all across Iraq to be educated. All of his supposed wives were educated women. Under Saddam, the Christian community of Iraq was protected, but now they are threated and persecuted. One of Saddam's highest ranking officials was Tariq Aziz, a Catholic, who is still imprisoned by US forces. In the documentary Uncle Saddam, Saddam is shown as a man who saw himself as a father figure to his nation, encouraging people in the basics of just taking baths everyday in his regular TV announcements. When all hell broke loss in Iraq, some people lamented that perhaps Saddam knew what he was doing by keeping his foot on the necks of the Iraqis. He obviously was more well versed in Iraq than we Americans were.

Saddam's rise and fall were dramatic. When he was found in a hole in December 2003, he showed the world that the old adage, "the bigger they are the harder they fall" is very true. Saddam had gone from gangster to dishoveled Santa Claus. As my pastor said, "That was a SAD end."Saddam's destiny ran full circle in December 30, 2006. After the embarassment of being shown to the world as a poor old man pulled out of a hole and living in a two room filthy hut just across the river from one of his palaces, Saddam redeemed himself on the gallows. He died bravely and with dignity, praying the prayer which Muslims say before they die. The world's reactions were mixed. I was in Turkey at the time, and one of my colleagues who was Australian told another one of my American colleagues, "That was WRONG what the Americans did to Saddam Hussein. There is going to be hell to pay for this." Even the Vatican condemned the execution as morally wrong and said that modern nations do not engage in conduct such as hanging.
Though the world now does not seem to have the time or the common sense to learn and remember tough lessons, the life of Saddam Hussein is a lesson which many of us could benefit from by learning about.

To wrap this post up, here is a very well done tribute to Saddam Hussein. There are many on YouTube using Arabic songs, rap tunes by Tupac Shakur, and I even found one with a Hallelujah tune. The song in this video is sung by Hussein Al Jasmi.

The Romance of Cinderella 1997

2007-12-30T00:00:00.000-08:00

After the shock and sadness of Benazir's Bhutto's death and how it will certainly impact and have tough consequences for Pakistan and I believe the entire planet, I need to go back to the realm of the Romantic and the beautiful. Leave politics to bloggers who obsess about politics and current affairs a little too much, some who have no new ideas or expertise.

In the realm of the Romantic is the story of Cinderella. Most people are probably familar with the story of the beautiful girl who is ill treated by her stepmother and sisters, forced to be their servant, is rescued by a fairy god mother who sends her to the prince's ball, has to leave before the strike of the clock at 12 midnight, loses her glass slipper, and is finally reunited with the prince after his great search with the slipper, marries him and lives happily ever after. There have been several film versions and stage musicals of the fairy tale adapted from what is a folk tale/myth found in a number of cultures.

Ten years ago, Disney presented Rodgers and Hammerstein's Cinderella which was very unique because the cast was multi-racial. The African-American singer actress Brandy Norwood plays the title role. A Filipino actor, Paolo Montalban, is the prince. Whoopi Goldberg is the prince's mother. A white actor, Victor Garber, plays the king. Bernadette Peters plays Cinderella's evil stepmother. And Whitney Houston is Cinderella's fairy god mother. The production was Emmy award winning despite its' very innovative casting. I was fortunate to see it when it was first presented on Disney, and felt that if I were a movie producer I would cast parts not according to race, but by talent.

Look at this scene when Cinderella comes to ball and the prince sees her. Pure Romance!

I was amazed that Disney took this chance with the casting. Most comments about this production on YouTube site are very favorable, with many saying they just love Paolo Montalban as the prince and how he had done Asians proud. He has a very good voice which shows training unlike Brandy's which is good, but does not indicate professional coaching. Just like the song "Ten Minutes Ago," "Do I Want You Because You're Wonderful" is also another one of my favorites in the film.

I have Rodgers and Hammerstein's Cinderella in my collection. It can be bought here at Amazon. For Romantics who are either children, adolescents, or adults, this version of Cinderella is a feast, a miletone, and a unique treat.

She Looked So Happy

2007-12-29T00:28:00.000-08:00

Though I was not surprised by the terrible and tragic news of Benazir Bhutto's assassination yesterday, I am still very shaken and sadden by the event as also my parents are. My parents admired her too. Yesterday morning my dad admitted that he had long felt great admiration for Bhutto because of her beauty and intellect. Last night when I arrived home from my part time evening job, my mother had apparently been standing in front of the television in our den for a long time time avidly watching news reports on several channels about Bhutto's death. Mom told me that Bill O'Reilly of FOX NEWS had been ranting as usual, but this time about how they had in his words, "killed that beautiful woman." Though she was long past the slim college student or the stately leader, Bhutto was still beautiful even though she had put on weight in these last years and looked matronly. Here she is less than a minute before the attack. Indeed she looked so happy. So unsuspecting that so much horror was about to happen to her and some of her supporters.

Today it was reported that Bhutto did not die from bullets to the neck and chest as previously thought. She apparently was critically injured when the suicide bomber who shot at her detonated his bomb, the force of which threw her up against her vehicle's sunroof's lever and fractured her skull. Here are more photos of before and the aftermath of the shooting and the bombing.

Today Benazir Bhutto was laid to rest beside her father. Her dramatic and epic life is over and now she is a figure of history. In a interview not too long ago, she revealed that even though she believed she must go back to Pakistan to carry on her life's mission, she was afraid. Several weeks ago when I went to see the movie Elizabeth: The Golden Age, there was a scene in which Queen Elizabeth I expresses a degree of fear when she learns that her ex-brother-in-law, Philip II of Spain, has sent the Spanish Armada to attack England. She knows that if England is defeated, she will probably be captured, imprisoned, and perhaps executed as a heretic. I was surprised that mighty and iron Elizabeth I would have a moment of weakness, but she was human and so was Bhutto. Aren't we all, but those who are special and who impact lives are able to reach a point that is larger than life and defeat their internal fears and weaknesses. Bhutto must have done this. Martin Luther King, Jr. said in one of his last speeches that he was not afraid or worried because he had "been to the mountain top and seen the promised land." When people learn to believe and care about something bigger than themselves they can attain this level of courage.

In a society and world that is fast becoming desensitived to happenings like Benazir Bhutto's death, what I write here is meaningless and irrelevant to too many. The attitude seems to be to just to live, sit back, self indulge, and willingly accept the next batch of carnage, devastation, trivia, and degradation; accept the next batch of lies.

Fearsome times are coming, I believe. Only those with spirits like Dr. King, Bhutto, Mother Teresa, and the other greats and Romantics will truly see the promised land. The rest will be swept away.

A Romantic Dies

2007-12-27T13:20:00.000-08:00

I had no intention to write today because blogging for me, who plan to be a serious writer and who have had some things printed in newspapers in my town, is rather like junk food and other forms of instant gratificaton. But the news I woke up to this morning was both a shock and not a surprise. I could only feel a surge of intense sadness and lament the viciousness and chaos that this world is descending into day by day, week by week, and year by year.

After receiving a phone call from my former hairdresser, my mother told me, "Someone over there has been killed."

"Who?" I asked wondering just exactly where over there is.

Mom said, "Someone in Pakistan."

"Who! Musharraf?!"

"Benazir Bhutto."

"Well, didn't we both say a few weeks ago that they are going to kill her?"

We did predict it just weeks ago, and now less than three months after her return from a 8 year exile in Dubai Benazir Bhutto the former two time prime minister of Pakistan, daughter of one of Pakistan's most influential families, offspring of former president and prime minister Zulfikar Ali Bhutto was cut down today shortly after a rally by bullets and possibly a bomb in the city of Rawalpindi, Pakistan . She was only 54. Two years ago on the same date, December 27th, my grandmother also died.

In our society we talk too often and place too much importance on role models. Often the role models youngsters hail as their's are not people to be admired for any significant reason. However, despite her flaws, Bhutto was a person to be emulated for her courage, tenacity, brilliance, vision, grace, and spunk. After looking at her official website site shortly before her homecoming on which a suicide bomber targeted her and narrowly missed, I had planned to write to her and tell her how I really admired her for her courage. Her life was epic in proportion. Her father had been tried and hanged, betrayed by a man who had been his friend. She spent close to 7 years in prison under both house arrest and in a jail cell. One of her brothers died under mysterious circumstances in France. Just a few years ago, her other brother died in a shoot out. Her own mother blamed her for the death of her second son, but later they were reconciled.

Bhutto was the first elected female head of state of a Muslim country. I marvel at how in America where women have independence, a woman has still not been elected president, and probably will not be for years to come. We have no real power houses with such credentials like Bhutto here. Oxford and Harvard educated, Benazir Bhutto was both charismatic and beautiful. She is a modern day Romantic heroine akin to Joan of Arc, Mary Queen of Scots, Queen Louise of Mecklenburg-Strelitz, Elizabeth I of England, and Queen Marie of Romania.

To many of us who did not know her, to have left the safety and calm of Dubai for the vicious climate of unrest in Pakistan may have seemed like pure recklessness on Bhutto's part. She has left behind children who are teenagers, a husband, and a sick mother. Why did she go back there from self imposed exile to her death which came in just a few short weeks? From here on the outside, I can only say she did so because she felt she had a mission, and somehow and someway that mission must be comsummated in her troubled homeland even if she had to shed her own blood. There were probably other myriad reasons why she returned, but I do know that some of us realize we have a purpose and a destiny that go beyond ourselves.

Already Pakistan is on red alert because some of her supporters have vowed revenge. Would Bhutto have liked this? I doubt it since she seemed to stand for peaceful change, but at the same time she knew she was up against the tiger which if cornered would lash out mercilessly. I hope that her supporters will not forget so quickly what she symbolized. So much in this world seems to be ruled by the law of the jungle nowadays. When one more personage of bravery is gone like Bhutto, the world continues to descend into a more dark and dangerous place, and like we predicted her death, I predict that the world will continue to swirl into a more ugly, scary, and terrible phase.

Good night Sweet Princess.

Santa Claus, who is St. Nicholas

2007-12-27T00:45:00.000-08:00

Another Christmas has come and gone and as usual the true meaning of Christmas has been nearly totally missed by the people who should most be concerned about its' meaning and also that that meaning be preserved. Each year I shake my head about what has happened to the meaning of Christmas in my country. This Santa which I saw in a catalog at my job over a week before Christmas got me to thinking.
Dressed like a Russian boyar, I found him highly appealing because I love traditional Russian arts, crafts, and architecture. I own two matryoshka or nesting dolls, one which is traditional with the doll-like face, and another which my Russian friend sent as a Christmas present several years ago and which begins with Lenin (he is the baby on the inside) and ends with Putin. Santa here is hand carved, painted in Russia and sold by a company called Lenox.

Boyar Santa is so delightful that if I owned him, I would not want to stash him away all year to only bring him out for display a few weeks at the finale of the year. He is more than an ornament, but a work of art.

Christmas also should not be an exercise or ritual we do which culminates on December 25th. Also the "Christ" in Christmas should not be replaced by some dull, lifeless, generic "X." Christ was the ultimate giver in world history. Also Santa Claus who is really St. Nicholas was a giver, a real person, and a Christian. Cute and sweet as Boyar Santa is, if there must be a Santa at Christmas time, his true story should be known.

St. Nicholas, or as we have reduced him into Santa Claus, was a 3rd century saint who suffered, was imprisoned, and survived the last and one of most ferocious of the Roman persecutions against the early Christian church. Last year, EWTN or Eternal World Television Network aired a cartoon about St. Nicholas which was extremely moving even though it was for children. It showed Nicholas, a man dedicated to Christ, who patiently suffered for it, and eventually triumphed.

I hate to see Christmas progressively and systematically being denigrated by so many. We in America who are Christian whether Protestant, Catholic, or Orthodox have helped in our own way either by greed, ignorance, or silence to allow the religious and very Christian message of Christmas and Santa Claus be slowly erased. Nativity scenes are seen by some as politically incorrect and offensive. Now people who really do not know Christianity are assigning meanings to Christmas which are dangerously flawed. Some of these people have good but misguided intentions, and others have intentions which are highly sinister.

I see days approaching when we may have to face what St. Nicholas did in the 3rd century; maybe then will the message of what December 25th originally stood for be recovered and celebrated in our hearts and minds. It may end up being the only two places where it will be celebrated.

The Saint Nicholas Center is a website which contains a wealth of information on Santa Claus/St. Nicholas and the true meaning of Christmas. View it here.

The Romance of It's A Wonderful Life

2007-12-24T20:43:00.000-08:00

The Romantic clip above is from the movie It's A Wonderful Life. This 1946 classic was a regular fixture on American television each Christmas season during the 1980s. At Christmas it was not unusual during that decade for the movie to be playing every evening on several TV channels sometimes at once. The showing of the film was eventually reduced because of copyright laws, and today if the the film is shown at all, only NBC is licenced to present it once a year mainly on Christmas eve.

The idea for me to write this post was actually e-mailed to me by Ardent of Ardent Observations which came at a very timely time since this is the Christmas season and little did she know It's A Wonderful Life is one of my all time favorite films and Jimmy Stewart, who plays the main character, is one of my favorite old actors from the Golden Age of Hollywood. During the heyday of its' frequent showings, I actually watched It's Wonderful Life at least 20 times. A few years ago I purchased the the film on VHS, but by that time I had overdosed on so many viewings of it on the tube, I actually have never viewed the video. It lies in storage with some of my other videos and DVDs. However, before New Year's has come and gone I hope to set aside time to watch it. And guess what?! Wonder of wonders, I have actually found the entire full length film online which can be watched here entirely free. But before watching it, get a taste by viewing the clip.

When It's A Wonderful Life was released, it was one of the few Capra films that was a box office flop. It was not until the 1980s that it actually became a Christmas cult favorite. I remember being hardly able to wait for each Christmas season to come so I could watch the movie over and over again. In the 1980s I had passed the age of waiting for Santa to bring me the latest neat toys, so It's Wonderful Life was the treat I anxiously waited to behold. The main character George Bailey stood for everything I believed in and still believe a person should be. He was generous, honest, and selfless. George Bailey grows up and lives his life in the small American town of Bedford Falls. It is a bittersweet tale with a shade of Dickens about a regular goodhearted guy with big dreams, but because of various unforseen circumstances, he cannot live out the life he plans. Nevertheless, his life impacts many people around him in a positive way over the years. It is only when George is about to toss it all alway that an angel from heaven is sent down because of the prayers of family and friends. The angel Clarence who is trying to earn his wings shows George what the world would be like it he had never been born. In the end, George comes to realize that despite the disappointments and setbacks, he is not a failure, but has actually had a "wonderful life."

There are many messages in It's A Wonderful Life which makes it still very relevant even today over 60 years after its' making. The importance of sincerity, family, community, giving, self sacrifice, are all messages that are as timeless as the reason for the season. George Bailey may not be or will ever become a rich man like the vindictive and dishonest Mr. Potter who is the town millionaire and who really cares for no one but himself and his riches, but George has more: a big heart. Today in a world where so many care only for themselves (even when they pretend not to), and when so many lack a word or transparency, It's Wonderful Life's message is one that is more important than ever. The qualities of George Bailey which I cited above is very much a part of the many qualities which I feel define a "Romantic:" uniqueness, uprightness, vision, selflessness, openness, imagination, courage.

Kissing by Valentino

2007-12-20T11:06:00.000-08:00

Last week I posted a video of the Latin Lover and silent screen superstar Rudolph Valentino in action. Valentino was a true artist, not like many in Hollywood today who have devalued the term art by calling themselves artists. Being in the era before sound, Valentino was adept at expressing emotions through his facial expressions. He was also the master when it came to kissing. In this video clip (the link is below) Rudy does the hand kiss which is almost a lost art.

In the country of Turkey, hand kissing is still done sometimes as a gesture of respect. A young person may go up to an older person, take their hand, kiss it, and then after kissing the hand of the older person, the younger person will take the older person's hand and touch their forehead with it. Before I got worn out with trying to exist in Turkey after living there twice briefly, I had become slightly acculturated. Several times I have done this gesture to older people I met there. Most accepted the gesture reluctantly out of humbleness, I believe. One of my friend's mischievous nephews who was about 8 even kissed my hand this way one time.

Like the previous Valentino clip that I posted last week, the producer of it has disabled embedding, so you can see the Master by clicking here.

A Poem By An Iraqi

2007-12-16T22:30:00.000-08:00

I live in Georgia, and our state "Georgia On My Mind" was made famous by Ray Charles. For me, however, I could re-word the lyrics and make it "Iraq On My Mind" since that country has continuously been in my thoughts almost every day since the war started. Please bear with me if I tend to post here regularly something pertaining to Iraq, but this is my blog and like the old song said, "It's my party, and I'll cry if I want to." It's my blog... :)

Back in the spring while looking for a magazine on freelance writing at Borders Bookstore, I ran across the spring and summer edition of Atlanta Review magazine which is a periodical featuring contemporary poetry not only by Americans, but my poets in other countries. The edition I found was labeled in red "Iraq" and contained poems by Iraqis translated from the original Arabic. I am going to post here a poem by an Iraqi which is in the magazine.

The Heart of a Woman

The heart of a woman is the only country
That I can enter without a passport.
Where no policeman
Asks me for my card
Or searches my suitcase
Full of contraband joys
Forbidden poems
And delicious sorrows.
The heart of a woman is the only country
That does not heap up heavy weapons
Nor force its citizens to fight its wars.

By Lateef Helmet
translated by Soheil Najm

Imperial Venus

2007-12-15T23:09:00.000-08:00

Film is one source where Romance can be studied and emulated. I will start regularly posting here movies which I feel are the epitome of Romance. The honored first will be Imperial Venus which is a Franco-Italian endeavor produced in 1963. Its' original name is Venere Imperiale, and on this Italian link some photos and short information about the film are presented.

Imperial Venus starred Gina Lollobridgida (the second in the pair of Italian bombshells the other of whom was Sophia Loren) and Stephen Boyd, an Irish actor who is best remembered as Massala in the Academy Award winning Biblical epic Ben Hur. Imperial Venus is the story of Napoleon Bonaparte's younger and favorite sister Pauline. Pauline was one the great beauties of her day. She was also greatly known for her love affairs and extravagant, nonconformist behavior. Napoleon loved her dearly, but he like many men of his generation and culture believed in a double standard. He could conduct affairs, but he was scandalized by his sister's behavior and tried to get her to tone down and stop making so much noise.

Pauline was married twice. Being the rebel, she scandalized her second husband Camillo Borghese , an Italian prince, and society by having two nearly nude statues of herself made by the sculptor Antonio Canova.

Canova's stature of Pauline as Venus Victrix (Venus the Conqueror)

Unlike the other hanger-ons around Napoleon during his glory days which included his other brothers and sisters, Pauline turned out to be one of the few who stood by Napoleon after his downfall. She even stayed with him during his first exile on the island of Elba and helped to run his court there. Pauline died four years after Napoleon at the age of 44 of cancer, the same disease that carried him away. She was a mass of contradictions: beautiful, erotic, rebellious, selfish, generous, unfaithful, child-like, flamboyant, and loyal. She was a true Romantic.

Gina Lollobridgida plays Pauline in Imperial Venus. The movie is not an excellent film, but it has some unique moments and dialogue. The costuming is beautiful and authentic. The film begins in Marseille, France where Pauline and her family are living as poor Corsican exiles. Napoleon Bonaparte and his family were not French, but Corsicans whose first language was Italian. Pauline is already showing her rebellious, adventurous streak as a teenager which a mature Lollobrigida plays and tries hard to pull off. But enter Napoleon who already at 25 is a general in the French army. He has plans for France AND his entire family even though he is not the eldest. He usurps his elder brother Joseph's role as head of the family. A man whom Pauline wants to marry is deemed not good enough by Napoleon for his sister who must rise up along with the rest of the family to create the dynasty which Napoleon already envisions. The film stops just before Napoleon gets ready to go into his first exile on Elba. The final scene of the movie shows Pauline holding and comforting her elder brother, the once great Emperor of the French and master of Europe.

Imperial Venus was created in response to French and Italian audiences who viewed with distaste the New Wave movement in film in France and of the time. These people obviously had a Romantic spirit and did not really care for excessive, stark, and bleak realism. They loved refinement and escape, like myself.

Though not a Romantic masterpiece, Imperial Venus is escapism on a good level. I was able to locate it on Google Video last year and paid $3.99 to download it. I looked for it yesterday, but I could not find it. I loved the movie's score so much that I bought the soundtrack from Amazon. Click on this link to listen to excepts from the soundtrack.

Gina Lollobridgida is lovely as Pauline, and Stephen Boyd is handsome and playful as Jules de Canouville, her lover and an officer whom once again Napoleon does not allow her to marry.

Imperial Venus is well worth watching with someone you love.

An Expat Romantic Artist

2007-12-13T20:45:00.000-08:00

Ali "Lee" Shahroudi is an Iranian American artist who currently resides in Istanbul, Turkey. He is also a friend and a former colleague having taught English as a second language with me at the now defunct Interlang language school which was located on Istiklal Caddesi ("caddesi" is Turkish for "street") in Istanbul. A Turkish journalist wrote about Istiklal in this rather morbid but true post in his blog last week: The Avenue of Chaos and Life .

But getting back to my friend Lee. I did not know that Lee was an artist until an evening in mid-March when I was about leave Istanbul to come back to the states. While we teachers were hanging out at the school waiting to collect our pay, I learned from Lee that not only had he majored in art, but he has also had some work on exhibit in Europe. The picture above was taken while we were waiting around at Interlang. Lee mentioned Germany in particular as a place where his work has been exhibited. I was very surprised by Lee's revelation because I had minored in drawing and painting at The University of Georgia in the 1980s. I did not develop my talent like Lee has done, but I still draw from time to time. Nevertheless, the desire to paint and draw is buried inside me waiting to come out in full bloom if I can ever get into the right relaxed mood and in a beautiful enough location that can inspire me. Places like Europe are excellent for writing and art.

A couple days before Thanksgiving, Lee e-mailed me with his new website showcasing some of his art: Expromantic. Lee says that his art is a combination of the Romantic and Expressionistic styles. Much of the painting I did as a university student was Expressionistic too. I used to love using very bright and lively colors. I had not taken up a paint brush in years until 2005 when my both my grandmother and her son, my uncle, were dying. I decided to relax my mind and try to escape for a few hours by taking a painting class.

I really like Lee's work. When I learned that he was an artist, I was very curious to know what kind of painting he did. When he sent me his website, I was honored that he thought enough of me to share his talent. His work is indeed Romantic and Expressionistic.

Love In the Time of the War on Terror

2007-12-12T00:08:00.000-08:00

In the last four years despite everything the second war in Iraq has not stopped the innate need by the people there to seek love and Romance. Marriages are still conducted there regularly unlike here where marriage and Romance in some quarters have basically died. At the present time, the slaughter has slowed down perhaps because of the surge or maybe the desire for and enjoyment of killing has wound down somewhat. Let's hope that things continue to simmer down, and Iraq can right itself.

During the bloodiest phase of the war, I marvelled at stories of Iraqis trying to conduct their lives with as much normalcy as possible. Back in the spring, CNN presented a news story one afternoon about young Iraqi students at the University of Baghdad who spoke of their dreams of becoming professors, diplomats, or doctors even though the bombs were falling in the background, even though some of their professors, friends, and family had perished in the charnal house that Iraq had become. These young people who dressed so well and looked so cute and scrubbed, went to class each day unsure if they might be killed on their way to school or coming back. Some of them said they felt extreme worry for their homes and family whenever they heard bombs and mortars in the distance. What might they find when they arrived home?

I was aspired to become a blogger because of an Iraqi blogger whose pseudonym is Riverbend and whose blog Baghdad Burning has won awards and been published in two volumes which can be purchased on Amazon. This year Riverbend joined the mass of over 2 million Iraqi refugees who have fled to Syria and Jordan. She and her family now live in Syria. I have silently wept for the Iraqi people since the war began, and for the terrible injustice done to them. On my fourth excursion to Turkey, I was befriended by a young Iraqi woman and her family who were taking Turkish classes along with me. Their mother was Turkish and lived with them in Istanbul, but their Iraqi father was still in Baghdad. I have prayed for the innocents over there to be vindicated some how and that someday Riverbend and many others can come back to the country they love and miss so much.

Last summer I found a touching article on Time.com about an Iraqi couple who met and fell in love. Their love story is unusual in the tragedy of Iraq, a once great and proud country that over the centuries has repeatedly been eyed and invaded because of its' location and resources. This year, Iraqis have faced cholera, so for those looking for love or already in love, it has become love in the time of cholera too. But love is a very strong emotion. Where ever there is Romance, lets hope that the old adage can still apply that love conquers all. Read Romance, Baghdad Style .

One of the Ultimate Romantic Gestures: The Kiss! No. 2

2007-12-10T23:36:00.000-08:00

Instead of posting a written kissing technique, I decided to present a visual post of Romantic smooching techniques by The Master. The silent screen star and the world's first sex symbol Rudolph Valentino was the sex god of 1920s Hollywood. He was The Latin Lover, the erotic and the exotic. Without disrobing and actually making love onscreen, the man's movements and behavior set the sexually repressed American female's imagination of the time on fire. Even today over 80 years after his death he still can light a few fires. How Valentino danced, moved, and kissed was tantament to actual sex for many fans. His tango dance moves were considered indecent by some. Rudy's actual love life was really not as steamy as that depicted by his characters on film. He was rejected by both of his two wives. He never saw himself as a real sex symbol or as being extraordinarily handsome as his female fans viewed him. About his appeal he once said:

"Women are not in love with me but with the picture of me on the screen. I am merely the canvas on which women paint their dreams."

Poor Rudy! So desired by millions of female fans he did not know, but so unlucky in love in his own personal life. His first wife locked him out their bedroom on their wedding night! Valentino did not know that she was a lesbian. His second wife left him weeping at the pier!

Embedding was not allowed on this of Valentino, so here is the link:
Rudolph Valentino--Tango Kisses

There is no French kissing here, but I think Rudy's kisses is rather more Romantic and erotic than that sort of lip locking. Look, listen, and learn from The Master!

Oh! If you look closely, at times his hand does slip. However, the object of his kisses and embrace does not flinch. I wouldn't either. ;)

Starved For Romance

2007-12-08T22:40:00.000-08:00

This post is not about blaming American society fully for why a group of women have allowed themselves to be starved for Romance. This post is meant to give a solution for a situation that has gone on far too long. This post is about African American women and our inability or failure to have men in our lives.

African American women have made great strides in small numbers in the last 3 decades. One of the wealthiest and most influential women on earth is Oprah Winfrey. When Oprah talks, not everyone, but certainly many listen. When I was in Turkey a couple of months ago, I felt a small surge of pride when I saw an article abouther featured in a major Turkish newspaper. Still Oprah is only one successful African American woman with a supposedly loyal male companion who has supported her for well over 20 years.

The majority of African American women don't have financial security or a man in their life like Oprah They are forgotten and doomed. For about 2 decades now, there has been warfare between African American men and women that is known in the black community and which has been occasionally addressed in black magazines like Ebony, but in the larger society this war is not well known. American society knows that young black males are very prone to being shallowed up by the criminal justice system. Just last week the nation witnessed the tragedy of the murder of NFL player Sean Taylor who at 24 had had his own run in with the law and was finally cut down by 4 young black men who were attempting to burglarize his home. He and his killers became another statistic in the constant bad news emanating from the black community, another story of a group of young black male lives wasted in a when there are no more places left where it can be afforded for more black lives to be destroyed. A generation of black males are lost in America; this must be faced. A generation of black females are lost in America too because they have become mothers at young ages relegating them mainly to the poverty and imprisonment of the ghetto. A new report came out this week that paints another grim statistic for black teenage girls. This year the rate of teenage pregancy rose for the first time in nearly 17 years. The jump was notedly sharp among young black females.

In the war and battles between African American men and women a strange situation has actually cropped up unlike perhaps in any other group on the face of the earth. More and more African American men have actually grown to despise their female counterparts and now date, cohabit with, or marry only white women. The reasons cited for this is that some black men see having a relationship with a white woman as a way as avenging themselves against white men. Black women had always been easy prey for white men during slavery. Up until the late 1960s, it could actually mean death for a black man, especially in the south, to try and have a relationship with a white woman. In 1955 a black teenager named Emmett Till was murdered by a group of white men for allegedly whistling at a white woman. After the ban on mixed marriages was lifted, more and more black men turned to white women, not only to tweak the nose of white men, but also to deliberately enrage black women as well since many feel that black women were too harsh, strong, and greedy for money.

While black men turned to white female lovers, black women were left deprived. Occasional black men are often in and out of the lives of black women in the ghettos, leaving them with their offspring, but never them. For the educated black woman it is even more stark with relationships few and far between. The complaint has long been that if a black woman gets an education, meeting a black man on her level will be like finding a needle in haystack. This is very true. Over the years some have even advocated that educated black women take black men far beneath their educational and economic stations in order not to be alone. But if you have a Ph.D. how can you reach common ground with a guy who is just a truck driver? How can something as basic as things to talk about be found? Also black men are often intimidated by women who are far more educated than themselves. How can these obstacles be overcome?

I think all the issues about Romance and relationships for educated African American women and our "aloneness" in America can be overcome by more black women deciding to broaden our horizons and date and marry men who are not African American. This is not about something as infantile as tweaking the noses of black men, but about possible self preservation in the long run.

I have long been attracted to men who are not African American, particularly to men of southern European, African, and Middle Eastern origin. I have never felt pressure from my family to not became interested in someone who was not of my "race." My parents like me, feel that color should not get in the way of people loving one another. My mother has even joked that she would like to have a Jewish son-in-law because in the recent past if a black woman married a white man (ie. Alice Walker or Diana Ross) it tended to be a Jew. During the Civil Rights Movement and up until Jesse Jackson's infamous "Hymie Town" remark, African Americans and Jews had in some quarters enjoyed close relationships because both groups found common ground in the sufferings both had endured over the centuries.

Over the years I have admired the daring of women like Diana Ross, Whoopie Goldberg, and Donna Summer who were criticized mightily by blacks when they repeatedly dated and married white men. These black women lived and worked in a majority white industry where opportunities for meeting compatible black men are often slim. Would it have made sense for they have to deprived themselves and perhaps wait for nothing?

When I read that Halle Berry had started dating a white man I thought, "More power to you girl." Why not try something new? Several years back when my friend Mitzi, who had been an odd egg like me being among the tiny minority of blacks to attend The University of Georgia, married an Asian guy and had a child that looked more Asian than black, I was so happy for her. Mitzi did not sit back and wait for nothing. For me these good feelings were not about getting revenge against black men for their inadequecies, disrespect, and insecurities, it was about black women deciding to take control of their lives and seek happiness no matter what the black community or society at large thought.

I strongly advocate that African American women stop limiting their lives on all levels educationally, financially, AND Romantically. In the blog Interracial Dating Blog, the sad plight of African American women in the marriage arena is mentioned:

Many people will agree that the gender disparity in education and business among African-Americans has a spill over effect on relationships that African American women have. And like I said above, big mama taught women to move on with their lives even without a husband. According to some, these implications have redefined Black America's family and social structure. The percentage of African American women between 25-54 who have never been married has doubled over the fifty years, from 20% to 40%. This is more than that of white women (16%).

We must ignore the "big mama's" of the world who say that, "You can do bad by yourself, honey" because I believe that loneliness is killing African American women. After black men who have the lowest life expectancy rate in the country, we are next in line for the funeral dirge to be sung over.

Humans are made to be social. Only a chosen few have the gift of celibacy. African American women must stop speaking the language of white supremacists and saying that it is Biblically wrong to marry outside the race. This view is also talked in Should Races Mix? also in Interracial Blog. In the Bible, race is never once mentioned because over the centuries when it was penned, there was no concept of race. Ideas to divide humanity into racial groups is a western European construct. The concept is foreign to the Bible.

In my life time I have had both whites and blacks propose marriage to me. The two men I have loved intensely were an African from Zambia and a Turk. My first real boyfriend was from the African nation of Somalia. I have had my lonely times like most African American women, but I have never turned down a man's attention because he was not of my "race." I have never felt compelled to limit myself.

I wish more African American women would forget the restrictions put on them early on and decide to open themselves to possibilities in Romance no matter if the man is English, Indian, Arab, Chinese, etc. There is a big world out there, and it is time we became a part of it.

Russia's Romantic: Alexander Pushkin

2007-12-06T13:59:00.000-08:00

Alexander Sergeyevich Pushkin (1799-1837) was a figure in the Romantic Movement or Romanticism of the late 18th and early 19th century. Unlike the best known of the Romantics in western Europe like Byron, Keats, and Shelley who all died young, Pushkin lived in Tsarist Russia. He is the literary giant of Russia, and with him Russian literature began.

Pushkin's origins are as Romantic and colorful on his maternal side as his writings. Both of his parents were of the lesser nobility. His father Sergei's family had been boyars, and his mother Nadezhda's grandfather had been an African slave first placed in the court of the Turkish Ottoman sultan and then purchased by Tsar Peter the Great. Peter freed Pushkin's great grandfather Abraham Hannibal and adopted him as his son. Abraham was educated in Europe and became a military engineer. His exact origins in Africa are not clearly unknown, but it is believed that he may have been from what is now either Ethiopia, Chad, or Eritrea.

Alexander Pushkin was born in Moscow. Because of his privileged background he attended the Imperial Lyceum near St. Petersburg. At 14 his first poem was published. Throughout his short life Pushkin wrote hundreds of poems both short and epic and even short stories. He wrote a short story about his great grandfather which is entitled The Negro of Peter the Great. His poetry is so rich and the language so diverse, that in translation it is nearly impossible to capture the complete flavor of his writings. Pushkin aided in revolutionizing the Russian language and the art of poetic writing. His poems contained themes of Romance, adventure, fantasy, and satire. The satirical element in his writings caused him to get into trouble several times with the Russian authorities. He was exiled to the Caucasus, the Crimea, and to his family's estates for upsetting the Tsar with his writings.

Pushkin was a favorite of the ladies, and had numerous love affairs with women who ranged from peasants to the upper crust. Eventually after sowing his wild oats for a number of years Pushkin married a very beautiful young woman named Natalya Goncharova. He once again regained favor and was admitted back into the Russian court, but he was highly suspicious of this suddent return to good feelings toward him. He believed that his wife's beauty was the magnet that was drawing him back into semi-favor, particularly when the Tsar showed his true colors and appointed Pushkin to the lowest post at court. By now nearly drowning in debt, and enraged by all the attention his wife was getting from the men including the Tsar. He soon began to believe rumors that his wife was having an affair with a French emigre. He challenged the man to a duel in which both were wounded, but Pushkin was hurt mortally dying two days later. He was only 37, and like the chief Romantics of England (Byron, Shelly, and Keats) he was dead before age 40. Like Byron and other young men of his generation, he was inspired by the Greek struggle for freedom from the Ottoman Turks, keeping a meticulous diary of the uprising. Even though his marriage was turbulent, Pushkin and Natalya had four children together.

Today in Russia, Pushkin's memory lives on in the names of streets, institutions, and monuments. His poems and stories were fertile ground for usage by Russian composers like Tchaikovsky, Mussorgsky, and Rimsky-Korsakov. Pushkin's use of language actually helped enrich the Russian lexicon. His love for the common people helped him to retain appeal even during Communist times in Russia.

In 1999 a stature of Pushkin was erected at George Washington University in Washington, DC. I have been an admirer of Pushkin for a long time because of his dynamic and Romantic life and also for his black heritage. Most Americans have probably never heard of him. How amazed they would be if they knew that Russia's greatest poet and the inaugurator of Russia's golden age of literature was what some people in America would call a black man.

Link: Some poems by Alexander Pushkin

A Romantic Pick From Turkey: Winter 2004-2005

2007-12-05T19:33:00.000-08:00

I have traveled to the country of Turkey five times. Thrice I have resided there and worked as an English teacher teaching the language as a second language. When I tell people that I have lived and worked in Turkey as an English teacher, some ask me what language do the citizens of Turkey speak. Most have never heard of the Turkish language.

I had an intense love affair with the country from 2003 until this year. I never thought my love could be so fickle, but it receded into the mists. Now I have just both fond, perplexed, and exasperated feelings for the place.

When I was working in Turkey's largest city Istanbul, during the winter of 2004-2005, the school where I was employed had put me up in a cheap but clean hotel. Often my room's heater did not give out enough heat, so on the two days when I was not working and the weather was too bad to go out I would look at a music video station named KRAL. Kral in Turkish means "king." This video by Cuneyt Tek is called 'Gidersen' which means "If you go..." I would sit in my hotel room or lie in bed and wait for it to come on. The hotel where I stayed for 3 months only carried about eight television stations, all of which were in Turkish. Since at the time I knew almost no Turkish, I would watch KRAL since "music," as someone once said "is the universal language." Later when I bought Tek's CD containing the song, "Gidersen" I played it for my best friend Hanife, and using the liner notes containing the lyrics, we sang the song together one day during my one of my breaks. Hanife told me that "Gidersen" is a love song which I had already gathered from the video. She also told me that she thinks Cuneyt Tek is very cute. He is, and rather remains me of a very young, teenage Burt Reynolds. I also knew that the word, "askim" means "my love," a word that the song contains.

When I watched this video that winter on TV I was really touched by how Romantic it was. The story that the video tells of a boy and a girl falling in love as children and going through life together is what many of us would like even if we have too much pride to admit it. I had one student, Aylin, who married her sweet heart from middle school, but she divorced her husband while I was her teacher in Turkey because he came over to America and abandoned her for another much older woman with kids, so Aylin's love story went awry. I wish it could have ended differently. She recently wrote me that she still is alone. I learned from her experience and from my own there that love and Romance is just as uneasy in Turkey as here and everywhere else. Wouldn't it be nice if it were easy?

Enjoy "Gidersen." :))

A Romantic Piece of Equipment

2007-12-05T18:23:00.000-08:00

Last summer I decided to invest in this stereo system that is a piece of nostalgia and Romance. I can almost hear the 'R' in Romance rolling when I think of this prize. This pre-modern stereo console sits in my bedroom with my AM/FM cathedral radio on top of it. Both are reproductions of entertainment equipment from a much earlier time period.

My stereo console is from Seventh Avenue , a company whose catalogue I have been receiving for several years now. Seventh Avenue sells all kinds of items for the home ranging from furniture, accents like grandfather clocks, toys, housewares, electronics, jewelry, collectibles, and even fitness machines. I really love this company for their furniture items that are a throw back to earlier eras. My console has a turn table that plays records of all speeds, a cassette player, an AM/FM radio, and a CD player. It even has a remote control devise.

Shortly after I was born in the early 1960s, my dad bought a stereo console from Philco. It's cabinet was made of pure walnut veneer, and he was extremely proud of it. It was one of the most expensive pieces of furniture that my parent's owned at the time. It had a turn table and an AM/FM radio. We still have it even though neither the radio nor the turntable functions anymore. Throughout my childhood it was a mainstay in our home with my dad playing his jazz records on nearly full blast many evenings, and Martin Luther King Jr.'s "I Have A Dream" Speech became ingrained in my mind because dad would play it over and over. When the Philco stereo was first purchased it came with a shiny, silver colored label sitting regally on its' left speaker. Being curious even then, I quickly peeled it off one day when my parents were not looking. My dad later said he was so hurt when he saw how I had sneaked and defaced his most prized possession at the time.

Now this year I have my own Romantic looking console. It is not made of the sturdy stuff of which my dad's is made, but I think it is far more beautiful. It harkens back to a time before my dad's piece. It looks rather Victorian whereas dad's looks more 1960s-ish, last elaborate and more direct.

I still have some LPs (Long Playing records) of my own that I bought when I was a university student, all of Culture Club, a couple of Gino Vannelli albums, Dionne Warwick, Mario Lanza, Chopin. What's left of my dad's old jazz collection is still here too, Thelonius Monk, Ahmed Jamal, Miles Davis, Dakota Staton, Nina Simone, some Leonard Bernstein, even the "I Have Dream" speech is still around. This is what I cut my cultural teeth on. What and whom I listened to over the years has been a subliminal influence on why I am a very unique and Romantic individual.

Like my dad was, I am very proud to own the above piece.

Native American Romance

2007-12-04T23:30:00.000-08:00

Lee Bogle is an American artist who lives in the Pacific Northwest. He was formerly a teacher, but when his artwork gained great demand, he left the profession to go into painting and drawing full-time.

The subject matter of a lot of his work deals with nature. My favorites are his Native American pieces.

When I fill out an application that asks for race, I list myself as black or African-American which is a limited picture of my heritage. I am actually of mixed heritage being of African, European, and Native American descent. I have Native American blood on both sides of my family.

Subject matter on Native Americans holds a certain fascination for me. When I first discovered Lee Bogle's work I was immediately drawn to its' beauty and Romance. His Native American lovers have a quiet Romance and innocence, even a degree of eroticism about them.

Bogle says of his work, " I try to convey a spirituality in my art that the viewer must interpret for himself. I want my paintings to show a peaceful comtemplation and express a depth of serenity that comes only with quiet inner peace."

One of the Ultimate Romantic Gestures: The Kiss! No. 1

2007-12-04T22:55:00.000-08:00

I will admit it...I like to kiss. For someone who likes to kiss, I should allow myself to be kissed more. However, I am very picky about who gets the privilege though, perhaps too picky. I liked being kissed on the lips like most people, but I also love being kissed on the hand equally. To be kissed on my hand I actually had to travel to Botswana and Turkey before I met men who had enough class to realize that the act should not be permitted to die out even though it is a European courtly gesture from centuries previous to this one.

Today my friend Metin who has his blog Talk Turkey wrote an entry about male and female attitudes about kissing. Since he and I seem to be on the same wave length occasionally strangely I happened to be thinking about writing a post here a few days ago about kissing.

About a year or so ago while looking for romantic Victorian e-cards, I ran across a site that listed 365 ways to kiss. I have been looking for it this evening while writing this, but I cannot find it. I am really disappointed that I haven't been able to locate it because the techiques were not only erotic but were also Romantic. Of course, aspects of Romance does include eroticism. So I have decided in the midst of this to list a different way of kissing each week.

This one is a rather aggressive kiss which probably comes from or is inspired by the Kama Sutra.

---While kissing your partner, gently bite down on the lower lip (women love it ) and then start sucking on the bottom lip to give them a great sensation.

TO BE CONTINUED

The Cardinal: A Bird of Romance

2007-12-03T00:29:00.000-08:00

The northern cardinal or redbird is in my opinion one of the Romantics of wildlife. Here is why. Cardinals like a number of other birds mate for life, but watching them is to notice how Romantic their nature truly is.

If you live in the eastern half of the US, you will probably see cardinals in your backyard, if you have a backyard. Put out some sunflower seeds or cracked corn in the winter. They will come to it. Once the cardinals come you may notice sometimes that they will come in pairs. One will be bright red and the other may be a sort of tan color with some red on the crown of it's head and plumage. The bright red is the male, and its' faded counterpart is the female. Sometimes the male gather seeds in his mouth and feeds them to the female. I have actually seen a male feed two females at a time. Sometimes during the feeding a pair will touch beaks briefly as if they are kissing. This is all a part of the courtship ritual which I when I first saw it seemed like a highly Romantic gesture.

The cardinal is thought to have been given its' name because the male's feathers are a brilliant red like the robes and caps of the cardinals of the Catholic church. During the 1800s a popular trade in cardinals as cage birds began. The cardinals were prized for the their beautiful color and song, so they were trapped and sold in the northern US and in Europe. The Migratory Bird Treaty Act of 1918 halted in the trade in these loveable birds. Today the cardinal is the most popular choice for state birds than any other bird.

During courtship the male and female cardinal will sing a duet. Cardinals build their nests which are round and bowl shaped in thick foliage. The female usually lays from 3 to 5 eggs, and since male cardinals are fiercely territorial they will chase alway any birds who who come near the nest. Male cardinals are so suspicious of other males that if one sees his own reflection, he will try to fight it off for hours! Mated cardinals often travel together. Once baby cardinals are hatched, the father does all the hunting for food while the mother stays with the babies.

At Christmas time in the US, cardinals are often the subject of Christmas artwork. They are seen on greeting cards, plates, and in ornaments like wreaths.

In this era when it is difficult for so many human couples to bond peacefully and joyfully, it is so nice to know there are species of animals like the dainty little cardinal who remain devoted unselfishly to one another for life. Cardinals, a Romantic little creature.

Is It Me? But Isn't This Video Romantic?

2007-11-28T11:43:00.000-08:00

I know only two words in Arabic. They are 'hello' (marhaba) and 'beloved' (habibi). Habibi can also mean 'I love you' or 'darling.' Since I am a Romantic you may have noticed that unlike some I have learned pleasantries not vulgarities first. Really I am not interested in vulgarities since even in my native tongue English, I rarely use bad words:)

Due to the fact that my Arabic is almost nil, I do not understand it even though I enjoy listening to Arabic music immensely. I adore Arabic pop music particularly. My favorite Arabic singers are Amr Diab, Asala, Tamer Hosni, Wama, Hussein alJasmi, Mustafa Amar, Khaled, Cheb Mami, and Faudel. I used to wonder if I was a little strange when I began to gravitate towards listening to music in languages I did not understand. Then I learned that many people in other societies do the same since in most countries listeners are exposed to American pop music. Many of these listeners do not know English.

During my recent journey to Turkey, where I tried to be a live-in English tutor to a rather dyfunctional Turkish family, they hired a young housekeeper from the country of Georgia. Her name was Kate, and she loved people like Sean Kingston, Justin Timberlake, 50 Cent, and Beyonce. She would sing right along with Sean Kingston singing his hit Beautiful Girls, but she had no idea what the words meant since the languages she knew best were Georgian, Russian, and Turkish. There are many others worldwide who love music which languages they don't understand, but the sound captures their imaginations, transports them, or just creates relaxation.

This video is by the Lebanese singer Nancy Ajram. I had heard the song on the Arabic music website Alaghany.com and loved it. It is not one of favorite Arab pop tunes however, but when I finally ran across the video for the song, I was captived. Is it just me, but isn't this video romantic? Enjoy!

How To Make Your Facebook Profile More Romantic

2007-11-27T11:02:00.000-08:00

When I first heard of Facebook, I was sceptical to say the least about its' usefulness. I had heard a lot about the dangers of sites like MySpace through the news media. Since Facebook was similar I really was not interested in getting involved in it.

It was through reading the comments of a blogger who is a Facebook enthusiast, on another blogger's site that I decided to do a little investigating. I did not feel that Facebook could be intellectually challenging or stimulating. Finally I set up a Facebook account, and deleted it about 5 times until now.

During Thanksgiving vacation I discovered a number of interesting applications on the site that are both rather stimulating intellectually and aesthetically. I think of them as Romance features. They are quizzes like "What Les Miserables Character are You?" "How Romantic are You?" "What Music Instrument are You?" quotes by famous people like Martin Luther King, Marilyn Monroe, or Che Guevara, and the photo and art applications.

I am very proud to say that my Facebook profile is not a hodge podge of silly applications like the Vampire games (I do have the feature from the invitation of a dear friend, however) but my profile has lovely photos, quotes, videos and a border on the left hand side of vintage, photographic and classic art. My art gallery contains works from artists as diverse as Van Gogh to Andy Warhol. There is an Russian iconic painting. The vintage posters are everything from old movie, US military recruitment, travel, and advertisement posters to notices for artists like Billie Holiday and Thelonious Monk

I wish I could share my profile here, but one has to have a Facebook account to access it. If you have an account and want to peek at mine, my profile is Sincerae Bonita Smith. Check it out and if you have similar interests to mine and if you are also a Romantic, add me as a friend:) Then maybe you would like to go on and make your Facebook profile interesting and romantic too.

A Very Romantic Song

2007-11-24T17:33:00.000-08:00

While at the "ancestral" home on Thursday, which is the home of my deceased grandparents inherited by my aunt, after the Thanksgiving meal I overheard one of my all time favorite old songs playing on the television. I was in my aunt's room on my laptop, so I didn't see the singer of the song. The song is Our Love Is Here to Stay by George and Ira Gerswhin (1938). It was a very popular song and jazz standard which has been rendered by such singers as Ella Fitzgerald, Dinah Washington, Nate King Cole, Frank Sinatra, and Diana Ross. Played sometimes with a big band sound, I get goose bumps whenever I hear it and have visions of 1940s style lovers. I cannot vouch for the younger generation in other countries, but rarely are genuine love songs produced in America anymore. Sex, not love and Romance sells sadly enough. At 45 I feel a little pre-historic sometimes in my outlook about Romance. Oh, well!

They don't make 'em like they used to. Here are the lyrics to Our Love Is Here to Stay, and also here is the song being sung by Lea Salonga.

It's very clear
Our love is here to stay
Not for a year ;
But ever and a day.

The radio and the telephone
And the movies that we know
May just be passing fancies,
And in time may go !

But, oh my dear,
Our love is here to stay.
Together we're
Going a long, long way.

In time the Rockies may crumble,
Gibralter may tumble,
They're only made of clay,
But our love is here to stay.

In the Beginning There Was Romance

2007-11-22T19:07:00.000-08:00

In the beginning there was Romance.... Well, not really, but God did create man and woman and from them came the idea of romance. What is Romance? Is Romance a rose, a poem, a work of art, a look, a touch, a kiss, a beautiful garment and how it is draped, an attitude, a way of perceiving the world, a fairy tale? Does Romance exist today in what is a very unromantic and cynical world? Is Romance still possible? Is Romance an anachronism, so therefore very dated? I hope to answer all of the above questions here and more.

I would define myself as a romantic. I relate more to the world previous to World War I better than I do to the present. I have long been a lover of history. When I was in elementary school and the teacher would take us to the weekly excursion to the school library, I would always approach the librarian with the request, "Do you have any more fairy tale books I can check out?"

I love the romantic ways of some of the people of history. There was the period of courtly love in the Middle Ages. There were many great and romantic figures bred especially in the middle 18th to early 19th centuries in Europe which influenced so much of western civilization through their artistry and lives, people like Lord Byron, Napoleon and his empress Josephine, and Jane Austen among others. I admire all of these because they epitomized in their own way the ideas of romanticism and romance. Along with love, conservation, and preservation this post modern age also is dying for romance, but the inhabitants of this age know it? Of course some people have a caveman and woman mentality and aren't interested.

This blog is going to be about romance not only in the past, but how to recapture romance and beauty in this time period. People have to be taught and exposed to romance in all its' forms. We learn romance by instinct like a bird learns to fly or a baby sea turtle knows within itself to head for the sea once it is hatched.

When I write about romance here, I will not only talk about romantic love, but also romance which encompasses a way of carrying oneself and viewing the world. Romance is the ultimate form of class. So lets begin exploring and learning about the concept of romance.