Jazz and Civil War by Ken Burns

Ken Burns

Just a quick note that I recently watched Ken Burns' Jazz documentary film, and am presently working my way through his Civil War.  I've been making good use of my treadmill time to work my way through both of these lengthy productions.  Jazz was something in the neighborhood of 15-20 hours of film; Civil War is probably 10-15 hours.

They're both terrific productions.  I know just enough about either topic to be dangerous, but now have just enough appreciation for each topic to dive deeper.

I've been listening to lots more jazz, and have developed new appreciation for Louis Armstrong, Lester Young,  and countless others, since watching Burns' work.

The DaVinci Code

I suppose I'm the last person alive to actually read The DaVinci Code by Dan Brown. I've seen the movie several times and always liked it. I don't read many novels (I think I've only read 2-3 since starting this blog), but a couple of weeks ago my wife and I were headed to the beach for a weekend and I was in the mood for some light reading.

I've never read a book after seeing its respective movie. Although it seems silly to do so, it was interesting to experience this reverse perspective. The book and the movie follow unbelievably parallel paths; both were very, very similar in my view. But as expected, the book provided significantly more.

The predominate difference, and I suppose this is a characteristic difference between all books and their movies, is that only the book allows you to experience what the characters are thinking. It's more than just added detail; it's the addition of personal introspection that divides a book from its movie.

And Dan Brown delivers. It's hard to tell where fact departs from fiction. But he certainly does his homework. There is certainly enough fact to make everything in DaVinci seem extremely plausible, even to hardcore history buffs like me.

And although I'm still skeptical of the broader genre of historical fiction, I'm going to read the rest of Brown's books. I mistakenly chose The DaVinci Code because I believed it was his first novel; I will go back to the beginning. Looks like Digital Fortess is next in my fictional lineup...

Culture Clash

As I've written before, one of my favorite aspects of history is when different cultures from vastly different regions somehow find themselves in direct contact. Because we tend to learn, study and read about different topics in silos, it strikes me as really interesting when the silos cave in on one another. It's sort of like the Brady Bunch and the Partridge Family bumping into one another at the grocery store.

Now I'm running into a similar co-mingling; not across geographies but across different aspects of culture. All of a sudden I'm hearing about it everywhere.

The most recent example has to do with the operas of Mozart, which I'm continuing to study and enjoy. For example, Mozart, born in the middle of the 18th century, is certainly a cultural phenomenon himself. But I had no idea of the content of his opera. His first opera (written at age 11, by the way) entitled Apollo and Hyacinthus is based on the Roman writings of Ovid in his metamorphoses, almost 18 centuries before his time.

It turns out that Mozart, not exactly known for his academic achievements, wrote a lot about historical figures. His opera Mithridate, King of Pontus is based on the actual Mithridates (yes, he was King of Pontus) from Asia Minor, who ruled during the late Roman Republic. Mozart's Lucio Silla is, not surprisingly, based on the Roman General and all-around bad guy Lucius Sulla - though not without wild divergence from the historical facts. There are many other examples which I won't list here.

I'm also reading about similar occurences in the Italian Renaissance, where artists set aside their religious beliefs to rediscover and immortalize the pagan gods of ancient Greece and Rome in their works.

I've also been watching a movie on the life of Marco Polo. A Renaissance Venetian in the middle of Kublai Khan's court in Mongolian China must have been quite a sight, indeed. The fact that he stayed and prospered there for more than a decade is almost unbelievable.

I guess it turns out that cultures have always had a fascination with one another. Granted, much of this culture clash has to do with the idolization of classical civilization. However, I think it actually says more about the education of society. In Mozart's day it was expected that you would know the story of Mithridates. If you didn't, you would have a really boring night at the opera.

Nowadays I could throw a stone in the middle of Times Square and not hit a soul who could tell you if Mithridates was an ancient king, a river in South America, or the nightclub in Hollywood where Lindsey Lohan was recently spotted!

Ancient Globalisation

I just read a fascinating article in Minerva Magazine that gets to the root of one of my favorite topics, the inter-relationships of vastly different cultures from the past. The article, entitled "Ancient Globalisation" by Roberta Tomber, summarizes her book "Indo-Roman Trade: From Pots to Pepper."

It seems there was a tremendous amount of trade between the Roman and Indian peoples from the 1st century BC through the 5th century AD. As the name suggests, the book cites the finding and study of pepper and pots that have been discovered recently on the African and Indian continents.

In fact, so many pots made the journey from India to the African coastal city of Myos Hormos that the broken pottery was used to make a jetty into the Red Sea. Ancient recycling at its finest.

We typically study cultures in silos, while forgetting that they existed at the same time. We hear of the wars that are fought, but not the trade, travel, diplomacy, migration and other co-mingling that took place on a daily basis. Who knew that the Romans loved pepper so much that they had it important from a world-away?

I'm reminded of one of my favorite movie scenes, one that played an early role in luring my to the world of history. There is a scene in Anna & the King where the King of Siam receives diplomatic correspondence from then-President of the United States, Abraham Lincoln. The king had previously written Lincoln to ask for military assistance, a request which the President had to cordially deny.

This interplay immediately struck me as fascinating... Who would have thought that President Lincoln, literally on the other side of the planet and entrenched in a bit of a war of his own, would have had diplomatic relations and correspondence with the King of Siam?

It seems that the world has been globalized for a long time indeed.

Lawrence of Arabia

I'm really enjoying our new account with Netflix. The big advantage of their service vs. on-demand or video stores is that they basically offer every movie ever made. My wife and have been taking advantage of this to rent a lot of older classics that we have never seen.

The latest such example for me was Lawrence of Arabia, the epic biography of British adventurist T.E. Lawrence. While serving in the British military during World War I, Lawrence used his out-of-the-way assignment with rural tribes of the Arab Bedouin to launch a surprise revolt against the invading Turks.

I had heard of Lawrence's adventures in various books, but never connected it with the famous film. Peter O'Toole, Alec Guinness, Omar Sharif and Anthony Quinn round out the all-star cast.

The cinematography was fabulous, especially for an older film, and the story was fascinating. I'm sure that the movie only scratches the surface of the actual story, so I've added Lawrence's famous biography, the Seven Pillars of Wisdom to my Amazon wish list.