Bailey Alexander

Guess who came to dinner; The Russians

Last night a couple of women from St. Petersburg showed up at Chez Bay. It was interesting to listen to their perceptions about Putin, their politics and their system. So different from my own experience growing up, yet one of my guests, Lola Voronina has become a good friend and we've ended up in similar worlds.  Odd to think the further east we move the  freer we seem to feel. 

Russians, I find, are cool, tough and refined. A great combo and they tend to complain less than the west. They go about their business, in spite of it all, underneath the radar. 

When living in Paris I didn't know any on a personal level, none came to play at Chez Bay yet apparently they were everywhere.

Long before the TSA, when Lord Berners met Sergei Diaghilev; details were different.

Once upon a time we weren't buried in brands, enticed to 'like' chic luggage and major airlines on FB, as if suddenly glamorous by association. Travel is anything but attractive...    

Mio marito recently skidded in from Eurasia, he'll travel to another 5 countries in the next 10 days. I project nothing but stress, what with sim chips, plugs, phones, currencies, passports let alone packing for multiple places and meetings. Interesting, perhaps. Stressful, very. 

I suppose the change of scenery could provide enough sensory overload to override the reality. But travel can be rough. 

Ironically enough traveling to Paris is far more glamorous than living and banking in la lumiere. Arguing in another language with inebriated neighbors once famous for soft porn movies like Emmanuel was less than, but yes, traveling by train to Paris is glamorous, d'accord.  

A Mecca in Venice for many, like me...

  I love cemeteries, especially this one.  Maybe your tastes bend toward Per Larchaise, the Catacombs of Rome or Arlington.

Me, I prefer the Island of the Dead in Venice, Isola di San Michele, specifically because Sergei was laid to rest across from San Marco. 

Either way, the melancholic exercise of roaming alone amongst another's beloved makes me remember my own, deeply.  Diaghilev lives in many people's minds, he looms large, still. 

At Samuel Beckett's grave, people leave little notes alongside pebbles. Here, at Sergei's, at least today, a few flowers.  I left a note, but next time, maybe on Sunday or Monday, a lovely something, for this man was the father of modern art...

 

 

 

Ever the twain shall meet between East and West

For those bestowing their precious eyes upon my tiny slice of cyberspace they must oblige some time for my deep obsession with Sergei Diaghilev.

Sergei, the man that introduced one end of the earth to the other in a blissed out state of grace; on stage where dance, design and music meshed into his heavenly net.

So few have written about the Russian's ode to the East and too little have scribbled on why so much magic transpired and inspired Modern Art to meet at Ballets Russes, so much costume and dance delivered by Eastern imagination.

 Wonderfully enough, East and West continue to open their wide, kind and complicated worlds to the other. whether we travel in our minds, trip along the internet or travel by plane, train or bateau. Today, like then, when Kipling wrote about the Asian and the European:

 

Oh, East is East and West is West, and never the twain shall meet,

Till Earth and Sky stand presently at God's great Judgment Seat;

But there is neither East nor West, Border, nor Breed, nor Birth,

When two strong men stand face to face, though they come from the ends of the earth!

  

This poem highlights the rendezvous between Asian and European at about the same time Diaghilev began applying all things East of Saint Petersburg to the West, via Paris then on towards the Americas.

Perhaps it implies that no matter how many wicked and corrupt countries and lobbies try and decry the reality of similar unions, the farthest points on this planet and their philosophies will invariably meet in the most beneficial ways.  It's rather dependent upon the broker, of course, whether they're benevolent or malevolent, whether insisting their role is a necessary evil, or persist on playing interlocutor, or just possibly, if we're ready to receive something really divine, they'll boast the magical kind and give us an impresario to present things so lovely they'll make you laugh, stuff so true your heart will melt, something so genuine and kind you'll feel inexplicably very, very well loved, forever and ever and ever.

But until the muse has rehearsed and become united with instruments and conductor, before they've been fancy dressed up and their nerves calmed down, until then, the only sound we'll hear is the steady din as we listen to the various classes chatter.  And this requires so much scaffolding, these political and religious posers, these consulting and accounting types, so little imagination.

Well, my heart resides with the Diaghilev's of this world, seated somewhere between Dawn Powell and Michael Powell, enough room for a Beckett and Wilde in between, but those Irish come with such guilt....I tend to reach for those that have none, like Gore Vidal, I thank all the Greek Gods I can think of for Vidal, the honest biographer of a country, the chronicler of some of its most colorful residents.  All these people creating truth without guilt because like love and beauty, their brethren, they've no need for moral absolute truths, no scaffolding needed...

they simply exist...

 

 

 

Boléro, Plushenko and divinely inspired dance

Diaghilev may have had to wear the role of frustrated composer before donning his "impresario'' outfit but this only served to allow him to scale such heights; his classical training created the infrastructure on which the architect could make his grand masterpieces at Ballet Russes. However, one could argue, as he did, you don't have to preserve classical uniformity to perform modern choreography, classicism is a means, not an end, but the presentation needs to be well proportioned and harmonious.  Who knew and proved this quite like Diaghilev, very few, that's who...

Dreams of Diaghilev, Ctd.

Now that I've finished reading the bio about Diaghilev's life I'm so terribly sad as he feels dead, yet again.

Maybe the sensation is simply compounded by the winter weather, the snow, as blankets upon blankets abound, layers that receive no relief as new snow arrives daily, creating a deafening sound, compressing my memories of previous lives and loves, suddenly, completely, especially as this very week witnesses two anniversaries precious to me, making up the most primal aspects of my life.  

As a lover of aesthetic pleasures, almost every page of this book provide a slice of bliss, lending the reader the license to live vicariously through Diaghilev.

I am, I confess, yet another voyeur, fan and friend, feeling dearly akin to all those that asked permission to enter his world, like Balanchine and Massine, like Nijinsky and Stravinsky, Picasso, Coco Chanel and de Chirico, like Ravel, Rubinstein and the rest.  One might ask, "just who didn't drop by", who didn't wish to be part of the mis en scene, who didn't pine to be combined into such a recipe, comprised of only the freshest ingredients, prepared to perfection by thee Impresario to end all, M. Sergei Pavlovich Diaghilev.