Long walks and discoveries: Old Jewish neighbourhood

Last time I wrote about Kattenburg and how the whole neighbourhood was erased to make space for the new apartment buildings. Still, Kattenburg was not so central as the Old Jewish neighbourhood which was actually right in centre of the city and was eventually almost completely obliterated, for various reasons. Not only that the area was poor, neglected and overcrowded but during the WW2 the majority of Jews living here were arrested and sent to concentration camps, while the houses fell in disrepair (in other words, their nice neighbours stole everything from these houses and later used whatever they could as a firewood). After WW2 the decision was made not to rebuilt these houses but to erase everything and create the new neighbourhood instead. So it came to be that famous, vibrant Jodenbreestraat was completely destroyed, re-designed and widened. Judging by the old photographs, it was a very important street full of people and it was a heart of Jewish quarter - Rembrandt used to live here, in a house initially owned by art dealer Hendrick Uylenburgh. I walk here almost daily and its just amazing how completely everything from the past was erased, with utter indifference what it meant for the heart of the city. Rembrandt's house had to be preserved but almost everything else was forever gone and rebuilt to give space for the new apartment buildings. 

The perfect example how utterly destroyed this neighbourhood became was situation around beautiful historical building knowns as Huis De Pinto - built in 1605, this was a house of wealthy Portuguese Jewish family and for centuries was right in the heart of the Jewish district but after WW2 the whole area was completely devastated and destroyed - mind you, not by the bombings or the war but by the Amsterdammers themselves who abused and stole everything they could from the empty old houses whose owners were arrested and deported. At certain point this beautiful old house was literary the only house still standing - the municipality had other plans (to destroy it and to built a motorway here) but the demonstrations and riots prevented this. Everything else is new but Huis De Pinto still stands on its original place.

Right across the street from Rembrandt's house is a funny little crooked house, now serving as a restaurant - The Gosler House is literary the only thing still standing from the whole area and its fascinating to see the city archive collection, where it shows that this little house (owned by Abraham Gosler who was killed in Auschwitz) was once on the corner of the neighbourhood known as Joden Houttuinen - this whole area was demolished and on its place now stands a very modern school of arts. The old photographs are brilliant and they show countless little houses and a very crowded neighbourhood that once stood here. Apparently it was the slum where only the poorest lived. 

Uilenburg is the old Jewish quarter right opposite of Rembrandt's house. Originally the place for the warehouses, it became Jewish area around 17th century and was known as the poorest part of town, overcrowded and  dilapidated, even before WW2. In fact, the municipality tried to re-design and re-construct the whole area since beginning of 1900s - nowadays there is only one wide street (Nieuwe Uilenburgerstraat) where two narrow streets used to be. During WW2 almost everybody who used to live here was killed in concentration camps. If you walk here today, it looks like a perfectly serene and quiet neighbourhood but in fact it has a long past and it was one of the busiest areas of town. 

For example, what you see today as a concert venue, was originally built at the beginning of 1900s as a public bathhouse for all the people in the neighbourhood who had no baths in their homes (Amsterdam had several of these). It looks perfectly fine now, but before 1900 there were two streets on this spot and if you check the old photographs, its mind boggling how much the city has changed in the meantime. 

The complete elimination of old historical areas right in the centre of city was not over - the municipality had also set their minds on erasing the old market squares around Marken and Waterlooplein. When the plans came to destroy the old historical quarter around Nieuwmarkt (to make space for the new Metro line) this was the last straw - the citizens passionately fought to keep the old houses and there were genuine riots, fights with police and resistance from residents. This constant demolition had to be stopped. Once you find about this, it makes you wonder how anything was saved at all. 

Long walks and discoveries: Kattenburg

One of the reason why I mostly prefer to do my walks alone is that in real life I actually hardly know anyone with interest in history, art or architecture - recently I spoke to some acquaintances who are, just like me, ex-patriots transplanted to new country and no, they had absolutely no curiosity about what its all about (Alfie) - for them, it was enough to know practical things like bus and tram stop, the location of the nearest supermarket and such. My enthusiasm about the place I decide to live was obviously annoying to them, like why such a fuss about some old houses. Well, I better do my walks alone than - besides, while travelling for many years as a cruise ship employee, I trained myself to look at the world around me with curiosity so yes, I have an eye for details and a sense of feeling the atmosphere.

On my walks I admired the beautiful, historical building that is now The National Maritime Museum (Het Scheepvaartmuseum) but has trough the centuries always been connected with maritime one way or the other, like the whole neighbourhood here  - because of epidemics, I have not visited the museum yet but I walked around the area and noticed that right after the museum, the street is dominated by stern, prison-like Royal Navy gate (from 17th century) and the rest of the street is strangely modern. "This can't be" I said to myself "If the museum and royal navy had buildings here centuries ago, these must have been normal civilian houses on this spot as well". Boy, was I right. I did some research and this is what I have found.

Amsterdam is of course, much more than pretty canals and fairy tale houses - step outside of the famous canal ring and you will see modern buildings like anywhere else in the world. The more I discover about the town, the more I witness that surprisingly large parts of centre have also been completely erased and demolished to make space for new ideas. In this case, the whole neighbourhood of Kattenburg has been eliminated and re-designed. I am not talking just a few old houses, I am talking about the whole darn neighbourhood. 

What my eye noticed immediately was a strange dichotomy between old Royal Navy complex and the characterless modern buildings opposite - these two had absolutely nothing in common. So I checked the collection in the City Archives and voilà it turns out there used to be not one but two narrow streets in this spot: Grote Kattenburgerstraat and the Kleine Kattenburgerstraat. And the busy neighbourhood it was, with literary hundreds of people crowding in here, mostly people working in the docks and living in poverty. So gradually this whole area became neglected until sometime after WW2 the whole neighbourhood was demolished and re-built again, very cleverly they had built facades on Kattenburgerplein in the old style, as a tribute to what used to be here earlier. I am still shocked that municipality made such decisions to completely erase the whole neighbourhood, not just one building or a two but everything - however its been said that it was a depilated ghetto not worth saving and locals probably prefer to live in a new, modern buildings.

Being an old softie who does not belong to these modern times anyway, there is no doubt which face of Kattenburg I would prefer, given a chance. My heart aches as I look at the old pictures of the neighbourhood that is not here anymore. Than again, people who live here now have immensely more comfort now than previous Kattenburgers, so they probably don't miss living in old conditions. Myself, I could probably be perfectly happy even without the electricity. Give me a candle and a log to put in the fire place. 

Đorđe Balašević (1953 - 2021)

 

It looks as this blog is slowly turning into perpetual list of obituaries. People who had marked my life in one way or the other are dying like flies left and right - not unusual, as I am middle aged now myself and perhaps it is expected that my idols will eventually pack it up and go beyond the rainbow. Everyone I listened, watched and followed in my youth is now fragile and slowly fading - reminder of my own mortality.

What makes a great artist? I would say that it matters how many lives this person has touched, but this is all so relative - Vivaldi was forgotten for centuries and than posthumously he became known and celebrated across the continents. Still, I believe there is not a person who lived in Ex Yu and who was not familiar with at least one song by Đole - he was a widely known, popular and much loved singer/songwriter who somehow inspired passionate following and managed to continue performing in sold-out concerts even as the aftermath of war divided artists and audiences - he was that rare phenomenon, a true star of the former Yu, who still had public eating from his hand whenever he went. 

Đorđe Balašević had a long and distinguished career so he was many things to different people. To my ears he was kind of continuation of what Arsen Dedić started, namely a chansonier with his own unique voice - where Arsen got Adriatic sea in his veins, Đole was all about the rural countryside of Vojvodina; he was unabashedly and proudly inspired by stories about small towns, horse farms, loves and sorrows of ordinary "small people" caught in a wheel of life. From the very start, when he was still a member of the band (later he went solo) Đole had instantly recognisable musical signature, a special way with poetic lyrics that separated him from the rest of the crowd - just like with Arsen, with this guy you heard much more than ordinary, craftsmen text. He was a gentle, sentimental poet with a soft spot for underdogs and forgotten people but he also had a wicked sense of humour - on top of this all, he was also a enthusiastic and grateful raconteur who often entertained audiences for hours in his live concerts. 

It is a true testament to his personality that he continued to be much loved across the whole territory of Ex Yu even as the country itself fell apart amidst bitter acrimony - in a poisonous atmosphere where being this  or that, belonging to one or the other tribe could basically block the doors, Balašević basically had absolutely no obstacles and he travelled and performed everywhere. His oeuvre  is quite large and almost intimidating in a sheer quantity, there is a lot to chose from but for me somehow its always about the very beginnings - those first few years are carved in my memory, they were the soundtrack of my life when I was still so young that I was going to school and listened the radio. (Later in life, I was actually working on the radio) He was a good man and we are all very sorry that he passed away, it feels almost as a member of the family. 

I still remember how I cried when hearing that Arsen had died - alone in some pizzeria in Napoli. Last night the news of Đole's death caught me off guard in the middle of the walk and I cried trough deserted streets of Amsterdam. We are such stuff as dreams are made on. 

Long walks and discoveries: Sloterdijk

 

Because Corona left the city streets deserted (again!) I have continued my walks around Amsterdam - they didn't result in any weight loss unfortunately but I do have great pleasure in roaming in various parts of town that I have never seen before and since I have natural curiosity about a history and the place where I live, this brings me a lot of joy. Not only that I carefully select areas that I would love to discover but I take pictures and later do a little research about what I have seen. I am simply shocked how much of the city was previously completely unknown to me, as my work & social life was generally focused on a centre and until now I simply never had a reason to explore suburbs or anything "over there"  now, for the very first time I am starting to get some idea what means when people say "East", "West", "South" or various names of the neighbourhoods. 

The latest discovery was a very distant part of town called Sloterdijk - its a completely industrialised edge of town, created at the spot where once stood a village of the same name. I couldn't care less for the factories, railway station or a horrible mega-large cement buildings that dominate this area but I immediately spotted a cute little church that looked completely out of place here: in the middle of all this metallic horror there is something like a little historical oasis, an old simple village church and a few houses around it. On the way to this spot there was a sculpture, that I found out later, represents a farmers who used to live on this spot, before the village was completely erased to make space for industrialisation. Luckily, the centre of village - a church with its cemetery - was preserved and it still stands here, like a fairy tale little leftover from some ancient times. 

I walked around The Petruskerk with greatest interest - there are a lot of ancient tombstones of local people buried here but occasionally there is even a new arrival, like when I spotted a name of famous Dirk van der Broek who was the owner of a popular supermarket brand and who passed away last year - I buy groceries in a supermarket named after him, so naturally I was familiar with his name. The church itself dates back to 17th century and has been restored several times, it still serves as a wedding place for locals and I was very curious about little historical cottages around it, as they are really bordering the cemetery so I wondered how appropriate that is from a hygienic point of view (I have never seen people living in such proximity to cemetery before) - the whole place is almost like a little bubble in the middle of otherwise ugly industrial zone. There was absolutely nothing interesting or beautiful to see around, even though I walked a but further down south along Bos en Lommer district, which I need to re-visit again for a better introduction. 

About hateful comments

Just found out that back in my homeland they are discussing the possibility to legally stop people from commenting under the newspaper articles. This is a very interesting development as we are still in a early stages of Internet and obviously the whole humanity needs to learn how to use it without being hurtful, hateful and aggressive. If anybody told me just a few years ago that comments might be blocked, I would find it offensive and dangerous but right now this seems as a perfectly logical solution.

Not long ago, in some other, pre-Covid times, there was a time when comments were actually funny. Often I would laugh out loud because of some wise remark or a punch line that was million times more entertaining than the original article itself. Obviously, when not under the stress and in the normal circumstances people can actually be genuinely funny and checking out the comments became regular part of reading the news - first you read the news, than you go for the comments. Or you go straight for the comments because there is always some funny guy there who will make you spill your coffee. But something happened with time and we must all had noticed that comments eventually turned ugly.

Instead being funny, entertaining or witty, they just became vitriolic, hurtful, ignorant, racist and psychotic - in the turmoil of uncertainty about everything (the virus itself, the news, medicine, scientists, government, God) people became more and more aggressive, protected by anonymity of Internet and it became almost a norm that under everything and anything there will always be a psycho who will argue, rage and spew abuses. 

The longer our present drama continued, the more these comments became hurtful. I have noticed this because I am following the news and out of old habit, continued to check comment section but it became so upsetting that I have stopped. Reading these comments, you might get the impression that compassion, understanding and goodness has completely been erased and eliminated from the world. I am not even talking about disagreements, I am talking about articles about Covid-connected deaths, where people still argue, curse and refuse to believe them - there was a doctor's suicide recently in my homeland and abuse in comments sections were just incredibly alarming. Instead of feeling compassion for somebody who obviously couldn't take it anymore, the anonymous mob was just horrible. I had to stop reading these comments because it felt disturbing, like I am witnessing a public lynch (of someone who had already committed suicide). 

The first sign that things might change was when I discovered that many times comments were blocked on youtube - I actually wanted to compliment something (in general I prefer to leave a positive remark, instead of adding to negativity) and it was not possible. And that was perfectly fine, I understand why it was done and it made a perfect sense - you are here to watch the video clip and whatever opinions you might have, keep them for yourself. Than Yahoo News did exactly the same - they simply blocked the comment section. The news are here, from all around the world, but the wide, anonymous mass is now unable to spread the hatred, anger, frustration and their mad theories. And seriously, I have absolutely no problem with that - people will always complain and in this case they might claim their freedom of speech was taken away from them, but in reality the haters will simply be unable to continue their misogynist, racist and awful business. One day somebody will have to look back and figure it out who are these anonymous haters, so brave behind their nicknames - for now, we need to carefully re-organise and somehow arrange this virtual space. I am all for closing comment sections completely and serving simply articles or whatever the web site is for - people who want to continue discussing, arguing and hating will find forums where to do so, but it won't be so drastically out in the open.  

Red Telephone Box Graveyard, North Yorkshire, England

 

"View from My Window" by David A. Heitmiller

This is a beautiful poem written by David A. Heitmiller, who passed away in July and its about the "View from my window" that became a world phenomenon and one thing that connected us all in the times of this horrible epidemics. It moved me very much and actually made me cry. 

Floating around in cyberspace,

take a photo from your place.

What you see through your window,

where in the world we want to know.

Post the picture for all to see

and then add some words to tell me

what is it like for you out there,

we want to know because we care.

Now I can see what you see

through your window shared with me.

Here I am and what I see,

our beautiful human family.

How are you coping with the news?

We see it all, some gorgeous views,

and narrow streets and blank walls,

birds and creatures big and small.

Some lost loved ones, very sad.

Couldn't say goodbye to mom or dad.

We share your loss and cry with you.

Reaching out, we sing the blues.

Less alone gazing out your window.

I’ve met a friend I do not know.

Thanks for showing me your special place,

Around the world we share some space.

David Heitmiller

April 2020

Blast from the past

 

Dear reader, it is February already!

Everything around me is still closed, we are still in a (extended) lockdown + now we have  curfew that inspired violent riots, burning, looting and hooligans fighting against the police so my goal was just to keep my chin up, head above the water and mind my own business. For some reason I am still stagnating with the reading but that just means that instead of literature, I am reading chapters on Wikipedia and such. I am also enjoying long walks and discovering different neighbourhoods that I have never seen before, but this actually might be another essay.

Out of the blue, on my Facebook page, I got a reminder about something that I posted 10 years ago. It was a photo taken at my than current cruise ship, while we were in South Africa. What you see on this picture is a typical delivery of new boxes back than - our deliveries were so huge, so monumental, so enormous and consistent week after week, that it took a team of twenty people just to get all of this unpacked from the pallets and bring on the ship, with elevators to the floor where we had to open and distribute new products. Before we opened this, it had to be inventoried and checked - and since this was time consuming (but it had to be done in a certain time frame), I was the one responsible for this while my colleagues worked in their places. So I would go, week after week, trough all of these boxes, check do delivery lists match the quantity of the products delivered, note down all the discrepancies and than slowly work my way trough the mountain of these boxes, day after day. Usually this mess would be cleaned and empty just in time for the new delivery. And than I will start everything all over again. It was extremely hard work and I kind of don't even want to think about those days.

The reason why I am writing this is because apparently lots of my ex-colleagues are looking back with nostalgia and yearning. Many of them are claiming they miss the good old days and even ask me do I feel the same. Lots of them are at home, unhappy and frustrated with the fact that the world epidemics forced them to stop with the work on cruise ships. And I find it so mind-boggling: our work was so incredibly hard in every possible way (psychically, mentally, emotionally, psychologically, etc) that regular people who have no knowledge how the cruise industry works behind the scenes would never ever accept or work in these conditions. In fact, 90% of the people imagine that our life was sun and fun and Pina Colada since "we lived on a ship" but in reality we were living in a windowless, shared cabins and worked seven days a week. Just look at this photo and tell me who in their right mind would miss this kind of life? And it constantly confuses and even angers me when my ex colleagues claim they miss the ship life. 

What exactly do they miss? Let's look a little closer. Sharing a super tiny space with a complete stranger? Eating greasy food in a canteen? Or even slightly better version in a guest area, where you are treated as intruder? Do they miss working 12 hours per day? Or dealing with 2 000 guests who clearly don't care to buy anything now but will come on the last day and demand the same product that you were offering for one day only and can't possibly pull out of the hat now? Deck sales, crew sales, midnight sales and all these things that take even more working hours than usual? Or do they miss constant drills, trainings and hundred other obligatory things that are happening in one's "free time"? I mean, seriously, the only thing worth it is the chance (if you can) to go outside and see the world - and even this was not something guaranteed because the workload might keep you on the ships for weeks. Sure, there is always a camaraderie and it has to be wherever people live and work together, but this is far from a high school party - its the result of necessity and I remember most of the time just being annoyed with a constant company and making a lot of effort to find my own corner. 

I understand that many of my ex colleagues look back trough the rose glasses and remember things like fun. "Oh, what a great times we had together on that ship!" And than I remind them how we slaved for weeks without ever having a chance to go outside, how we worked until 4 a.m. and slept just a few hours between shifts, how badly we were treated by a ship's medical team (no matter whats wrong, you'll get a Paracetamol), how the only chance to have clean clothes was to use crew laundry room at the crack of a dawn (because there was nobody around than), how totally and utterly exhausted we were all of the times and there must have been a reason why our contracts lasted maximum 6 months and not more - because they found out that after that period people can not work and function properly. I am also aware that those who "miss the ships" actually worked on a cruise ships just a short period of time so they remember it as a nice, adventurous episode. Obviously, there had to be a reason why they left in a first place. I stayed and stayed and stayed and worked for fifteen years, long after the initial first excitement had evaporated. I had longed and dreamed about different life on land where as a regular civilian I would work just 9 to 5 and not be available on call all the time, obliged to run for a midnight drills, drug tests, trainings and all sorts of clockwork schedules. And now when I finally live on land and people still ask me do I miss the ships, I think they must be joking. Absolutely not. I worked so hard and my life was so exhausting that I have absolutely no desire to ever step on a cruise ship again (in fact, I have kind of distaste for the sea). Just remembering what kind of experiences we had to go trough, fills me with anger. Most of the time I don't dwell on this but the photo above was a reminder on my life ten years ago. When I see this, I feel like I have died and arrived in Heaven.

Ava

 

To avoid this blog turning into perpetual obituary, let's have a look at the very fascinating photo.

Ava Gardner was a celebrated Hollywood beauty and as such she was kind of frozen in time - the industry was fascinated with her good looks, glamour, sex appeal and alluring presence but we hardly ever got a glimpse behind the artificial image.

In the movies, she was the ultimate sex kitten, a ravishing trophy on the elbow of a hero (or a criminal mobster) - in the media, she was jet setting superstar who was marrying and divorcing and marrying again one millionaire after another. There was a hint of restless soul about her, someone who was attracted to excitement, passion and adventure - after all, she left Ernest Hemingway for a Spanish bullfighter. What is much more interesting to me is that Hollywood froze her in time - we see time and time again her photographs from 1940s and 1950s, when she was carefully made up to look like a elegant leopardess but curiously, almost nothing from later years when she moved to Europe and gradually slipped out of the movies completely. Not that she became less interesting - but once she left Hollywood, the media focused on others, new young faces. And when we had a chance to see her (doing usually a high profile cameos, like in "Mayerling" or "The Cassandra Crossing") it was always a glimpse of a former beauty - still striking and still regal, but one could tell this is aged Helen of Troy. And voilà, here is the photograph from 1970s (my guess) when Gardner was well in her fifties - I find it very interesting, in fact probably the most striking photo of her that I have ever seen before - in all the other, famous black and white portraits she was a Hollywood glamour girl, here she looks directly into us - still beautifully made up, still glamorous, still striking - but there is something in her eyes that suggest a woman trapped in her own image. Famous for being beautiful, she was now facing the passing of time, her own mortality and she is almost wondering "Is that all there is?" I like this picture very much, far more than any of her artificial studio shots and find it very interesting psychological portrait. 

P.S.

Just found out that I wrote and published this - by some cosmic coincidence - on the anniversary of her death.

Now, how interesting is this? Why on Earth would I think of Ava Gardner on January 25th? I do remember seeing and saving this picture specifically for this essay a few days earlier. 

Mira Furlan (1955-2021)

Sad news: a wonderful Croatian actress and a true legend of our theatre has passed away. For many of us who grew up in previous Yugoslavia this is a loss of another link with our past - even though Furlan has moved away and later made quite a nice career in US, we will always remember her as one of the biggest and most dependable stars in theatre, TV and in the movies. And of course, there is this shameful fact that her own homeland once treated her like an traitor and made her leave. 

Like many of us who grew up in 1980s, the first time I have seen Mira Furlan was in a now-classic TV series "Velo Misto" which was a wonderfully picturesque saga about coastal city of Split between two world wars - looking back in retrospective, it was very, very ambitious attempt to present people in different levels of society (from a city mayor to a barber, fruit seller and peasant) and the huge cast was just unbelievably strong; it really feels like Who's who in our acting world - amongst all these people, Furlan was a strong-minded girlfriend of a famous football coach and this is how the nation first got to know her, as Kate with her voluptuous "balloons". That first chapter when Furlan appeared in every single local movie made, had also embarrassing distinction of directors getting her naked all of the time - I do remember being very young and aware that our movie directors just love to undress, rape and humiliate the actresses, it was like a constant leitmotif  in our homegrown cinematography and young Furlan accepted it because she thought this is how things are. Much later in life she would look back and discuss this treatment from a different perspective and how US directors treated her completely differently.

Huge celebrity that she was, Furlan still couldn't escape the scars of politics and war: herself a child of mixed parentage and raised as someone above nationalism, she was married to a Serbian theatre director husband and they continued working on a theatre play in Belgrade even as the war started - at the time when both sides were obsessed with national purity, patriotism and "ours against theirs" Furlan found herself being a public scapegoat for not accepting this. Firm believer that art is above nationalism, she tried to continue with her theatre work just to find herself fired from her own theatre in Zagreb (where she was one of the brighter stars), crucified in the media, threatened on every step and finally during her absence the city punished her by taking away her own apartment (inherited from grandparents). I still don't know what is worse, the spiteful, shameful threats or a silence of majority who approved of this. I do remember reading about this in a newspapers and saying out loud to my girlfriend "but I agree with her, what's with this frenzied nationalism?" just to have her say "yes it is truth, but its not the right time to say this out loud now" - that was the moment when I realised that I don't want to stay there anymore. 

Furlan and her husband packed their bags and moved to L.A. where she started from the bottom as a foreigner - miraculously, she did find success in TV series ("Lost"  and "Babylon 5") and by this point her homeland had to begrudgingly accept that she is not defeated but in fact continued to prosper elsewhere. Somewhere around this time I started following the essays she wrote for newspaper "Feral Tribune" and personally this is my biggest connection with Mira Furlan as I genuinely enjoyed what she had to say from her perspective as a actress immigrant - her musings how the person changes when accepting foreign language, the humiliating experiences with auditions and how to survive them, the bizarre obsessions with the status, money and wealth, the realisation that illusions about US are not at all what they seemed from a distance, etc. Years later it was all collected in a book "Total wholesale" that I had to buy in Belgrade because Croatia would not publish it. To this day I absolutely love reading old interviews with her and find her thoughts fascinating and inspiring. She did returned to Croatian theatre to play mythical Medea but found the media attention incessant and distracting - upon the news of her death, this country is now praising her as one of the biggest actresses we ever had, but deep inside I know she was never accepted and the shame of her treatment is not genuine. 

She was my neighbour - I don't think that I ever saw her, but I knew the street where she lived and I remember thinking that I should maybe send her a nice postcard with warm wishes, just to show her that not everybody in this town is a foaming mouth maniac. I never did and now I regret that I haven't done it, she might have appreciate it. 

https://www.lilith.org/2016/09/the-unregretted-decisions-of-actor-mira-furlan/  

Phil Spector (1939-2021)

Just found out that Phil Spector passed away in a prison, from Corona. It is just stunning how far he had tumbled from what once was unshakable throne in the music history - nowadays everybody thinks of him only as a convicted murderer but there was a time when he was the biggest producer in the world. Besides creating a unstoppable series of mega hits in the 1960s, Spector won Grammy for the Record of the Year in 1971, was inducted in Rock and Roll Hall of Fame and The Songwriters Hall of Fame and was included on every list of the greatest pop musicians ever - curious as he was not really musician himself but a producer. Spector actually might be the first person who significantly embodied the idea of the producer; since he had such recognisable, unmistakable style, the performers were somehow less important - it was all about the finished product and a grandiose pop symphonies with Phil Spector signatures. 

I need to write a little bit more about why Phil Spector was important. Really, he was the biggest pop producer of all times. Much, much more important than George Martin who, compared to him was very subdued (actually, come to think of it, everybody is subdued when compared to Spector). Until Spector came along, producers were people in the studio who organised and arranged recording sessions but we never heard about them and rightly so - they were invisible, shadowy men mentioned on the LP covers but we never really knew what exactly were they doing. Phil Spector had his own grandiose vision - based on Richard Wagner, no less - that his hit singles must have phenomenal, grandiose orchestration where tinkle bells and flutes and chimes will shine on the top of the biggest orchestra you can imagine. He detested LP albums and stereo sound - for him it was all about hit singles recorded in a glorious mono as you can hear on a transistor radio. It does sound as he was some sort of mad magician dancing around the cauldron, humming to himself and adding more and more magic ingredients - the final touch (performers and the voices) was kind of afterthought, because they were not the stars - HE was the star and everybody understood that. In fact, all these girl groups were coming in & out like on a factory track - they had to do as told and than he moved on to a next project, the new smash hit.

The list of his hits is simply amazing: he started with #1. in 1958 (""To Know Him Is to Love Him", which if I remember correctly was the epitaph written on his father's gravestone) and than it just went bigger and bigger - "Spanish Harlem", "On Broadway", "There's No Other (Like My Baby)", "Every Breath I Take", "He's a Rebel", "Zip-a-Dee-Doo-Dah" , "Be My Baby", "You've Lost That Lovin' Feelin', "Unchained Melody", "River Deep – Mountain High", "The Long and Winding Road", "My Sweet Lord", "Imagine", "Happy Xmas (War Is Over)" - in all of this you could always recognise this is 100% Phil Spector and no one else. I mean, The Beach Boys and The Beatles were bowing to him in awe. There is a phenomenal Christmas album recorded in the early 1960s with the whole stable of his than-performers (Darlene Love, The Ronettes, The Crystals, etc) which to this day stands as probably the best pop Christmas album of all times - not only that the music is glorious, but Spector really wraps it all in a sensationally exaggerated style. 

And than, we come to Phil Spector as a person. By all accounts - even back in the 1960s - an socially awkward, geeky bully who loved to dominate everybody and was known as a bossy creep. Not someone who gets the best out of people by inspiring them or persuading them but demanding and intimidating them. With the exception of Darlene Love who would tell him where he can stick his little white prick, majority of people accepted this behaviour because they desperately wanted the magic stardust he was spraying over his smash hit singles. Sometime in the 1970s it gets really darker (fists, guns, drunkenness in the studio) and than proportionately to his isolation and reclusiveness it looks as the madness grew bigger and unchecked. There is a very interesting episode from 1990s when he saw Celine Dion performing "River Deep – Mountain High" on TV and he was intrigued enough to suggest a collaboration - flattered and excited Dion invited him as a producer for the recording of her new album (which will eventually become "Falling into You") but as he started showing his old bully tactics and demanded 365 takes, her team quickly told him to pack his bags - they used Jim Steinman instead, who funny enough is one of the many Spector copycats but apparently far more friendly. And than in 2003. he actually did what he always threatened and killed someone - a lifetime of behaving like a multimillionaire madman eventually caught up with him. 

Do we remember him as a genius producer or as a murderer? 

It depends naturally on a individual listener. Those who know him just vaguely from a movie with Al Pacino will remember him as a weirdo because they don't have other points of reference. I have listened his classic 1960s music so many times that for me he will forever stay a mad genius - nothing will make me stop listening his music, which to this day is brilliant. In fact, now I might listen it all over again. Just like discoveries about dark sides of Ike Turner or Michael Jackson, it all comes down to a individual - we might accept they were disturbed individuals in their private lives but it does not have to diminish the pleasure in their legacy. On a simply human level, I hope that Phil Spector is now finally at peace, free from all the demons that haunted him. 

"Raised by Wolves" TV series (2020)

The trailer got my attention. It was genuinely eye catching, had some stunning visual effects and it had Ridley Scott involved - now, I worship the ground this man walks on, he created such amazing movies like "Alien", "Blade Runner", "Thelma & Louise", "Gladiator", "Kingdom of Heaven", "Prometheus" and "The Martian". Really, when it comes down to it, he might be the only movie director close to mighty Steven Spielberg as for the wide repertoire, choices of completely different subjects and a massive commercial success. I read some recent interviews with him and its clear the man is passionate about his work (he is 83 now) which explains his success - when you enjoy your work, it is not  chore or a task but a labour of love. He really creates something new and its amazing because after all the movies I have seen, I am still surprised with things Scott comes up with.

In general I am a bit cautious about approaching big, fat books or long TV series with 75 seasons because it feels like a task. But it is a lockdown, I have really nothing else to do (but cooking, eating, cleaning, walking and sleeping) so I decided to have a look and the first glance was actually during New Year's Eve when I decided to stay in bed with wine and watch "Raised by Wolves". It was fantastic and I was really in the mood for it - so much that I completely ignored what was going on outside (some half-assed attempt to celebrate New Year with fireworks, like there is any reason to celebrate and pretend to be cheerful) and binged on the first three episodes - by the way, Ridley Scott is a producer but he directed only first two episodes, honestly I can't see any difference between his work and other directors because they all respectfully follow his example. 

It starts with a bang - the planet Earth is destroyed and the spaceship with two androids ("Mother" and "Father") arrives on some deserted planet where they have task to grow a little group of human children out of some seeds connected to android mother. Clearly, they are programmed to save the human population and like some robotic Adam and Eve, they do their best to raise these children in the middle of the barren, cold and unwelcoming desert. They are also fiercely atheistic and teach the kids not to believe in religion - this comes as a problem when another spaceship crashes on this lonely planet, brining the whole bunch of Mithraic religious sect who have their own agenda. It raises a very interesting question: what if there is a interplanetary religion that might blindly and passionately follow its own rules? Just like in our own history when two sides first met and inevitably one conquered the other, guided by strong belief - these Mithraic people initially seem as a saviours, just to show their real face very soon - like a mythical Medusa, "Mother" becomes a weapon that unleashes her unlimited powers on everybody and she is so dangerous that even children freak out and become scared of her. So now I am at the point where nobody is sure is she a robot that went crazy or what - its obvious that she is all-powerful and far more dangerous than "Father" who is kind of useless anyway - and Mithraic people are approaching the farm with the children so it would be interesting to see what comes next, I am really into this big time. Its very clever, it has excellent visual effects and like the best of SF it has roots in a mythology. 

Photo of the Day

 

"Ti Si Meni Sve Na Svijetu" by Vjekoslav Jutt (1970)

 

This is a very interesting album - not so much because of the music, but because its historical artefact: for a brief moment in time, this guy was a latest fresh face, poster boy for the burgeoning records buying female audience and a harbinger of the things to come. The recording companies have always been very perceptive when it came to selling the product but trough 1960s it was all about singles and EP records - to my knowledge this must be amongst the first LP albums focused on local teenage idol. 

During the previous decade "Jugoton" was very cautious towards LP format - almost all the releases were either singles or EP records - albums were reserved for compilations; 1970. was the year when this recording company decided to bite the bullet and started presenting its biggest stars with genuine albums. I am still not 100% sure were those compilations or newly recorded versions of old material (it sounds so) but here is a poster boy Vjekoslav Jutt with his lovelorn ballads and you know, even with all the reservations he does sound genuinely fine - he was given royal treatment, with first class composers (Nikica Kalogjera, Arsen Dedić, Đorđe Novković, Mario Bogliuni) and material has been carefully planned and selected for him, I mean Miljenko Prohaska is a conductor, this was really like the best people in the business are involved. In subsequent years Rock critics will push aside with a smirk everything that was not Rock music and this type of mainstream will be dismissed as a lightweight "schlager"  but in reality this was genuinely pop music of its day - no better or worse from what was going on elsewhere. I remember the singer's voice vaguely from the radio in my childhood so he might have been remembered longer, but it appears this was the highlight for him. 

"The Private Life of Henry VIII" by Alexander Korda (1933)

Last night I went to bed angry and this morning I woke up angry. And while making my morning coffee I mused about what happened last night on the Capitol Hill - to keep my mind off these thoughts, its better if I write about the classic black & white movie I saw. It was a continuation of what started with previous two old British movies, where I thought it might be interesting to poke my nose a little bit in a British cinematography - of course I am familiar with the biggest hits and names, but just out of curiosity I wanted to take a look into something that is not part of Hollywood machinery. Interestingly, I saw a documentary about "Dead of Night" where someone mentioned a quite common practice that US editors would often cut out completely a first two reels of UK movies because they thought they were too slow and US audience would not care for them. So even though they share the same language, it seems as we talk about two completely different branches of cinematic family: Hollywood and British.

Hungarian director and producer Sir Alexander Korda is behind this, the movie that put him on a map and in fact the very first UK movie that proved a genuine hit across Atlantic - it was also a first non-US movie that ever won Academy Award. It took me some time to warm up to "The Private Life of Henry VIII" mainly because initially it appeared so darn dated, contrived and exaggerated. It might be a little bit difficult for a modern day audiences to accept this because it was made so long ago - in the meantime we have developed so much of the cinematic vocabulary and our understanding of historical accuracy is completely different nowadays. From a modern perspective this movie comes almost like a parody with never ending mugging, clowning and big gestures: you could count on the fingers of one hand what is really true, like Tower of London and names of the characters. Everything else looks almost like a pantomime. But OK, I had to leave my complains aside and just watch the darn thing for what it is - an old-fashioned slapstick comedy.

It should be story about infamous Henry VIII and his six wives - but to be honest, it feels as one story has much more space than anybody else and that is a story about his supposedly unattractive German wife Anne of Cleves. It turns out that Charles Laughton and his real-life wife Elsa Lanchester actually had only this story in mind, but later producers expanded it on all wives. Actually the story completely skips first wife Catherine of Aragon, literally saying "oh never mind her" and goes straight for beheading of second wife. Like, really, never mind explaining who is who and why Anne Boleyn   is executed - the movie is really focused on the meeting of Laughton and Lanchester, which is genuinely funny and works quite well. But really folks, it should be about much bigger picture instead of mentioning everyone else like passersby. Laughton - who was only 33 at the time of the filming - gives a wonderfully grand and boisterous performance that might influence all the subsequent portrayal of Henry. Of course he is clowning but there is a trace of humanity in the cracks of the mask. For beautiful Merle Oberon this was beginning of the stardom and later she will even marry the director. I must say that after my initial suspicion and prejudice, I eventually relaxed and even enjoyed it. It looks as this was the true start of British cinema in the international waters.