Things to hear and see

Some of you knew it was only a matter of time before I blogged about this: Radio 3's Composer of the Week programme this week is devoted to Shostakovich's early years. Today's instalment featured several seldom-heard works from the composer's youth, including the First Piano Trio and the dialogue of the ass and the nightingale from Two Fables of Krilov. The series will also include works by lesser-known contemporaries of Shostakovich -- today it was Two Poems by Nikolai Roslavets.

You can listen to each episode online for up to a week after it's broadcast (I think this should work anywhere in the world). Or if you prefer a condensed version, you can download an hour-long podcast at the end of the week.

While I'm here, I'll also mention a great BBC television programme I watched online a few days ago. Miracle in the Marshes of Iraq follows the quest of the Iraqi-American engineer Azzam Alwash to restore the Mesopotamian Marshes.

Back in 1991, after an uprising by the Maʻdān people of southern Iraq, Saddam punished them by draining the wetlands where they had lived for centuries -- an astonishing attempt at genocide through environmental destruction. Scenes near the beginning of the programme showed the enormous scale of this project. Canals with names like "Glory" and "Loyalty to the Leader" were built to divert water away from the area, and massive dikes were built to keep the Tigris River out. By 2000, the region had effectively been transformed into desert.

After the American invasion in 2003, local people began breaching the dikes, but it wasn't until Mr Alwash arrived that a systematic plan was put in place to re-flood the marshes.

Nature is sometimes amazingly resilient. It wasn't long after the water was let in that life began to reappear: reeds, fish, dragonflies, and the many birds that had once been the pride of the region. Several species that had become seriously endangered by the draining of the marshes began making a comeback. While the BBC crew were filming, a flock of over 40,000 Marbled Teal arrived -- more than had been known to exist in the world. As Mr Alwash watched them, I could feel his joy through the screen. "This is what makes it all worthwhile", he said.

The people have begun to return, too, and several beamed as they told the presenter they had thought they would never be able to go home again. But home is not quite what it was. The restored marshes face new challenges: reduced flow from the Tigris due to dam-building in Turkey and Syria, and increased salinity of the water. However, Mr Alwash's organisation, Nature Iraq, has plans to cope with these through continual management.

The programme showed the dangers the BBC crew encountered. Their first attempt to film the rare Basra Reed Warbler was stymied when a villager objected to them using a rival tribe's boat instead of his own. What seemed at first to be a dispute over tribal etiquette took on a far more sinister meaning when the crew learned that the villager was a member of the Mahdi Army.

Mr Alwash's dream is to turn southern Iraq into an eco-tourist destination. That is clearly a long way off. But listening to him in this programme, I believed that it might one day happen.

If you're in the UK, you can watch the programme online for the next month or so. Unfortunately, it isn't available to people in other countries. But I note that it was made in cooperation with a PBS affiliate, so I assume it will be shown in the U.S. eventually.

Update: It turns out this programme was recently broadcast by PBS under the title Braving Iraq: Restoring the Garden of Eden. I believe clicking "Full Episode" should work for people in the U.S., though obviously it doesn't for me. Thanks, Pat!

Big Garden Birdwatch 2011

My bird count this year was fairly light, probably due to a combination of the cold, grey weather, the relative lateness of the hour (3-4 pm) and a neighbourhood cat that was skulking around. I saw three blackbirds (two male and one female) two carrion crows, two magpies, two feral pigeons, two house sparrows, a jackdaw and a robin.

Of course, this doesn't give a complete picture of the birds that were around -- the Birdwatch rules say you can only count birds you actually see (not those you just hear) and only those that land (not those that fly overhead); and that you can only count the highest number of birds you see at one time (so if you see a lone robin on three separate occasions, your total count for the species is one). In particular, there were many gulls flying overhead, and I could hear quite a few songbirds in the distance.

And the birds I did see made up for their low numbers with plenty of activity: the two male blackbirds were clearly vying for the attentions of the female, and there seemed to be some kind of corvid rivalry going on between the carrion crows and magpies.

There's still another day to go in the Big Garden Birdwatch. If you live in the UK and you're interested in participating, have a look at the RSPB's site.

Chaim Krawiec

The Yad Vashem World Holocaust Centre is sponsoring a virtual Wall of Remembrance on Facebook. Everyone who participates (by clicking "attending") is given the name of a specific Holocaust victim to remember.

I was given the name of Chaim Krawiec. A Google search turned up this photo of him on Yad Vashem's main site.

Brest Litowsk, Poland, A photograph of Chaim Krawiec. From a collection of passport photographs of Jews from Brest Litowsk which were attached to personal papers for the purpose of obtaining identity papers. Yad Vashem, Archival Signature: 5395/3661. Copyright © 2010 Yad Vashem The Holocaust Martyrs' and Heroes' Remembrance Authority. Reproduced in accordance with Yad Vashem's terms and conditions.

He looks very young; according to this list he hadn't yet turned 21 when he died in Auschwitz.* I wish I could find out more about him. Krawiec (better known to most of us in its Yiddish form, Kravitz) means "tailor" in Polish, but whether that said anything about his family's profession in the 1930s I don't know.

* This is assuming that these three references are all to the same Chaim Krawiec. I don't know how common the name was.**

** Update: It turns out that the Chaim Krawiec in the photograph and the Chaim Krawiec on the Auschwitz list are indeed two different people. The boy in the photo was born in 1926, meaning he was 15 or 16 when the photo was taken. There are also two other victims with the name in Yad Vashem's database. They should all be remembered.

Slender lorises

Today I went to a members' event at London Zoo focusing on the slender loris. It was scheduled for their feeding time, and the keeper also shone a soft light into the enclosure so we could see them better. I appreciated this, because ever since the zoo put up a protective screen of fake foliage in front of their enclosure (which they were forced to do because of the idiotic behaviour of some visitors) I haven't had a good look at them.

The good news is that the lorises have been much happier since they got their increased privacy, and have proved it by producing four babies. We saw the parents and the two oldest offspring. I always forget how tiny these lorises are compared to pottos. They look impossibly delicate, although the keepers assured us that their thin limbs were actually surprisingly strong.

The lorises at the zoo are Grey Slender Lorises. The zoo is really keeping them to learn about their care in preparation for keeping their rarer cousin, the Red Slender Loris. One of the zoo's keepers told us about a trip he'd recently made to Sri Lanka to learn about conserving the species. While there, he'd acted as an adviser to Colombo Zoo, who apparently couldn't figure out why their lorises kept dying young. It turned out they were feeding them an all-fruit diet, when the species is actually mainly insectivorous. The Sri Lankan authorities' indifference toward wildlife (and, indeed, toward human safety) was also reflected in the practice of putting up power lines without any protective covering -- one of the major causes of death in wild lorises.

The keeper told us he'd learned quite a few things in the wild that had helped him take better care of his captive lorises. For example, he found that lorises naturally lived in a hotter and drier environment than London Zoo had been providing; the zookeepers had been moistening the soil in the lorises' enclosure, but now they no longer do so. When capturing wild lorises to take their measurements, the keeper found they were calmer if they were given a stick to hold on to. He brought that trick back with him, and it has made veterinary check-ups a lot less traumatic.

For more -- lots more -- information about loris and potto conservation, have a look at loris-conservation.org.

He who shall train the horse to war Shall never pass the polar bar

One part of the Wallace Collection I didn't spend much time in was the armour and weapons section. I did, however, have time to snap this horse's helmet, which reminded me of the lines above from Blake's "Auguries of Innocence" (one of my favourite poems).

This, in turn, reminded me that I have no idea what "polar bar" is supposed to mean. The online OED is free this month, but it wasn't any help. Does anyone have any ideas?

A 15th-century prank

Joke bowl
Originally uploaded by Laura A. Brown

Yesterday I went to the Wallace Collection, which I'd never even thought about until recently, despite living just a short trip away. That's the great thing about London -- you can still find new treasures on your doorstep even after years in the city.

Anyway, I made a few discoveries there, both positive and negative. On the negative side, I've decided that I really don't like Sèvres porcelain: too fussy for my taste, and for some reason even the real thing looks like a cheap imitation to me. I also discovered a guy who I think might have been the worst painter of the Rococo era, Jean-Baptiste Greuze. His pictures of wide-eyed girls looked like they should have been painted on black velvet.

But I also had a great time looking at the extensive collection of Renaissance majolica. Its brilliant colours (especially the wonderful blues) and ornate designs were well suited for illustrating Biblical and classical scenes. But it could also be used for more light-hearted purposes, as this bowl demonstrates. "Attempting to find a genuine spout", the label explained, "the user would spill the liquid."

Scoping things out

People bring lots of fancy equipment to London Wetland Centre to investigate the birds. But the curiosity isn't all on one side, as these Black Brant Geese demonstrated today:





Also, just because it was a first for me, here's a Great Crested Grebe I saw today.



That's the non-breeding plumage, so it's not time for their spectacular courtship dance just yet.

Chinese robes at the V&A

Until 27 February, the Victoria and Albert Museum has a little exhibition of imperial robes from the Qing dynasty in China (which lasted from 1644-1911). Here you can see the costumes worn on all different occasions (court business, religious ceremonies, celebrations) by the emperors and empresses (as well as the little princes and princesses, who were dressed like miniature adults).

I've mentioned before how heavily populated Chinese designs are with creatures both real and mythical, and the clothing in this exhibition was no exception. The most common motif was a set of dragons symbolising imperial power: two facing each other, with expressions that could have been either menacing or mischievous, and another above them that looked straight at the viewer with an expression of clownish surprise. In addition to the dragons, the women's clothing for formal occasions bore emblems such as phoenixes and "double happiness" characters. The designs on their informal robes were more playful: dancing cranes or bunches of fat grapes.

The footwear in the exhibition was more pleasant to look at than it would have been for any other period of imperial China. Qing women, being Manchu, did not bind their feet, and their shoes didn't look any more painful than fashionable women's shoes today. I particularly liked one pair whose toes bore figureheads of grinning phoenixes.

Colours were important in the Qing court: on official occasions, women of the imperial household wore different shades of yellow according to their rank, and the emperor performed his sacrifices for the autumn equinox wearing a pale blue that was always referred to as "moon white". Unfortunately, the clothing in the exhibition has to be displayed in low light for conservation reasons, so you don't always get the full effect of the colours. There were only a couple of bolts of fabric (never made into clothing for some reason) that the lights seemed to strike in just the right way: stunning green satin and purple damask, covered with flowers, leaves and fruit, embroidered with brilliant thread. This gave some idea of what the court must have looked like in the Beijing sunlight.

It has to be said that this is a very small exhibition. Even looking at everything carefully, I got through it in half an hour. The £5 admission charge is probably only good value if you're deeply interested in the topic.

Here's one video that deserves to go viral

My apologies to those of you who have seen me share this elsewhere, but you should have guessed I wouldn't be able to resist blogging about it as well. It's a video of the baby potto born late last year at Cincinnati Zoo. You can see the baby, with its silky white juvenile fur, riding on its mother's belly (or, in one case, leg), and making a go of climbing a branch itself:



An earlier clip from the zoo shows a baby potto from a couple of years ago:



And in another, a keeper at the zoo gives an overview of the species:



With luck, London Zoo will have a baby potto of its own soon.

Blast from the past: spurious quotations

Over two years ago, I wrote about a quotation frequently attributed to Gandhi, "An eye for an eye makes the whole world blind". I couldn't find any evidence that he had actually said it, but didn't uncover any clues as to where it had really come from, either.

Well, now a new(-ish)blog called Quote Investigator has published an exhaustive discussion, complete with cites, of the phrase's origin. The blog's author, the pseudonymous "Dr Garson O'Toole", summarises his (?) findings thus:

Mahatma Gandhi may have used the expression, but no conclusive evidence for this has yet been discovered. It is also possible that the ascription is inaccurate and the books of Louis Fischer may have inadvertently helped to establish the attribution. A more extravagant version of the adage with the words “blind and toothless” was used by 1914.

The entire entry is well worth reading, as is the rest of the blog. Dr O'Toole hasn't yet covered the other quotation I mentioned in that old post, "The Church is a whore, but she's my mother all the same", but I think I'll ask him about it.

Many thanks to Language Hat for bringing Quote Investigator to my attention. This one is going on the reading list for sure!

They didn't even seek guidance from the Association of Shunammite Midwives

Two women who were prostitutes came to the king and stood before him.

One woman said, "Please, my lord, this woman and I live in the same house; and I gave birth while she was in the house. Then on the third day after I gave birth, this woman also gave birth. We were together; there was no one else with us in the house, only the two of us were in the house. Then this woman’s son died in the night, because she lay on him. She got up in the middle of the night and took my son from beside me while your servant slept. She laid him at her breast, and laid her dead son at my breast. When I rose in the morning to nurse my son, I saw that he was dead; but when I looked at him closely in the morning, clearly it was not the son I had borne."

But the other woman said, "No, the living son is mine, and the dead son is yours."

The first said, "No, the dead son is yours, and the living son is mine."

So they argued before the king.

Then the king said, "One says, 'This is my son that is alive, and your son is dead'; while the other says, 'Not so! Your son is dead, and my son is the living one.'"

So the king said, "Bring me a sword", and they brought a sword before the king.

The king said, "Divide the living boy in two; then give half to one, and half to the other."

But the woman whose son was alive said to the king — because compassion for her son burned within her — "Please, my lord, give her the living boy; certainly do not kill him!"

The other said, "It shall be neither mine nor yours; divide it."

Then the king responded:

"Never mind, we have to wrap this storyline up early because there have been too many complaints to the scribes' union."

(Thanks to Oremus.)

Mahomet Weyonomon

Mahomet Weyonomon memorial
Originally uploaded by Laura A. Brown

The thing about travelling around London by Tube is that you don't always get a sense of where things are in relation to each other above ground. So when I went to Borough Market to buy some Mexican ingredients*, I found myself wondering what the big church next door was. It was only when I read the sign on the gate that I realised it was Southwark Cathedral.

Southwark Cathedral doesn't get nearly as much press as St Paul's, but it's well worth exploring. Among the interesting things I found there was this memorial in the shape of a ridged mound, dedicated to Mahomet Weyonomon, whom I'd never heard of before. A plaque explained that he was a chief of the Mohegan people in Connecticut, and came to England in 1735 to ask George II for his tribe's land back. He was denied a meeting with the king, and not long after he arrived in London, he contracted smallpox and died. He was buried in an unmarked grave in the cathedral grounds; this monument was only dedicated in 2006 (apparently it represents the Mohegan tradition of naming a boulder after a dead chief).

I expected there to be a lot of information about Mahomet on the Internet, but there isn't much at all. A Wikipedia stub and a BBC report on the memorial's dedication are about as good as it gets; even the Mohegans' official site** doesn't mention him.

I'm particularly curious about how he came to have the name Mahomet. Is it a coincidence that this is also a variant name for Muhammad, or had his tribe had contact with Muslims?

* By the way, I highly recommend the Cool Chile Co.'s stall to any fellow Londoners wanting to cook Mexican food at home.

** Be warned that clicking the "Contact Us" link at the top of the Mohegan home page will redirect you to a porn site. I don't know if they were hacked, or if they let a domain expire or something. The rest of their site seems to work OK.