The English term charisma is from the Greek χάρισμα (khárisma), which means “favor freely given” or “gift of grace”. Says wikipedia.

Abbas Amanat says Greek khárisma itself derives from Middle Persian khwarrah; and therefore from Avestan khwarennah: a Zoroastrian concept literally denoting “glory” or “splendour” but understood as a divine mystical force or power projected upon and aiding the appointed; and ultimately from Proto-Indo-European *sóhr “to shine”. The neuter noun also connotes “(divine) royal glory,” reflecting the perceived divine empowerment of kings.

Khwarrah was thus the Persian equivalent of the Chinese Mandate of Heaven: it explained why some dynasties fell and others came in their place: one lost its khwarrah, the other received it.

Why is this important? Because now I understand this portrait. That aureola around Shah Jahan’s head is his charisma shining from his person.

Abbas Amanat, Iran, A Modern History

“Approximately 2 hours later she left with $4,300 cash.”

I can totally understand this. A middle aged, still vital man, loaded with testosterone, with an aging wife of many years, probably nearing menopause. I can understand that.

I can understand the fee, too. We don’t really pay them for sex, we pay them to go away and keep their mouth shut (so to speak). So the fee isn’t a measure of the girl, it is a measure of the man: how much he is prepared to pay for silence.

And I can sort of understand the choice of girl. Well, not really, wouldn’t be my type. In fact, this lady would have to pay me and — probably still not get any. But OK. Eye of the beholder and all.

But… two hours?! Two?!

New York State of Crime, Episode 2: An Affair to Remember

All’s over, then: does truth sound bitter
As one at first believes?
Hark, ’tis the sparrows’ good-night twitter
About your cottage eaves!

And the leaf-buds on the vine are woolly,
I noticed that, today;
One day more bursts them open fully
– You know the red turns grey.

Tomorrow we meet the same then, dearest?
May I take your hand in mine?
Mere friends are we, – well, friends the merest
Keep much that I resign:

For each glance of the eye so bright and black,
Though I keep with heart’s endeavor, –
Your voice, when you wish the snowdrops back,
Though it stay in my soul for ever! –

Yet I will but say what mere friends say,
Or only a thought stronger;
I will hold your hand but as long as all may,
Or so very little longer!

Robert Browning, The Lost Mistress via Shirley Hazzard, Greene on Capri

The Elvish, or perhaps Pixie, Helen Schnabel plays Beethoven’s “6th piano concerto” (which is really his violin concerto transcribed by Beethoven for the piano) magically, softly, tenderly, sparkingly, with two gorgeous and entirely new (to me) cadenzas. (How wonderful to discover something completely new and beautiful). Listen especially to this; and this. She plays all this like she looks: like a magical creature from an enchanted forest, like an encounter in a fairy tale, a unicorn.

I have lived with this concerto since I was thirteen. One day, my father brought home a gramophone, and two records, and this was one of them, Henryk Szeryng playing Beethoven’s violin concerto. And through the narrow door of this concerto, as if pushing between grandma’s fur-coats in a Normandy armoire, I entered the world of classical music.

After he has composed and performed his 4th and 5th piano concertos — loud, fast, technically brilliant — Beethoven composed a violin concerto for someone else to play. He himself apparently was not a very good violinist, so, unfamiliar with what could be or could not be done, he composed a concerto which isn’t especially technically demanding. We are told the violinist was so disappointed with its lack of pizzazz that on the night of the world premiere, he played, in addition, his own composition, which required him to hold his instrument upside down. (Yo, duuude!)

Later, good old B transcribed this concerto for the piano, for himself to play — I suppose he must have liked it. And this transcription is sometimes called his 6th piano concerto. And is sometimes, very rarely, performed.

For its lack of flash, the concerto makes up by its meditative, dreamy beauty. And Helen, in this broadcast straight from Lothlórien, goes in that direction. And plays it in a way which I have not yet ever heard: today, at this moment, it is the most beautiful thing on earth.

Shortly before he acquired the vase, (William) Hamilton had learned of another, rather more bizarre connection with the ancient world, in the remote town of Isernia. There, a church festival was dedicated ostensibly to Saint Cosimo. However, just as Hamilton became interested in attending the festival, it was suppressed by the bishop, and he had to reconstruct an account for the society from secondhand sources. But he duly presented it to the society (of Dilettanti), and another member wrote up the findings and published them, together with plates of illustrations of the offerings themselves that he had acquired. 

According to Hamilton’s account, every year on the saint’s day (September 27) local women would come into town and purchase votive offerings: “In the city, and at the fair, ex-voti of wax, representing the male parts of generation, of various dimensions, are publickly offered to sale.” These offerings,  referred to euphemistically as the saint’s “Great toe,” were then taken by the women to the church. “In the vestibule are two tables, at each of which one of the canons of the church presides.” A large basin for the  reception of different offerings is set up here. “The  vows are chiefly presented by the female sex.”  Hamilton’s text describes how his source “told me  also, that he heard a woman say, at the time she  presented a vow (like that which is represented in  Plate 1, fig 1), ‘Cosimo, let it be like this’… The vow is  never presented without being accompanied by a piece of money, and is always kissed by the devotee at the moment of presentation.”  “Plate 1” is a drawing of four of the offerings  heaped up together. “Fig 1” carefully labels by far the largest of these, and the only one in a state of tumescence. At the altar, the “oil of Saint Cosimo” was offered to the male congregation: “Those who  have an infirmity in any of their members, present  themselves at the great altar, and uncover the  member affected; and the reverend canon anoints it.” 

Notably, the town’s webpage and wikipedia entry make no mention of the cult of St. Cosimo…

Robin Brooks , The Portland Vase: The Extraordinary Odyssey of a Mysterious Roman Treasure

The Society of Dilettanti, founded in 1734, “was an altogether informal body, a dining society founded as a convivial club for gentlemen who had traveled to Italy and had cultivated their taste accordingly. A  dilettante being one who cultivates the arts for love  rather than for any professional considerations, the minutes of the society declared: “Whoever shall  descend to be serious in earnest thereby deviating  from the Originall constitutional sense and spirit of  the Society, shall be severely reprimanded.”

(It still exists. The society has 60 members, elected by secret ballot. An induction ceremony is held at Brooks’s, an exclusive London gentleman’s club. It makes annual donations to the British Schools in Rome and Athens, and a separate fund set up in 1984 provides financial assistance for visits to classical sites and museums).

Robin Brooks , The Portland Vase: The Extraordinary Odyssey of a Mysterious Roman Treasure

“Nicholas (the Second, Emperor of All Russias) reads the right wing press and he believes it.”

It’s another characteristically Russian story: Nicholas, in an effort to undermine the constitution he gave Russia to bring down the heat of the 1905 revolution, has thrown his support behind a right wing party, Union of the Russian People — a party, nota bene, organized by “minor government officials”, which is to say, possibly on orders from above. The government of his hand-picked Prime Minister, Stolypin, finances the party, and its various hangers on, to the tune of 3 million rubles a year. One of the activities of this party is to publish newspapers which rabidly attack all liberal politicians and their views (usually as “Judeo-masonic”). Nicholas reads this press and believes it. He orders his police to investigate the masons and the Jews.

This echoes today: Trump watches Fox TV and believes it. Putin names his party: United Russia.

Mikhail Zygar, The Empire Must Die: Russia’s Revolutionary Collapse, 1900 – 1917

Her wikipedia entry does not give us the vital statistics on Tatyana Troyanos, sadly. Was she really 6 foot 9 as she looks on stage next to her puny male partners? Did she really sport 44FF bra-size, as her voice suggests? Well, listen to her and hear for yourself, she would have had no trouble single-handedly holding up the whole Palais de Justice in Brussels, and putting all of Belgium’s caryatids out to pasture.

This performance of Stravinsky’s Oedipus Rex is surely its best ever, as is the case with almost anything the divine Claudio Abbado ever bothered to record; not only is the music the best, but so is its diction: prima la parola, goddamn it: hear and understand: ego subito pavisco, Iocasta, ego maxime pavisco! Sadly, there is no vision. If you want to see Tatyana sing it, here she is: it might even be a slightly better performance on her part.

But its most wonderful staging ever must be this. Small wonder: the most important artist in it turns out to be neither the conductor (who fails to deliver here his usual fascinating odd-ball wonder); nor the singers (the males are downright boring, Jessye Norman is both good and beautiful, but even she pales next to Tatyana, imho); nor the (really lousy) orchestra; but the choreographer, Julie Taymor. And no wonder: Julie has spent 4 years training in Japan and Java: she understands the magical, divinity-summoning, sympathetic power of theater – which is exactly how the Greeks used it. (Are all “primitive” minds similar? what does that even mean?)

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See it. You must. After all, you simply must know how to say in Japanese “Rex peremptor regis est.” This question will be on the midterm exam.*

*Sploiler: Oou no geshunin oou

I am a hopeless country bumpkin, beyond all hope of repair. Here I am, come from my sticks to the big city, to admire its art. And what catches my attention? A picture of cows and fruit tress in bloom.

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Brussels is full of gorgeous large women. As Rubens will tell you, they have rich, generous, ample bodies, powdery, clear, nearly transparent skin, blond feathery hair. They eat in fine restaurants, whispering sweet nothings to their ample boyfriends (“may we spend the next 30 years together eating this delicious food, my love!”)*; but also hold up every imaginable monument. I cannot recall that I have ever been to a city with quite so many caryatids.

The Royal Museum of Fine Arts casts all these wonders in an revealing light. Those gorgeous women? This is the kind of guy who has carved them.

*And boy is it good. Delicate, rich, complex. Belgian sense of feminine beauty has clearly been influenced by their cuisine: their fluffy, eggy mayonnaise; their vegetable-informed, delicately flavored head-cheese; their creamy, sweet beef tartar; their levitating Chantilly cream, lighter than air; and their delicious, gelatinous, trembling pancakes in brandy and butter flambé.