Intouchables (2012)

This is a feel good movie from start to finish.  It has elements of Pygmalion.  It has some rags to riches components.  It is wise and funny and while much of the plot is predictable, the performances of the two main actors is so sweet that we forgive that.  And it has a basis in a true story, and we always like to see happy endings that have some basis in reality.

Philippe (Francois Cuzet) is a millionaire who was is a quadriplegic secondary to a para-gliding accident. Driss (Omar Sy) is a man out on parole for robbery, who applies for the job of Philippe's caregiver only so he can be rejected and get a signature on his application for unemployment benefits. As Philippe interviews one boring job applicant after another, many with ample caregiving experience but very little in the way of life experience, it becomes clear that Phillppe needs not only physical help but friendship and companionship. When you cannot perform any of your activities of daily living, the person who is doing them for you is someone you not only rely on for your very existence but also the person you spend the day with.  Driss' elan and irreverence is refreshing, and Philippe astonishes him and his own household staff by offering Driss the job.

So these are two men separated by almost everything: education, culture, money, you name it.  Phillippe has retained a sense of humor and Driss has retained his sense that he knows what the good life is--and that while money matters, there is a whole lot available out there that is free.  Good music, dancing, walking outdoors, sex, a little bit of marijuana--okay all of that is not free, but it doesn't cost the earth and you don't need to live in opulence to have access to it--Phillippe is afraid to take chance and Driss can't resist them.  Phillipe offers Driss a chance at a better life, and Driss offers Phillippe a way to re-engage with the world.  Which works for both of them.  It is not a deep movie, but it is a lot of fun to watch.

The Mezquita, Córdoba

Córdoba began it's quest to be the city that everyone was talking about in the 8th century, after the Moorish conquest.  Part of that quest invovled building several hundred mosques and public buildings--for the greatest mosque of all, the Mezquite, they did the time honored thing--they built it on someone else's house of worship, in this case, a Roman church. By the time of the Mezquita,  Córdoba rivaled the splendours of Constantinople, Damascus and Baghdad (the other spectacular cities of that time).

This is an incredible building, where the repetition of a theme and the enormity of the finished work convinces you that some people really believe. The hundreds of arches made of alternating red and white stone are stunning to look at, and the whole effect was dazzling for me.  I quickly lost track of my family, myself, and what I was doing, and just let the atmosphere wash over me.  In the interest of full disclosure, no one else in my family felt the least bit in awe of the place, and they were all more or less ready to go soon after we entered the place.

The construction of the Mezquita wasn't quick--it lasted for over two centuries, starting in 784 AD under the supervision of the emir of Cordoba, Abd ar-Rahman I. Under Abd ar-Rahman II (822-52), the Mezquita held an original copy of the Koran and an arm bone of the prophet Mohammed, making it a major Muslim pilgrimage site.  When it was finally finished, the Mezquita was the most magnificent of the more than 1,000 mosques in Cordoba. But Cordoba was subject to frequent invasion and each conquering wave added their own mark to the architecture.  A minaret here, a courtyard there--they all wanted to leave their mark on this very special place.

In 1236, Córdoba was captured from the Moors by King Ferdinand III of Castile and became Christian once again. The newcomers left the architecture Mezquita largely undisturbed - they simply consecrated it, dedicated it to the Virgin Mary, and used it as a place of Christian worship.  No muss, no fuss.  The center of Córdoba is a UNESCO World Heritage site, which is a thank you from the modern world to the ancient one that they left such a special place intact.

Belgian Waffles

I really had no idea what a Belgian waffle was until I was in Belgium.  Up to that point I thought of them as having been cooked in a waffle iron that had a large square pattern rather than a small square pattern.  Since I am American, I was used to that version of a waffle.  I like a sparse amount of maple syrup evenly distributed across my waffle, so while I own a Belgian waffle maker, I did not much use it.

All that changed when I tried the waffles in Brussels--they are known as Liege waffles, and they are different from the waffles that I am used to as they are leavened with yeast, and they are denser, chewier, sweeter, and richer. They were made in 18th century history by the Chef of the Prince-Bishop of Liege. Unlike the Brussels waffle, the Liege waffle was adapted from brioche bread dough. It features pearl sugar chunks which caramelize on the waffle’s exterior when it is baked. This gives them a remarkable carmelized sugar exterior that is sublime.  They are served as a dessert rather than a breakfast food, and the very best have ice cream and fruit on top.  Surprisingly, Liege waffles are the most common type of waffles available in Belgium.

Averroes in Córdoba

Averroes, as he is known in the west, or Ibn Rushd as he is known in the Middle East, was one of the foremost thinkers of the age in which he lived. Born in Córdoba in 1126, Averroes has also been called the founding father of secular thought in western Europe, and described as one of the key influences on scientific and philosophical thought during the transition from ancient to modern methods. His work, along with the works of Moses Maimonides and Aristotle, would become crucial to the great universities of Europe.

But by the time of Averroes the Muslim empire had begun to crumble, and in 1236 Córdoba was taken by the Christians. A bishop ritually cleansed the mosque, and declared it the new cathedral. The heart of Al-Andalus had been taken. Over the next 600 years, beginning with Columbus's conquering of the New World, the Christian European world would spread.  This was the world that Averreos was born into and lived.  He was able to be educated in a multicultural intellectual environment that allowed him to synthesize and fuse several schools of thought.

Averroes was a defender of Aristotelian philosophy against Ash-Ari theologians who were led by Al-Ghazali (who was considered to be the single most influential Muslim after Mohammed)--which was a very big task indeed. Averroes' philosophy was considered controversial in Muslim circles. Averroes had a greater impact on Europeans and he has been described as the "founding father of secular thought in Western Europe". The detailed commentaries on Aristotle earned Averroes the title "The Commentator" in Europe.  Latin translations of Averroes' work led the way to the popularization of Aristotle and were responsible for the development of intellectual scholarship in medieval Europe.

Barnacles--The Food That Made Me Pause

I am not what I would call a particularly adventurous eater.  I certainly pale in comparison to members of my family, and two of them were with me on my recent trip to Andalucía.

Imagine their surprise when I ordered a plate of quite expensive barnacles and this is what arrived at our table.  My son asked "Who ordered the dinosaur feet?" I tried to look innocent, but the blushing may have given me away.  I did.  Can you  believe it?

 I am very glad that I was not on closed circuit television upon their arrival because I can assure you, my jaw dropped discernably.  I went from feeling able to eat anything to wondering just exactly how one even began to attack these critters.  And it was a sizable part of our bill that day, adding a financial dimension to the problem.

It may not be obvious from looking at them, but there is not an obvious way to eat these--the bottoms, what you would see if you are looking at them in their natural habitat, are rock hard.  The 'neck' of the barnacle, which is where they get their name 'gooseneck barnacles' from, is a tough lethery texture that you are absolutely certain that you are not meant to either chew or bite into.  So, what to do?  Thanksfully we figured it out before the waiter had to come rescue us (which would have led to eternal shame for being such barnacle rookies).  You bend them right at the juncture between the top of the shell and the bottom of the neck and they literally pop open, revealing an iside that is the texture of a large clam and the flavor of the sea.  Remarkably more delicious than they look.

Córdoba, Jewel of the World

In the foreground of the photo is the Roman bridge (those Romans left a lot of architecture behind, and the Moors followed suit) crossing into the great city of Córdoba.  It was a city ahead of it's time, a place that the world has yet to really recreate in terms of a truly intellectual melting pot.

Córdoba was known as the Jewel of the (Medieval) World.  It was a multicultural hot pot of international trade, intellectual growth, and cross-cultural harmony.  Which all came to an absolute end with the Spanish Inquisition but the peaceful turnover of the city left it's architectural beauty in place.

The Romans had loved Córdoba. In 152 BC they had founded the elegant city of Corduba, and made it the capital of their Hispania Baetica. Seneca, the philosopher who went on to tutor the insane Emperor Nero, was born here, as was the poet Lucan; for the Romans, Córdoba was not some barbaric outpost, like Londinium or Tingis (modern-day Tangiers), but a centre of their civilisation, where true Romans lived and raised their families.

The significance of Córdoba in the world's history springs from two things. First, it is the place where, for a few centuries, Islam and Christianity coexisted relatively peacefully, in the years before the more brutal religious extremism of the Crusades. But second, it is where the culture of the Arabs was brought into contact with the west, where Islamic thinkers gave consideration to the works of Aristotle, where they carried the flame of these works while the rest of Europe struggled through the dark ages. Islam too has played its part in the long history of rationalism; as Richard Fletcher has put it: "Modern science begins in 13th-century Europe, based firmly on the plinth furnished by translations from Arabic and Greek."

By the 9th century, Córdoba was the largest and richest city in Europe, with a tradition of learning and discourse that overshadowed Baghdad (the city that had taken Damascus's place as heart of the Islamic empire).  It holds that place no more, but it is a wonderful city to visit today.

The End of History and the Last Man by Francis Fukuyama

This book was written at the end of the Cold War, with the essential thesis that now, after the failure of communism, we could finally say that capitalist democracies were the very best form of government.

Fukuyama used a concept that was proposed by Marx, that eventually mankind would settle on an ideal form of government--he thought it would be communism, but he was wrong about that.  He failed to take into account what Plato first identified--that each and every man needs to feel important.  Freud called it ego and Plato called it thymos, but what it really amounts to is that we all want to be on top of a heap and to be noticed.  Fukuyama asserts that while it is impossible for each and every person to be a celebrity, that at least a democracy allows you to have a voice in the process of government, so it is the form of governance that comes the closest to satisfying the need for recognition as well as the need for stability.  The book expands on an essay of an almost identical title that is a little more succinct in reaching it's conclusion, but this is a nice summary of the thoughts of liberal thinkers since the Age of Enlightenment.  The arguments in favor of democracy in general and capitalist democracy in particular have some flaws in them, many of which Fukuyama himself points out, but on balance, I think his argument holds water--to this point in history--what the future holds, we have no clue.  Remember, there was a time when an essentially leader-less form of goverment had many constituents, despite the fact that even socialism had been shown to be unworkable up to the point where Marx wrote the Communist Manifesto.

Getting A Job

Today is my father's birthday, and this is a topic that is near and dear to his heart--Employment.

We all want to increase tax revenue in order to buy down the deficit.  In order to pay taxes, you have to have a job.  Easier said than done.

It is just not that easy to get your first full time job.   You are almost always competing with people who have had a full time job.  When an employer is looking at prospective employees, someone who has a reference that you can talk to is valued over someone who doesn't.  A lot of jobs that do not require a college education are not necessarily looking for someone who has been to college.  Being smart is not necessarily better than someone who knows how to show up to work on time and who can follow directions.

I have been thinking about this recently--I met a remarkable woman on a plane who had come to the United States as a refugee from Burundi. 

She had a college education there, but she knew that would hold little water here.  She was prepared to work hard, and she and her sister had a lot of children to support--her son was 3 years old, and she had three young siblings who would be full time students.

She had a good attitude. She wasn't expecting a high flying job--she applied to be a maid in a local hotel. When she was interviewed she was asked a lot of questions about her previous experience as a maid, of which she had none, and she was ultimately told that she was not qualified for the job.  She told me this story 15 years after it had happened, but the shock she felt then was palpable today.  She ultimately had the experience that you would expect of a highly motivated, very bright employee--she got an entry level job at a factory, and both she and her sister quickly rose up the ladder there, first becoming shift supervisors and gradually rising from there.

She was a dream employee--except that she did not want to end her career there--but she trained many employees under her supervision about what an ideal employee was like, and as someone who has employees, that is a very good thing indeed.

It is very hard to start off at the bottom of the ladder, and all of us who have the opportunity to give someone a break should exercise it.

J.J. Cale's Legacy

When J.J. Cale died last month, we lost an important figure in our musical heritage.  He was underappreciated in life--let's hope that in his after life we give him his due.

There are quite a few  music legends whose contributions to American music were not well appreciated in their life times.  Robert Johnson comes immediately to mind.  He was an American blues singer and musician whose landmark recordings from 1936–37 display a combination of singing, guitar skills, and songwriting talent that has influenced later generations of musicians.  Johnson came to an untimely death in 1938 at the young age of 27, so it would have been hard for his artistry to have been widely appreciated while he was alive, but he cycles in and out of popularity to this day.  Let's hope that happens here.

J.J. Cale hailed from Oklahoma, and he brought his native musical roots with him when he left.  He was one of the originators of the Tulsa Sound (which is where Cale grew up), a loose genre drawing on blues, country, rockabilly, and jazz influences.  He brought aspects of each of those genres to rock 'n roll and changed it for the better.  Any one who loves Eric Clapton's 'After Midnight', a classic Cale song, can see what he brought to the musical table.  Cale continued to play well into his later years, so we have a substantial body of his work to look back on and learn from. 

May your memory be a blessing.

Albaycín, Granada

The beautiful UNESCO heritage site that is the Moorish neighborhood in Granada.  the church in the foreground is St. Nicolas, and our apartment in Granada is far up the hill from this church.  The photo to the right is of Iglesia de Nuestra Salvador, and it was taken uphill from the church, on the terrace of our apartment.  Nicolas, our landlord, explained navigation in the Albaycín quite simply.  When you are heading up hill, you need to head for this church--from there we could find our apartment easily, even though there were several ways to get there.  The streets are small, winding, and interconnected.  When heading downhill, kepp the mountains at your back.  Simple.  And it was simple, provided you were not in a car--then it was all you could do to avoid scraping the car on both sides--the walls of the Albaycín are covered with the paint of many cars.

Driving in this part of town is not recommended.  When we managed to find our apartment, my spouse refused to move the car until we were leaving town--and he was right to be nervous.  Nicolas looked at our modest sedan and asked why oh why had we gotten such a gigantic car?  In the Albaycín it felt gigantic.  The best part of the neighborhood is walking around, sitting outside, enjoying the Moorish arches and the terra cotta roofs.  Such a lovely place.