DANTEmag - N.5

Issue - June/July 2012

UK £ 7.50 - $ 12.50 - EU € 8.5 - Hong Kong $ 95 - China RMB 79

Issue - July/August 2012

UK £ 7.50 - $ 12.50 - UE € 8.5 - Hong Kong $ 95 - China RMB 79

www.dantemag.com www.dantemag.com

DANTE FOR THE RENAISSANCE IN US

The only international magazine with an Italian soul

Santiago’s Screaming Streets The Poison Fields You Might Be Wearing

Overture q q

The Land of Men

The Age of Protest: World Revolution in the Making?

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STYLE IS NOT A STATEMENT. IT’S WHO YOU ARE.

CAMPO MARZIO DESIGN

166 Piccadilly, London W1J 9EF Tel. + 44 (0) 207 907 2600 63 Regent Street, London W1B 4DY Tel + 44 (0) 207 734 3000 michelle@campomarzio.co.uk www.campomarzio.co.uk

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index MISSION STATEMENT

BY THE EDITORS Dante and Beatrice p. 8

Food for thought! p. 10

DIVINA COMMEDIA AROUND THE WORLD. p.12

ART.

DESIGN AND ARCHITECTURE

Window of the soul

COVER

TRAVEL Diving into the Deep Blue Sea p. 108 The Land of Men p. 116

The Pantheon in Rome: The True Original p. 46 Chamonix: A Contemporary Retreat in the Midst of Tradition p. 52

The Age of Protest: World Revolution in the Making? p. 62

POLITICS

Why Photography Matters as Art as Never Before p. 14 Santiago’s Screaming Streets p. 20

Working the Trauma Service p. 72 Nos Falamos Galego p. 78

LITERATURE

BUSINESS

It Has All Been Most Interesting p. 30

MUSIC

Goodbye, So Long p. 38

Not Only Cima, da Conegliano p. 86 The Poison Fields You Might Be Wearing p. 92

What I’ve Learned in the Alleys p. 100

health The Magic of Wine, Inside-Out p. 122 FOOD The Right Carbohydrates p. 130

COLUMNS Nonno Panda tales Nonno Panda and the Killer Whale. p. 136 Leviathan p. 140

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have we met?

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www.primeuve.com

contributors Editor in Chief Massimo Gava

Web and New Technology Editor Steven Spieczny

Deputy Editor Chris Kline

Special Projects Editor Ezster Galfalvi

Editor at Large US Caroline Udall

Associated Research Editor Louis Romero

Editor at Large Bee Van Zuylen

New York Business Editor John McEwin

Executive Literary Editor Patrick J.Summers

Online Design Editor Lavinia Todd

Feature Editor Keanu Kerr

Online Research Editor Mary Shulze

Photography Director Winston Cole

Art Director Nicola Sasso

Picture Editor Luella Stock

Graphic designer Harimaguada Mejias-Sanabria

Sub-Culture Editor Michael Chandler

International Correspondent Mike Jerovia

Music Editor Dean Rispler

Business Editor Martin Shah

Copy Editor Philip Rham

Director of new media and web Adargoma Sanabria

Arts Editor Devon Dikeou

Director Sales and Marketing Myke Dyson

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Contributing Writers .

Rodrigo Ca単ete, Mike Hawthorne, Rowlinson Carter, Lee Sowerbutts, Jim Turner, Antonia Bruns, Matthias Gelber, Caroline Udall, Antonio Sanna, Neil Geraghty, Elisa T. Keena, Marco Pernini, Dante and Beatriz, NonnoPanda.

Contributing Photographers.

Alejandro Chaskielberg , Duke Beardsley studio 2011, Rupert Dodds, Ariel Shruster Neil Geraghty, Phoenix Troll, Catarina Gomes Ferreira, Washington National Gallery Images, Hugh Kelly Kenneth Willard, Julian Hargreaves Alessandro Sonego Shutterstock.com.

Aija Lehtonen

DANTEmag is published

by DANTEmag Publishing Company 3rd Floor, 207 Regent Street, W1B 3HH London UK. info@dantemag.com.

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Letter from the editors

F

From its inception Dante has been a multicultural publication. One of the anchors of this composite, international identity is a strong Pan-European sentiment.

It isn’t that we fail to cross the Atlantic well, or to go further afield to consider the larger world on every continent. On the contrary, Dante is and shall remain a global citizen with a multitude of voices and perspectives. As the world becomes increasingly interdependent we can’t imagine being any other way.

But in this instance we want to consider matters close to home, in our own backyard. The situation we contemplate doesn’t rise to the seriousness of the Great Depression. It has not reached the breadth of destruction that the Second World War wrought. It is not yet as arduous a task as that of the reconstruction that followed the war, nor is it yet as threatening as the spectre of the Cold War that hung over the continent like a dark shadow for so long. But Europe is ailing deeply and seems increasingly uncertain of itself: indecisive, divided, charting an unknown course, as its collective financial crisis only deepens. If anything is certain, it is that events will almost surely worsen before they improve.

So we’d like to offer our vote of confidence in Europe, our hope in Europe, our belief in Europe. We have confidence in a Europe, united in a common purpose, sharing a universal vision for prosperity and economic recovery, not leaving a single country behind, nor silencing the legitimate aspirations of those that are hurting the most. It is an hour of great adversity for all of Europe, a time of seemingly insuperable challenges.

How best to meet them, to overcome them? It is the European Union after all; let us then be united in our approach to problem-solving.

We all know the outlook is grim. Greece has descended into an abyss of bankruptcy, dysfunction and near anarchy that sends a chilling fear across the continent over who might be next. Portugal is stagnant and impoverished. The level of unemployment in Spain for those under twenty-five has reached fifty percent, while Madrid has pretended to deliberate its options. And in the end it has had to go the Irish route, and has secured a €125 billion loan from the European Central Bank – a loan which it stubbornly refuses to call a bailout. And that still may not be sufficient if we consider that the Irish street is still as restive and angry as much of the continent.

Italy is in almost complete disarray and the new technocratic government has not thus far shown any particular brilliance in mending the state of affairs. Italy continues to tumble downwards. On the surface of things France is better off, but peek beneath the façade of calm under pressure and it is soon evident that the French economy is merely limping along.

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would stimulate growth, curb unemployment and reject the draconian belt tightening that Germany, as the financial heavyweight and undisputed economic powerhouse in the Union, is demanding as the sole path to recovery. Hollande stated a firm “NON” to the harsh austerity that Chancellor Angela Merkel insists is vital. Will reality catch up with the promises of Hollande’s electoral campaign? How will the French stimulate growth and bring fresh investment when the treasury is running low and is so deeply in debt, mortgaged to the hilt, like so many of its even worse-hit neighbours?

It remains clear that a solid Franco-German entente on how to best grapple with the crisis is the only way forward, even if the onus falls more heavily on Germany. And if France doesn’t march to the German tune, what consequences would it face? Would Germany force such a vital ally to the sidelines and isolate it, punish it for non-compliance? Where do purely economic necessity and financial logic meet social justice?

Is it even viable for Germany to preserve its own financial strength in a European context, seemingly at the expense of all other players, if those players will not adopt the ruthless austerity Germany demands?

And the legions of the unemployed, the pensioners who have lost all, the young graduates who see no avenue to the future, the growing numbers of homeless – what of them? Can they be written off as the necessary casualties of recovery? Is this a recovery at all costs? Where is the middle ground? Must Germany be so intransigent, so inflexible?

If Germany will not budge, are we perhaps truly looking at the earliest beginning of the end for the European Union, a slow and agonising dissolution? Of course if the euro is truly allowed to collapse, there will be plenty of blame to share – including no small amount of blame for the knock-on effect of the disastrous banking practices in the United States, which arguably precipitated the whole crisis at point of origin. But then European banks on the whole have played just as fast and loose as their trans-Atlantic counterparts. Perhaps Merkel is the voice of reason. Perhaps it is tough love she prescribes, and everyone must take heed.

In fairness there is even in Germany a growing discontentment in having to shoulder the lion’s share of the burden; the vox populi on the German street asks, “Why is it left to us to carry them all?” A blunt response might be because others did so when you needed it, therefore you should and are morally bound to do so – not in an irrational, reckless, selfdefeating way, but as one good neighbour helps another. Lest we forget, France and Germany, in their mutual hour of need, relaxed the Maastricht Treaty parameters easily when it suited them. If your neighbour’s house is on fire, you’d do well to help fight the flames lest they reach your own home.

It is a logic, incidentally that Bill Clinton did not ignore when Mexico teetered on the brink of economic collapse. Washington swiftly saved the day with a massive rescue package during his presidency. Thus, Germany will prosper if all of Europe prospers. If Germany insists that her less powerful neighbours endure measures she would not countenance for herself – that the German people would balk at readily – is it not ultimately, a slow moving form of self-harm to tell those neighbours “do as I say not as I do?” Yes, Germany must lead, and France must help her find the path. But this needs to be equitable for everyone. Europa unite, go forth together. United we stand, divided we fall.

Dante and Beatrice (Alias the editors) DANTEmag n.5

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Food for thought!

by Massimo Gava

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A

”And this is one of the great tasks of leadership for us, as individuals and citizens this year.

But even if we act to erase material poverty, there is another greater task, it is to confront the poverty of satisfaction - purpose and dignity - that afflicts us all. Too much and for too long, we seemed to have surrendered personal excellence and community values in the mere accumulation of material things.

Our Gross National Product, now, is over $800 billion dollars a year, but that Gross National Product - if we judge the United States of America by that - that Gross National Product counts air pollution and cigarette advertising, and ambulances to clear our highways of carnage. It counts special locks for our doors and the jails for the people who break them.

It counts the destruction of the redwood and the loss of our natural wonder in chaotic sprawl.

It counts napalm and counts nuclear warheads and armored cars for the police to fight the riots in our cities. It counts Whitman’s rifle and Speck’s knife, and the television programs which glorify violence in order to sell toys to our children.

Yet the gross national product does not allow for the health of our children, the quality of their education or the joy of their play. It does not include the beauty of our poetry or the strength of our marriages, the intelligence of our public debate or the integrity of our public officials.

It measures neither our wit nor our courage, neither our wisdom nor our learning, neither our compassion nor our devotion to our country, it measures everything in short, except that which makes life worthwhile. And it can tell us everything about America except why we are proud that we are Americans.”

Extract from a Robert J Kennedy speech given at The University of Kansas. March 18th 1968 two months before his assassination on the 5th of June 1968.

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comedy THE DIVINE Around the World

Half along our life’s path. Lost in a dark wood.

Unable to find the right way….

PARADISO Dear Beatrice…

CANTO I

“ Holy Grail!” British scientists have announced that after analysing thousands of breast tissue samples in hopes of pinpointing a genetic cause of breast cancer they have uncovered the precise trigger of the disease. They have been able to group the tumours into ten different categories based on the genetic changes that account for the majority of breast cancers. Cancer Research UK’s chief executive Dr Harpal Kumar said: “This will change the way we look at breast cancer and will have a tremendous impact on the way we think about diagnosing and treating women with it.” The study published in the journal Nature, analysed 2.000 tumour samples taken from women diagnosed with breast cancer between five and ten years ago. Professor Carlos Caldas, of Cancer Research UK’s Cambridge Research Institute, which conducted the study, said: “This research won’t affect women diagnosed with breast cancer today. But DANTEmag n.5

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patients in the future will receive treatment targeted to their tumour’s genetic fingerprint.”

CANTO II

Argentina. Cristina Fernandez de Kirchner, the Argentinian president said that she seized a 51% controlling stake of energy company YPF - controlled by Spain’s Repsol - in Argentina because it was failing to produce enough oil to meet the country’s energy requirements. Repsol in turn will demand compensation based on a minimum evaluation of $18 billion. The move follows a giant discovery by YPF last year that could potentially generate up to 1 billion barrels of oil a year and marks an escalation of Argentina’s campaign to secure greater control of oil in the region. Not sure how much foreign investment would be done in Argentina after this but it’s good that somebody has the guts to go against the flow of the supremacy of the oil companies in favour of

their own country. That’s the way it used to be: you invest in a country, you take the risk. it seems to be a forgotten practice by the multinationals...

CANTO III

United Kingdom. Created in laboratories, XNA (xeno-nucleic acid) is a real genetic material that could eventually lead to synthesising artificial life in the laboratory. Phillip Holliger, of Molecular Biology of the UK Medical Research Council, Cambridge, together with other colleagues in Europe and the United States, has succeeded in producing a new genetic material, which has been dubbed XNA, in which the deoxyribose and ribose (the “d” and “r” of DNA and RNA) form other molecules. Potential applications are many, ranging from medicine to biotechnology. The development also has potential to increase our understanding of the mechanisms by which life first formed, billions of years ago. While the potential is inherent in the new technology, we are still far from the synthesis of new life. Not only do we not yet

have artificial life from XNA, but also the material created in Cambridge now has proven its properties only outside of a biological system consisting of all cells and their control mechanisms. Nobody can yet say whether it will work equally well inserted into the DNA of any organism, much less of a mammal. Even more distant is the possibility that new forms of life will be derived from XNAs. Science fiction approaches, but is not yet reality. We may not have yet reached the point of being able to create artificial life, but we’ve taken a big step in that direction.

O Beatrice let’s hope they hurry up. Can you believe it? Will we be able to create an artificial human being, full of wisdom and free of corruption and evil? Yes, it might be a bit artificial, come to think of it...

Purgatorio Virgil what can be said of...

CANTO I

The Marie Antoinettes of Italian political parties that keep denying the Italian people their civil rights (they still cannot choose who to vote for in parliament), but keep for themselves all the privileges, hiding behind the supposed need for constitutional reforms to change this status quo. Italians are utterly disgusted by them.

That’s why the level of trust in political parties is as low as 2 %, according to a recent survey.

“There is no alternative to the political party movement,” said the Italian president of the republic, branding the free movement to change Italian politics (chaired by former stand-up comedian Beppe Grillo) as something close to anarchy. The same tune came from the leaders of the major political parties. In the meantime a woman senator, former president of Milan county said, in a live TV debate in front of an audience of workers,: “Raise your hand anybody who has ever been on a holiday on a yacht?” The audience was astounded and silent. If this is the sense of reality that politicians have, it’s no wonder their approval ratings are at their lowest ebb. A stand-up comedian is just what Italy needs, to end the farce that has been going on for too long ... curtain down, please!

CANTO II

Israel. Chief of Staff Major General Benny Gants said that he does not believe Iran will develop a nuclear weapon. The head of Israel’s military said Iran leadership was composed of rational people. Teheran, he added, has not made the final decision to build a nuclear bomb. His views contradict those of Prime Minister

Benjamin Netanyahu, who said in the same week that Teheran continues to enrich uranium – a key step toward developing the bomb. Who knows? Maybe the general is right. The record shows the politicians have been wrong before. Remember the reports of weapons of mass destruction in neighbouring Iraq and the consequences of that? Let’s hope the Americans have learned something from it – if nothing more than to be more cautions. Hey, Obama, got it?

CANTO III

The group Fiat-Chrysler has posted a profit of €379 millions in the first quarter of 2012, thanks to strong Chrysler sales in the USA. A Fiat 500 might be the cool car that Jennifer Lopez is driving as she sings “Dance for Your Papi.” “I think it’s the best way to make him proud,” sings the self-proclaimed Jenny from the Block. But I wonder what your Papi will think if he knows that his car is the most vandalised car in Britain. Data shows that the Fiat 500 has a 3.62% chance of being deliberately damaged, with the BMWz4 and Peugeot 207 coming in second and third respectively. Porsche was the most targeted brand overall according to a survey made by insurer swiftcover. com . Could that be because of the arrogant attitude of its CEO Mr Marchionne? Or is it just a product placement that has failed to reach the expected sales figure in the USA? “I don’t think we have a car problem; people love the car,” Fiat chief marketing officer Oliver Francois told Advertising Age. “I think we have an awareness problem.” Yes! The one where, “you are not the one for me,” as it says at the end of another song, sung by KT Tunstall, that Fiat used for an advert on Italian TV years ago.

In fact, Fiat itself posted a loss of € 273 million. C’mon man!

“Move your body, move your body, dance for your Papi...”

INFERNO CANTO I

retirement, according to the Financial Services Authority. “The advice and sales were unsuitable because in a number of cases the individual’s life expectancy was below the recommended five-year investment period,” the FSA statement reported. Barclays was fined £7.7 million in January over similar issues related to suitability. HSBC agreed to pay an additional £29.3 million in compensation to the affected clients. It got a 30 % discount on the fine, the Financial Services Authority said “because the bank had agreed to a settlement.” In February 2012, HSBC admitted for the first time that it may face criminal charges that could see it hit with “significant” penalties stemming from a US investigation into alleged money laundering.

One would think that with a record like that, Gulliver should have started his travelling a long time ago instead of being stuck in Lilliput?

In Britain 6% of those earning more than £10 million year pay less than 10% tax on their income to the Treasury. More than a quarter of them pay less than 40%, the rate that kicks in for people earning only £34,000 a year. Just one in five of the 10,000 people that earn more than £1 million a year pay 40% in taxes. The 200 super-rich who rake in £10 million plus a year are the worst offenders for dodging tax.

Treasury secretary George Osborne capped tax relief on charity donations at £50,000 a year after finding that some millionaires were using it to reduce their tax bills. Charities, philanthropists and MPs lined up to criticise the move, warning it would decrease the amount of money given to good causes. Yes, sure, let’s leave it to the rich to decide when and where they should pay taxes.

After all they are in a league of their own, right? The poor are simply too many and too costly to deal with.

CANTO III That’s why they should look after Canada. Party drugs make teenagers themselves. It seems to be the current trend, as if these soigne people depressed, according to a study carried out at the University of have learnt nothing from history.

Montreal. Dr Jean-Sebastien Fallu, an associate professor at the school CANTO II of educational psychology there, HSBC, Britain’s most profitable said their study’s results provided bank, after posting a £13.8 billion the first compelling evidence of profit and giving its boss, Stuart a link between speed and ecstasy Gulliver, an almost £8 million consumption and the onset of debonus, has announced 2,000 job pression. The young users of these cuts in the UK as part of a brutal party drugs were found to be up to cost-cutting drive. Unite spoke70% more likely to exhibit depressisman David Flemming said the ve symptoms than those who used bank staff deserve better than this awful treatment from HSBC or any neither. Researchers surveyed 3,880 other employer. How can this bank teenagers between the ages 15 and consider staff cuts when it was the 16, from deprived areas of Quebec, over the course of five years. workforce that delivered its profits But what are the real cauin the first place? The hypocrisy ses behind seeking alternative of Mr. Gulliver goes further as he forms of escapism? Broken aims to shed 30,000 jobs worldwifamilies, lack of education and job de by 2013 in order to save £2.4 opportunities,unrealistic expectabillion a year. Last year HSBC cut tions, and fake role models - these 7000 jobs outside the UK leaving are all the uncertainties that teenait with 288.000 employees. It is gers around the world are facing also sacking hundreds of branch these days. Let’s find a pill that can investment advisers in response to a ban on commissions designed to help . . . the pharmaceutical companies! That’s the easiest solution to prevent future misselling scandals. the problem. Looking at the cause Back in December 2011, HSBC of it? Bah! That’s the old way of was fined £10.5 million, or $16.5 thinking, just so passé monsieur. million, as they sold inappropriate financial products to elderly customers. They were sold to individuals To what other terraces of doom who were entering or were already and pain, dear Virgil, will you in nursing homes. The customers, whose average age was 83, relied on accompany me...next time... these investments to pay for their DANTEmag n.5

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ART

Why Photography Matters As Art As Never Before by Rodrigo Ca単ete DANTEmag n.5

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ART Courtesy of Alejandro Chaskielberg, Oxfam and Michael Happen Gallery Portrait of Napva Kaanvang and Losike.

Kangwira collecting water for local women.

Turkana Series 2011

Photography in the age of Photoshop photographer Alejandro Chaskielberg. It can be manipulated, staged, denatured is there that photography brings us face and rareified. It can also reveal truth, to face with the L-word.. humanity, and even love. Rodrigo Ca単ete A truism of our time is that ours is a visual culture. The reality, argues that the latter is the power though, is that very few people are interested in images and and the potential of the medium as almost nobody really looks. The potential of the image is curtailed an art form. He walks us through the in our society and its ambiguity contemporary photography landscape, denied, probably, as dangerous.

Ours is a time that does not trust leading us to the raw humanity, strength the ambiguous, that which is in-between. It eradicates doubt in two ways: science or faith. It is and dignity of Kenyan villagers as ironic that both modes of thought depend on the sense of sight to exist. seen through the lens of Argentine

A

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ART

Courtesy of Alejandro Chaskielberg, Oxfam and Michael Happen Gallery.

Portrait of Tioko Korima.

Turkana Series, 2011

The Baroque Era is a Catholic affirmation of the need to see in order to believe. Contemporary art is heir to this belief, even in its more abstract and disembodied forms such as minimalism, where the visual still brings certainty by clarifying what an object is and what it is not. The most serious debates of contemporary art are concerned with the visual as a source of certainty. The paradigmatic position is that of Michael Fried, who stabilised the meaning of the minimalist work of art (of practitioners such as Donald Judd, Carl Andre, Dan Flavin, Sol Lewitt) by stating that it is art (and not just an object) as far as it is theatrical or, in other words, as far as it is exhibited to an “art public” that sees it as “Art.” Rather disappointingly, Fried seemed to lift us up high only to drop us, generating more questions than answers. For him, if the meaning of a work of art is not understood, it is because it has run out of meaning, and that is the end of the matter.

Born and raised a Catholic, I have, and have had, art around me all my life. Art has always given me that sense of “home away from home,” standards for beauty, and a sense of continuity when things got too shaky. Michael Fried approaches contemporary art without taking into consideration the L-word when discussing its nature. I agree with his opinion, however, that the relevant debates in contemporary art are happening in the realm of photography. Thomas Demand or Thomas Struth are, according to Fried, quintiessential Art because they transform a picture that should, by definition, be small and mnemonic into something large enough to deserve the attention of the “Art viewer.” Fried focusses on a few German photographers whose works are not only theatrical (because the “Art viewer” points at it as Art in the context of the museum or gallery) but also transform that theatricality into their subject matter. Thomas Demand’s photographs of bland sights of urban (office) life are images of a lie because what looks like the real thing is actually made of paper. So, far from being an agent of certainty, photography reveals itself as another weapon of manipulation. In Thomas Struth’s case, images of ‘Art viewers’ viewing Art in museums and churches DANTEmag n.5

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prove that although the art looked at is real, the viewers are extras.

This is definitely interesting but it is also exclusive because that information is not currency. This elitism is also characteristic of the other members of what is known as the Dusseldorf School, which also includes mega-stars Candida Hopfer, Thomas Ruff and Andreas Gursky. Their photographs are lavish, colourful and sleek. Having said that, the concept behind them is repeated to exhaustion without any sign of innovation. Their success was such that people paid millions for a Gursky even when they knew that the c-print would eventually lose its colour and disappear. This art is not for ever, but ephemeral.

As sleek and chic as they are, I cannot help but think that behind these ironic visualisations of the limits of their media, there lies nothing. If Art is what the Dusseldorf School claims it to be, it can only be an ironic visualisation of the limits that the medium imposes on it. But as much as I am trying to agree with Fried and these Germans, put art in a box and close this discussion for good. I feel that art is more than an intellectual exercise.

To begin with, as Bruno Latour recently said, art is a vehicle of people through time and space. It conveys presence. There is something personal in art that can only be understood on a one-to-one basis.

This is why Roger Fry said that the era of the museums killed that personal relationship between the viewer and the work of art. Now, millions gather in front of Velazquez’ Las Meninas in the Museo del Prado, to give one example, without having a clue as to what is going on in the painting or of its real meaning. Yet they seem to find certainty in the idea that, just by being in the same room and looking at the image, some value will be added to their lives. The personal experience happens between the two actors (viewer and work of art) that are present. Far from being an intellectual experience, it is one that happens and is relevant in the context of the viewer’s life. The idea that seeing the divine (the authentic and essential) live and in person comes from Jesus’ lifetime, when holiness was transmitted through sight.

That is why those who were in the same room with Jesus were considered

ART

Courtesy of Alejandro Chaskielberg, Oxfam and Michael Happen Gallery.

Portrait of Frederic Ekuman Turkana Series 2011

holy and as were later, in Spain, the mystics who saw him in their flights of the soul. Museums are, in a way, spaces that contain the essential (pieces that are unique and authentic and convey some kind of truth) - very much like churches in the past. The pilgrimage to art fairs and museums all around the world reinforce this argument. But is the world becoming more cultured? If not, what makes art so special?

Photography, understood as art, has been focused either on stylisation or on the descriptive as reportage or as story telling. The Dusseldorf School, however, is neither stylised nor descriptive but addresses specific problems that art faces as art. The problem with the latter is that it is too cold. I totally understand their commercial (and academic) success because they produced the image as justification. They instantaneously make the one who deals in and with them serious and believable. They are art that looks like art. But that superficiality of sorts always ends up taking its toll. I am saying this because the aforementioned German photographers exclude the human figure, turning the pictures into mere academic exercises.

Recently there has been a photographer who has recently taken me out of that sense of Middle European depression. Alejandro Chaskielberg is showing his latest works at the Oxo Gallery in London. Sponsored by Oxfam, his project aims to show the extreme natural conditions in which Kenyan villagers live. The result is a group of pictures that, in my opinion, helps redefine the role of photography as a human art form, not just an academic exercise.

The images seem to be painted with light in hues that never go too far away from green and red. Chaskielberg explains: “I’ve always been attracted to the night. So in Turkana, [Kenya], I explored the idea of photographing people during the night, often in the places where they sleep. To photograph people, I used the full moon, along with long time exposures and different kinds

of lights, like torches. I only had a very short window to get the shots I wanted, no repeats. It was a real challenge!”

In spite of those short windows of natural light, Chaskielberg’s Tarkana comes across as warm and dignified – something that he started to explore in a work from his previous series, Mr.Whiskers. Chaskielberg avoids turning the exotic into the other.

His sitters exude comfort. It is through the use of light and colour that he achieves that sense of “home.” Through a combination of dark dominant reds and greens and a white light that caresses them, the images of the subject are rendered totally clearly, but the sitter is still allowed to conceal certain things. The photographed space is like a womb. Chaskielberg seems to follow Caravaggio’s chiaroscuro, where the vertical light enhances volume and expression, while at the same time it reveals a series of figures that seem to come out of the darkness into the viewer’s space.

His portraits of villagers Rebecca Eporon, Elizabeth Ekatapahn, Lokesiro Natelem Eseron and Joseph Ichom are dignified without reaching the level of monumentalisation of Mr.Whiskers, who can never be taken seriously.

The picture that takes all these issues to a new level is a group portrait of kids surrounding Frederic Ekuman during a break from digging for water at the roadside of Kanka, Lungurio. Since the Renaissance, the work of art has been mainly conceived as a window into a different world. Photography in particular has been conceived by the intervention of the camera that, in a way, penetrates the fabric of the world and opens that window with total accuracy. Thus the act of viewing has always been initiated in the viewer and from him or her into the image. Here, Chaskielberg opens a very baroque window, not to look, but to be looked at. The composition emulates Byzantine icons in which the flatness is more due to the fact that they are hovering over the viewer because the space that matters is the viewer’s, not the subjects. The issue of the space of the viewer as the valuable one – the one towards which the kids move – transforms the image’s composition into an allegory of migration which overlaps the already delicate symbolic force of their African selves.

If the reader did not have the opportunity to see the image, his guilt would be post-colonial and geopolitical – the “UNICEF approach” where the kids seem to beg for mercy. Chaskielberg, by contrast, does not patronise them but seems to oblige the reader to follow him when flexing his knees and levelling the eye contact. The kids do not look upward, but frontally.

They move forward and appear playful and curious. Thus, their frontality is reassuring and sweet. Oxfam should be proud of having partnered with Chaskielberg for this project because he has redefined the way inequality should be portrayed in order to achieve maximum efficiency: by making his DANTEmag n.5

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ART

Courtesy of Alejandro Chaskielberg Oxfam and Michael Happen Gallery.

Portrait of Naniti Alkaram Turkana Series 2011

demic perspective. According to subjects equal to the viewer. From this viewpoint, common sense suggests this view, taste is always exclusive that in order to see the differences we must see the similarities. to those who know what looks The photographer masterfully manages to alter this inequality through the same enhancement of the texture of the silky darkish skin by use of a verti- like art and what doesn’t. To the left, the opposite view would say cal light. As in Caravaggio, this light reveals primary colours that transform warmth into heat and makes the viewer smile. By lowering the camera to the that art is a visual representation whose presence affects the viewer eye-level of the children, he balances the inequality that has always existed - a kind of space where the in the representation of African kids in the past. Thus, viewer and children are confronted without sentimentalism nor accusations of any sort. Without presence of the artist is felt in the viewer’s space, skin or body at a a humanistic rhetoric (a la Henry Moore) or a visual slogan (a la Sebastiao phenomenological level. This enSalgado), the group portrait is not humane but human. He reveals the grace tails a dialogue person to person, inherent in characters that do not know inequality as such. present or not.

Baldassare Castiglione in Il Cortegiano (ca.1520s) defined grace as follows: “…e per dir forse una nuova parola, usar in ogni cosa una certa sprezzatura, Alejandro Chaskielberg’s images move us without sentimentalism. che nasconda l’arte e dimostri ciò che si fa e dice venir fatto senza fatica e I remember my shock when I first quasi senza pensarvi. Da questo credo io che derivi assai la grazia.” (. . . and saw his first series La Creciente. maybe say a new word, use in everything a certain nonchalance that hides the art, and let what you do and say be done without effort and almost with- Those images of the Estuary of the Rio de la Plata spoke to me out thinking. I think that comes from this very grace). at a very personal level. They This calculated nonchalance adds up to the grace of these characters took me to my nights of insecuwho are not flattered but just treated as equals and given the benefit of rity about the future and my life the doubt. The reader should notice at this point the difference between which, paradoxically, was the happiest time of my life. I used to sail down Chaskielberg’s treatment of Africa and Afrikaans South African star Pieter there. Without having met, we had done so. The sheer power of presence Hugo, who is represented by genius photography dealer, Israeli-born, New York-based Yossi Milo. Pieter Hugo’s approach to his sitters is mediated by a beige veil that conveys dirt and Courtesy of Alejandro Chaskielberg, draught. Hugo conditions the moment of viewing from Oxfam and Michael Happen Gallery. the very beginning while Chaskielberg makes them as Group Portrait of Mary Atabo and her family in Kaalatum.

Turkana Series 2011 equal to us as possible. It makes sense, for equality is the precondition of friendship, and we can only help those who we love.

From a theoretical point of view, Chaskielberg’s image is so engaging that it does not need to boast academic status. By rejecting that status, he speaks a visual language that will not include him in quintiessentially theatrical art spaces such as Tate Modern. For the Argentine, art should be experiential, not self-referential. It is at this point that we should ask ourselves what makes a work of art. Is it the way it looks (let’s call this one the “decorative” approach)? Is it the way it questions the limits of its medium (this is the “art about art’ approach)? Or is it the way it changes the world at a human level (the work of art as a vehicle of presence)? Any answer to these questions will only speak of the speaker and will be conditioned by our experiences and failures. I would dare, however, to say that there are two extremes that would frame the myriad possible responses. On the right, we have those who think that art should look like art and question its own existence as a medium from an aca-

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that even the landscapes had in that exhibition made me go back to what were both the happiest and scariest days of my life. He had captured something essential, of course, to me and manipulated it in a way that allowed me to revisit my past. This series made him a deserving winner of the Sony World Photography Award (the equivalent of the Oscars in photography). I was curious, however, about his next series and expectations were high. The acclaim he received could have easily inebriated him and he could have started to produce the sort of Argentine images that have infested our imagery for the past fifteen years, a colourful mix of kitsch, pop, and raw silliness that demands a very specific type of art market, and excludes seriousness ex ante. Knowing that his is a gift, he rose to the challenge and transformed photography into a form where the artist is present even when absent.

The key image of his Turkana show is, in my opinion, the one called Dreaming Family, a shot of Elizabeth Ekatapahn and her family sleeping outside on the ground on a hot night. It is a tour-de- force because, like in Bernini’s Apollo and Daphne (at the Borghese Palace) where the viewer discovers the story with each step taken around the sculpture, it is kinetic.

There is a different temporality and that is the temporality of the (longtime) exposure of the camara in the darkness of the night. It works like Marina Abramovic’s performances where the conditions for something real happen. Marina lectures the viewer through example and irony. Alejandro creates a space in the viewer’s mind where the performance occurs. He evokes a dream that Elisabeth had and what we are seeing is not only the sitter having the dream, while sleeping on the dusty soil under a Joshuashaped tree, but also the dream itself. Not only that dream is revealed by the lens. We can see the artist at work, very much as in Velazquez’s Las Meninas.

It is a disembodied self-portrait, although it is difficult to say disembodied because we can actually see the footprints on the floor of someone (surely the artist) weaving with mirrors that mosaic of moonlight that generates these miracles. At the level of the metaphysical, the phenomenological, the procedural this picture is almost a theological statement of work, empathy, and what makes us human. Love, actually.

Rodrigo Cañete is a Courtauldian academic, art dealer and blogger www.loveartnotpeople.com

Courtesy of Alejandro Chaskielberg, Oxfam and Michael Happen Gallery Women of Turkana finding food for their children.

Turkana Series 2011

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Santiago’s screaming streets

By Mike Hawthorne

Chile’s comic artists have a history of satire and dissent going back at least forty years to the Latin American Dirty Wars of the late 1960s and 1970s. Today, amid the deep economic divide and social polarisation that is the legacy of decades of the “Chicago Boys” economic policies, Chile’s comics and muralists have turned the very streets of Santiago into a gallery of dissent.

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Half the people in the immensely long and varied country of Chile live in the sprawling capital city Santiago, in a hollow under the Andes, under a cloud of smog. Towering office blocks, mainly housing banks, mushroom along the avenues of the affluent Las Condes district, heading towards the massive curtain of mountains in the east. The car culture has a suburban US flavour, revolving around traffic jams, parking spaces, petrol stations and shopping malls. The old bungalows and sprinkled lawns are being demolished in favour of tall towers that block out the sunlight.

Gregory Isaacs Bellavista Mural

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verges are unnaturally green, graffiti is quickly painted out, and all the shops and cinemas are a short drive away in the land-cruiser. There is little need to descend into the streets of the bustling centre, let alone the mean barrios populares, some of which are no-go areas for the carabiñeros police force.

Television reports showing violent demonstrations in the centre flicker across the plasma screens of Las Condes like news from another planet.

I visited Santiago during the hot month of February 2012. The streets of Las Condes were half empty, the schools on holiday and many families at the beach. Accompanied by the comic-book illustrator Juan Vasquez, I went to see the Roberto Matta (1911-2002) exhibition in the cultural centre under the Moneda Presidential Palace – the very spot bombed by the air force in 1973.

Vasquez had been a graphic design student under the dictatorship. An army officer ran the college and his main preoccupation was to make the students sing the national anthem every day. In 1986, Vasquez began to publish underground comics. Frowned upon by the military authorities, magazines like Trauko and Acido were surreptitiously passed from hand to hand among Santiago’s youth. In neighbouring Argentina, soldiers had actually murdered DANTEmag n.5

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world-famous comics illustrator Hector Oesterheld (1919-1977) while in Chile, the Catholic church succeeded in getting Trauko banned. Nowadays, old issues are regarded as relics from the days of struggle against Pinochet.

Vasquez has published collections of his illustrations from the period, heavily influenced by France’s Jean Giraud, aka Moebius (1938-2012). Vazquez’s El Canto Del Delirio ironically juxtaposes the verses of Chile’s national anthem with images of brutality and cynical quotes from characters like Richard Nixon and the fascist priest Raúl Hasbún. The army officer in charge of Vasquez’s design course – the one who forced the students to sing the national anthem – provoked a reaction he had not intended.

The Matta show filled three cavernous spaces with cosmic visions on a grand scale. It was like seeing Moebius’ vertiginous science-fiction cities blown up into blurry extravaganzas, the size of tennis courts. Some of the 1960s, anti-US-military canvases captured the spirit of Paris ’68. In 1970, when Allende’s left-wing coalition was triumphant, Matta visited Santiago from France. He assembled a group of fellow-communists to paint an optimistic mural, structured like a comic strip, on a wall in the poor district of La Granja. Matta and the muralists of the Brigada Ramona Parra produced a colourful sequence that was obliterated under several layers of paint in 1973.

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Bakunin BRP

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Young Muralist on the Alameda Street Fighting Man Wall Painting Alameda Stgo.

Bellavista Gate Painting Now, it is being painstakingly restored. In Chile, they are still reclaiming both the space and time that was lost during the “black pages” of their recent history.

as “The Revolution of the Penguins”, because of their school uniforms. He pointed out the series of big comic-strip pages, criticising police brutality, pasted to the University walls.

Across the main road from the Moneda Palace, Vasquez and I walked towards the façade of the University of Chile. The walls were covered in graffiti and murals left over from last winter’s student demonstrations. The front of the building was a compendium of bold, defiant images, in a variety of styles. Some portraits of individual students showed self-deprecating humour. Slogans and pictures were scattered along the sidewalks for miles, in all directions.

“These were produced by a group of illustrators I work with,” he said, “We are called A Mano Alzada [Freehand]. We hope to do a lot more next year.”

In 2006, Vazquez published comics supporting the children’s protests against low educational standards under the Bachelet government, known

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If, as seems probable, Pinera’s centre-right coalition continues to insist on private education run for profit, as opposed to a decent, free, state system, the stones, water cannons and tear gas canisters are set to fill the air again with the coming autumn. Further layers of paint, paper and aerosol will be added to the open-air expressionist exhibition in the streets. The contrast with the clean walls and glass office towers of Las Condes could not be greater.

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Anarchist Mural Alameda Stgo.

Students’Mural Alameda Stgo

A short walk from the centre, the bohemian quarter of Bellavista lies across the glorified storm drain that is the river Mapocho. Here, the low-rise shops, clubs and bars are also decorated with garish murals. Experimental and imaginative styles proclaim the district’s rebellious character. They provide a funky backdrop to a good night out, covering entire blocks. With a dynamic, action-packed wall behind you, taking you through different themes and moods, you inhabit your own comic strip as you walk along.

Bellavista is a designated playground for youngsters and students to let their

hair down, a safety valve, surrounded by loud music and loud imagery. From this immersive environment, it is only a hop across the bridge into the wide avenues where the demonstrations take place.

The concrete banks of the Mapocho used to feature massive political murals, like Picasso’s Guernica with a Native American flavour, during Allende’s government. Under Pinochet, dead bodies floated past the blank, paintedover surfaces. Now, a hotchpotch of slogans has reappeared. In the stony riverbed itself, another artist was exhibiting his provocative photomontages.

He called the show Infecto.

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ART Bellavista Hat Shop Mural

Marcelo Gamonal had first taken to the streets in 2006. On Good Friday of that year, he chose the Pio Nono bridge to display a series of posed photos showing a notorious, gay, drug-dealing poet descending from a cross to cavort with a dog and a bare-breasted model wearing a nun’s wimple.

Ultra-catholic vigilantes beat up Gamonal and threw the pictures into the river. The gay drug-dealer vanished. His dead body was found, forgotten in a morgue, two years later. This did not prevent Gamonal from hanging large banners, showing screaming, bloodstained women, from the University rooftops during the 2011 demonstrations, above the comics of Vasquez’s group. He began to see the public urban spaces as an open gallery for his pictures and performances. In the spirit of the saying, “the enemy of my enemy is my friend,” his assaults on Catholic dogma added another nuance to the chorus of protest.

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Republica. Vasquez had good news. The French-based director Alejandro Jodorowsky had hired him to produce a graphic version of his seminal 1970 film El Topo. Meanwhile, Gamonal no longer extended open invitations to his shows. They were ‘by invitation only’, to avoid further trouble from right-wing thugs. At night, he prowled the centre sticking up his works on any available surface. He wore a Monty Python T-shirt I’d sent from London. With the release of the film The Iron Lady, he added my 1989 image of Thatcher and Pinochet to the street scene. This was a visual party anybody could join.

Now that the southern nights are closing in again, I am sure we can expect greater bursts of creativity on the walls of downtown Santiago. It is, of course, only the illusion of a revolution. The rich streets will remain untouched, but the message is up there, in the city centre, for all to see.

It is more than hip-hop-style ‘tagging’. It goes far beyond vandalism and the

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Gamonal Infecto Feb. 2011 Mapocho

Iron Lady Poster Santiago

marking of urban territory. The scope is broader, and the roots deeper, than the repetitive conformity of aerosol gangland graffiti.

These theatrical backdrops to the ritual drama of confrontations with the riot police are the visible fault-line of a fractured society. You can’t appreciate them on television, or even in a magazine. You have to run your hands over the blistered surfaces, with the noise of the streets in your ears, and realise that you are a part of it all.

This is a huge gallery with no entry fees, no catalogues, no price tags and no free glasses of wine. It is pure communication of thoughts and feelings; the essence of art. I don’t think I would miss Santiago’s ubiquitous advertising hoardings if they all vanished overnight, but the environment would become distinctly less human if the soldiers returned with their buckets of white paint to make the murals disappear again.

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“It Has All Been Most Interesting” Those are the supposed dying words of Lady Mary Wortley Montagu, whom one biographer described as being “the best platonic female company that Eighteenth Century England can provide... She moved about from place to place. ...She met everybody; she heard, or overheard, everything; she moralised; she satirised; she ridiculed; she devoured all the good books of her day and most of the trash. ...She wrote better, she saw more, she knew more, she had certainly more vivacity and spirit,” than almost any other chronicler of London social life of the day.

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Lady Mary Wortley Montagu with her son, Edward Wortley Montagu, and attendants

by Jean Baptiste Vanmour

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A common refrain among the hundreds of women travel writers who emerged in the 18th and 19th centuries was their indebtedness to Lady Mary Wortley Montagu (16891762), an eccentric English aristocrat who was a child prodigy, a star at the Hanoverian court, the quintessential “intrepid� traveller, a proto-feminist and much more besides. In her lifetime she published poetry, satire, and even the first piece by a woman in the Spectator but, curiously, never a travel book.

Instead, at home or away, she poured out letters to family and friends about whatever she was up to – and that was always a lot. She began travelling in her late twenties when, in the company of her husband and infant son, she ventured overland across Europe to Constantinople, capital of the Ottoman empire. There her husband, Edward Wortley Montagu, was to take up his appointment as the new British ambassador.

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Their journey coincided with the outbreak of war between the adjacent Habsburg and Ottoman empires, so crossing the battle zone between them was bound to be dangerous. She took this in her stride: it would improve her letters. Those to her “dear sister,” the Countess of Mar, were generally a summary of what had happened since her previous letter. On the other hand, those to “Mr Pope” (i.e.

Alexander Pope), for example, included digressions into common interests – in his case, poetry. Lady Mary took for granted that all her correspondents were interested in the sexual peculiarities she encountered, especially those that highlighted differences between the Christian and Muslim worlds.

Her sister was the first to learn of “one of the pleasantest adventures I ever met in my life. It will give you a just idea of the delicate manner in which belles passions are managed in this country.” She was in Vienna, the Habsburg capital.

“The young Count of ----, leading me downstairs, asked me how long I was to stay at Vienna; I made answer that my stay depended on the emperor, and it was not in my power to determine it. Well, madam, said he, whether your time here is to be longer or shorter, I think you ought to pass it agreeably, and to that end you must engage in a little affair of the heart.

“My heart, answered I gravely, does not engage very easily, and I have no design of parting with it. I see, madam, said he sighing, by the ill nature of that answer, I am not to hope for it, which is a great mortification to me that am charmed with you. But, however, I am still devoted to your service; and since I am not worthy of entertaining you myself, do me the honour of letting me know whom you like best amongst us, and I’ll engage to manage the affair entirely to your satisfaction.

“Thus you see, my dear,” she concluded to her sister, “that gallantry and good-breeding are as different, in different climates, as morality and religion. Who have the rightest notions of both, we shall never know till the day of judgment, for which great day of eclaircissement I own there is very DANTEmag n.5

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little impatience in your, etc. etc.”

She made copies of all her letters in case they were lost in the post, or perhaps thrown into a fire, and at the same time kept a voluminous private diary that kept all her adventures and secrets in one place. She considered writing an autobiography that incorporated all these elements but decided against it. Her daughter paged through the diary after Lady Mary’s death and then – as a matter of “filial piety,” according to Isobel Grundy, Lady Mary’s most comprehensive biographer – destroyed it.

Nevertheless, enough copies of her letters survived to provide the material needed for “Turkish Letters”, a pirate account of her journey to Constantinople.

Its publication caused a sensation; so much so that a legitimate version soon followed with the addition of some of Lady Mary’s poetry. Dr. Johnson pronounced it the only book he could read with pleasure from beginning to end. With subtle variations of title, it is still in print some 250 years later.

Mary was the first child of Evelyn Pierrepont and Lady Mary Fielding, a cousin of the novelist Henry Fielding, author of Tom Jones (which Dr. Johnson had condemned as “vicious”). Mary’s mother died when she was three, so she was brought up by her paternal grandmother until she was old enough to join her father at Thoresby Hall, in Sherwood Forest, Nottinghamshire. She had by then become Lady Mary on her father’s succession to the earldom of Kingston.

Thoresby Hall had one of the finest private libraries in England, “fitted out in black leather and morocco with busts of classical philosophers.” It became her refuge from an appalling governess, “the worst in the world,” and was the means to her “stolen” self-education. She secretly learned Latin for access to books that accelerated her progress.

By age 14, Lady Mary had written a fair amount of poetry, a novel, and a romance along the lines of Aphra Behn, one of the earliest English novelists and a champion of “noble savagery.” Lady Mary also established a literary circle for girls her age and was engaged in earnest correspondence

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with two Anglican bishops.

Edward Wortley Montagu, a brother of one of the girls in the literary circle and a grandson of the first earl of Sandwich, fell in love with her and used his sister as the courier for his letters to her.

The sister died when Lady Mary was almost 21, whereupon Edward broke cover and asked for her father to recognise him formally as her suitor.

In an age when marriage was above all a financial transaction, Edward was turned down because he refused to commit his fortune to a hypothetical first-born son. On the other hand, Clotworthy Skeffington, an Irish aristocrat whose given name, it transpired, was entirely appropriate, had no such reservations and was declared the official suitor.

After two years of insisting that Edward was her preference, Lady Mary announced that she wished to marry an unidentified third party. The newcomer’s name was kept under wraps pending enquiries into his financial status. Anticipating the verdict, Lady Mary had visions of being coerced into nuptials with Clotworthy and therefore chose to elope there and then with Edward. They married in Salisbury in August 1712, and nine months later had a son, another Edward. To crown their first wedding anniversary, Lady Mary’s article appeared in the Spectator and Edward assumed a seat in parliament as the member for Westminster.

On the accession of George I in 1714, the couple were rising stars at court when calamity struck. Lady Mary was brought down by smallpox and looked certain to die. Pustules covered her whole body, her eyebrows fell out, and her face swelled to a size that made her unrecognisable. Recover she did, however, only to learn that in the interim she had been banished from court.

Edmund Curll, a notorious Fleet Street publisher, had produced an anthology of “anonymous” satirical pieces. The preface, however, named Alexander Pope as one of the contributors, and it soon emerged that a “lady of quality” accused of defaming the princess of Wales was Lady Mary. It seems it did not matter that the tirade against the princess was delivered by a satirical character who was a palpable lunatic, a format exemplified by Jonathon Swift’s proposal that “Irish children would be a lesser burden on

their families and country if they were eaten”.

As things turned out, the furore evaporated with the news that Edward Wortley Montagu would be leaving the country to take up his appointment in Constantinople as the new British ambassador to the Ottoman Porte, and his wife and baby were going with him.

Lady Mary’s first letter from abroad was to her sister, the Countess of Mar. Posted from Rotterdam on 3 August 1716 after a stormy Channel crossing, it was a mark of her single-minded determination. “I never saw a man more frightened than the captain. For my part, I have been so lucky, neither to suffer from fear nor sea-sickness.” Their arrival, however, coincided with the Battle of Petrovaradin in Serbia, in which outnumbered Habsburg forces defeated the Ottoman opposition.

Edward had business to attend to in Vienna, but the route to Constantinople from there meant running the gauntlet of marauding deserters and picking a way through rotting corpses, horses and camels. Lady Mary told Alexander Pope she expected the worst: “I think I ought to bid adieu to my friends with the same solemnity as if I was going to mount a breach, at least, if I am to believe the information of the people here, who denounce all sorts of terrors to me; and indeed, the weather is at present such as very few ever set out in. I am threatened, at the same time, with being frozen to death, buried in the snow, and taken by the Tartars, who ravage that part of Hungary I am to pass. ‘Tis true we shall have a considerable escort, so that, possibly, I may be diverted with a new scene, by finding myself in the midst of a battle. How my adventures will conclude, I leave it entirely to Providence.”

In the event, they crossed safely into Ottoman territory near Belgrade, but then had to wait for permission to continue. They were lodged in “one of the best houses, belonging to a very considerable man amongst them and have a whole chamber of Janissaries [elite Christian troops in the Ottoman army] to guard us. My only diversion is the conversation of our host Achmet-beg, a title something like that of count in Germany. His father was a great pasha, and he has been educated in the most polite eastern DANTEmag n.5

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learning, being perfectly skilled in the Arabick and Persian languages, and an extraordinary scribe, which they call effendi.”

Her host told her that he preferred an easy, quiet life rather than dangers inherent in holding high office in the Porte. “He sups with us every night, and drinks wine very freely.” He introduced her to Arabian poetry and “expressions of love that were very passionate and lively.” They had frequent disputes, too, mainly about the confinement of women. “He assures me that there is nothing at all in it; only, says we [i.e. Muslims] have the advantage that when our wives cheat us, nobody knows it.”

Lady Mary felt that conversation with the effendi gave her a better understanding of the Muslim religion than any Christian before her. She tried explaining to him the difference between the religions of England and Rome, “and he was pleased to learn there were Christians that did not worship images, or adore the Virgin Mary. The ridicule of transubstantiation appeared very strong to him.”

Asked about his consumption of alcohol, he replied that “all the creations of God are good and designed for the use of man.” Nevertheless, the prohibition of wine “was a very wise maxim, and meant for the common people, wine being the source of all disorders among them. But the prophet never designed to confine those that knew how to use it with moderation; nevertheless, [the effendi] said that scandal ought to be avoided, and that he never drank it in publick.”

As the journey progressed, she attempted a reconciliation with the Princess of Wales. “I have now, madam, finished a journey that has not been undertaken by any Christian, since the time of the Greek emperors; and I shall not regret all the fatigues I have suffered in it, if it gives me an opportunity of amusing your R.H. with an account of places utterly unknown amongst us.” The inhabitants of Serbia, she told the princess, were hard-working “but the oppression of the peasants is so great, they are forced to abandon their houses, and neglect their tillage, all they have being a prey to the janissaries, whenever they please to seize upon it. We had a guard of five hundred of them, and I was almost in tears every day, to see their conduct in the poor villages through which we passed. . . .

“The country from hence to Adrianople is the finest in the world. Vines grow wild on all the hills, and the perpetual spring they enjoy makes everything gay and flourishing. But this climate, happy as it seems, can never be preferred to England, with all its frosts and snows, while we are blessed with an easy government, under a king who makes his own happiness consist in the liberty of his people, and chooses rather to be looked upon as their father than their master.”

A letter written, or more likely posted, on the same day, 1 April 1717, was to “The Lady----“, who had previously complained of being excluded from Lady Mary’s juicier anecdotes. “I write to your ladyship with some content of mind, hoping, at least, that you will find the charm of novelty in my letters, and no longer reproach me that I tell you nothing extraordinary.

“I won’t trouble you with a relation of our tedious journey, but I must not omit what I saw remarkable at Sophia [Sofia], one of the most beautiful towns in the Turkish empire, and famous for its hot baths, that are resorted to both for diversion and health.” What followed was probably the bestknown episode in the Turkish Letters, completely excluded from the letter posted to the princess of Wales on the same day.

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“sofas” covered with cushions and rich carpets. The lower tier was for the ladies, the upper for their slaves, “but without any distinction of rank by the dress, all being in the state of nature, that is in plain English, stark naked, without any beauty or defect concealed.

“Yet there was not the least wanton smile or immodest gesture among them. They walked and moved with the same majestick grace. . . . There were many amongst them, as exactly proportioned as ever any goddess was drawn by the pencil of a Guido or Titian – and most of their skins shiningly white, only adorned by their beautiful hair, divided into many tresses,

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hanging on their shoulders, braided either with pearl or ribbon, perfectly representing the figures of the graces. . . .”

Streams of water cascading across the floor in little channels became so hot “[that] ‘twas impossible to stay there with one’s clothes on.” She would happily have removed her riding dress but it was held in place by stays. “I was here convinced of the truth of a reflection I have often made, that, if it were the fashion to go naked, the face would hardly be observed. I perceived that the ladies of the most delicate skins and finest shapes had the greatest share of my admiration, though their faces were sometimes less beautiful than those of their companions. To tell you the truth, I had wickedness enough to wish secretly that Mr. Jervas [Charles Jervas, who had painted her portrait] could have been there invisible.

“I fancy it would have very much improved his art, to see so many fine women naked in different postures, some in conversation, some working, others drinking coffee or sherbet, and many negligently lying on their cushions, while their slaves (generally pretty girls of seventeen or eighteen) were employed in braiding their hair in several pretty fancies. In short, ‘tis in the woman’s coffee-house where all the news of the town is told, scandal invented, etc.

“They generally take this diversion once a week, and stay there at least four or five hours, without getting cold by immediately coming out of the hotbath into the cold room, which was very surprising to me. The lady that seemed the most considerable among them, entreated me to sit by her, and would fain have undressed me for the bath. I excused myself with some difficulty. They being, however, all so earnest in persuading me, I was at last forced to open my shirt, and show them my stays, which satisfied them very well; for I saw they believed I was locked up in that machine, and that it was not in my own power to open it, which contrivance they attributed to my husband.

“I was charmed with their civility and beauty, and should have been very glad to pass more time with them; but Mr. W [her husband] – resolving to pursue his journey next morning early – I was in haste to see the ruins of Justinian’s church.”

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mean Turkish ladies committed “one sin fewer” than their Christian counterparts. “Perpetual masquerade [i.e. the veil] gives them entire liberty of following their inclinations without danger of discovery. The usual method of intrigue is to send an appointment to the lover to meet the lady at a Jew’s shop, which are notoriously convenient. . . . The great ladies seldom let their gallants know who they are.”

Lady Mary adopted a more serious tone in describing a discovery which, given her recent medical history, amounted to a miracle. Remarkably, the letter to “Mrs. S.C.” was posted on the same day as the account of the visit to the bathhouse but was without any reference to that. “There is a set of old women, who make it their business to perform an operation, every autumn, in the month of September, when the great heat is abated.”

The operation was called “ingrafting,” and it was performed on parties of fifteen or so. “An old woman comes with a nut-shell full of the matter of the best sort of small-pox, and asks what vein you please to have opened.

She immediately rips open that you offer to her, with a large needle (which gives you no more pain than a common scratch), and puts into the vein as

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much matter as can lie upon the head of her needle, and after that, binds up the little wound with a hollow bit of shell, and in this manner four or five veins. . . . The children or young patients play together all the rest of the day, and are in perfect health to the eighth. Then the fever begins to seize them, and they keep their beds two days, very seldom three . . . and in eight days time they are as well as before their illness.”

She consulted Charles Maitland, the surgeon at the British embassy, about the practice and, with his support, first had her young son and then a baby daughter inoculated, both without ill-effect. A raging smallpox epidemic in 1721, after her return to England, saw Lady Mary campaigning for the introduction of inoculation, and in this she was joined by Caroline, Princess of Wales. The latter persuaded a group of prisoners awaiting execution in Newgate gaol to offer themselves as guinea pigs. The trial worked perfectly: the condemned men survived and walked out of prison as free men.

Nevertheless, her life back in England did not run smoothly. The “dear sister” of her letters, Lady Mar, went mad. She fell out with Pope. Her son was an uncontrollable hooligan and her marriage cooled. In 1736, the year

LITERATURE

Lady Mary Wortley Montagu Portrait

Lady Mary Wortley Montague The Marriage Contract Paintings by William Hogarth, from Marriage Ă -la-Mode, 1743-1745 (National Gallery, London):

of her daughter’s wedding to Lord Bute, Lady Mary fell in unrequited love with a young Italian, Count Algarotti, and pursued him across Europe by letter. Eventually she moved to Italy, first to Venice and then to Avignon and Brescia, where she was almost bed-ridden for a decade. Worse still, she rented a house from the Palazzi family, who were upper-class gangsters. The letters to her daughter continued, but they lacked the sparkle of their now distant predecessors.

Planning a return to England in 1761, she deposited the manuscript of her Embassy Letters with Benjamin Sowden, a clergyman in Rotterdam. It was eventually passed on to Lord Bute, her son-in-law, but not before being copied illicitly by two men working for London publishers. She was given a royal reception on her return to London but her health was then failing rapidly and she died on 21 August 1762.

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Goodbye, So Long “The life of a modern day troubadour is seldom the luxury and adulation of Rock n Roll stardom. For most hard working Rockers, the road means long hours, short pay, gigs in dirty dives and whatever humble comforts can be had or borrowed. But the true Rocker lives a life apart, one of the last paths open to the modern iconoclast, where the calling is for love of the art and the journey itself, not riches or fame.

Long time singer, songwriter and front man Michael Chandler travels in time to rediscover a corner of deepest Americana that left indelible marks on the soul of memory.�

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V

Very seldom was it not a whole lot of fun the night before. After all the driving and waiting around and drinking and weathering the recuperation from the night before that, you finally, like a magician, whip the silk off the bird that had been caged, and some degree of frenzied Hell ensues, no matter how many people are there to take part in it. And it doesn’t end when the show is over. There are always willing participants for the exuberant dance on the precipice which inevitably follows the show. Most of those in attendance at the after-party are not seasoned pros, but were merely caught up in the roiling madness, and who wake the next day, dazed, wondering why they’d done what they did and why they didn’t just start doing it more often.

At some point during the morning, we’d return to the nightclub, pick up our gear, and get on our way. It was a time of reflection and preparation, a time to let the human engine idle, as it warms up for another frenetic tear around the track. We’d smoke cigarettes and drink coffee, and I’d have the DANTEmag n.5

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day’s first beer or two, stashed from the night before, and we’d swap stories loosely or just stab a toe aimlessly into a tree root or a snow bank or the curb. The promoter would show up with an afterglow of astonishment from the mayhem of the night before, usually sporting a loopy grin and, I’m sure, wondering how we could keep up that pace night after night. For us, I guess it was just what we did.

I looked down at the top of her beret. “What’s your name again? Is it Carla?”

“Carter. You guys are easy to remember. You’re all named ‘Mike,’ right?”

“Three of us. I prefer ‘Michael,’ though.”

I remember one morning in Morgantown, West Virginia in 1986. The Raunch Hands bumbled up to the bar we had played the night before, where every low-level touring act used to play, where we got a call from our driver, who was still finishing up with the young lady he’d met the night before. He said he’d be there with the van in an hour or so. That was all right. We weren’t in a hurry that morning, and we sure as hell weren’t going anywhere without him and the van. So we could take the time to relax and maybe shoot a couple games of pool over beer and cocktails. The club matron, who had let us in, told us to help ourselves. She was short, stout, and hippie/biker-ish, and she wore a black beret over her long, kinky, saltand-pepper hair. I got a pack of Camels from the machine with the smashed glass and tapped them out as I asked her if there was anyplace around for some coffee and a newspaper. She said she’d come with me. I pointed at the cigarette machine and asked, “We didn’t do that, did we?”

“No,” she said, “It’s been like that for a couple months. I ain’t figured out if I wanna git it fixed.”

We walked out into a bright, young-green, early-May Sunday morning. The club was on a street that ran down a high hill, and she let gravity pull her hefty frame down the sidewalk. She also used her shoulders to bring each leg forward as she walked. I guessed she had bad hips, but she still made pretty good time, and she kept her chin up and took in her surroundings.

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“Where y’all been playing, Michael?”

We had been out on the road for about two and a half weeks. I listed off a bunch of the places we had played. She knew of the clubs in Lexington and Louisville, Kentucky, and she said that she had been to the place we had played in Youngstown, Ohio. She told me that, due to what I knew as “club courtesy,” the owner had gotten her “good and drunk” for free. Our band had stayed at the owner, Mike Starr’s, house after that show, and I agreed that he knew how to throw a party. Mike Starr was also rather rotund like Carter.

“You know, I probably could’a went for him, but I saw what he was hangin’ around with, and he likes ‘em younger ’n me.”

Carter was right. I had seen Mike Starr in action with some of the local coeds. I told her we were on our way to the Jockey Club in Newport, Kentucky, that night, and after two more shows, we were going back home to New York City. I asked her if she had ever been there.

She spat out a giggle and said, “Hell no! Not that I wouldn’t want to, you understand, but I gotta run this bar. When I went up to Youngstown, that was the first time I left Morgantown in three years. No, I got my hands full

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“That was sweet,” she said.

“They’ll come out great. You’ve got a terrific smile. I keep a journal on the road, and I like to have pictures to go along with it.”

Her eyebrows rose at this new dimension of me. “Well, I’ll be darned.

C’mon, the store’s just down here.”

down here.”

We walked on a bit, and she said, “It gets a body tired. I don’t know how much longer I can keep it up. We do real good money-wise. I just don’t have the energy I used to.” She looked up and locked eyes with me. “It’s definitely a job for somebody younger.”

I said I supposed so, but that she looked like she had plenty more good miles left in her. She navigated us across the street to where a footpath was worn into a grassy vacant lot. It headed down part of the steep hill that had been lazily cut by the Monongahela River, about a quarter mile below us.

I lagged back a few paces, as Carter walked ahead of me, and I viewed the green and deep river valley with its bridges and railroad trestles and scores of coal barges in long lines, puffing up-current. I pulled my camera from my jacket pocket and called out to Carter, who stopped and turned around.

When she saw the camera, she flashed me a wide, genuine smile, and I got a couple snaps of her with the barges and the green vista. I trotted down a few steps to join her.

The path made a hairpin turn and dropped to an old brick building on a street corner. The building was from the turn of the century, with tall display windows on the ground floor and apartments above. We went in, and the heavy door tinkled the brass bell above it, signalling our entrance.

Everything in the store looked like it hadn’t changed since the 1930s. There were burlap sacks of coffee on the floor; cans of cooked grits and potted meat; a white enamel-and-glass meat cooler with salt pork and slabs of bacon; an old Kodak display with a picture of a girl wearing sunglasses holding a Brownie camera. I asked the balding old man behind the counter for five coffees, “regular.” While he started pouring them from a copper urn, I went and got the local paper (which I loved to do on tour), pulled a couple Dixie beers out of the cooler, and set them on the marble counter. When the man turned around with my coffees, he looked at the beers and then at me. It was a Sunday morning in the South, and if a place sold beer at all on a Sunday, it was usually only after noon that they could.

“He’s alright, Albert. He’s with me,” Carter piped up.

“Is he over eighteen?” Albert wanted to know.

“I’m twenty-five,” I said, and I reached for my wallet to show him my ID. “He did a concert at my bar last night, and he don’t drink like no under-ager.

Don’t you worry, Albert, I’ll keep my eye on him,” Carter grinned.

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maining bucks I had. We band members only got paid ten dollars a day, and since our road guy hadn’t shown up yet, I hadn’t gotten my per diem. Carter and I walked outside, where I cracked a beer and lit a Camel.

“Y’all don’t make too much money in your band, do you?” Carter asked.

I explained we only got ten bucks a day, paid our road guy six hundred a week, hardly ever stayed in hotels, and that we put all the money back into the band for recording, van insurance and maintenance, our manager, booking agent, etc.

“You know, I do pretty well for myself with the bar and all, but like I said, it could sure use someone younger with more energy than I’ve got these days.

I was thinking of giving it over to my daughter, but she’s just twenty, and I don’t think she’s ready for all that responsibility just yet.”

Carter sounded as though she was making small talk, but there was something about her tone that felt like she was talking into me. A quick check of Carter’s left hand made me assume that she wasn’t married, so I didn’t ask her what her husband’s role in the bar was, or what he thought of her business decision to move on. I guessed she did it solo. The whole rest of the walk back, she told me all about the club’s workings, the ups and downs, how many people from other places she got to meet, and how it would be “real nice” to have somebody there who knew more about the music that the younger clientele would like. When we got back to the bar, the van had DANTEmag n.5

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arrived, and a couple of the guys were tinkering under the hood. The rest were enjoying the sunshine.

I handed around the coffees and went into the bar to read the paper and maybe have a shot or two of whiskey with my second breakfast beer. As soon as I was inside, Carter came over and introduced me to her daughter Denise who had arrived while we were out. Denise was a very attractive punk-rock girl with a green stripe in her black hair. We talked about life while I had my beer and liberal whiskies. She was smart and engaging and touched my arm a lot to make her various points. I wondered where she’d been last night. We kept up our conversation as I helped hump out the gear.

As we were getting ready to leave, Carter gave me a page torn from a memo pad with her name and phone number on it.

“Why don’t you come down and visit us sometime?” she asked, looking me dead in the eye.

I said I’d try, and Denise put her hands on my shoulders and gave me a soft kiss on the cheek. Indeed, where the hell had she been last night?

The guys in the van all gave me inquisitive looks, but I was not going to give them the satisfaction of knowing what I thought – what I was pretty sure – had just transpired back there in Morgantown. If I was not mistaken, a cool, middle-aged woman that I didn’t really know had just offered me a deed to a nightclub and a marriage licence to her intelligent and sexy, brown-eyed daughter. I did my best to process this all the way to the Jockey Club in Newport, Kentucky.

I liked Newport. It is the harlot sister of Cleveland, Ohio, across the river. It had once been a speakeasy town and a gambling Mecca and was still

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told that she had none. I was lamenting leaving all beers with the rest of the band, but Wisteria said that I must be thirsty and brought out a couple cold ones and a bottle of bourbon. She played boogie-woogie on an upright piano while we drank and smoked and sang. We sat on a 1920s chaise lounge and drank bourbon and smoked and talked until it was almost light out. very seedy. Gambling had remained legal there, and many big stars including Dino, and Frank, and Sammy, and even Marilyn Monroe had played the same stage at the Jockey Club where we were about to perform. The Jockey Club was an old casino that still had horse racing tote boards on its smokestained, walnut-panelled walls. The seedy atmosphere of the town and the faded casino and its motley crowd augmented the Raunch Hands’ ampedup rhythm & blues perfectly. Everything was dim and loud and drunk and sweaty. We received the usual guest appearance by Harmonica Dwayne, a tiny, bald, alcoholic black man in a dinner jacket and tie who was helped onto the stage, where he cupped the microphone and pretended to play harmonica. He was actually really good, and he always bought a round of beers for the band onstage.

That night, for safety reasons, we loaded the gear into the van, along with a couple cases of beer and went to the house where we were going to stay.

When we got to their place, they said that they couldn’t fit all of us. There were a few people standing around there, one of whom was a short black girl who weighed about 200 pounds. The guys picked who they wanted to stay with, and nobody wanted to stay with the black girl. I felt really bad for her. She seemed very friendly, and she was offering her home to a bunch of strangers who more than likely would just get very drunk and leave the bathroom a sloshy mess after the morning showers. I said I’d stay at her place.

Her name was Wisteria, after the purple blossom, and she was very bright and gregarious. Her apartment was old and enormous and filled with antique furniture. I asked her about her roommates and was shocked to be

“Hey,” she asked, “You wanna fool around?”

I wondered what that would be like. “Sure,” I answered.

As soon as I got into the van to leave town, there were inquisitive, bemused looks all around, directed straight at me. No one had to ask.

I stuck out my chin, “Yes I did.”

“Ohhhhhh!!” came the howling response, in unison.

“Yes I did, and it was great. And she made me bacon and eggs and grits and homemade buttermilk biscuits for breakfast. She’s a fantastic cook. And she’s an excellent person. And screw you, you don’t get any of the bourbon she gave me for the trip. And where’s my per diem?”

I relented on the bourbon, and passed the bottle around, settling into the drive to Pittsburgh, ugh, on a Tuesday. I drifted into a reverie. I had a comfortably full stomach; I’d had a long hot shower, some breakfast bourbon, a full day’s pay yet to spend, another show tonight and one more after that, and then back home to the Greatest City in the World. Through the fabric of my jeans pocket, I idly rumpled the piece of paper with Carter’s phone number on it, which just yesterday had seemed such a tantalising offer. Sure, I’d be going back down there again, but I would be leaving there again for many more days like today.

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ARCHITECTURE AND DESIGN

The Pantheon in Rome: The True Original

Commissioned by Marcus Agrippa as a temple to all the gods and rebuilt by Emperor Hadrian in about 126 AD, the Pantheon has influenced the work of many architects of the Western world. It has been much imitated throughout Western history, but it remains a truly original, seminal work of art.

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By Massimo Gava Photos by Alessandro Sonego

ARCHITECTURE AND DESIGN

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The ancient Roman writer Cassius speculated that the name of the Pantheon comes either from the statues of the many gods placed around it or in consideration of the fact that extending the curvature of the inner dome’s diameter from top to floor it creates a perfect sphere, symbolising the deities of heaven. In fact, the meaning of the word pantheon in Greek is “of all the gods”.

The Pantheon’s structure is deceptively simple. This structure consists of a cylindrical drum which supports a hemispherical shell (43.20 m), preceded by a porch that opens onto the front.

This porch has a portico of Greek origin with eight Corinthian columns supporting the pediment.

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ARCHITECTURE AND DESIGN It is made of concrete reinforced with strips of glazed bricks. The weight force is discharged along the dome and is distributed in the drum through relieving arches built into the masonry. The wall of the drum is thick enough (6.10 metres) for a number of niches to exist within it, alternately rectangular and semicircular in form. In this way the drum is transformed into a set of large support pillars, thus reducing the structure’s weight without diminishing its resistant function. The weight of the shell, and thus the intensity of the forces involved, has been reduced by varying the density of the materials used in the cement mix: it goes from the pumice in the upper part of the dome, to tufa in the middle and the basalt in the foundations.

The closed-in, heavy effect of the dome is diminished by deep coffers that gradually lessen in depth towards the large central opening, the oculus, which has a diameter of 9.10 metres. Since the oculus is an uncovered opening, the floor beneath it is slightly concave in shape slanting down towards a central drain, where the rain can run off. It is the only Roman building to still preserve the original marble facing, mosaics and stucco. The huge bronze doors (at 7 metres high) are among the largest Roman gates still existing today.

The construction of the Pantheon was part of a programme undertaken by Augustus Caesar and his supporters in the aftermath of the Battle of Actium (31 BC). The inscription across the front of the Pantheon says, M.AGRIPPA.L.F.COS.TERTIUM.FECIT, which means “Marcus Agrippa, son of Lucius, having been consul three times, built it.”

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However, according to a recent re-evaluation of the bricks dated with manufacturer stamps, Agrippa’s Pantheon was destroyed twice before, in 80 BC Emperor Domitian rebuilt it, but it burnt down again in 110 BC. Some scholars claim that construction started again soon after the second fire. In that case the design of the building should not be credited to Hadrian or his architects.

Instead, this honour might belong to Trajan’s architect, Apollodorus of Damascus.

Althought there might be some truth in thinking that the reconstruction happened under Trajan’s reign, a legend tells that Apollodorus was, indeed, Trajan’s favourite architect. However, he couldn’t get used to the idea of buildings incorporating cupolas, which were becoming very fashionable at the time.

Rumour has it that on one occasion, when Apollodorus was discussing these new forms with Trajan and dismissing them out of hand as unsuitable for Roman buildings, Hadrian ventured an opinion – something about the effect that the beauty of these curious, new aerial structures would have throughout the Empire. Apollodorus flew into a rage and shouted, “You don’t know what you’re talking about! If you want your bloody pumpkins you can bugger off and build them somewhere else.” Apollodorus was set in his ways, very old school, and always highly sarcastic and dismissive of anyone who challenged him. He also probably considered Hadrian a dilettante and full of vices; who only owed his position to being related to the Emperor. But the fact is that when Hadrian succeeded Trajan, he endorsed the “pumpkin” style structure throughout the Empire. Therefore, this possibly apocryphal tale, recorded by Roman historian Gaius Suetonious

Interior view of the Pantheon

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ARCHITECTURE AND DESIGN Architectonical structure of the Pantheon

Tranquillus, may cast some doubt on the theory that Apollodorus was the architect. It may have started under Trajan, but certainly the Pantheon was finished under Hadrian, emphatically with a cupola on top.

Since that time the Pantheon has undergone numerous reworkings. In 609, the Byzantine Emperor Phocas gave the building to Pope Boniface IV, who converted it into a Christian church and consecrated it to Sancta Maria ad Martyres, (Santa Maria dei Martiri). This saved the building from the abuse and destruction that the majority of Rome’s ancient buildings suffered during the early medieval period.

Paul the Deacon records the spoliation of the building by the Emperor Constantine II who arrived in Rome in July 663 AD,:

Remaining in Rome twelve days, he pulled down everything that in ancient times was made of metal for the ornament of the city,even going so far as to strip the roof of the church [of the blessed Mary], he took its bronze tiles and sent them with all the other ornaments to Constantinople.

Much fine exterior marble has been removed over the centuries, and there are capitals from some of the pilasters in the British Museum. Two columns were swallowed up in the medieval buildings that abutted the Pantheon on the east and were lost.

“Quod non fecerunt barbari fecerunt Barberini” (“What the barbarians did not do, Barberini did”), said a satirical Roman figure called Pasquino, commenting on the final spoliation of the

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Pantheon made by Pope Urban VIII (1623-1644), a member of the Barberini family. He ordered the bronze ceiling of the Pantheon’s portico to be melted down. Most of the bronze was used to make bombards for the fortification of Castel Sant’Angelo, with the remaining amount used by the Apostolic Camera for various other works.

It is also said that the bronze was used by Bernini to create his famous baldachin above the high altar of St. Peter’s Basilica, but – according to at least one expert – the Pope’s accounts state that about 90% of the bronze was used for cannon, and that the bronze for the baldachin came from Venice.

Since the Renaissance, the Pantheon has been adorned with works of art. The best-known is the Annunciation by Melozzo da Forlì.

It has also been used as a final resting place for several well-known figures. Amongst those buried there are the painters Raphael and Annibale Carracci, the composer Arcangelo Corelli, and the architect Baldassare Peruzzi. They are accompanied by two kings of Italy: Vittorio Emanuele II, the king that unified Italy, and his son Umberto I, as well as Umberto’s queen, Margherita.

Despite all the different meanings the building has come to represent over the years, the Pantheon remains first and foremost a pagan temple transformed into a Christian religious structure. That is why it is the only building from ancient Rome to be practically intact and it is still used for religious purposes today.

ARCHITECTURE AND DESIGN

From the Renaissance to the 19th century, architects from all over the world looked to the Pantheon as inspiration for their work.

Brunelleschi took the Pantheon as a guide when designing the dome for the Duomo of Florence. Andrea Palladio continued the trend, with his neoclassic style dominating the architecture of buildings around the world. Thomas Jefferson’s Rotunda at the University of Virginia, The Library of Columbia University in New York and the State Library of Victoria in Melbourne, Australia are just a few outstanding examples of the influence that this spectacular Roman building has had.

Whatever the true origins of this magnificent structure are, almost two thousand years after it was built, the Pantheon’s cupola remains the world’s largest unreinforced concrete dome. If that is not enough to endow it with a mystique all of its own, then it surely is enough to make it a truly and uniquely original wonder of the modern world.

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ARCHITECTURE AND DESIGN

Chamonix: A Contemporary Retreat in the Midst of Tradition

Chamonix nestles in the shadow of Mont Blanc.

In many ways, it’s the quintessence of the French Alps. In Jennifer Martin’s chalet, Cragganmore, that old-school tradition can be filtered through a very contemporary lens, without losing any of the experience.

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By Lee Sowerbutts

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Perched between France and Italy, Chamonix is one of the top ski resorts in the Alps. The area is surrounded by immense mountains and the awe-inspiring Mont Blanc, and provides some of the world’s most thrilling ski runs.

Chamonix, unlike many other ski resorts, has a huge visitor population during the summer months.

The reason for its all-year-round appeal is the fact that this established town has plenty of activities such as trekking, golf and summer events like the world climbing championships, Marathon du Mont Blanc, and the Cosmo Jazz Festival. It is a hub for mountaineers and athletes who flock to Chamonix to train at the perfect altitude. Several of the big summer events are specifically designed to accommodate these sportsmen and women – being a stage for world class events adds another dimension to the town and its atmosphere.

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The town of Chamonix itself is very relaxed. People enjoy long lunches whilst taking in the mountain views. After lunch, many stroll through the cobbled streets, shopping, eyeing the pretty macaron displays and queuing for delicious ice cream. The weekly summer market in the centre of town is worth visiting; it sells seasonal local produce and ingredients from the nearby Aosta Valley in Italy, which help make up the true flavours of the famous French montagnarde cuisine.

Jennifer Martin and her family have spent many years visiting Chamonix.

Five years ago they took the decision to build a chalet of their own there to use as a holiday home and also as a business opportunity. They rent out Cragganmore, their amazing retreat, not only during the ski season but also throughout the year.

The house itself is a collaboration between Jennifer Martin and award-winning local architect Renaud Chevallier, who is the latest of three generations of architects in his family to work on projects in the area. He specialises in architecture that combines technology, aesthetics and sustainability.

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His vision is of evolutionary architecture that fulfils client expectations with ecological efficiency, whilst playing with the well-worn vernacular of the region. The incredible house he has created in Chamonix employs many green solutions to everyday needs. The geothermic water heating system, supported by the Arve river that flows behind the house, enables the building to have operating costs that are six times lower than that of a conventional, gas-heated equivalent. It also conveniently heats the water in the outdoor eight-person hot tub. The hot tub has a little raised timber path so that you can tiptoe through the snow to reach it. The 360-degree glazing, which was a fundamental design decision made to maximise the appreciation of the vista, uses double, Argon-filled glass encased in aluminium frames achieving triple glazed values – this is very important since there is a significant amount of glazing in the building. Traditionally the problem of heat retention would be dealt with by designing the building with thick walls and tiny windows.

Architecture throughout the alpine villages is stringently regulated and all designs require the mayor’s approval. Renaud’s design both challenged and

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excited the officials, and the mayor of Chamonix is now one of Cragganmore’s greatest admirers. Jennifer was keen for Cragganmore to become part of the community. She employed local artisans to build the chalet, admiring their great craftsmanship and the pride they take in their work, the building of what has become known as The Glass House lasted just one year.

When construction began, the land itself was overgrown, covered in saplings and mature trees, and most of the timber used in construction came from the plot itself or the surrounding area. The spiral staircase’s centre post was the oldest tree to be felled and was left relatively untouched. It features as part of the dramatic entrance into the chalet.

Jennifer also worked closely with Scottish interior design company Rehab Interiors to create one of the finest contemporary homes in the Alps today. Initially Rehab put together ideas for the look and feel of the interior, taking care to consider the dual needs of durability for rental and the creation of a personalised family home. Taking these factors into account they had to create an interior that would work equally well at all times of the year, avoiding the pitfalls of the chocolate-box chalet cliches of antlers and gingham. That suited Rehab, with their reputation for innovative perDANTEmag n.5

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sonalised interiors and their instinctive, idiosyncratic approach to projects.

The house has six double bedrooms which all have their own sense of individuality. The rooms don’t have numbers. They have distinct characters so that people staying at the house are able to choose a room that suits them. The ensuite bathrooms are clad in rough-hewn natural stone, light in colour on one side of the building and a darker tone on the other.

In the main living area, which is connected to the dining room on one side and the kitchen on the other, an array of comfortable yet stylish furniture pieces provide space to lounge about, toasting your toes and admiring the spectacular views. There is plenty of wood in this space – the floor, the walls and even the high-beamed ceilings – but unlike many of the more traditional local chalets, conventionally clad inside and out in stained pine, it feels fresh and contemporary. The spectacular, custom-designed, suspended wood-burning stove is the centrepiece of the living area.

The bespoke dining table seats twelve with Arper Catifa chairs upholstered in Kvadrat felt. A custom-made pendant fitting by CTO warmly illuminates the table.

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ARCHITECTURE AND DESIGN The lower level of the house has a fully appointed health suite, including gymnasium with climbing wall, sauna, shower, and treatment room. There is also a subterranean cinema room, very informal in atmosphere, which provides the perfect antidote to a hard day’s skiing or socialising.

Guests can participate in a variety of activities including whisky tasting, gourmet dining with a private chef, yoga and Reiki sessions. They can even sign up for the Cragganmore luxury mountain fitness retreat.

Since the completion of this groundbreaking chalet, Renaud has complet-

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ed a smaller renovation opposite Cragganmore named Bowmore, which is also available to rent all year round. The Martins have acquired nearby land to start on their next, even more ambitious, architectural project using the same dream team, thus furthering their contemporary enclave in this most traditional of resorts.

www. chevalierarchitectes. fr

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“Walking through the doors of Grand Café & Rooms in Plettenberg Bay for the very first time reminds me of my worldly travels. The ‘Grand Dame’ immediately captures an emotion within”.

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his is how Suzette Main, the proprietor of Grand Café, Rooms & Beach felt just over seven years ago when she first ventured into the Grand.

Through the award winning ‘Grand Dame’s ‘ Indian wooden doors, guests enter a world of discreet escapism where a sense of decadence and worldly charm reflects upon its setting over one of Africa’s most beautiful marine bays. Suzette then took the vision of the brand to Camps Bay; the “Miami Mile” of Cape Town, establishing the ‘Shameless Showgirl,’ Grand Café & Room, overlooking a magnificent beach as a grand new destination for ocean side dining in Cape Town. Crimson red roses adorn the tables and copper topped bars, aged candlesticks set the tone; while polished glassware and white crockery decorated with the Grand angel wings, showcase trusted and classic signature dishes.

Grand Room accommodates two guests in true Grand style with 24 hour butler service, concierge, private access, designated parking & probably one of the largest ‘mini bars’ in the world. It offers our signature style King size bed with fine Italian linen from the Hall Collection, an en suite bathroom with a double slipper copper bath and shower and a bespoke vinothèque. Grand Room is also perfect for hosting private dinners and parties.

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Her Grand concept where boho-chic meets retro-romance fit for the worldly traveller, a new trendsetting Grand Café & Beach, the only one of its kind in Africa, was created in late 2009 in Granger Bay, Cape Town, close to the V&A Waterfront and silhouetted by the World Cup 2010 Stadium.

At Grand Café & Beach, the ‘Beach Boy’ exterior of the old warehouse has been retained while a sun-deck and beach area have been extended to the water’s edge; offering a new lifestyle destination for any international and local traveller. During construction, all efforts were taken to ensure that a green approach was maintained, including sustainable timber used in the outside deck, use of textured eco‐friendly paint, enhancement of the original building’s look & feel and even using environmentally sound beach sand.

“What defines the Grand philosophy for me is where grand-chic meets retro-romance fit for the worldly traveller & diner. Revelling in the triumph of authenticity, the Grand has grasped the notion that: no-one knows how much love can be held by humankind”.

“It is an eclectic collection of boho–chic nuances that encourage a free spirited attitude to Café life – a romantic fusion of French and African flair with eccentricity and honesty.”

Africa A grand Rose by any other name - 'Boadicea' A new name in lifestyle shopping !

The name 'Boadicea' was inspired by the mighty Boadicea, a woman of great power and passion – an Empress warrior. The Grand Gallery Boadicea is a lifestyle concept within the Café and Beach brand conceived by two inspiring women, Suzette Main and Jane Lello.

Friends and business partners, both passionate and energetic; Suzette and Jane have embarked on creating a Grand Gallery Boadicea, an extension of the Grand brand, which is an expression of their collective passions for beautiful objects and art sourced throughout their worldly travels.

The theme of the Gallery stems from the Café & Beach concept of a resort feel with a splash of indulgence, while the eye catching merchandise tantalises the diner. Stock purchased in South Africa and abroad rotates with demand, offering a selection of beautiful items available to the Grand Gallery Boadicea.

GRAND CAFÉ & ROOMS: PLETTENBERG BAY concierge@GrandAfrica.co.za TEL: +27 (0) 44 533 3301 GRAND CAFÉ & ROOM: CAMPS BAY CAPE TOWN reservations@GrandAfrica.co.za TEL: +27 (0) 21 438 4253 GRAND CAFÉ & BEACH: GRANGER BAY CAPE TOWN beach@GrandAfrica.co.za TEL: +27 (0) 21 425 0551 SMS: +27 (0) 72 586 2052 GRAND GALLERY BOADICEA: GRANGER BAY CAPE TOWN info@GrandGallery.co.za TEL: +27 (0) 21 425 0164 WWW.GRANDAFRICA.CO.ZA

From an exclusively Grand branded Bath & Body collection to an assortment of French styled soaps and community handmade key rings, to silver candelabras, there is something for all.

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The Age of Protest: World Revolution in the Making?

It is difficult

By Chris Kline to see the shape of an age while living inside it, experiencing it as it plays itself out. The turmoil of our own times seems fragmented, frantic, chaotic, and at times senseless. But while outcomes can only be known after (sometimes long after) the fact, it is possible, by taking a longer historical view, to discern the heart and soul of the times. We may be removed chronologically from the birth of the age of revolution that began the Enlightenment. But those revolutions have been in process ever since – resurging and retrenching – and are still unrolling before us, in all their terror and glory, in the events of our day.

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Madrid Spain Indignados Puerta del Sol

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The crackle of the musketry of colonial American Minutemen on New Hampshire’s Concord Green in 1776 was described as the “shot heard round the world.” The unthinkable had happened. The thirteen colonies of the putative United States had dared to stand against the might of the British Empire in their bid for independence.

Farmers and townsmen took on the mightiest professional military force of the day and – though it was a near-run thing – wrested their freedom from it. The modern age of revolution had begun.

Fuelled by the ideas of the Enlightment, the spirit of revolution carried over

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COVER Tel-Aviv - Israel People protesting in the street Bangkok - Thailand Nationalist People’s Alliance for Democracy

to France in 1789. It was a trans-Atlantic phenomenon with the liberal ideas of both Old and New Worlds coming together in emboldened synthesis to storm the ramparts of absolutist rule. Arguably, the seed of this new revolutionary foundation had been erected culturally and emotively centuries before during the Renaissance, with its resurrection of a humanistic spirit.

The insurgent bayonets and secularist printing presses of the late eightenteenth century went further and dared to shape new societies, to recast humanity and its governance anew under universal concepts of freedom and social justice.

These eighteenth century milestones enshrined much of what we regard today as the inalienable values and guarantees of contemporary democratic societies. These are defined by freely elected, representative government that upholds and protects civil rights, human rights, universal emancipation, free expression and the impartial, transparent rule of law. Both the American and French Revolutions in turn fired the passions of Latin American liberators who fought to free the Americas from the Spanish colonial yoke during the nineteenth century. As the Americas cast off foreign colonial power, the die was cast for future anti-colonial struggles across the globe in the twentieth century, in the wake of the Second World War, from Indonesia to Vietnam, Algeria to Angola. The right to insurrectional resistance by subject peoples was firmly established when armies still carried flintlocks.

Of course, it wasn’t all an uninterrupted march to utopia. At the conclusion of the Napoleonic Wars, the restoration of the Bourbon monarchy in France and the retrenchment of the status quo of the British, Austro-Hungarian and Russian Empires, together with the consolidation of a unified Prussianled Germany and a European quid pro quo towards the ailing Ottoman Empire, brought a concerted effort to quash the next wave of revolutionary fervour. The attempted revolutions of 1848 were ruthlessly crushed throughout Europe. Thus there ensued a century of peace on the European continent which endured until irrevocably shattered in the flames and industrial carnage of the First World War. The gore of the trenches swallowed up the genteel façade and romanticism of the Belle Époque in hitherto unprecedented slaughter.

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European aristocracy wane – an aristocracy that had resisted the writing on the wall since 1789. As noblemen died in the mud of the Great War, the rival armies – by sheer necessity – replaced much of their traditional officer corps with new frontline leaders from the middle and working classes. It was a case of charnel-house upward mobility (save in the ranks of the late-coming US military, where middle class leadership was, and still is, the norm). It brooked a significant change when these same officers returned home; they had to be reckoned with as new social equals, based on meritocracy and not bloodline and nepotistic privilege. Nowhere was the shock and class rupture more brutal than in Russia with the advent of the Bolshevik Revolution that targeted not merely the landed oligarchy but the industrial one too.

Insurgent Mexico’s agrarian revolution of 1910 had preceded those ten fateful days of Russia’s Red October. It is often overlooked as the first great revolution of the last century, although its cry for “Land and Freedom” was echoed in the short-lived Spanish Republic, which was so efficiently murdered by Franco’s Fascist legions. Martyred Mexican Revolutionary General Emiliano Zapata’s immortal adage “It is better to die on your feet than to live on your knees” was quite literally appropriated by Dolores Ibarurri, “La Passionaria”, the vanquished republic’s most ardently militant voice on the airwaves. Revolution has a way of crossing boundaries, not least in the heart and intellect.

The examples of Mexico and Spain together with the Russian and Chinese

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Revolutions would, for better and worse, help inspire the next generation of rebels and freedom fighters – and a new, more pernicious form of insurgent, the terrorist – across the breadth of Latin America, the Middle East, Africa and Southeast Asia in the latter half of the twentieth century. There, of course, were other examples, too. Mahatma Gandhi’s long, non-violent struggle to bring down the Raj and end the subjugation of the Indian subcontinent stands as the masterpiece of successful revolutionary struggle that did not embrace the gun. It inspired millions – from Selma Alabama, to the streets of Soweto, to Tiananmen and Tahrir Squares both.

We know, of course, the disastrous and unequal victors’ peace of Versailles in 1919 all but made the most catastrophic war ever known to humanity virtually inevitable. It provided all the grievances – which the Great Depression compounded – that allowed the rise of the Axis powers. Where today’s troubled Middle East is concerned the future seeds of contemporary dysfunction were also sown in the Hall of Mirrors. The Sykes-Picot treaty between Number10 Downing Street and the Elysee Palace gnawed all the choice bones of the collapsed Ottoman Empire. It redrew the map of the Middle East into French and British colonies or protectorates with little respect for traditional indigenous cultural, ethnic, tribal, religious, geographic or power structures.

Many of the current fragile sectarian fault lines in the region are the direct consequence of this flawed imperial legacy. British-administered Iraq, that empowered a Sunni minority to rule over a predominantly Shia population, is

one notable case in point.

Just as the First World War had not proven to be the “war to end all wars”, neither did Allied victory in the Second bring about a more peaceful or secure world. The Cold War began to run hot not long after Allied and Soviet armies celebrated their joint triumph, with shots fired in anger between American paratroopers and Soviet soldiers in the streets of Berlin in 1945.

The Yalta and Potsdam conferences had nonetheless divided the world into Soviet and Western spheres of influence, and so ensued decades of proxy wars between the two rivals that began in the rubble of the German capital.

Twice there were narrow escapes from the insanity of “mutual assured destruction” or MAD, both during the Cuban Missile Crisis and in the closing stages of the 1973 Middle East War. But there had been many proxy wars, some overt, some clandestine, most of them rather bloody, where many legitimate struggles for self-determination became ideological and physical pawns in a larger superpower chess game. The Hungarian Uprising. The Prague Spring. The catalogue of Arab-Israeli wars. A host of counter-insurgencies and Dirty Wars in Latin America. Vietnam. Angola, Mozambique, Namibia, Rhodesia, Apartheid South Africa. The list is extensive.

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COVER Occupy Wall Street

Indignados Israel

Protesters Trinidad Bolivia

Students took to the streets and were massacred in Tlatelolco in Mexico City.

They battled French police in the streets of Paris and faced Soviet tanks in Czechoslovakia. The Civil Rights movement in the United States was also at its peak and the assassinations of Martin Luther King Jr. and Robert Kennedy seemed to deepen the outrage.

From Berkley to London images of Che Guevara and Ho Chi Minh adorned university dorm rooms. Revolution was in the air, tangibly so, and in its most radicalised form. Within a few short years, Western Europe would see the rise of nihilistic groups like the West German Red Army Faction and the Italian Red Brigades. They expressed solidarity with the Irish Republican Army and the Palestine Liberation Organization, as each of those groups escalated their own armed struggles – one of which we now remember as the “Troubles,” and the other we still contend with in the successive waves of the Intifada.

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But the clash of titans was coming to an end. When the vaunted Soviet Army marched out of Afghanistan in defeat, it was only logical that the Berlin Wall would soon crumble. And that it did, in the historical blink of an eye, linking the Russian exit from the Hindu Kush to the final hurrah of Soviet hegemony and the Warsaw Pact. But the decline and subsequent collapse of Soviet Communism did not bring about the New World Order that a triumphant Washington had trumpeted. At any rate it did not bring about peace and security (if that was what was even meant by the words). New menaces loomed which have continued to metamorphise to this day.

What has ensued since? War in former Yugoslavia that brought the worst pogrom witnessed in Europe since the end of the Second World War in a place called Srebrenica.

The Rwandan Genocide. Near Genocides in Chechnya, Somalia, Sudan, Northern Iraq. More than four million dead in the Congo and counting.

An endless conflict in the Hindu Kush once more. A litany of wars in the

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May Day workers’ march.

Berlin Germany

Middle East from the Iranian-Iraqi conflict, to two Gulf Wars, to the most recent Lebanese-Israeli confrontation, to the current Syrian uprising. If we include full-scale military conflicts, ongoing insurgencies and rebellions and de facto states of near-civil war such as Mexico’s fight against its own narco-cartels, then we approach a figure of some forty contemporary armed conflicts currently underway across the globe. The world is still at war it just looks nothing like the previous two generalized global conflagrations.

And where is the engine of revolution now? It is all around us in virtually every permutation possible from insurrectional violence, to non-violent resistance and civil disobedience, to the cyber activism that has replaced Thomas Paine’s printing press in the internet age. Neither is it solely a positive phenomenon, for all that there are benevolent forces at play. Counterrevolution is also in our midst and there are also would-be revolutions whose vision of the future is a regression to our darkest past. If there is an expressed desire to return to 1776, then it is also in 1933 where hopes for a

Demo in favour of universal suffrage Hong Kong

new Fascism lurk. Even more regressive are those who would seek to return our value systems to a medieval morality. The playing field is much wider and the stakes are much larger. The advent of instant mass communication has brought about an egalitarianism of information gathering and dissemination that Paine and the other seminal pamphleteers of his age – or for that matter Goebbels – could not have begun to imagine.

The Arab Spring of 2010 very clearly served as an organisational, inspirational and mobilisation model for the birth of the Occupy Wall Street protests in 2011. The Occupy movement gathered momentum and spread across borders literally circling the globe. That the Arab World, so often seen as hostile, incomprehensible, dangerous, and judged culturally and morally incompatible with the West, would rally so many Americans and Europeans to demand reform must rate as one of the greatest cross-cultural historical phenomena ever. In the Middle East the uprising is a cry for political freedom, a demand that authoritarian Arab regimes from the Maghreb to DANTEmag n.5

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the Persian Gulf to finally, finally deliver democracy, prosperity and freedom from fear – promises gone unfulfilled since the colonial era ended. OWS is an urgent plea for socioeconomic reform from the so-called 99% of Americans that feel disenfranchised by a moneyed political and business class that has for too long monopolised wealth and the manner in which it is distributed. The Arab Spring, while mostly non-violent, has also embraced the rifle where it has been deemed necessary. The Occupy movement has retained a peaceful strategy.

In both cases it is a profound call for change of the status quo, a defiant challenge to and rejection of the accepted order of things, nothing less than a revolution in the making. In the Middle East, it is a tale told in blood, especially in Syria, where the bloodiest page of the uprising is being written. And the bloodshed continues unchecked by a hapless international community (i.e., the West, the UN and the Arab League). And as Al Assad’s brutality is abetted by Iran, and the international community is deliberately and cynically hampered by Russia and China, serving their own geopolitical interests, the danger of a sectarian backlash and radicalisation grows. Taken as a whole, the Arab Spring has also been a rebuke of Islamic fundamentalism. Al Qaida, as one strain of a virulent Islamist radicalism, has mostly

been left sidelined and mute by the uprising, unable to present itself as a viable alternative nor as a champion of the Arab and Muslim dispossessed, a self-styled role it has sought for itself since its inception. It has now seen an opening in Syria, though its presence is small. Yet will it remain neglible?

And as the conflict spills over into Lebanon, will it resist the opportunity to foment Sunni on Shia chaos as it so persistently has done in Iraq?

The prominence of the Muslim Brotherhood, as a more acceptable vein of Islamic conservatism seeking greater legitimacy in Egypt’s mainstream political process comes as an unpleasant surprise to secularists, the Christian minority and most of all to the millions of women who have stood in the forefront of Egypt’s ongoing revolution since the advent of Tahrir Square, all hoping for a more inclusive, open and fair nation. Can the predominantly Muslim Middle East redefine itself in a tangible way as a region that is at once democratic, egalitarian, Islamic and emancipated for men and women, Muslims and non-Muslims, the devout and the secularists? It remains to be seen. The Arab Spring is messy, uncertain, and fragile for all the momentum it musters. It is a still-evolving experiment, not remotely assured of enduring success or lasting revolutionary change, despite its victories in toppling a number of fierce, longstanding dictatorships. It could still fare poorly,

Protesters in Zurich

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crushed by violence from the ancien regimes that refuse to capitulate or to reform the rot of entrenched corruption and indifferent autocracy that still define so much of the Arab reality. Or it all could just degenerate into multiple civil wars that collide with one another, creating even larger, more intractable conflicts.

ing power of extremist political parties in the main current of national politics from France to the Baltic, to the Balkans (yet again). They expound xenophobic, authoritarian, racist, hyper-nationalist and clearly undemocratic philosophies that must be decried as neo-Fascist. They too have mastered multimedia and grasped the power of television and the internet, just as the most primitive Taleban propagandist rallies the faithful or strikes fear by

Back on Wall Street, is it truly possible for a broad, populist coalition to bring palpable structural and procedural reform to a financial system that is not only virtually sacrosanct to the American way of business and governance, but also is so deeply entrenched in the collusion between corporate power, political interests and the very law of the land, that reform would mean the undoing of America as we know it? How could such reform possibly succeed? Time will tell here too.

But it’s salutary to remember that there hasn’t been such a profound change (should it come about) or indeed division in American society since the Civil War in 1861.

Let us then consider the forces of darkness. Across the whole of Europe there is a quiet revolution, growing louder, that sees the ongoing legitimization and increas-

Protesters in London

Laura with Luciano Pavarotti

Durban - Sud Africa.

Climate change protesters

People march against the government’s austerity cuts Rome - Italy DANTEmag n.5

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posting videos of suicide bombings, the execution of infidels and the ranting diatribes of their angry mullahs. The most strident extremist of any stripe or persuasion one would care to name across the planet has an audience too. If Islamic fundamentalism has lost a great deal of ground in the Middle East, it seems clear the next great opportunity for this malevolent presence is Sub-Saharan Africa, where long disenfranchised, impoverished and angry Muslim populations coincide with a vast territory almost custom made for guerrilla warfare. Largely inept, dysfunctional, corrupt states are unable to effectively confront them or to provide a better alternative for their people.

Islamic extremism remains a potent revolutionary force in Africa that has not begun to reach its full potential, even if Al Qaida is otherwise a muchdiminished actor. It is of course always a fallacy to regard Al Qaida as a centralised structure when it is, by definition, a decentralised entity, more of an ideological franchise than an organisation at all. Another revolution of our time is the struggle with the almost-unseen enemy, the non-state actor, the transnational terrorist. No more demanding form of warfare exists. Indeed a military response is only the smallest part of the equation, when the truest battle is fought in the mind and the soul of the radicalised insurgent and his would be adherents.

But there is light and reason as well in the mere hope for revolutionary change. It musters high technology as much as it does the humble demonstration, boycott or strike. It avails itself of multiple forms of advocacy available to a multitude of activists, whether the insurgency is armed or not.

Across the planet from the Amazon to Beijing, Wall Street to the polar ice cap, Gaza to Moscow, the status quo is being challenged at every level and in every aspect of society. If there is one cliché that speaks to our age is that business as usual will no longer be tolerated.

Nuclear power, after Chernobyl and Fukushima, is no longer a sacred cow.

Climate change, the destruction of the natural environment, and the loss of

Portuguese protesters

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the irreplaceable are all being contested. Cultural survival is another rallying cry of our times, not just from extremist xenophobes but a host of indigenous peoples throughout the globe who now refuse to go gently into the darkness of extinction. Much in this new era of upheaval has already been fought for in the past. The global revolutionary impulse still strives to bring about liberation in all of its implications, from the most organic issues of free speech, sexual and racial equality, the rights of minorities, freedom of worship, sexual orientation, and cultural identity to the more complex questions of good governance, the legitimate right to nationhood of distinct peoples lacking their own independent state, the manner in which wealth is generated and distributed, the powers and limitations of the nation-state and society at large, and the measures both may impose on the individual and the collective (including the death penalty). These are all part and parcel of the unfinished revolution. There are more recently developing topics, like the ethical treatment of animals, the imposition of punishment for ecological crimes, and the banning of the most barbarous weaponry from landmines, to chemical, bacteriological and nuclear arms. And there remain the age-old evils of tyranny, slavery and extra-judicial violence. Genocide and crimes against humanity are with us still. The concepts of international accountability and international law – making it stick that is – are still a revolution in the making, more than a half century after Nuremberg.

The revolution is here and is as multi-faceted and complex as our age, but its final course is uncharted. Much is opaque, indiscernible, undetermined. We can guess as to the final outcome but we won’t know until we know. We can’t ignore it either. We are forced to live in it and will bear its consequences. The salient question then is whether to remain a passive spectator or to choose a side and become engaged in it more deeply, to empower ourselves as actors in the looming change, participants who strike to effect that very change or face being pushed aside. Aux Barricades, Citoyens!

Public workers’ anti-government demo Istanbul - Turkey

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Communist Party demo.

Moscow - Russia

Occupy Wall Street NYC

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St. Louis - Missouri skyline at night

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Working the Trauma Service

Nobody gets out alive. It’s not a reality that humans like to look at, as a general rule. And for many of us – particularly in the developed world – it’s pretty easy to avert our eyes from that stark reality For much of humanity, though, it’s a fact that’s up in their grill pretty regularly. And that’s true even in some pockets of the First World. Generally the only ones acquainted with that landscape are its denizens. But a few know it intimately while yet not inhabiting it.

Jim Turner describes what he has seen there – of violence, of despair, and of hope – with an unflinching gaze.

ByJimTurner

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Working the trauma service can be feast or famine. Gunshot wounds, stabbings, auto accidents; their arrival at the hospital is sporadic and unpredictable. The ambulances are coming fast, dropping the latest shattered body off; or you are insufferably bored. It depends on the day of the week, the time of day, the season of the year. We joke it depends on the phase of the moon. It is odd to be dependent on random acts of violence somewhere in the city for something to do. But it’s just the way the trauma service works. You go about other routine tasks and wait for human disaster to arrive on your doorstep. There is a lot of disaster here.

St. Louis, Missouri, I mean. It can be a dangerous city, depending on what part you are in. It is one of those middle American cities with a poor underclass. Detroit, Chicago, Memphis – they all have it. Lack of productive outlets and the innate human urge to “make something of oneself ” lead

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St. Louis - Gangs

young black men into the drug trade. With drugs come guns and violence.

Short of warfare, this is the most violent activity humans engage in. St. Louis is a little different from other cities I am familiar with. St. Louis also has East St. Louis. It’s actually a different municipality across the Mississippi river in Illinois; but it’s close enough and culturally similar enough to be thought of as belonging to the greater St. Louis area. East St. Louis has no police force. Enough corruption in city hall and a couple of big-time legal settlements against the city drove the area into bankruptcy. They had to sell city hall to settle one of the judgments. No city government means no police force. The state patrol cruises the highways but they never enter the city. Not their problem. Without a police force, what was already a crime-filled enclave quickly turns into something like Dante’s Inferno.

Prostitution, murder, muggings are all out on open display, day or night.

Without knowing your way around, you take your life into your own hands, just by strolling through downtown. The liquor stores, of which there are many, function like bank vaults. Instead of picking your selection off the shelf and taking it to the cashier, you go to a guy behind bullet proof glass and tell him what you want. He fetches it off the shelf behind him and gives it to you through one of those little one-way rolly drawers built into the counter. But not before you give him your money. I tell this to people from other parts of the country and they don’t believe me. That there is a lawless, Western-frontier-like city in the US, akin to Mogadishu, is disturbing news. The most unbelieving are from the country club set.

The best trauma comes from East St. Louis. By “best”, I mean the worst.

When the drug dealers and/or gang-bangers shoot, they mean to kill, not merely to wound or intimidate. That means a shot or multiple shots to the head and shots to the chest, aimed at the heart. Depending on the level of the drug deal, the weapons used can be pretty sophisticated – customised assault weapons, basically. Tricked-out Glock 19s, Bren Tens, Uzis, you name it. Sometimes there is a gang-related shooting and the victim manages to make it to the hospital alive. If we are at all successful at keeping the guy alive, the fact that the victim isn’t quite dead makes it back to the rival gang responsible for the shooting. The gangs scan the newspapers for the name of the shooting victim to make sure they got their man. If we do our jobs well and the victim lives, the rival gang cruises the hospital looking to finish the job. Roving bands of young black men in the hospital is a sure sign there was a recent gang-related shooting. They aren’t there to deliver flowers. To combat this, the trauma service assigns an alphanumeric designation to the victim and we use that rather than the victim’s name.

Golf one, foxtrot twelve, etc. The doctors use it along with the nurses. It’s on the hospital chart and lab slips. We hide the patient from plain sight.

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Letting your patient get shot again while he is still in the hospital is not considered good form. I am, of course, describing life in an inner city teaching hospital. This shit doesn’t happen out in the suburbs.

Over time, a weird sort of ecology develops between the gangs and the hospital. Enough gang members get shot and go to the hospital for the results of the shooting and subsequent medical care to make an impact back in the neighbourhood. Some victims make it back and some don’t. The “some don’t make it back” part is obvious. They’re dead. The ones that

POLITCS

East St. Louis - school

do get back are a different story. With the use of high-powered weapons, enough damage is inflicted on the internal organs that no amount of modern, high-tech medical care can return what was a previously healthy young man to what medical people describe as “functional”. In other words, the ones that do make it back are sometimes too mangled to ever fully recover, or are in some state of intermediate medical care and don’t quite act or look like they used to. This results in a bizarre combination of positive and negative feedback to the hospital. New shooting victims come to the hos-

East St. Louis - suburb

pital making specific requests about how we deal with their trauma. The new victim has seen this enough times to know what to ask for. They do it as if they were ordering off a Chinese menu: one from column A and two from column B, but nothing from column C. The most frequent “nothing from column C” request is: “Not the bag doc, anything but the bag”, the bag in question being an ostomy bag.

A bullet wound or stabbing to the abdomen often results in damage to the intestine. To repair the damage, the intestinal contents have to be re-routed to a surgically created opening in the abdominal wall called an ostomy.

The ostomy, in effect, becomes the patient’s new anus. The intestinal contents are collected in a bag which the patient has to empty periodically, when it becomes full. The diversion of intestinal contents can sometimes be reversed when the patient heals. Sometimes not. Going back to the neighborhood with “the bag” can be problematic, especially when it comes to getting women - having faeces dangling at your side makes it tough to score points.

Medical people who see this, day in and day out, over months or years become emotionally immune to it. It’s just part of the job, we tell ourselves.

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St. Louis - Night shots: city, street, hospital

The emotional immunity allows us to function and do the work. Every once in awhile something comes in that is just so awful, it sticks with you for a time. For me these are the botched suicides. Some teenage girl making a half-hearted appeal for help by abrading her wrists with a butter knife isn’t it. It is the truly despondent, desperate people taking a gun to their head and missing. The worst messes are made with shotguns. Shotguns are meant to take a duck or a goose out of the air at 100 feet. At close range, or as is frequently the case in suicides, directly at the end of the barrel, the blast of shot acts with terrific force, shearing flesh and bone away in large chunks. Applied in the correct fashion through the brain, this leads to instant death. Incorrectly applied, it leads to a shearing away of a part of the scalp and skull, and maybe a part of the brain. Or to taking the entire face off. One fellow of recent memory did just that. He put the barrel of the gun under his chin rather than in his mouth. The blast was angled such that it took his lower face off: his lower jaw, part of his upper jaw, his tongue, his nose, part of the soft tissues of his throat. He had one big hole where his face used to be. His eyes, ears and brain, however, were intact.

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to himself. He couldn’t speak, of course, but he made it clear he wanted to be put back together. It was a given we would do that. We are doctors and that’s what we do – if the insurance companies let us. My boss on the trauma service spent hours on the phone with the man’s insurance company, bickering over dumbass things like whether we could get a psychiatric consult. The company’s point was: “Of course he’s depressed. You don’t need a psychiatrist to tell you that.”

“Yes, but… we would like to know if he is likely to make another attempt at killing himself before the plastic surgeons spend $200,000 and several hundred man-hours constructing him a new face.”

There are, of course, some parts of the brain that are more “necessary” than others. Victims of botched suicides sometimes get into the brain with their bullets, but this is no guarantee of death. The frontal lobes are, in this regard, somewhat expendable. If, say, a person puts the barrel of a handgun in the mouth and the angle of travel for the bullet is, straight up, the bullet passes through the frontal lobes and only the frontal lobes.

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This results in the unintended frontal lobotomy but not death. To get to death, the bullet has to pass through the mid-brain or brain stem, neither of which you can live without. They are where the vital functions live, like breathing and making your heart beat correctly. If there is some grace to come out of such situations, it is the spouse that refuses to desert the despondent victim when they have every reason to flee their mate in horror.

It brings me close to tears to see this.

Topics like the above are often difficult to talk about with many lay people.

Doctors and nurses talk about this stuff all the time amongst ourselves, but try not to scare the larger public with it. It doesn’t really go over so well at cocktail parties. But one “class of people” I’ve found outside medicine who can consistently deal with these realities are those with religious training – those who deal with invisible wounds.

The emotional and psychological damage to victims of trauma and their families can produce as raw a wound as any inflicted on the body. It is a separate anguish from physical pain and requires a different sort of heal-

ing. I have never been much of one for religion, but one thing that has impressed me over the years is the ability of spirituality to begin to carve a pathway into the emotional healing that necessarily must accompany the physical sort. The world’s great religions: Islam, Christianity, Judaism, Hinduism, Buddhism are, in their way, vast intellectual achievements too; they do, indeed, have a verifiable way to deal with traumatic suffering at an emotional level. And what I mean by “deal with” is offering the victims of acts of violence – those whose bodies have been torn apart, never to be the same – some comfort, some consolation, some kind of emotional resurrection. “That God so loved the world, He gave his only son…” is an idea that a mind wracked with pain can grasp and cling to when there isn’t anything else. It isn’t for everyone, but when it does take hold, I have been much impressed by religion’s ability to touch people in this sort of need. They offer insight into the meaning of suffering and how to deal with it. How people find religious insight helpful to them in the midst of overwhelming grief has been as much of an education for me as anything I ever learned in medical training about stopping the bleeding caused by the bullets.

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Nos falamos galego By Antonia Bruns Santiago de Compostela, the capital of the Spanish region of Galicia, is the final destination of the 1000-yearold international pilgrimage called The Way of St. James.

It is also a centre of local language activism for the Galego language and the reviving Galician culture. The two identities of the city sit in uneasy balance – especially if you’re an international visitor.

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When I told my friends that I would be leaving for Santiago de Compostela, their reaction was always the same: “So, you’ll do the St. James’ Way then?” And me: “Yes. But by car.” The reasons I renounced the St. James’ walking stick and chose a Volvo S40 instead were two big suitcases, a handbag and a violin. I didn’t come to Santiago as a pilgrim. I went there as a student – a rather nervous one, as my Spanish was a little wobbly and the university was about to start straightaway.

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Panoramic view of the Galician coast

It was already dark when Santiago finally appeared between the endless hills of Galicia. The town greeted me with an impressive thunderstorm. (Accordingly, the International Student Office provides umbrellas as a welcome present. Lovely, isn’t it?) But it was not the famous rainy weather that would mark my stay. It was a language called Galician – or, as Galician people say it: Galego. I learned that Galician was a Romance language, closely related to Portuguese. Strictly speaking, there are several Galician dialects (depending on the region), spoken by a total of around three million people. Together with Spanish (also known as “Castilian”), it is the co-official language of Galicia. So far, so good. What worried me was the fact that Galician is also the official language at the University of Santiago. But my international coordinator reassured me: “It won’t be a problem for you. The vocabulary is almost the same as Castilian. It may sound a bit different, but you’ll be fine with it.” We will see…

Galician folk dance group

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First day at the university. My professor asked in Spanish: “Who of you is studying for an International Master’s degree?” Five other students and I raised our hands (there were a total of fifteen students in this class). “All right, good to know.” It would be the last time that the professor addressed us in Spanish. From then on, fifty percent of my classes were in Galician. At first, I was enthusiastic. I liked the sound of the language. I liked listening to

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the teachers and trying to catch the words. Juego (game) became xogo, the Castilian mamá was the Galician nai. However, it was impossible for me to understand whole sentences, much less follow the class. The more I tried, the more I got confused with Spanish.

To clear our heads, my friends and I went to a tapas bar. Ordering dishes became a challenge. Polo instead of pollo – that was easy. But what about pulpo (octopus) and the Galician polbo (which sounds like the Spanish polvo – dust)? It was strange to see that the menu had a Galician page, then an English page, then a French one. If you were lucky, you might find the Spanish translation on the last page. It was the same in the aquarium in La Coruña. The explanation boards were written exclusively in Galician, with some general info in English. My Spanish friend felt rather lost when it became clear to him that in his own country, it wasn’t possible for him to get information in his mother tongue, even when he asked especially for a Spanish brochure.

One day, I tried to discuss the topic with some of my Galician classmates.

We were sitting in the cafeteria, having iced coffee and sandwiches. Unfortunately, I couldn’t understand a word of what they answered, as they refused to speak Spanish with me. What I did understand was that they are proud

Traditional Galician fare.

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Street of Santiago de Compostela Galicia, Spain

to be Galician, that it is part of their Galician identity. But did they really risk losing Galician identity when speaking Spanish from time to time with a foreign student? (I wondered what they would say if I started to speak in a local German dialect.) Isn’t it more about communication in those moments than about asserting your identity?

Fortunately, most of the Galicians I met had no problem using both languages in their daily life. I had the impression that Galician radicalness came mostly from official institutions and a few language activists. Until the 1970s, Galician was seen as the language of the poor. So, for example, you were not appreciated as an author if you wrote in Galician. Galician nationalism DANTEmag n.5

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was forbidden during the Franco era and the language itself was banned.

No wonder the reaction to that is now a strong Galician revival. This is strengthening Galician culture and reinforcing Galician identity, but it often goes along with an awkward anti-Castilian movement. When I went to my Spanish course, I had to pass a banner: Only Galician uni classes in Galicia.

When I received official mails from the university, they were only written in Galician. The moment that shocked me most, however, was seeing the wall behind my faculty building defaced with a huge graffiti: Erasmus fora – Erasmus out!

Apparently, international students like me were inconvenient for the lan-

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Traditional local costume for the Pilgrim Summer Festival; Galician countryside

Galician countryside

guage movement. It would be so easy for Galician professors teaching in their language without having annoying foreigners asking for an explanation in Spanish! How unfortunate for them that the University of Santiago decided to take part in international Erasmus and Erasmus Mundus student exchange programmes.

After four months in Santiago, I was managing to read Galician texts and to understand my professors. But my initial enthusiasm for the language was lost. It was simply too politically charged to be interesting for me. However, the decision not to actively learn Galician was not an ideological, but a practical one. I had to concentrate on Spanish, because – even if Galician

supporters do not want to hear it – in a global context, it is more useful.

Effective language and culture preservation is not a matter of teaching basic grammar to foreign students. In this context, I wouldn’t mind a more relaxed attitude regarding language activism, especially within an international scope.

Pro-Galician does not automatically have to be anti-Spanish. And a person who decides not to learn Galician is not automatically a “fascist”. Wouldn’t the coexistence of both languages be truer to the spirit of Santiago de Compostela as a historic European centre of pilgrimage?

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Mark Powell Bespoke Tailoring 2 Marshall Street, London www.markpowellbespoke.co.uk

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Not Only Cima, da Conegliano

By Massimo Gava

The Italian wine industry in 2011 had something to celebrate despite the political turmoil that has buffeted the country. Italian wine is now the best selling wine in the world. Led by the increased popularity of Prosecco wine, it has managed to export wines to developing nations, mainly in the BRIC countries - Brazil, Russia, India, China - but also in Africa.

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The Italian winemaking tradition dates back to the Romans, but one of the best colleges to study wine-making or oenology in the country - if not the best, period - is definitely the Scuola Enologica di Conegliano.

Situated on a hillside about 45 km north of Venice, the small city of Conegliano has been featured in many of the paintDANTEmag n.5

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ings of its most illustrious citizen, painter Cima da Conegliano.

blends that have acquired recognition and awards worldwide.

The winemaking college of this same city produced another artist, maybe not as famous as the painter Cima, but still illustrious and is now an institution in the world of winemaking: Giorgio Dalla Cia.

In 2008, his signature blend, the 2005 Giorgio, a classic combination of Cabernet Sauvignon and Merlot, won the silver medal at the Decanter World Wine Award. This was the first time that a Dalla Cia wine had been entered into this prestigious competition, widely rated as the most influential wine awards in the world. According to Giorgio, the prestige of winning a silver medal in the Decanter World Wine Awards Award is the equivalent of winning gold in other competitions. Their commendation described his winning wine thus:

Giorgio moved to Stellenbosch, the wine district north of Cape Town in South Africa, more than thirty years ago and has since become an icon with his style of winemaking. Giorgio blends the Italian tradition with the knowledge he has gained of French winemaking. This combination has made him a pioneer in the creation of truly unique South African Bordeaux-style DANTEmag n.5

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“Opulent, well-structured and full-bodied with a generous mouth feel with a long lingering aftertaste.”

How do you merge the Italian and French tradition together in your wine?

Decanter’s unique judging process has earned it the reputation as “the ultimate terroir competition.” The judges, over fifty of them, came from every corner of the world, and were as rigorous as ever. Despite the large number of entries, the consistency in terms of medals awarded, was remarkable. In 2008, on a similar scale to previous years, only 64% of wines were awarded a medal, and of those just 2.84% won a gold medal or a trophy, with only 12.4% securing a silver medal.

But I wanted to learn more from the man himself.

Just like a painter who knows that by mixing one colour with another he can get the nuance and result he wants. While I was at the college, I spent my holidays in France learning the language and it was then I discovered those marvellous French wines. As a result, I started to learn about the French winemaking tradition and the philosophy behind the Bordeaux blend. When I came here to South Africa and recognised the opportunities that the terroirs offered in these areas, I felt like I had the right canvas, the right light, the right ingredients basically, to make my wines – it was the perfect inspirational setting.

How influential has the Conegliano wine making college been in your work in South Africa?

What do you think about the concept of new and old styles of making wine?

Studying at such a prestigious college gave me the basis and the knowledge to apply the finest Italian tradition of wine-making. It was like learning to paint in the Venice Academy. It was a source of a great inspiration to me. I even met my muse there, Simonetta, who became my wife.

The concept of the European wine as “old wine “is about the complexity of a wine that acquires its full potential with age. It is like the Mona Lisa

by Leonardo. You never cease admiring it because every time you see it you discover something new. In my way to define it, I call old-style wine a meditation wine. You must take your time to appreciate it. The so-called DANTEmag n.5

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“new wine” is for the society of today that has been brought up with Coca-Cola and so-called fruit juices, where the interest the bottle generates is more due to the packaging rather than what’s inside. There is a fundamental distinction to be made here between who makes wine and who sells bottles.

Is there any chance that these two worlds can meet in the middle?

There is obviously space for both in the market, but there is a clear difference between the two products. I think it is a learning process that eventually will lead the less knowledgeable consumer to appreciate how well a wine is structured. That’s why, with my son George, we are consultants for people around the world and train them how to appreciate fully this nectar of nature.

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Any hints you have for any budding winemaker or consumer?

A young wine maker should approach winemaking with a passion almost verging on religious devotion. Learn the techniques then create your own adventure, just as I have done. Winemaking is an art, and you need to approach this with humility because there is a lot to learn. As for the young consumer, they have to understand that making wine is an art in itself and they should respect and appreciate the effort that goes in to transforming the fruit that nature gives us into a refined, natural product.

In 2011, Giorgio and his son George Dalla Cia scooped the illustrious Wine Spectator Award of Excellence with their collaborative venture showcasing South African and Italian wines at a top 5-star establishment in Africa. The luxurious Sankara hotel in Nairobi trusted the Dalla Cia

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expertise with sourcing their wines and compiling a world-class wine list for their stylish restaurant and wine bar, The Gallery. They secured, for the first 5-star hotel in Central and Eastern Africa, the highly coveted Restaurant Wine List Award from the authoritative Wine Spectator Magazine of the USA.

and then you blend in your own personality,” said Giorgio, who recently scooped another award with the Dalla Cia Giorgio 2007 in the top 100 SA Wines list .

The annual Wine Spectator Restaurant Wine List Awards recognise restaurants and bars across the world for exceptional wine lists that offer variety, quality and above all, appeal to a wide range of tastes. In compiling The Gallery’s exclusive wine list of over 200 different wines, most of which are unavailable elsewhere in Kenya, the Dalla Cia’s focused on exceptional quality, authenticity and value. While top South African and Italians wines feature prominently on the list, wines from other regions of the world including France, Australia and New Zealand, are also represented.

We know that there are only seven musical notes, but you only need a few to make a beautiful symphony.

Like his compatriot, Cima, who turned colours into masterpieces, Giorgio has found in the landscape of South Africa the perfect setting for his creations. As a result of blending his Italian tradition with the French ways he studied, he has been able to forge a unique way of making wine. But how much of his personality has he invested in the crafting of his wines? As with any artist, he is not letting on. That will have to remain his best kept secret. In the meantime, we can just wonder at his talent as we relish and savour his masterpieces.

To qualify for the prestigious Wine Spectator Restaurant Wine List Awards, which attracted more than 5000 entrants last year, submissions had to include current wine lists with detailed information on the wines and their producers as well as accompanying food menus.

For further information on the Dalla Cia’s new Wine List Consultancy venture, visit www.dallacia.com.

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The Poison Fields You Might Be Wearing

By Matthias Gelber Given the industrialised nature of both agriculture and manufacturing in our current society, it’s probably not much of a surprise to hear that our clothing is saturated at every stage of the manufacturing process with hazardous chemicals. An oft-stated rationale for this is that it is necessary to keep clothing inexpensive. But there are serious costs to us all – environmental and human – that don’t necessarily show up in the price tag. Is there a better way? Yes – if consumers begin to demand it.

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I can still recall a couple of years ago when the football shirts of my favourite German club Borussia Dortmund were pulled off the shelves because a German Green Test Institute had found them to be contaminated with notso-healthy chemicals. In our dressing normally, day-to-day, we might not be conscious of the fact that our clothing has gone through many different processes, some of which may involve hazardous chemicals. Some clothes still come with this advice on their labels: Wash before use. We should really wonder why!

Look at cotton, the world’s most popular fabric. Generally quoted figures indicate that conventional cotton production consumes 10% of the world’s pesticides and 22% of the world’s insecticides. According to the US Environmental Protection Agency, the world used about 5.2 billion pounds of pesticides in both 2006 and 2007. (1) Essentially we are talking here about DANTEmag n.5

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a huge amount of poisonous chemicals going into the soil, the water, and thence into plants – world-wide. Besides the environmental impact, there is the human impact. For example, cotton farmers, especially those in less developed countries, are repeatedly exposed to these agrochemicals, which results each year in numerous poisoning incidents and fatalities.

But that is not the end of the story. As a matter of fact, it is only the beginning. The production of cotton clothing at the factories can also be chemically intensive. I have vivid memories of visiting garment factories in China and Indonesia that looked like chemical storage plants.

Some of the additives that are in our clothes include the following: •

Perfluorinated chemicals, or PFCs, are added to give clothes the non-iron feature. This chemical is linked to cancer and other human health problems.

•

Formaldehyde, a highly toxic chemical, is used to prevent textiles from shrinking. It can cause allergic skin reactions and has been linked to cancer.

•

Many dyes that are used to colour our clothes are full

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of solvents or other chemicals. You can sometimes even detect the smell of solvents in new clothes.

When you take your clothes home, you are also taking home a source of chemicals that will pollute your indoor air quality, which in turn damages your health.

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Recent developments in antibacterial coatings or additives for clothes have led to concerns as well, because these chemicals are a potential hazard to waterways and human health.

Here is a fundamental question: Why have so many harmful chemicals entered into our lives? The answer is simple and straightforward: All this is happening because of OUR consumption patterns.

But many people will ask the question whether or not they, as individuals, carry any responsibility? For me it is very clear cut – every item we buy influences the market place. When we buy something, we become part of the supply-and-demand economy. The more we buy a type of product or service, the more it will be on offer. We, the consumers, shape the economy in the developed Western systems. Marketing or manipulation from the sales

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industry has moved us to buy more than we need. It can also move us in another direction: we are encouraged to buy the cheapest things – things that have huge environmental impact and waste generation as part of their supply chain. But few of us are aware of this. The products stay cheap because we do not calculate the cost of cleaning up the environmental contamination or the disposal of waste into the price of the products.

What looks cheap - and might be cheap - at the counter, can come with a huge cost in habitat destruction, environmental impact, or clean-up costs.

The power of the consumer counts; if we all start buying certain types of products and millions of others follow, we will then be a force to be reckoned with. Producers will have to satisfy our preferences and change the types of products and solutions they offer. Globally there is a movement called LOHAS. It stands for Lifestyle Of Health and Sustainability. The proponents of this movement are called LOHASians. In Malaysia around 14 % of consumers are classified as such. They are people that buy green and healthy and the market value of this movement goes into many billions.

The bigger this green and healthy market grows, the more it will benefit the health of our planet.

And what do LOHASians buy in terms of clothing?

Definitely not petroleum-based synthetic clothing! First of all, such synthetic

fabrics are potential fire hazards because the raw material is combustible.

Secondly, these synthetic fabrics can be problematic as they tend to be less breathable. A two year study compared a group of male dogs wearing polyester underpants with another group of male dogs wearing cotton underpants. Those wearing the former suffered a reduced sperm count, whereas those wearing the latter did not experience any adverse effects. (2) This is quite a significant finding. It leads us to conclude that “natural” materials like cotton are the way to go.

But in the case of cotton there are many factors we should take into consideration as well. Of particular import is the issue of whether we should go with conventional cotton or organic cotton. As pointed out earlier, conventionally grown cotton is a chemical-intensive crop, so it cannot be the first choice of LOHASians. This leaves us with organic cotton. But what exactly is “organic”? And is it a better choice?

According to the Textile Exchange, a non-profit organisation committed to the responsible expansion of sustainable textiles across the global textile value chain, “organic agricultural practices may vary slightly from country to country but common to all is the prohibition of toxic and persistent synthetic agrichemicals.” These include pesticides, herbicides, and fertilisers.

So how do organic farmers manage the major problems of pests, weeds, and DANTEmag n.5

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soil fertility? Let us take a moment to consider these agricultural issues.

Firstly, organic farmers do not depend on synthetic chemicals to manage pests. Instead, they plant so-called “trap crops� to lure pests away from the cotton; and they create a habitat for the pests’ natural predators.

Secondly, organic farmers deal with weeds the old-fashioned way - they remove them by hand.

Thirdly, organic farmers maintain, and in some cases, enhance soil fertility through environmentally friendly practices such as crop rotation and DANTEmag n.5

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composting. This minimises or eliminates the need for fertilisers. Moreover, the higher amount of organic matter in the soil helps it to retain more water, thereby reducing the need for irrigation.

This means organic cotton requires less water to grow - approximately 3,000 cubic metres per acre less, to be precise. In contrast, conventionally grown cotton is a notoriously thirsty crop: anywhere from 7,000 to 29,000 litres of water is needed to grow 1 kg of conventional cotton according to a World Wildlife Fund report.

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All the aforesaid actions are not only good for the environment, they are also good for the people in it – farmers, industrial workers, and ultimately consumers. The benefit to farmers and manufacturing workers should be obvious; but the benefit to consumers is less apparent.

Unbenownst to many, most agrichemicals are persistent; that is, they do not degrade easily. And at least one study has shown that hazardous pesticides applied during conventional cotton production can also be detected in cotton clothing. These residual chemicals can cause skin irritation and are bad

for health.

The choice is ours. We, the consumers, hold the key, whether we are buying for ourselves or for our friends and family. Over to you!

1. http://www.epa.gov/opp00001/pestsales/07pestsales/market_estimates2007.pdf 2. Urological Research, 1993; Volume 21, Number 5, 367-370.

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1 Piccadilly Arcade , London W1J 9EN tel +44 (0) 207 493 1975 Fax + 44 (0) 20 7 4938410 london@santamarianovella.co.uk www.santamarianovella.co.uk DANTEmag n.5

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Window of the soul

What I’ve Learned in the Alleys

By Caroline Udall

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Window of the soul

Baseball is the expression of the American soul, the revelation of American national foibles? Bah! They’d like you to think so.

But it’s really bowling, baby.

And if bowlers could be bothered, they’d kick those baseball players’ oversized, overpaid butts and take their rightful place in the national mythos.

So despite the fact that the game is perpetually unable to shake its déclassé reputation - or maybe because of it - Dante’s Caroline Udall never feels quite so ‘Murican and proud as when she’s rolling in the Alleys.

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In some effete blue-state circles, bowling - like NASCAR and line dancing - is something to be sniffed at with Amused Condescension. Peer-Group Approval Whore that I am, I cravenly join in with the sneering with regard to both the latter. But when it comes to bowling, well, just wrap me in leopard skin and call me Fred Flintstone. I’m off to the bowling alley with the rest of the Water Buffalos and I don’t care what anybody says.”

I retain an inexplicable child-like affection for the game – sport - whatever ...despite its aura of terminal uncool. That aura clings to bowling despite it being the subject – sort of – of one of the coolest movies of the last twenty years or so: the Coen brothers’ 1998 masterpiece The Big Lebowski.

The film has developed an intense cult-following over the years. So much so, that you can join the Church of the Latter-day Dude (the beleaguered main character, played by Jeff Bridges) and become an ordained Dudeist priest. (I’m one! Seriously. I got my ordination on the Internet for free, but I forgot to print out my certificate. According to the website there are over 100,000 of us, worldwide.)

Yet of all the hipster boys and girls who ever gleefully shouted “Nobody fucks with the Jesus!” how many of them do you think ever actually roll on a regular basis? Precious few, I promise you that.

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Window of the soul

Bowling may be scoffed at alternately as white-bread and boring, or low class and tacky, but I am here to tell you that life’s rich pageant happens in a bowling alley (which may be why my mother would never let us hang out in one). And bowling reliably presents the prepared bowler with a subtle, Zen-like lesson on life and the nature of things. It is as if, when the bowler is ready, the Buddha appears, wearing rented shoes and offering little crystalline nuggets of enlightenment.

Here’s a small example. Take the little red marks that are painted in an arrow formation on the boards of most bowling lanes. The marks line up directly with the pins. If one were naïve and trusting, one would simply roll the ball in as straight a line as possible down the mark that lines up with the centre pin and all would be well. Were one to do that, however, one would be both deceived and disappointed. I happen to know (and my friend Domo – who has actually studied bowling at university level – confirms this) that you must line the ball up with the mark just to the right of center and as you release it, give it a bit of a spin. I believe Domo, who claims to know all the secret Jedi bowling tricks, advises a counterclockwise. The sweet spot is the space between the lead pin and the one just behind and to the right. (Southpaws, reverse everything.) This will get you, if not a strike every time, then at least a greatly improved score.

Bowling Life Lesson #1: Nothing is straightforward - spin is all!

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My internet friend, Brenda, told me of a very potentially therapeutic bowling experience she had while in college. She and I both attended the same religiously-sponsored university in the intermountain West. (And no, I’m not talking about the Air Force Academy. Just keep guessing, coz’ I ain’t saying.)

Let’s call it something cute and whimsical – oh…say…the Madrasa. Internet Brenda and I were probably there at the same time and may even have bowled next to each other, though we only became acquainted a few years ago. But I digress. Anyhow, iBrenda said that she regularly bowled at the campus bowling alley. A large mural honouring the patriarchal namesake of the Madrasa stretches across the wall above the lanes. Said Patriarch boldly straddles a couple of the lanes as he goes forth to conquer the wilderness. iBrenda actually wrote an essay for a class about how she improved her bowling score by aiming right between those columnar patriarchal legs.

When I think how a strategically rolled bowling ball might have altered the course of US religious history and thereby my own in a very personally relevant way, I begin to understand Bowling Life

Lesson #2: Even the high and mighty will eventually be brought low – even if it’s just through the snarky imaginings of a skinny undergraduate, a hundred years in the future.

My sister (also a Madrasa alumnus) has a bowling testimony of her own, of sorts, that she likes to recount around the scoring table. When she was

getting her post-grad in history, there was a girl in her programme who was a serious-ass bowler. She was writing her thesis on the history of women’s bowling in America. Those in the programme who were studying intellectual history (my sister and one other guy) were very sniffy about her thesis topic and quite looked down their noses at her research. However, said bowler would come into the Teaching Assistants’ office on Thursday mornings, waving great wads of cash, having competed in the Wednesday tournaments the night before. She generally won and made like $600 every Wednesday night. The intellectuals were secretly in awe of her. Now pay attention because this one will haunt you if you don’t.

Bowling Life Lesson #3: If you’re so smart, why aren’t you rich?

And speaking of money, bowling has, of course, taught me some profound things in the political arena as well. In the early 90s, I was a reporter at a small, Washington, D.C.-based foreign affairs newspaper. The wife of one of the other reporters was, briefly, a staffer for a certain mid-western congressman. This particular congressman is probably most noted for making a speech from the well of the House while wearing a paper bag over his head.

(Let’s call him The Unknown Congressman.) The Unknown Congressman’s little stunt was, I believe, an expression of his shame over the House banking “scandal” wherein Representatives wrote overdraft cheques which were honoured by the House Bank (so they didn’t actually bounce), but weren’t charged overdraft fees.

Window of the soul

Sigh. It all seems so quaint now, doesn’t it?

L-♂, my friend and fellow reporter, and his wife, the Alliterative L-♀, organised a night of bowling between our office and The Unknown Congressman’s staff. As I recall, L♂ sent around an email inviting everyone to participate in a bowling match against the staff of “the neoconservative Unknown Congressman.” Of course, he went on to try and rouse our competitive dander, but I mention this simply because it was the very first time I had ever heard the term “neoconservative.” When I read the word there was a flash of lightning and the sound of horses screaming in the distance, but I – like so many others – foolishly paid it no attention.

In any case, we were all game, so off we trooped one evening to a bowling alley somewhere in suburban Virginia. The members of Team U.C. were so similar in appearance that they have sort of blended into a composite in my mind. I retain only scattered impressions of highly-pressed khaki and LLBean oxfords, a dearth of shirttails, a small amount of well-groomed facial hair, VERY conservative haircuts, and a general aura of Corporate Casual – and that was the just the women. We were by far the motley-er crew. I can’t really remember what we were all wearing, but we certainly weren’t uniform.

And, despite the presence of a Madrasa graduate (me), we had a much more bohemian air about us. Plus, we sucked. As proof of this assertion, I offer in evidence the fact that I was one of the top scorers on our team. We made up for it with our wild, boho abandon. We cheered each other on, succumbed dramatically to defeat, wooted when we knocked down a reasonable number of pins, and just generally had a hell of a good time.

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Window of the soul If I remember correctly, we mainly paid attention to the team score when one of the Hitler Jugend next door would saunter casually over to point out how far behind we were. We would panic momentarily, but then short-term memory loss would kick in and we’d go back to wooting. Over in their lane (ironically positioned to the left of ours) there was much huddling, consulting, whispering, strategising, and figuring of the score. It was darn near as silent over there as a Scientology birthing room. The only one who actually came over to socialise was the Alliterative L♀, who had worked at the paper off and on before landing the political gig, and so was friends with all of us.

At the end, when they (inevitably) kicked our butts, they were not particularly good winners. Our team cheered like crazy when our worst bowler managed – after heroic perseverance – NOT to roll a gutter ball. The only explosion of joy from their lane all night came at the very end when the final scores were totted up. They seemed to take far too much smug satisfaction in what was – to put it charitably – a pathetically easy victory. I remember being rather bewildered by it all. It was as if something huge had secretly been at stake and we didn’t realise it until we’d lost it. Like winter had arrived and the industrious ants were gleefully anticipating the imminent starvation of the lazy grasshoppers. Their fun didn’t really seem to start until the whole thing was over and it was clear that they’d won. Rather than the substance of the thing itself, the crowing and throwing-it-in-your face seemed to be the point of it all. Well, as above, so below, or: as in bowling, so in governance (or whatever they’re calling it these days). Really, looking back at it now, I’m no longer surprised that the neo-cons took over the world.

Bowling Life Lesson #5: It just seems like it’s all good fun in the moment. The horror only becomes apparent in retrospect.

A few years later, after turning my back on Washington and heading (literally) into the sunset, I had an opportunity to bowl once more, this time in a somewhat more serious venue. I was at a period in my chequered career where I’d taken a temporary detour into teaching primary school. My In-Real-Life friend Brenda, a fellow teacher, was part of a recently constituted staff bowling team. They needed an alternate bowler to fill in on nights when somebody couldn’t make it and In-Real-Life Brenda asked me to do the job. Since nobody on our team was a Really Serious Bowler, on any given night one or more of them found something better to do. This meant that I ended up bowling almost every week. The team was part of an organised league that had been established in a nearby town for longer than I’d been alive. I agreed to do it, but I admit I was worried that I’d be in over my head.

This did, in fact, prove to be the case. I needn’t have worried about it, though. On my first night, it became apparent within minutes that, without any conscious design, I was once again part of the woo-woo group.

Bowling Life Lesson #6: Patterns such as this may signal a need to seriously reflect on your karma.

Most nights we were almost all rolling low scores and whooping it up as if we’d just won a million bucks on Bowling for Dollars. The second or third week of the season, one of the league organisers approached us and, with poorly concealed annoyance, asked us to please stop being so noisy. Noisy.

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smack of the balls hitting the boards, and the rumbling of those balls rolling down the lanes, I really don’t know (big, fat, eye roll). Still, the Prime Directive of schoolteachers is to make sure that we all just get along. So in the intervening week a couple of members of our team made some large signs attached to sticks that said things like “Way to Go!” and “Great job!” and “Awesome!” We contented ourselves with silently waving these at whoever had gone to way, jobbed greatly, or had some awe.

This seemed to bring down the noise quotient enough that the Really Serious Bowlers could get on with their Really Serious Bowling. The most serious of the Really Serious Bowlers was a contingent of very old ladies, all

of whom were well north of 90. They smoked like smokestacks and had been bowling in this league every Wednesday night since approximately the Taft administration. I swear to God, I don’t know how those creaky old birds even picked up the bowling balls. They were nothing but skin and bones. They’d shuffle up to the fault line, clutching their balls hard to their rib cages with both arms. Then they’d basically just drop the ball and – in seeming defiance all that is holy, including most of the laws of physics – it would creep down the alley at such a glacial pace that time itself seemed to stop. After meandering crazily back and forth, the ball would reach the pins, emerge with a roar from the warp in the time/space continuum, annnnd . . . STRIKE! Every.

Damn. Time. As I said – in over my head.

Window of the soul

I admit that I am nothing compared to Fern. However, I can usually get one or two strikes in the course of a game and that is enough to satisfy me.

It is the only context in my life in which I do this:

Once, IRL-Brenda said to me at the beginning of the evening: “tonight we are going to out-bowl Fern,” who was the oldest and baddest of the bad, old ladies and was bowling in the lane next to us that night. Of course, we didn’t have the guts to actually tell Fern that we were competing with her. We just surreptitiously kept track of her score and tried to beat her. I think she ended up bowling like a 298 or something. IRL-Brenda bowled maybe 105, 110. I didn’t break 100.

I swear she put some kind of bowler’s curse on us, or something, as she squinted at us with malevolent contempt through the haze of cigarette smoke that clung to her like a thundercloud at the top of Mt. Olympus. We feared and worshipped her in equal measure. She was a dark bowling goddess. She really was 95 years old. (I’ve confirmed that with knowledgeable sources.) She drove a huge-ass SUV.

Bowling Life Lesson #7: You may think you’re all that because you’re young, or smart, or fit, or rich, or beautiful. Whatevs. You just haven’t met your Fern yet.

You thought I was going to end this with some kind of “Dude Abides…” philosophising, didn’t you? Well, I’m not. I’d rather end with Walter: “Fuck it, Dude. Let’s go bowling”.

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Diving deep

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into the blue sea

By Antonio Sanna

With its striking perpendicular cliffs and multitude of submerged caves, teeming with marine flora and fauna, Sardinia has spectacular sights to offer both above and below the surface of the brilliant blue and green Mediterranean.

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We set off on our diving adventure to discover the sea-beds around Alghero, Sardinia, also known as the Coral Riviera because of the large expanse of precious pink coral to be found there.

What makes diving off Alghero so unique are the many underwater caves in the protected Marine National Park of Capo Caccia, a majestic limestone headland that is the unmistakeable feature of the Alghero skyline. In the park, we’ll find Nereo and il Porticato, two caves that offer scuba divers an experience to be found nowhere else. When diving in any of the protected underwater caves, you must be accompanied by authorised guides who know the seabeds and who can guarantee your safety while under water.

We leave the port of Alghero in our boat, the Andrea Padre.* This mode of travel enables us to admire the old walls and gates of this ancient city, which started life as a small settlement of Catalans, a people who have left their mark in this part of Sardinia. We can also appreciate the beautiful marine park with

Translated by Philip Rham

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Nereo Cave

Stingray fish

Sea urchin

Red coral

Alghero lido beach its characteristic dramatic headlands, rising at a sheer vertical from out of the azure sea. The invisible hand of the winds has delighted in creating the most curious shapes in the rocks. In one place, on the crags on the island of Foradada, you can make out the face of the poet Dante Alighieri.

with the aroma of the sea, creating an intoxicating sensory bouquet. The spectacle of the cliffs makes us lose track of time and we’re surprised at how quickly we’ve arrived at the first stage of our adventure: the Nereo cave – the largest underwater cave in the Mediterranean.

We are accompanied by the heady aroma of Mediterranean maquis, a type of local algae, that lines the white rocky crags with its brilliant green. It suffuses

Nereo was discovered in the 1950s by the first coral hunters who plunged into the depths around Alghero. It is named after Nereo, the mythical father of the

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Moray eel Sea ​​anemone

Nereids (sea nymphs). Dozens of lesser caves in the area bear the same name.

When we get to our diving-off point, our guide gives us a briefing on the security procedures we need to follow. He goes over the standard set of signals to use under water and talks us through the route we are going to take in the caves, warning us not to touch the marine life there so as to preserve and safeguard it. Once we’ve all been briefed, we leave behind our main boat, setting out in the back-up rubber dinghy loaded with all our equipment. The divingoff point is right at the foot of the great sheer cliff face of the Capo Caccia.

Here we can take in the breathtaking panoramic views, and then suddenly we make out the entrance to Nereo – a dark, gaping opening gouged out of the imposing limestone cliff. Pleasure boats come and go, ferrying visitors to this popular tourist spot; it can also be accessed by an immense set of steps that wind over the white rocks. Whichever way they get there, lucky visitors are treated to awe-inspiring sights.

Once we’ve moored the dinghy, we put on our equipment and, one by one, we slip into the azure sea. We float on the surface as the last security checks are carried out. Soon we can begin our dive proper. Our guide asks us if we’re

Parazoanthus axinellae ready, we give him the final OK, and slowly we sink beneath the surface, diving down and down, keeping close to the cliff face underwater. The view that opens up before our eyes is absolutely stunning. The visibility is such that we can see the seabed straightaway, some grouper fish darting off as we approach.

The only sound is from our scuba bottles. We are overwhelmed by a feeling of peace and tranquillity.

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Foradada Island

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The Nereo cave is the largest cave of its kind in the Mediterranean. There are two entrances: one at fifteen metres, the other at thirty metres. Depending on your level of experience, you can choose which section you want to explore.

There is a main tunnel that goes on for 300 metres, so it is very large indeed, with secondary tunnels that branch off totalling another 500 metres.

For our dive, we have chosen a route via the thirty metre entrance and we will be exiting after fifteen metres. Once we reach the seabed of rocks and white sand, we turn on our torches to light our way. As soon as we enter the cave, the tunnel slopes up and initially it is so dark, it can be slightly disorienting. With our lights, however, that feeling wears off and we are able then to wonder at the interior of this magnificent underwater cave. As we shine our torches onto the rock face, we notice patches of red. These turn out to be all that remains of the Rubrum coral that used to cover the whole area. Our beams flash into crevices and shafts. We catch sight of conger eels, sea raven, some cicada fish that dart away, scared off when the torch light hits them. A giant moray eel, dazzled, manages to escape into a rock crevice.

At the end of the tunnel, the view is spectacular – we’ve left behind the black darkness and can begin to discern the subtle shades of colours. Intense blue of every imaginable hue prepares you for the sight of the superb arches of the Nereo cave – an interplay of rock faces that come at you out of the blue – literally – and give you the sensation of being in an aquarium. Right on cue a shoal of sea-bream swims past near the cave.

The arches are covered with Parazholanths, known as the daisy of the sea.

They are a deep intense yellow, covered with tiny filaments that look like petals.

As we move through these arches, we get the feeling of gliding over country meadows, while on the rock faces, we notice what look like small coloured mirrors, only to realise it is the effect produced by our air bubbles caught on the rock surface.

As we emerge from the cave we immediately feel the rays of the sun, the temperature of the water warming slightly. Slowly but surely we make our way back to the surface where the dinghy is waiting for us. As we break the surface, we are greeted with a new panoramic view different from where we started, DANTEmag n.5

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with the sun lighting up the brilliant white cliffs.

The experience of that day will live with me forever, but never more so as when a lovely English lady, so bowled over by her dive through the delights of the Nereo Cave, completely forgot her traditional English reserve and let out a wild shout of joy, releasing all the emotions she had just experienced – “BEAUTIFUL! AMAZING! BRILLIANT!” Her words echoed round the Capo Caccia headland, leaving us all with broad smiles on our faces.

For our second dive we head to the Porticato, just off the island of Foradada.

It’s called Porticato because of the numerous arches to be found there. Facing out from each other, all different sizes and with those characteristic small passage-ways and great arcades – il Porticato is another underwater journey of marine wonders. The entrance is at 18 metres and as we pass through it, we admire a myriad of small and large openings that create a multiplicity of light effects; the sides are covered with Parazholanthus and Lepsamine, producing a veritable work of art for the scuba diver to admire. But what marine photographers really appreciate when they attempt to capture the beauty of the cave is how the reflections of the sunlight, refracting through the limpid water, intensify the colours.

In the last section of the arches, we come across an area of rocks and white sand that is a kind of antechamber to a small passage-way. About thirty metres long, it takes us to a small chamber, where the only light that reaches inside trickles down through several crevices. It is through one of the larger crevices that we make our way out from the cave, back up to surface of the turquoiseblue sea. On the way, as we keep close to the cliff face, we can still see to the DANTEmag n.5

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seabed and are treated to the sight of some grouper fish swimming by. Slowly but surely we find our way back to the dinghy, and with heavy hearts we rejoin the main boat again.

Still, contentment steals over us as we wait. One of our group takes advantage of the lull to snatch some last photos in order to remember this day for ever.

The main boat picks us up and takes us to a small cove called Cala Inferno (Hell). It is, perhaps fittingly, only accessible by sea and mooring is off-shore.

Don’t let the name put you off – there are two sides to every story! The winter version of the story of Cala Inferno is when the Mistral rages and vast waves come crashing down onto the rocks. Then there is the summer tale, when the colours of the calm water have such an intensity, moving from turquoise greens to deep azure blues that it literally takes your breath away.

In this little shallow bay you can get a good taste of scuba diving if you ever want to try your hand at discovering the delights of this sport – that feeling of swimming in a vast natural aquarium. People of all ages can have a go as long as they are in good health, are familiar with water sports, and adhere to the security standards set out by PADI (Professional Association of Diving Instructors) and by scuba diving associations affiliated to the Italian National Federation.

Back on board the main boat, there is a tasty meal waiting for us – an assortment of dishes sourced from both sea and land. Antipasto comprises of a local salame and Sardinian cheese, followed by a starter of crab spaghetti; the main course is a succulent dish of cockles marinieres, all washed down with a lovely

MEAN SANA IN CORPORE SANO - Travel *Andrea Padre.

It is the tradition in this part of Sardinia to name fishing boats after the oldest fisherman of the village. The boat now is fully equipped for transporting people.

Old town Alghero local white wine. As is the local custom, you can’t finish lunch without a good strong espresso coffee but here it is accompanied by a typical Sardinian liqueur - il Mirto – made from myrtle berries.

After this banquet, we take a dip in the small bay by way of relaxation and then enjoy a couple of hours sunbathing on the beautiful sandy beach. Finally, we set off on our return journey to Alghero, where our magical voyage had begun, each one of us contentedly mulling over our own personal memories of an unforgettable day.

Sunset. Alghero

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The Land of Men

By Neil Geraghty Inspiration to such writers as Herman Melville and Robert Louis Stevenson, final resting place of Paul Gauguin and Jacques Brel (both of whom spent the last years of their lives there), the remote, sparsely populated Marquesas Islands seem to loom disproportionately large at times in cultural consciousness.

Travellers must be intrepid to experience the islands, but those who seek them out will be rewarded by a taste of the rhythms and delights of old Polynesia.

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The Marquesas Islands, or Henua Enana – the Land of Men, were once feared throughout the Pacific for their tattoo-covered warriors. But on this occasion they were not exactly living up to their manly reputation. I was sitting in a cafÊ on Hiva Oa with Joel, the wonderfully camp head waiter from the cargo cruise ship Aranui 3, and we were deep in conversation about supermodels.

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Dancers on Nuku Hiva

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Aranui 3 - Nuku Hiva

“Kate Mouse, she Eeenglish, I tink”, said Joel.

“Moss”, I replied, correcting his pronunciation.

“Moose, moose”, said Joel, puckering his lips to get the sound right, “I love Kate Moose, but who is she American, I see her on American supermodel TV?” “Tyra Banks”, I chipped in, betraying an unhealthy interest in America’s Next Top Model.

“Yes. Wanna be on top, top”, Joel sang, sashaying his shoulders to the theme tune and doing a very convincing imitation of Tyra.

Joel was himself a strapping Marquesan lad, but also part of the large Mahu community that can be found all over Polynesia. In traditional society, effeminate boys were raised as girls to perform traditional female roles later in life. In the absence of the men folk who were often absent fishing, or at war, their extra strength was extremely useful for the more arduous domestic chores, and their artistic and musical abilities were highly prized. Today, the performing arts in Polynesia are full of Mahu artists and in the hospital-

Aranui 3 - III

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MEAN SANA IN CORPORE SANO - Travel Gouverneur Aranui

ity industry they are renowned for offering the highest levels of service in the Pacific Islands.

Joel was no exception. There’s always an awkward atmosphere when you first join a cruise ship, and the passengers queueing for the welcome lunch on the Aranui were standing in stony silence. With the rattle of a key, the dining room door slowly opened to reveal a beaming Joel dressed in a pink Hawaiian shirt and straw boater festooned with hibiscus flowers. He instantly won the hearts of all the passengers and at each meal would open the door to thunderous applause and flashing cameras, twirl around in a new colour coordinated outfit while pointing to himself and feigning surprise in true Hollywood starlet fashion.

The Aranui is legendary in French Polynesia and is the life blood of the Marquesas Islands, the most remote and arguably the most beautiful archipelago in the world. Fifteen times a year this sturdy cargo freighter heroically navigates some of the toughest seas in the Pacific, and is the sole source of supplies for the lesser islands. The stern of the ship has been adapted into a comfortable floating hotel full of old time South Seas charm.

For the more intrepid traveller, it offers a unique opportunity to experience

the stunning landscapes and culture of the Marquesas Islands which, bearing in mind the almost non-existent sea and air communications between islands, is almost impossible to achieve in any other way.

French Polynesia covers an area the size of Europe, and it takes three days sailing to reach the Marquesas from Papeete, the tiny bustling capital “city” on the island of Tahiti.

On the third day, we arrived at the magically beautiful island of Ua Pou whose skyline of basalt, phallic-shaped mountains is typical of the contorted landscapes of this volcanic island chain. Following breakfast, during which I almost choked to death on an omelette after a student waitress whacked me with her hips while dancing a spirited hula, we went ashore for a song and dance display staged by the villagers of Hakehau. The gentle undulating movements of the girls were mesmerising but, in common with the other islands we visited, were only a prelude to the guys – who with skimpy pareus (sarongs), grass leggings and immaculate early-90s, boy-band blond highlights were straining at the leash to perform the Haka war dance. The next fifteen minutes of grunting, chest beating, thigh slapping and lunging at the audience made the All Blacks look like a bunch of Dancing with the Stars contestants and had the sizeable contingent of elegant retired French DANTEmag n.5

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Marquesian church Ua Pou Island

ladies dressed in floaty linen squealing with delight.

The Aranui visits all six of the inhabited Marquesan Islands, and its sedate itinerary gives you ample time to enjoy breathtaking hikes and trips to mysterious archaeological sites guided by guest lecturers. More adventurous passengers can book optional deep-sea dives to waters teeming with hammerhead sharks, horse-riding excursions on sturdy chestnut brown Chilean horses, and even arrange to have a tattoo done.

Among the first things you notice in the Marquesas are the exquisite swirling tattoos. These range from goggle-eyed tiki (ancestral spirits) to stylised manta rays representing protection at sea, and freedom. The artistry and workmanship of Marquesan tattoo artists are world famous but it’s an art form that only recently came back from the brink of extinction. Early 19th Century engravings depict islanders covered from head to toe in tattoos, including on their lips and ears. But when conservative Catholic missionaries arrived on the islands they banned the tradition. By the time Gauguin arrived in Hiva Oa in 1897, Marquesan culture had all but vanished and his paintings of languid island life are noticeably tattoo free. It was only in 1986 DANTEmag n.5

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that the church lifted the ban, sparking a revival in Marquesan tattooing that has spread like wildfire throughout the Pacific.

Felix and Edwin Fii, brothers on the verdant island of Tahuata are two of the most renowned tattoo artists in French Polynesia and are also master bone carvers producing exquisite shark-bone pendants covered in intricate nautical motifs. It’s worth remembering if you do decide on a tattoo that you won’t be able to go swimming for a couple of weeks, as the salt water will affect the scarring process. If you’re planning a few days snorkelling in one of French Polynesia’s legendary lagoons you can leave the tattoo until you return to Papeete, where you’ll find several acclaimed Marquesan tattoo artists upstairs in the Marché de Papeete.

However enjoyable it might be visiting these remote islands on board the Aranui, you can’t really fully appreciate Polynesian island life without actually staying on an island. En route back to Papeete, the Aranui passes through the Tuamotus, the largest atoll chain in the world and makes its final port of call at Rangiroa, described by Jacques Cousteau as the most beautiful lagoon in the world. The cold seas surrounding the Marquesas have prevented any

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Dancing the Haka Ua Pou Island

extensive coral growth, and the islands lack the spectacular reef life that Polynesia is world famous for. The Tuamotus on the other hand are home to countless pristine coral lagoons where you can enjoy some of the best snorkelling and scuba diving on the planet.

One of the most enjoyable ways to experience the Tuamotus is to stay at a family run pension. The Tevahine Dream in Rangiroa is one of the loveliest. The owner, Norbert, made his fortune in business and, more for a hobby than out of necessity, built a handful of beautiful Polynesian-style guest huts just metres from Rangiroa’s turquoise lagoon. Guests are always welcome to join him and his charming sons on his daily fishing trips and each day he dropped me off on an isolated reef where I’d drift along in the slow moving current, swimming amongst shoals of butterfly fish with the odd manta ray floating serenely by. An hour or so later he’d pick me up and, laden with fish, we’d return to the guest house to prepare the evening’s barbeque. There, sitting under a blaze of stars listening to chirping geckos and the gentle lapping of the lagoon, it was easy to slip into the languid Pacific Life of Riley immortalised by Gauguin a hundred years ago and still going strong today.

Marquesan Dancers posing for photos

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The Magic of Wine, Inside-Out

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By Elisa T. Keena

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The health benefits of wine, although known for centuries, have gained renewed interest in the recent past, with enthusiasts and experts citing the benefits of this “functional food” in many areas of both internal and external health. Wine benefits us both inside and out.

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For centuries wine has been recognised and adored as an alchemical, mystical gift from the gods. Like other manna or ambrosia, it aids in health and pleasure, in illness and disease, and in birth and death. It transforms sickness to vitality, calms the nerves, aids in digestion, clarifies the skin, and enhances the pleasures of life. The salutary effects of wine consumption on the body and soul, in health and disease, are well documented in our histories. It has been used as an antiseptic, an alternative to drinking water, a cure for lethargy, diarrhea, digestive distress, and the pain of child birth, to name a few.

The history of wine is long and diverse. It is mentioned in the Bible more than any other beverage. (Genesis 9:20: “Noah began to be a husbandman and planted a vineyard.”) Sumerian texts dating back to 2200 BC include recipes for wine-based medicines. The great explosion of Vesuvius which covered Pompeii with volcanic ash in 79 AD buried more than 200 wine bars in that city. Egyptians were the first to make glass containers to hold their wines (around 15,000 BC) and to make a cork stopper (4000 BC). Plato believed that “Nothing more excellent nor more valuable than wine was ever granted

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MENS SANA IN CORPORE SANO - health Mankind.” Hippocrates recommended wine as part of a healthy diet and as a disinfectant. Hildegarde von Bingen used wine to treat many gastrointestinal diseases in 12th century. Its history and uses are endless and timeless.

Part of the reason for the recent resurgence of interest in the healing properties of the vine is the French Paradox. It’s been found that typical French diets are higher in fat, saturated fat and cholesterol than many other cuisines, but the French have a lower risk of cardiovascular disease than other populations. The Mediterranean diet, based on fatty foods

Disease State Cardiovascular disease

such as oils, fish, and cheese, and wine results in a decreased risk of heart attack and stroke even though a higher fat content is ingested. Now there are many benefits to both cuisines but they also both regularly enjoy and partake of the fruits of the vine with their meals.

Once again science is proving what your grandmother and her mother and then her mother, back into antiquity, knew - and what the Buddha recommended: moderation! Wine in moderation is good for the body and the soul. But what is it about wine that increases health and what exactly

Biological Activity Atherosclerosis Heart attack Stroke

Direct antioxidant activity Binds free radicals.

Stops inflammatory white blood cells from binding to the vascular wall.

Stops vascular smooth muscle cell proliferation.

Stops platelet aggregation – clumping.

Stimluates ENOS activity – vasodilation.

Cancer Cells

Breast Prostate Stomach Colon Pancreatic Thyroid

May function as estrogen agonist/antagonist (same function or opposite function) depending on circumstances.

Stops activity of CytochromeP450 – an enzyme that, when it interacts with certain compounds, can make them carcinogenic.

Aids normal cell cycle regulation – when cells are damaged the cycle stops for repair or destruction. Defective cell cycle regulation leads to increased mutation in the cell that can contribute to the development of cancer.

Normal cycle cycle stops this.

Anti-inflammation Anti-angiogenesis – the process by which a tumour cell develops new blood vessels in order to grow.

Stops enzymes that increase tumour invasion of normal tissue.

Anti-inflammatory effects

Multiple areas: Skin Connective tissue Joints Cancer Cardiovasculature

Stops cellular proliferation.

Aids apoptosis (normal cell death).

Longevity

In addition to caloric restriction in animals and cells

Stimulates the activity or the SIR2 enzyme which extends the number of times a cell can normally reproduce in cell cultures.

Blunts age-related decline in heart and lung function.

Lungs

Brain

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COPD Emphysema Chronic Bronchitis

Increases lung function by 1.5% with one glass of wine a day, and up to 3% with 3 glasses of wine. Could add one to two years to a person’s life.

31 % less chance of developing dementia with moderate wine consumption than abstainers

MENS SANA IN CORPORE SANO - health Category

Class

Phenolic Acids Flavonoids

Food sources other than wine Wine

Flavones

sweet red pepper, celery

Quercitin

tea, onions, apples,

Catechins and Tannins

tea, green tea, chocolate, cocoa oranges, citrus fruits

Hesperetin

soya beans and soya protein

Isoflavones

red fruits, cherries, plums, strawberries, raspberries, blackberries, grapes, currants

Anthocyanines

Apples, pears, grapes, red wine, tea

Proanthocyanidins

In his play Semele or Dionysus, Eubulus has Dionysus say, “Three bowls do I mix for the temperate: • In his play Semele or Dionysus, Eubulus has Dionysus say, “Three bowls do I mix for the temperate: • One to health, which they empty first • The second is to love and pleasure, • The third to sleep . . . [then] wise guests go home.

• The fourth bowl is ours no longer but belongs to violence, • The fifth to uproar, • The sixth to drunken revel, • The seventh to black eyes • The eighth is the policeman’s, • The ninth belongs to biliousness, and • The tenth to madness and hurling the furniture. is meant by moderation? What makes this alchemical ambrosia from the gods such a fountain of youth and vitality?

First, let’s discuss moderation. Moderation has a history almost as long as wine! Depending on where you are it can be anywhere from two to five glasses of wine per day. In the Northern European countries two to three glasses a day are considered enough; in Southern Europe and the Mediterranean, it’s five glasses; in the United States, only two. In Ancient Greece, the poet Eubulus (ca. 375 BC) believed that three bowls of wine was the ideal amount of wine per day. Each bowl contained about eight fluid oz. or 250 ml of wine, which is about the same amount as a wine bottle today.

Well, it seems that the definition of moderation has not changed much over the centuries. Once again the grandmothers and the Buddha are right. Take

Lignans

Enterodiol

Flaxseed

Stilbenes

Resveratrol

Red Wine

the middle road of moderation.

Wine is filled with polyphenols. These chemical compounds are found in the skin of the grapes. Red wine has higher concentrations of polyphenols as it is in contact with grape skins longer than is white wine during the wine making process. Wine polyphenols in particular, have complex chemical structures, which make them distinct from other antioxidants in our diet.

These unique structures contribute to their increased antioxidant capacity and determine their bioavailability, metabolism, and absorption. There are over two hundred different polyphenols in four ounces of wine.

Wine should be held in the mouth and relished because it is here that the absorption of health-promoting polyphenols begin. It is thought that 75100% of ingested polyphenols are absorbed and digested in the gastrointestinal tract. To maintain high blood levels of polyphenols it is necessary to have repeated intake of wine. They do not hang around long. We may consume approximately 200 mg to one gramme of different polyphenols in our daily diet as compared to a combined intake of 100 mg of vitamins C, E and beta carotene.

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Categories, Classes and Sources of Polyphenols.

Category

Class

Phenolic Acids Flavonoids

Food sources other than wine Wine

Flavones

sweet red pepper, celery

Quercitin

tea, onions, apples,

Catechins and Tannins

tea, green tea, chocolate, cocoa oranges, citrus fruits

Hesperetin

soya beans and soya protein

Isoflavones

red fruits, cherries, plums, strawberries, raspberries, blackberries, grapes, currants

Anthocyanines

Apples, pears, grapes, red wine, tea

Proanthocyanidins Lignans

Enterodiol

Flaxseed

Stilbenes

Resveratrol

Red Wine

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radicals, which can lead to (under the right circumstances and with the right genetics) illness, disease, and signs and symptoms of ageing. There is documented proof that polyphenols play a role in protecting against cardiovascular disease (CVD), certain cancers, lung function, and dementia. Resveratrol is found mostly in grape skins and wines, and in smaller quantities in grape juice, mulberries, and peanuts. It’s a naturally occurring phyoalexin, an antibiotic produced by plants to defend against diseases like fungal infection. It’s been used in Chinese and Japanese medicine for centuries against heart disease. It is also known to impede cancer, have anti-inflammatory properties and possibly stimulate sirtuin proteins that seem to have the ability to boost the mitochondria – the power house of the cells – so that they live longer and work better.

Cardiovascular Disease Prevention Resveratrol and Wine Polyphenols appear to help decrease CVD risk through a number of mechanisms. It is thought that it stops LDL, the “bad” cholesterol, from interacting (being oxidized) with free radicals (loose electrons trying to find a home). These free radicals are clingy thieves that wreak havoc on the body and start a chain reaction of destruction.

When the free radicals steal an electron from LDLs, LDLs migrate to the lining of the artery and start the process of plaque formation. There is an injury to the artery, inflammatory white blood cells and their agents

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tate, stomach, colon, pancreatic and thyroid cancers in animals. One way is through the same mechanism as in cardiovascular disease: by stopping free radicals.

There are certain compounds that are harmless in the body until they interact with an enzyme that then makes them carcinogens. Resveratrol seems to decrease the activity of these enzymes in the body leading to fewer possible carcinogens. It also helps the cells to repair themselves by normalising the cell cycle of damaged cells. This allows the body either to heal or destroy the damaged cells and reduce the copying of cells with mutations. This can decrease cancer risk.

Lungs

converge in the area. Subsequently fats, cholesterol, and platelets clump together and a narrowing of the artery begins. Eventually, as this process is repeated, smooth muscle cells multiply more than normal and the artery becomes completely occluded – blocked. Hence a heart attack or stroke occurs. Visualise a bad wound or cut with a scab over it that keeps getting re-injured instead of healing. You are left with a big patch of scar tissue instead of skin.

It turns out that the phenolic acids in red wine, specifically Resveratrol, stop or slow this process and decrease the ability of platelets to clump together. It grabs the free radicals (stopping their search for a home), stops the LDL/free radical interaction, stops the inflammatory agents from being able to bind to the artery walls, and stops muscles cells of the arteries from multiplying.

Resveratrol also has an effect on relaxation in the vascular system. Nitric oxide is needed to maintain relaxation in the arteries. It is formed by the enzyme ENOS and the lining of veins and arteries in our bodies. If there is not enough nitric oxide or the system doesn’t function well there is increased risk of CVD. Guess what? Resveratrol has been found to stimulate ENOS activity. Anyone who ever drank a glass of wine knows that there is a lot of relaxing going on!

Cancer Resveratrol also appears to have positive effect on cancer cells. It has been found to affect a number of types of cancer cells including breast, pros-

Resveratrol has been shown to improve lung function in people with emphysema, Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Disease (COPD), or bronchitis.

In one study of 1500 men and women, lung capacity increased by 1.5 % with one glass of wine a day, which could add one to two years to your life.

Mind Wine has also been shown to decrease dementia . A study of 6000 people found that people who did not drink had twice the chance of developing dementia as people who drank moderately.

Longevity and Health There also appears to be some interaction between Sir2 enzymes and Resveratrol. Sir2 enzymes are the enzymes that are responsible for increased lifespan and blunted age-related decline in heart function, when there is a caloric restriction. I’ll take wine and decreased calories for longer life.

Resveratrol acts as an anitinflammatory, causing a reduction in the swelling of collagen, connective tissue, skin disruptions, redness, and glycalation of the skin, which can result in stiffness and wrinkles.

This leads us to the OUT of wine – the effects on our external health.

There are number of companies that have added wine and resveratrol to their cosmetics to enhance the look and feel of skin. They have found that not only ingesting these compounds but also topically applying them to the skin has a similar effect on skin cells and collagen that they have on the inside of the body.

They act as an antioxidant and moisturiser on the skin, binding free radicals that cause the signs of aging, wrinkles, decreased collagen, dark spots and dehydration.

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One of these companies is Caudalíe. A French company established in 1995

by Bertrand and Mathilde Thomas. The have formulated three patented vinotherapies from the fruits of their family vineyard in Bordeaux.

1. Grape seed polyphenols (OPC) is the most potent antioxidant in the vegetable world.

2. Grapevine Resveratrol is a powerful antidote to damage, and aids in cell renewal.

3. Viniferine protects and repairs skin with dark spots.

They also have organic grape water, grape seed oil and vinolevure. Grape water is rich in polysaccharides and possesses uber-moisturising and soothing properties for the skin. Grape seed oil in rich in Omega 6, and vitamin E which regenerates and intensely nourishes dehydrated skin. Vinolevure is extracted from the walls of the wine yeast and is capable of retaining up to 100 times its volume in water. It reinforces the skin’s immune defences.

All of the products and suppliers have to live up to the company’s “COSMETHICS.” These cosmetics contain no animal ingredients, parabens, phthalates, mineral oils or synthetic colourings. The company began in 2012 to donate 1% of its annual turnover to a fund to support reforestation of the rainforests, develop a sustainable and fair trade palm and shea butter industry, and work with small local growers to produce exceptional ingredients. Healthy, sustainable products that do an excellent job and promote the environment are the ones I love to use!

You can also visit one of the Caudalíe Day spas. The original idea came from the family vineyards - Chateau Smith Haut Lafitte in the Bordeaux area of France. They have locations at the vineyard in Bordeaux and Paris, Bilbao, Turkey, Brazil, and New York City. The aim of the spa is to give the clients a glimpse into the paradise of the vineyard filling their senses with the scents and tastes of wine. Flowers, relaxing music and the tactile experiDANTEmag n.5

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ence of the Caudalíe spa are signature experiences. These may include a barrel bath, the wine makers’ massage, a honey and wine wrap, fresh cabernet grape scrub or vinosource facial treatment with fresh grapes.

I have visited Caudalíe’s New York City spa which is located in the Plaza Hotel. You leave the hustle and bustle of New York’s Fifth Avenue and enter an atmosphere of timeless decadence and peace. The rooms are decorated in stone and wood, connecting you to the feeling of the earth and vines. Floating in a cocoon of relaxation, you imbibe a glass of wine from the family vineyard. You experience one of the signature treatments –perhaps the crushed cabernet scrub, which combines grape seeds, honey, and brown sugar that are then massaged into the body to stimulate circulation and drainage of excess toxin, followed by an application of a body lotion to restore the skins radiance. Or perhaps you’d prefer the fresh grape massage, which combines a massaging technique with fresh grapes to release flaky dry skin, soothe and invigorate. Or try the Grand Cru Facial which uses the vinotherapy massage technique personalised for your skin. It sends you to nirvana. . .. Leaving the spa relaxed, renewed, with beautiful brillant radiant skin I have to ponder . . . the magical, alchemical mystery of the vine cannot be denied – inside or out.

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Wine quotes: 1. Alfonso of Aragon on age “It appears best in four things old wood to burn, old.

Wine to drink, old friends to trust and old authors to read.”

2. Petronius “Wine is life”

6. Babylonian Talmund Babba Buthra “Wine is at the head of all medicine. Where wine is lacking, drugs are necessary” 7. Luke 5 :39 “No man having drunk old wine straightway desireth new for he saith “ the old is better”

3. Sir Robert Scott Caywood “ Compromises are for relationships not wine”

8. Sammuel Johnson “Wine makes a man more pleased with himself - I do not say it makes him more pleasing to others”

4. Horace “Wine brings to light the hidden secrets of the soul, gives, being to our hopes, bids the coward flight, drive dull cares away, teaches new means for accomplishment of our wishes”

9. Napoleon “Clearly the pleasures wine affords are transitory but so are those of a ballet or a musical performance. Wine is inspiring and adds greatly to the joy of leaving”

5. Bishop of Seville “I have enjoyed great health at a great age because everyday since I can remember I have consumed a bottle of wine except when I have not felt well then I have consumed two!”

10. Psalms 104:14 “He makes the grass grow for cattle,plants for man to cultivate bringing forth food from the earth and wine that makes glad the heart of man” DANTEmag n.5

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The Right Carbohydrates

If you’re looking to lose weight by cutting out carbohydrates, hold your horses! Some carbs will help you hit your goal and be beach-ready for the summer.

It’s the wrong carbs you want to eliminate. Chef of celebrities Marco Pernini teaches you all about right and wrong.

S

Summer is again knocking on our doors, and I can already feel the panic of people preparing for the “beach diet.” Many of us are already thinking of joining the gym to get rid of those extra pounds and of cutting down on carb intake. When I hear this, I go crazy!

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First of all, we should keep going to the gym – or do some kind of exercise – all year round so that we don’t have to put our bodies and minds under the pressure of losing weight in the two or three months before we hit the beaches. Second, it is not healthy to eliminate all of a sudden a whole food group i.e. carbs. It is too much of a shock to the system. You will feel the cold turkey of a heavy smoker who has just stopped smoking and is craving nicotine.

A carbohydrate is an organic compound made of carbon, hydrogen and oxygen. Carbs are divided into four major categories, or chemical groups: monosaccharides, disaccharides, oligosaccharides, and polysaccharides. The word saccharide comes from the Greek sakkharon, and means “sugar.”

Historically, nutritionists have classified carbohydrates as either simple or complex. However, the exact delineation of these categories is ambiguous. Today, “simple carbohydrate” typically refers to monosaccharides and disaccharides, and “complex carbohydrate” means polysaccharides and oligosaccharides. However, the term complex carbohydrate was first used in a slightly different context in the U.S. Senate Select Committee on Nutrition and Human Needs publication Dietary Goals for the United States (1977).

In this work, complex carbohydrates were defined as “fruit, vegetables and whole-grains.”

Some nutritionists use “complex carbohydrate” to refer to any sort of digestible saccharide present in a whole food, where fibre, vitamins and minerals are also found (as opposed to processed carbohydrates, which provide calories but few other nutrients). Some simple carbohydrates (e.g. fructose) are digested very slowly, while some complex carbohydrates (starches), espeDANTEmag n.5

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cially if processed, raise blood sugar rapidly.

The speed of digestion is determined by a variety of factors including which other nutrients are consumed with the carbohydrate, how the food is prepared, individual differences in metabolism, and the chemistry of the carbohydrate.

Exaggeration always has its consequences. So eating too much will inevitably result in your gaining weight, regardless of what kind of food you eat.

Low carb diets have had a lot of publicity, but if we take a look at the percentage per gramme, carbohydrates contain fewer calories than fat, protein and alcohol: • • • •

1g carbohydrate contains 3.75 calories.

1g protein contains 4 calories.

1g fat contains 9 calories.

1g alcohol contains 7 calories.

Sugar and starch are found in both healthy and ‘unhealthy’ foods, so it’s the type of carbohydrate you eat that has an impact on your well-being.

•

•

Many high-sugar foods (cakes, pastries, chocolate) are also high in fat or are prepared with fat (chips, fried potatoes, some sandwiches).

Starchy foods, such as wholegrain bread, pasta etc, are rich in fibre, which is essential for digestive health; it also helps control appetite so you don’t feel hungry.

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is good for adding to soups and it looks a lot like couscous. If you’re avoiding wheat, millet is a good substitute.

Carbohydrates are very important in our diet as they provide a good source of daily energy. The secret is to eat the “right” ones.

Have you tried adding grains to your everyday diet? They are very easy to digest, they provide a great deal of energy, and you never feel bloated. Here are some healthy grains I recommend for weekly intake: •

One of my favourites is short-grain brown rice. A natural whole grain with a distinctive mild, nutty flavour, it is chewier and more nutritious than white rice. You can boil it or pressure-cook it and keep it in the fridge for up to three days to add it to your meals as you please.

•

Quinoa originates in Peru. It is a very mild grain-like crop grown primarily for its edible seeds. It contains a very high level of protein (18%) and a good balance of amino acids. It is a pseudo cereal rather than a true cereal, or grain, as it is not a member of the grass family. I recommend quinoa to people who do a lot of weight lifting because of the protein and amino acids it contains.

•

•

Pearl barley is barley processed to remove its hull and bran. Barley must have its fibrous outer hull removed before it can be eaten.

Pearl barley is processed a step further, polished to remove the nutritious bran layer. It is very similar to Wheat, but much easier on the digestive system. Also, pearl barley cooks much more quickly than hulled barley. I love it in soup, or simply as a side grain instead of rice.

•

Whole-wheat pasta is loaded with vitamins and minerals and contains two to three times as much fibre as refined-wheat pasta.

It contains more proteins as well, and is easier to digest. You need less of it to maintain energy levels.

Once you are using these types of carbs all year round, you won’t feel bad eating normal pasta or a large pizza from time to time. In fact you should push the limits from time to time. I do! After all we’re all human and we NEED to be naughty occasionally. But if you keep a healthy balance and a little discipline all year round, you won’t find it hard, when summertime comes, to shed the extra weight you’ve accumulated during the year. Just keep an eye on it!

If you haven’t cooked any of these grains before, don’t panic. You can get generally good instructions on the packets, and if not, that’s why we have the Internet. Don’t be afraid to experiment. You will get it right in the end.

To give you a leg up, I’ll leave you with a basic recipe which should appeal to almost everybody. Its simplicity gives you the freedom to add more vegetables, fish, or meat or even feta cheese, if you like. Or simply have it as a side dish for lunch or dinner. Oh, and let me know how light you feel afterwards.

I cooked this vegetarian salad for world music producer Trevor Horn, CBE, in the recording studio. He LOVED it!

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Quinoa Vegetable Salad INGREDIENTS:

• • • • • • • • • •

1 tbsp extra virgin olive oil 1 cup of quinoa, cooked in 1+1/2 cup of salted water 1 onion, diced 1 carrot, diced 8 French green beans, diced 1 leek, sliced in half and cut lengthways (julienne) 1 fresh tomato, chopped a few leaves of fresh basil a little stock, made with vegetable stock cubes salt and pepper

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METHOD: Cook the quinoa, drain, and put aside.

In a frying pan warm some extra virgin olive oil.

Add the onions and fry until tender.

Add carrots and the rest of the vegetables and fry a little longer. Season with salt and pepper.

Add a little of the stock – just enough to cover the pan – and let it simmer until the vegetables have absorbed the stock. Make sure, however, that they stay a little crunchy.

Add the chopped, fresh tomato and let it reduce. At this point chop the basil and add to the cooked vegetables.

In the same frying pan, add the cooked quinoa, stir well and serve. Use some of the basil to garnish.

Buon Appetito!

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O

NonnoPanda TALES Nonno Panda and the Killer Whale.

One day I got lost in the dark wood, unable to find the right way... around the zoo.

I happened to be passing by the big pool. Seeing that there were no humans around, I thought I’d say hello to my big friend, the Orcinus Orca.

I ventured cautiously into her area, but there was no sign of any swimming mammal.

“Gosh!” I wondered. “Have they moved her to a bigger pool?” I decided to turn back.

All of a sudden I heard a noise of splashing water behind me but it was too late to do anything about it. Basically I got drenched. “I knew it!” I shouted.

“You always do that to me! I should never turn my back on you!”

Orca was looking pretty amused, but I was not amused!

“C’mon, Nonno Panda, don’t be like that! It was just a joke!”

“It’s an old joke, my dear, and a boring one too,” I said, as I tried to shake myself dry.

“I have to get some fun out of this big bath I live in, and you were the perfect opportunity,” she said, giggling.

“And you start a water-bomb fight at the expense of a friend who comes in peace to see you?” I was very cross, but my anger began to fade as I started to think she might have a point. There was not much room in that big pool for a poor whale to swish around. Orcas are quite a hyperactive bunch and need a lot of space to move around in. Otherwise, they get frustrated. But I suppose that’s the same for any animal.

“C’mon, Nonno Panda, sit on the pool edge and talk to me,” she said, looking at me with her usual puppy eyes.

I tried to put myself in her shoes. Would I really be as Zen as I am, if I was confined in such a small space? Of course not! Space is important for any

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animal – that’s why we get so territorial. It’s just that humans don’t understand that. So they rationalise away any dysfunctional behaviour caused by a lack of space by calling it “stress.”

So I didn’t let my anger take over. Taking a big breath, I sat down on the pool’s edge.

“So, what’s up with you?” I asked.

“Oh, Nonno Panda, I’m so sick and tired of living in this place, eating those horrible dead fish they feed me – you can’t imagine!”

“I thought you liked entertaining families and their kids?”

She replied with a quizzical look.

“I do?” she said “ Nonno, what am I supposed to do? Have you any idea what it feels like knowing I’m capable of swimming the seven seas but ending cooped-up in a wet concentration camp like this? This is like a tiny pond for me. Am I making the best of it? I try! Have I got any choice in the matter? No, but sometimes I could kill a human if I vented all my frustration.”

“You wouldn’t do that, would you?” I asked her, worried.

“Well, sometimes I think it’s the only way for humans to realise the conditions we’re being kept in. But don’t worry, I won’t ever do that. I’ve thought of another way,” the Orca said to me with a wink.

I always get uncomfortable when she winks at me like that, as I never know what she means, and I voiced my concern. “What are you plotting then?”

Orca avoided my question by launching herself back into the pool, but then turned around and

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Sea life aquarium San Diego Killer Whale.

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came back towards me.

“I’m thinking of taking legal action against humans,” she said tentatively and backed away, fearing my reaction.

“What? Are you out of your mind?” I said, unable to hide my surprise.

Once she’d edged closer to me again, I leaned over and began stroking her nose to try to get her to see sense.

“Dear friend, I told you not to watch those soap operas on the TV screens you can see through the glass room at the bottom of the aquarium. They’re there to keep the parents entertained when the kids pretend they’re in deep water, looking up at you from down below.”

“Well, they always talk about the Thirteenth Amendment to the Constitution, abolishing slavery in the country in every form. Why shouldn’t that also apply to animals?” she said, totally convinced of her point.

“Because the Constitution is something made by humans for humans, that’s why!” I replied. I felt she was getting a bit carried away. “Holy Nature! You see how dangerous it is to watch telly these days! I can understand you getting bored in this pool but taking on the 13th amendment might be a step too far, don’t you think?”

“Well, it’s too late. I’ve already given instructions to my lawyer, and he says he thinks I have a strong case,” she replied, with immense pride.

“You’ve hired a lawyer?!?” I was almost in shock. “Well! That’s as may be, but are you aware that even if you’ve found a lawyer to take on your case, it doesn’t necessarily mean you’re going to win. That’s the way most unscrupulous lawyers make their money – because you’ll have to pay costs, regardless,” I said, irritated with her for being so naive. I was trying to get her to use her brains, if she had any left. We animals cannot really, fully understand the terms and conditions they add on in that small print, full of those legal words deliberately included by legal departments in order to turn simple things into a nightmare for the gullible, and guarantee a fat cheque for them. Orca, though, didn’t seem to be bothered by any of these considerations at all.

“Nonno Panda, don’t you think I’ve thought of all that already? I’m paying my lawyer on a no-win-no-fee basis.” I gulped at her answer – she obviously had not thought things through.

“So what’s the name of your lawyer then?” I was curious to find out who exactly this man was, as I had an idea she was having me on. “Perry” she said smiling. “Perry Mason” The name sounded familiar, but I couldn’t place him.

She carried on going through what he’d told her about the case he might be able to make. “He claims that the fact they captured me in the ocean, then transferred me into this pool where I’m made an exhibit in front of people is enough to be considered as slavery which is against the law in a civilised country. So Mason is going to request for me to have a jury filled with members of PETA and that I should be released into an environment like a sea park where I can move freely and meet other orcas like me. The Thirteenth Amendment of the Constitution stated on December 6, 1865, that all slavery was to be abolished in all States United territories who signed the agreement.”

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and that doesn’t include “we the animals.” That might make a huge difference for the jury, even if it was made up of these PETA people.

“Who are they anyway?” I asked, since she kept dropping this name into the conversation, as if with them aboard she would be sure of victory.

“They’re part of an organisation of People that campaign for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (go to www.peta.org if you want to find out more)” she said.

“Don’t get me wrong” I explained to her. “It’s not that I don’t want to see you free. I just don’t want you to be disappointed. Why don’t you apply for the rehab scheme instead? It’s a much more viable course of action. You know how humans like to send people to rehab. Maybe you’ll have more luck with that, and the end result would be the same, without you getting stressed out. Because how would you survive a court hearing?”

“Yeah, rehab! The magic word these days! Funny how humans get you hooked on something, force you into cages – or in my case a pool – and leave you to rot there for years till their sense of religious guilt takes over.

Then, just when the animals are getting comfortably high with their new way of living, the rehab fanfare is sounded. ‘Must get the animals back into the wild!’ So they get traumatised once again, having to readjust to another new environment.

“What about prevention?” She started to stand up in the middle of the pool waving her fins almost as if she was on the campaign. “That’s what I’m talking about. I want to expose the hypocrisy of humans. And if the only way to stop animals being captured is to enforce preventative measures, then so be it! Prevention is the buzz word. It’ll stop you being rehabbed. It would save a lot of money, which, in the current economic crises, would benefit one and all. I want to open that Pandora’s Box, so that animal rights are included in the Constitution. That way, any zoo and any environment where animals are used and abused would be made illegal in the States United. It’s a class action, to force humans to be more considerate with us.”

I was speechless. Where did she learn to talk like that? She had quite an imposing presence when she stood up straight; she almost looked like a preacher with her black and white colours. What she said made sense, but how could she expect humans to be forced to respect animals by legislation when they weren’t even capable of respecting each other? That was my fundamental argument, and I tried to put it across to her, but she seemed unable to listen to reason. She was adamant she was going to make the whole of the States United aware of the problem.

She performed well, following her instructions to the letter. That kind of indoctrination saddened me though, however hard I tried to make her see sense. I explained that some zoos actually protect some animal species that would be otherwise extinct in the world. She took it as if I didn’t want her to be free. She was behaving like a politician who feels they have discovered the ideal way to change the world. Although there is some truth in being an activist, my approach has always been to find a solution to any conflict by peaceful means; fundamentalism never helps in achieving that.

So I wished her good luck with her crusade and went on my way, pondering on how gullible we animals can be to think that humans have our best interests at heart. I just hoped that Orcinus Orca would not fall prey to those sharks known as human lawyers.

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Leviathan

By Chris Kline

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With God on our Side, Who Could Be Against Us? Please, Lord, protect us from your followers...

It is the 21st century. We live in an age of reason and science. It is an era of progress governed by rational thought, altruism, tolerance and love of humanity. Ignorance, superstition and prejudice have been stamped out by the triumph of the intellect. The vast knowledge and learning of the collective human mind – disseminated and readily available as in no other juncture in history through the miracle of an unceasing technological revolution – have ended our insularity, excised our irrational phobias and visceral hatreds. Our fear of multiculturalism is no more. Globalisation has made us all brethren of a transnational fabric, one single human tribe of many colors, many voices where our celebration of diversity is the very source of our unity. Our sectarian and racial divisions have been overcome and our common humanity embraced. Religious Puritanism and intolerance are in the ash can of the past. Now we may all worship as we wish, in peace, regardless of our spiritual choices, whether we are atheists, pagans, agnostics or true believers. The inexorable logic, wisdom and justice of secularism that anchors our societal value systems and governance ensures this equilibrium, harmony and peace….

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was THOSE kinds of mushrooms in your Balinese omelette? Well, it might do for a vintage episode of Star Trek as the credo of some supremely advanced alien civilisation deep in the far reaches of the universe; a land populated by vegetarian beings with large bulbous heads so crammed with grey matter that speech is no longer necessary, where all communication is telepathic, and orgasmic sexual congress is achieved between the giant orb beings through atonal humming. But that sure isn’t Planet Earth of any era, much less of today.

It has been a rather long time since the Spanish Inquisition, but Torquemada and all of his many descendants across the spectrum of organised religion (or perhaps better its most pernicious offshoots and distortions) have not gone away, nor have their propensity for violence, and a world view that makes the Grand Inquisitor look like a hippy liberal. The insanity and idiocy of religious faith become perverted zealotry, become extremism, seething hate, murder (or at least the fervent hope of murder) of the unbeliever, the infidel, the apostate, the faith traitor is an equal opportunity, ecumenical, multicultural infirmity of the mind and soul right across the globe of our fuzzy, warm, cuddly, accepting, human civilisation.

You needn’t go any further than the headlines to spy copious evidence of this enduring blight on purported civilisation that consistently gives the lie to the universal tenets anchoring all faiths: that is is to say to do good, to do no evil, to do unto others as you would wish upon yourself, to love thy neighbour. Respect, peace, and love. Love. Love of humanity. Most radical idea.

At a quick glance, as this issue of Dante went to press, a broad array of toxic, faith-based tragic farces revealed themselves on the news wires. Bud-

dhists in Burma kill minority Muslims and burn them out of their homes.

Indian Hindus attack mourners at a Christian funeral. A Lithuanian Archbishop says mass for a quisling, wartime, puppet leader who enabled the Holocaust and praises him as a man of God. Jewish extremists paint graffiti on a church in Jerusalem with the legend “death to Christians.” A Muslim suicide bomber detonates his vest in a Nigerian Church. A Tunisian Salafi vandalises a modernist art exhibit for its “degenerate” art. How very Hitlerian and Stalinist both. And this was just a fast overview. Let us go back a few months and we can wade into the primordial sludge of many more episodes like them. If one really has an appetite for extremist, religious hysteria calling for apocalyptic struggles between the righteous forces of light and the emissaries of Satan, just surf the net a while and you will find all the would-be crusades, jihads and pogroms you would ever wish to consider.

Judged empirically, religious faith is an irrational impulse, even at its most beneficent, because it is credence and adherence to a phenomenon that cannot be scientifically quantified or demonstrated. Of course if religious or mystical spiritual faith is felt, known in the soul of the practitioner, it is beyond all logical explanation. It can neither be denied nor condemned when it is peacefully expressed. It is, after all, a matter of the spirit. But by its sheer irrationality, when the proponents of any sect or tradition (and terrorists and extremists have been spawned by virtually all dominant faiths) judge themselves the keepers of a singular truth above all others, with careful manipulation, ecstatic religious bliss can readily transform into messianic rampage. And quite clearly it still does or hopes to, across the planet, from the deepest strongholds of the Bible belt in the Southern United States, to the Baltic, Scandinavia, the Balkans, the Maghreb, the Hindu Kush and Southeast Asia. Andres Breivik or Mullah Omar – they’re really not so different from one another. Give them pointy hats and ghostly capes and they can be the Klu Klux Klan. Swap the bed sheets for Yarmulke and they could be Gush Emunim. Throw in some different turbans or skullcaps,

change the weaponry, change the scenery, diversify their victims, get the holy man to whip the mob up into a frenzy and crimes against humanity in the name of the creator are as easy as crying, “Heretic!”

How we might rid the world of religious extremism is as perplexing a conundrum to consider as how we might rid the world of any of its extremist leanings, including secularist, political, cultural or racist ideologies that become extremist just as readily as religion turns to fanaticism. To attempt to eradicate extremism effectively without by default adopting extremism as the counter measure is as mystifying. And far too many of our inherent freedoms, where we are lucky enough to have them and live in ostensibly democratic societies, are already being curtailed in far too excessive and draconian a manner, in the name of upholding freedom. We are destroying the village in order to save it all the time. Since 9/11, the United States and the United Kingdom are just two examples of longstanding Western democracies – indeed two of the founding ones – that have so curtailed civil rights, human rights, freedom of expression and the legitimate democratic right to dissent in the name of national security that they have become almost unrecognizable in their constitutional foundations. So we must continue to reject the quiet evolution of the police state dressed in the trappings of democracy, as much as we must condemn and abhor those who transform the rapture of their faith into hatred and bloodshed. We must resist both, but we must keep our cultural hubris in check. When we trumpet our moral superiority over others, when we create a false Manichean truth and re-write historical memory, like the same zealots we decry, we forget that when we speak of “us’ and “them” we are actually staring into a mirror. The propensity for extremism of all forms is our common, dark inheritance. There is only us.

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EMBASSY mayfair Chef Joël Antunès Launches New Restaurant in Landmark Mayfair Site

E Early November 2011 saw the successful launch of “Kitchen Joel Antunes” at Embassy Mayfair under the watchful eye of the eponymous chef, accompanied by business partners Dan Kapp, Jacobi AnstrutherDANTEmag n.5

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Gough-Calthorpe and Timo Weber, along with Mark Fuller, owner of Embassy Mayfair.

This stylish new restaurant has a 95-seat ground-floor with a 40-seat extended terrace. The newly designed interior by Jacobi and Dan has a mood of understated chic, echoing mid20th century Riviera glamour. A classic French patterned limestone-tile flooring complements the light Carrara marble topped bar while the seating sports leather in shades of duck-egg blue,

burgundy and champagne. A collection of Slim Aarons prints hang alongside contemporary art pieces, including a couple of Tracey Emin neons.

Joël Antunes was born in Volvic, France, and worked in a number of prestigious French kitchens, namely “Ledoyen”, with Paul Bocuse at “L’Auberge du Pont de Collonges”, with Marc Meneau at “L’Esperance”, Michel Troisgros, Jacques Maximin for a decade before moving

to London in 1991. He opened “Les Saveurs”, in Curzon Street, Mayfair, to incredible critical acclaim, gaining a Michelin star in 1994. He then moved to the USA, and launched “Joël” in Atlanta, Georgia, in 1999, which swiftly became one of the most talked-about restaurants in the country. He returned to the UK to open “Brasserie Joël” at the Westminster Park Plaza in March 2010 “Kitchen Joël Antunès” show-

“Kitchen Joël Antunès” is open Monday to Saturday.

29 Old Burlington Street, Mayfair, London W1S 3A.

cases a largely Provençal-based menu. Typical dishes include Jerusalem artichoke velouté with poached eggs and truffles, traditional Niçoise salad, pissaladière comme à Menton, octopus salad with caponata, shrimp piperade with basil, traditional coq au vin, osso bucco gremolata, sweetbreads with porcini, and roast sea bass with lemon.

Desserts feature some classics and also some whimsical offerings, including tarte tatin with vanilla, poached pear with

Reservations number 020-7494 5660. www.embassymayfair.com.

yogurt sorbet, chocolat liegois with nougatine, baked Alaska, and Kit-Kat peanut bar. A wine list of approximately 140 bins concentrate on the major European wine-growing regions.

In addition, coffee and pastries are served from 11am til noon and in the afternoon each day while a light menu is available after official last food orders at 11 p.m. to accompany your late night drinks with a licence until 1.30 am

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