In the Labyrinth

Putting Together My Father's Research With The Photos: West Africa 1963-64

 

Balafon performance in the streets of Conakry, Guinea. ©1963 Emile Snyder

 

Among the unique documents that have floated my way over the years was a manilla folder full of gorgeous black and white photographs my father took in the Ivory Coast, which was developed there, and some of them might have also been taken in Senegal, Mali, or Guinea. Among my mother's papers that I received after her death was a carefully cached collection of letters that my parents had written to each other from the fall of 1963 to the spring of 1964 when they were both abroad on Ford and Fulbright grants-- my father to numerous countries in West Africa and my mother to India, Bhutan, and Sikkim.

The letters are fascinating and cringe-worthy in places. One third love letters (with some surprising revelations about their sex life I could have survived never knowing about), one-third about money (there was never enough, and often arriving late, allowing for some desperate nail-biting), and one-third talking about the research and the separate lives they were having on their different continents.

As I read through the research parts of my Dad's letters, I learned a lot about these photographs--especially that he had done many field recordings of musicians, griots, and small village brass bands. He had made friends with prominent African writers at the very start of their careers as authors in 1963, such as Leopold Senghor, President of Senegal, and other writers and poets turned diplomats -- who also gave him music tapes and recordings (especially to the radio stations eager to get their music out to the West as well as Africa.). He sent around 25 videos back to the States with his friend Robert Garfias, an ethnomusicologist Robert Garfias, who then returned them to the Ethnomusicology Archives at the University of Washington, Seattle, WA.

I went looking for the tapes in the archives -- as this was the first I knew they had been adequately given to someone. I was so excited to find them listed here and here. So I will send scans of all the photos (plus more of the notes I discovered in his letters) to the archive there -- delighted that future students will have a chance to see these images and connect them to the music on the tapes. In many ways, the best part of finding all these papers is sharing the great features of their careers with others- to share those moments in history when they saw something, heard something, or wrote something that still matters.

Images are ©1963 Emile Snyder -- please email me at the blog to request permission to use these photos.

Marginalia: Kissing Snails

Wouldn't it be wonderful if we could publish our novels with such lovely marginalia? There is something so unexpectedly tender about these two snails meeting and kissing in the margin. Marginalia art has a vital life of its own -- existing side by side with text but not necessarily commenting on the reader. It's the mind reading and wandering a little bit, hearing the whispered words in the head, but delighting in the visual art that sidetracks and then returns one to the text, refreshed. And all in a matter of moments.

Art: Bibliothèque municipale de Lyon, Ms 6881, detail of f. 72. Book of Hours, use of Chalon. 15th century.

Daniel Mitsui: Bookplates

I discovered Daniel Mitsui , an American-Japanese artist through one of my favorite blogs that has now sadly has disappeared. Mitsui is an artist in Chicago who concentrates on sacred artwork in the medieval tradition as well as biological illustrations. His work, painstaking and gorgeous black and white illustrations, are all done in pen and ink and by hand. I have posted an example of his beautiful bookplates

 

 

   The beautiful color work below is Mitsui's Japanese vision of the Angels' battle against Satan. 

 

                                                        

Tintoretto and The Origin of the Milky Way

 

This is a really gorgeous painting by Jacopo Tintoretto depicting the "Origin of the Milky Way, 1575-1580." Jupiter (Zeus) seeks to give immortality to his son, Hercules, conceived during an illicit affair with a mortal woman Alcmene. He knows that only the breast milk of a goddess can accomplish such a thing and as luck would have it Juno (Hera) is lactating. Jupiter discovers Juno sleeping and attempts to latch the baby to her breast -- thinking she might not notice (really? ) When she wakes and pulls her breast away from the feeding infant, her milk sprays into the heavens and produces the stars. (Click on the image to see a larger version)

Here is a wonderful and incredibly informative little podcast about The Origin of the Milky Way from Karen Allen of the National Gallery in England exploring the wealth of creation myths alluded to in the painting (including the origin of lillies) and lovely details about Tintoretto's artistic storytelling. It's fabulous.

Basile's Remarkable Introductions to the Tales

 

Would that I could begin a novel with such a splendid introduction as this frame story for Basile's entire collection of tales: 

"It is an established proverb, one of ancient coinage, that he who seeks what he shouldn't, finds what he doesn't want; and it is known that the monkey, by shoeing himself with boots, remained caught by the feet, as happened to a ragged slave who never having worn shoes on her feet, wanted to put a crown on her head. But because the grindstone takes off all the rough spots, and there comes a day when everything is paid for, in the end, she who by evil ways had usurped what was meant for others was caught in the wheel of kicks, and the higher she had risen to the top, the greater was her precipitous fall..."

What I love about this quote is how well it describes an archetypal character in many folktales from many cultures: the false bride whose role is to temporarily assume the part meant for the true bride while at the same time giving the true bride an opportunity to complete her rite of passage before making herself known to the groom. The false bride is usually pretty ugly, or in the case of Basile's frame story, she is a "cricket-legged slave girl" --and sufficient to make the groom miserable until he finally discovers the true bride.