Clervaux, Luxembourg: visiting The Family of Man

On July 28, Sophia and I boarded a train bound for the small town of Clervaux in Luxembourg. My dear friend Lynn had asked me several months ago if I would like to meet her there to visit a unique photography exhibit known as The Family of Man.  I am always up for adventures that involve new discoveries and opportunities to spend time with good friends, so the answer was a resounding “Yes!”

Lynn was driving from her home in Bendorf, Germany, with her daughter Natalie who is exactly Sophia’s age and also preparing to leave home for university.  Both of our daughters will study psychology: Sophia in Glasgow, Scotland and Natalie in the city of Luxembourg…..but I am getting sidetracked!  

Our train was bound for Liège, a pleasant Belgian city in Wallonia that I had visited with Lynn in May. She had a personal curiosity that drew her there as one of her ancestors had spent her childhood in Liège, and had memories of sliding down the famous Montagne de Beuren in winter. The ‘Montagne’ is actually a stairway of 374 steps lined with houses whose doorways open onto the steep hill with an average grade of 28%.  We made the climb, and had a commanding view of the city and its river La Meuse.  But that was another trip… I have been sidetracked once again….back to our train journey to Luxembourg….

 

It was a beautiful summer day, and after a quick train change in Liège (only 6 minutes between!), we were soon gliding along through the Ardennes.  The Ardennes are located in southeastern Belgium, and are the closest Belgium gets to having mountains, though they are more like rolling hills.  They are beautiful in any season, covered with forests and rocky outcroppings.  The Meuse River winds its way through this region carving out a natural path through the mountains that our train seemed to follow.  From the window, I spotted kayakers here and there, and I was surprised to see that the river looked high despite our mild winter. 

Approaching the chateau of Clervaux

Upon our arrival at the Clervaux train station, I had requested to be picked up by our hotel which offered a free shuttle service.  Sophia and I stepped off the platform and walked around the tiny station to the front entrance, looking for the type of shuttle van one normally expects…..nowhere to be seen.  I noticed a man dressed neatly all in black leaning against a black car. He appeared to be smiling at us, but I remained unconvinced until he made a slight gesture toward us.  “Vous êtes de l’Hôtel International?” The reply was affirmative, and it was only as we stepped into the vehicle that I saw the name Jaguar on the door!  

Lynn had reserved rooms in a hotel with a pool and spa, so we had the chance to go for a swim later that afternoon before dinner.  In the meantime, we met up with her and Natalie shortly after arriving.  We took a quick look around the town center, had lunch, and then decided to head out in Lynn’s car to search for a community garden that she had read about in the city of Wiltz.

http://tourisme.wiltz.lu/attractions-gggg/culture/jardin-de-wiltz/

We reached Wiltz with no difficulties, but despite posters advertising “Le Jardin de Wiltz “prominently displayed around the town, there was no indication of how to get there…not even an address! I approached a man at a bus stop, but he was not the ‘garden type, ‘and had no idea what I was talking about.  A second attempt was more promising.  An older gentleman responded to my query, and in heavily accented French explained that we were in Wiltz-Bas (Lower Wiltz) and the garden was in Wiltz-Haut.  He pointed to the road leading up a steep hill behind us, and said we would see indications along the way.  Once more we set out, but still found no indications in the upper town. We found ourselves turning the car around in the parking lot of an industrial plant where an exiting employee, seeing our German license plates, gave directions to Lynn in German.  After another tour of the countryside and a brief rain shower, and passing once again in front of the aforementioned factory, we finally parked and walked to the garden, undaunted. Built in terraces into the side of a steep hill, Le Jardin de Wiltz was initiated in 1983 as a cooperative effort undertaken by handicapped and unemployed artists and artisans and it is still maintained by the cooperative today with the goal to promote projects which integrate art, social integration, education, and rural development.  We found it charming and original in its use of local stone and recycled materials to create an atmosphere of calm and beauty.

 

       

 

crocosmia

Lady's Mantle

These handhewn stones looked like grave markers...so I photographed them in color accent!

  Our main objective for this trip was to visit the permanent photography exhibit housed in the Chateau of Clervaux.  It opened only at 12:00 on Wednesday, so after breakfast, we determined to hike up to the Benedictine Abbey of Clervaux, located just above the town and connected by a footpath through the forest.  The monks live in a quiet communion of strict prayer, but welcome visitors who wish to join them for short stays to experience monastic life.  They sing Gregorian chant, and have several initiatives to help sustain them, including the roasting and packaging of coffee beans, and the production of their own delicious natural apple juice.

http://www.abbaye-clervaux.lu/fr/bienvenue/

I forgot to mention that on our way up the path, we were joined by a little furry friend who insisted on following us all the way to the abbey, where he then paused and retreated when we entered the abbey grounds.  (See photos!)                              

 

l'Abbaye Saint Maurice in Clervaux

 We descended to the village and began our visit of The Family of Man, an exhibit conceived and created by the Luxembourg-born Edward Steichen.  The exhibit was originally shown at MOMA (The Museum of Modern Art) in New York in 1955, and was met with such enthusiasm that the 503 photographs by 273 artists from 68 countries was duplicated and toured the world throughout the 1950s and 60s postwar period, viewed by more than 10 million visitors.  The exhibit found a permanent home in Clervaux, remaining in Luxembourg as the bequest of Steichen himself.

The Family of Man seeks to illustrate the common threads of humanity that link us all, traversing life’s stages from birth to death and examining human relationships , joys, trials and tribulations as they are experienced by people everywhere.  The exhibit declares itself as “a manifesto for peace and the fundamental equality of mankind throughout the world.” Though some of the images are by renowned photographers such as Ansel Adams, Robert Capa, Henri Cartier-Bresson, Robert Doisneau, and Dorothea Lange, the majority were culled from over two million submissions made by amateur and professional photographers from all over the globe.  From this enormous cache, the curators had the difficult task to reduce the number to 10,000, and ultimately to the 503 images which form the permanent exhibit.  In his introduction to the exhibit catalogue, Steichen wrote: “The Family of Man has been created in a passionate spirit of devoted love and faith in man.” 

It was in this spirit that we toured the exhibit, innovative in its day for its mounting of images on frameless, matless stretchers with no glass between the photograph and the viewer. In some instances, smaller images were superimposed onto larger ones, and interspersed among the photographs were quotations that enhanced and unified the images into relevant themes. 

I include some which particularly moved me  here:

…and then I asked him with my eyes to ask again yes

and then he asked me would I yes…

and first I put my arms around him yes

and drew him down to me so he could feel my breasts and all perfume yes

and his heart was going like mad

and yes I said yes I will Yes.

-          James Joyce

(Kate Bush wrote and performed a beautiful song based on this passage.  You can listen to it here. "Sensual World") 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h1DDndY0FLI

With all beings and all things we shall be as relatives      -Sioux Indian

 

The land is a mother that never dies     -Maori

photograph by Ansel Adams, mounted directly on the wall of the museum

 

This is the fire that will help the generations to come, if they use it in a sacred manner.  But if they do not use it well, the fire will have the power to do them great harm.    –Sioux Indian

 

Sing, sweetness, to the last palpitation of the evening and the breeze.  –St. John Perse

Music and rhythm find their way into the secret places of the soul.   –Plato

 

But such is the irresistible nature of truth, that all it asks, and all it wants, is the liberty of appearing.  –Thomas Paine

…the wise man looks into space, and does not regard the small as too little, nor the great as too big; for he knows that there is no limit to dimensions.      –Lao-tze

 

As the generation of leaves, so is that of men.      –Homer

…I am alone with the beating of my heart…    -Lui Chi

Photo of the American Depression by Dorothea Lange

Behold, this dreamer cometh          -Genesis 37:19

……To know that what is impenetrable to us really exists, manifesting itself as the highest wisdom and the most radiant beauty…      -Albert Einstein

….I still believe that people are really good at heart.    –Anne frank, “Diary” (14 years old)

You are the young wonder-tree plant, grown out of ruins.   –Baronga----African Folk Tale

 

….the mind is restless, turbulent, strong and unyielding….as difficult to subdue as the wind.   –Bhagavad-Gita

Fill the seats of justice with good men, not so absolute in goodness as to forget what human frailty is.

 –Sir Thomas Noon Talfound

I know no safe depository of the ultimate powers of society but the people themselves.    –Thomas Jefferson

Behold this and always love it!  It is very sacred, and you must treat it as such…       -Sioux Indian

Flow, flow, flow, the current of life is ever onward….     –Kobodaishi

O wonderful,

wonderful,

and most wonderful wonderful!

and yet again wonderful…

-William Shakespeare

 

Natalie, Lynn and Sophia

Yes indeed!  Wonderful!

Guillemins Train Station designed by Spanish architect Santiago Calatrava in Liège, Belgium

 

On the train ride back to Brussels, I snapped a few shots of the Liège Guillemins station from the train window. It was designed by the well-known Spanish architect  Santiago Calatrava in 2009.  The steel, glass and white concrete construction resembles as do many of Calatrava’s designs, the skeletal frame of a giant whale.  It is airy and light as it overarches  the station’s nine tracks and five platforms.  As we traveled homeward, my sweet companion took a rest, and her image was very dear to me…..a parting image for this blog.

Ahmad Jamal in concert January 29, 2014

Saturday Morning with Wynton Marsalis live at Lincoln Center

   

January 29, 2014   Brussels Bozar  Ahmad Jamal in concert

 As I write these words, my mind and body absorb the sound, texture and rhythm of Ahmad Jamal’s 2011 recording “Blue Moon,” hailed then as his “latest masterpiece.”  Indeed, he is a master, and he has been called “a man touched by grace”…..

    

I first heard of Ahmad Jamal as a child.  My father, Edward Duane George, loved music, especially the music of his generation – the 1940s , 50s and 60s.  He was blessed with a natural ear for music and was a gifted singer with scarcely any musical training.  He admired the crooners of his era – Frank Sinatra, Mel Tormé, Tony Bennett, Peggy Lee, Lena Horne, Ella Fitzgerald…..I grew up with their voices and style always playing in the background…on my father’s electric organ/stereo hifi, or on the big electric radio ensconced on the righthand side of the old milksafe in the kitchen….the radio which was my father’s constant companion. Amongst the 33 rpm albums in my father’s collection, right alongside Herb Alpert and the Tijuana Brass, Nancy Sinatra’s “These Boots Were Made for Walkin” and Barbra Streisand’s early “My Name is Barbra,” was a small 45 rpm in a chic little black cardboard box with a handsome young man seated at a piano on the cover.  The disc contained the recording of Ahmad Jamal’s “Poinciana” which I could listen  to over and over and never tire of hearing.  He was one cool dude in my childish opinion, even before I knew those words or understood what they meant.

 

Two years ago, on a road trip from Brussels to the Dordogne in southwestern France for an Easter holiday, I was delighted to find a two-cd set of old Ahmad Jamal recordings in a convenience store reststop.  I shouldn’t have been too surprised, as the French have always loved and admired American jazz musicians.  Of course, among the many pieces included in these recordings was Jamal’s famous “Poinciana.”  I once again began playing it over and over again….its magic had not lost its power over me despite the intervening years.  

                

On January 29, in Brussels’ Bozar theater, I had the unique and supreme pleasure and delight of finally experiencing Mr. Ahmad Jamal and his trio in concert.  It was a thrill I will never forget…yes, even a magical evening. The theater was completely packed!  Brussels jazz enthusiasts had come out of the woodwork on a cold Wednesday night to heat up to the sounds of one of jazz piano’s greatest living legends.  Here was Ahmad Jamal, now 83 years old, and a greater musician than the handsome youth from that long ago 45 recording that entranced me as a child.  I was completely enthralled!

   

Jamal’s mature playing has rich layers and textures that have evolved over a lifetime of living, learning, performing, and simply loving music and life. He has always been an excellent jazz pianist...but now he is a consummate master....the music flowed from his soul through his fingers....it was sheer delight to listen to and watch.  The trio was also amazing.  The drummer, Herlin Riley, and bassist, Reginald Veal,  in particular,  were  so alive and in synch, and each performed inspired solos.  Percussionist Manolo Badrena injected humor along with his boundless energy and skill on congo drums and a variety of playful accompaniments including an ocarina birdlike whistle. 

 

  

I felt a bit "at home" when I saw them flash huge American smiles at each other while playing, and heard Mr. Jamal's richtoned voice.  I was a bit nostalgic I must admit.  At one point, I found myself shining, a huge smile on my face while simultaneously  tears flowed unbidden down my cheeks.  I was transported back to my childhood so far off in time and physical space, with my dad’s spirit looming large in my memory.  I could feel him enjoying the music right along with me.  Thanks, Dad, for introducing me to Mr. Ahmad Jamal…..because of you, I am sitting here at this concert 40-odd years later in Brussels, Belgium....

What never ceases to amaze me with extraordinarily talented musicians like these, is how they manage to play with such joy, such passion and spontaneity, giving such  seamless performances, yet the entire time, you have the feeling that the music is simply flowing effortlessly from some inner unseen but magical source. They hardly seem to be playing at all, and yet every fiber of their being at that moment is in the music.  It is supreme  virtuosity!

Mr. Ahmad Jamal has told interviewers that he began to play the piano at the age of three in his native Pittsburgh, when his uncle challenged him to try to duplicate his keyboard performance.  Little Fritz Russell Jones promptly did so, and the rest, as they say, is history.  He converted to Islam and changed his name in 1950.

 

At the end of their set, the audience gave Jamal and his trio three standing ovations!  After each, they returned to their instruments and offered an encore no less worthy than their earlier performance. After the second encore, Jamal of course played “Poinciana”which remains his best known recording and a classic piece from the 1960's. Nevertheless,  I really adore his new compositions...he played "Saturday Morning" from his latest cd of the same name from 2013, and "Autumn Rain" from “Blue Moon” both of which  I keep wanting to listen to over and over with the same fascination that “Poinciana’ held for me so many years ago.

  
I came home after that concert and couldn't get to sleep for several hours because I felt so stimulated by the experience....

Long live the musical genius and spirit of Ahmad Jamal! 

Sunday morning walk in the Bois de la Cambre and la Forêt de Soignes

This morning I was awakened by a text message….it was my Ukrainian friend, Eugenia, telling me (not asking me!) that our plan to meet for a walk this morning was being moved forward from ten o’clock to half past nine.  She and Fiesta, her little black Scottie on long-term loan from her daughter-in-law, were getting anxious to get started.  “Ok!”  I texted her back in brief reply.  She then called to change our meeting point to the Canadian Embassy on Avenue Franklin Roosevelt, just a five-minute walk away for me. “I woke you up, didn’t I?” she asked me in French.  Though she speaks perfect English, in addition to her native Russian, we always speak to each other in French. “Well, yes,” I replied, “but that’s ok…I’ll be there!”  I lingered in my bed a bit longer after being up rather late the night before, then finally pushed myself out, got ready, and out the door.

A perfect day greeted me…the temperature was balmy, the sky blue…my heart felt light, and so did my feet.  I looked up and down Avenue Franklin Roosevelt when I reached the end of my cross street, and spotted the familiar red and white flag of Canada with its maple leaf.  I then saw from a distance a little black bouncy mop of fur on a leash….Eugenia and Fiesta were waiting for me.

I first met Eugenia last fall on the 94 tram along Avenue Louise.  She was with her friend Margareta, a Brazilian, and they were discussing an Italian film they had just seen.  I had also just come from the same film at the Istituto Italiano di Cultura.  I asked them how they liked the film, and thus began a conversation which lasted until Eugenia descended from the tram two stops before mine, and by then we had discovered some common interests, exchanged mobile phone numbers, and made a tentative plan to go walking together in the woods near our neighborhood.

This was only our second walk, but I felt just as if I were going to meet an old friend.  She had opened her heart to me on our first walk, telling me about her wonderful twelve years with the love of her life who had died tragically of cancer just three months earlier. Today when I met her, she was stronger and more determined, with many plans in the making, not the least of which is a month-and-a-half long trip to the Caucasus where she will visit with a dear friend.  

She wanted to show me the Parc Solvay, which I had never seen, so we headed into the Bois de la Cambre along footpaths that crisscross this urban park which melds with the huge Forêt de Soignes, a 5,000 hectare forest in Brussels filled with giant beech trees, and enjoyed on foot, by bike or on horseback. We did, in fact, greet some riders on beautiful chestnut thoroughbreds, and Fiesta, despite her small stature, managed a growl or two at them as they rode past.

We approached the well-known “Etang des Enfants Noyés” (Pond of the Drowned Children”) in which, fortunately, no child has ever drowned.  The story goes that a miller named Verdronken once had his mill here, and when he died, his children inherited it, and it was known as the pond of the “kinderen verdronken” in Flemish, mistakenly translated as the pond of “the drowned children.”  If you read my blog from last fall, you will have seen photos of this tranquil pond, reflecting dreamy, shimmering images of the surrounding trees on its thickly-glazed green surface.

We continued on through the woods until we came to an opening where the sun poured in as we stepped into a walled potager garden, in a slightly neglected state, but still being cultivated.  I saw thick red stalks of rhubarb buckling under the weight of its giant leaves, and all around the wall enclosure, lovely espalier apples.  Beyond the walled vegetable garden, we stepped into an idyllic landscape of old apple trees in blossom, sloping in neat rows down a hillside towards another small pond.  In the distance, the ruins of a 19^th century mansion could be glimpsed among the trees.  Also near the pond, we spotted whimsical giant mushrooms carved from tree stumps, presided over by a wizened and bearded face also carved from a felled tree. We skirted the pond, where Fiesta created a stir by barking at the mother ducks herding their ducklings along the pond’s edge.  The mother ducks were quite indignant and protected their babes fiercely against this outrageous intervention by a small black fury.  Eugenia quickly snapped Fiesta’s leash on and scolded her for disturbing their peace. 

The mansion in ruins brought to my mind scenes from Jane Eyre, and I half expected to see a blind Mr. Rochester sitting somewhere near the folly-like structure. Eugenia told me that the house had burned twice, and is purported to have some sort of curse upon it….vines are growing out of the turret and it would certainly serve well as a film set for a romantic horror story.  Just beyond the ruined façade was a tremendous old tree of great sculptural magnificence that I had to photograph. Unfortunately, I had brought only my mobile phone as a camera, so the quality of my photos is not very satisfactory.

Eugenia led me to a picturesque elliptical garden with a lily pond at its center.  Here the stone paths curving around the central water element were  festooned by arbors where I could see rose canes preparing their blooms for the month of June. I will have to go back to witness their beauty in a few weeks’ time.  Planted in the beds between the concentric circular paths were groups of white and dark red tulips, past their peak, but looking lovely as their huge petals strained to their maximum circumference.

We seated ourselves for a while on a bench in the sun, and began speaking Italian, as Eugenia wants to practice again after nearly two years since her last course.  Ironically, as we headed back around the pond and past the apple orchard, we crossed paths with a father and his three small boys, speaking Italian.  Eugenia addressed them in Italian, and so began an interesting exchange in which we discovered that the man is a professional opera singer, qnd speaks some Russian as he has performed in Prince Igor, Eugene Onegin, and Boris Godunov.  He detected Eugenia’s Russian accent, then asked where I was from.  He commented that English speakers in general usually expect everyone to learn English, but that Americans tend to be better than the British at speaking other languages.  I felt slightly redeemed.  He is from Naples, and married to a Belgian.  She speaks English to their children, he speaks to them in Italian, and they learn French at school.  After saying goodbye, we had to head directly back home, as I needed to leave for a class in the early afternoon.  I returned home after three and a half hours, rejuvenated by the natural beauty of this glorious May morning.

                                                                                         

 

                            

 

The little black fur figure is Fiesta...she is full of energy!