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thekhoei · 6 months

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The Beatles and Vietnam (part 1/?)

My Roman empire is whenever my favourite bands have songs in my mother tongue. Today's case is the most influential band of all time, The Beatles (now why im sounding like a freaking interviewer). I wanna share yall a 1987 record by an overseas singer named Kiều Nga (overseas artists are conservative due to the complications behind USA's most infamous war crime - Indochina/Vietnam war). It will take me long to explain the whole thing, so i will break it short while writing about that record. You can find it here on Spotify (im so grateful to still get chances to listen to it, bc the real tape costs quite a lot in my currency, but i can link you where to buy. it's around 32$ in foreign currency. and the fact that it still exists tho i thought it would become a lost media 😭)

This is not the only songs that were covered in Vietnamese, as there was this version of Something by Don Hồ (1992), or You won't see me by Thúy-Hà-Tú (a pre-1975 girl band (?)). You can find some other different and later covers besides the 1987 record on a local channel here. The Beatles and Beatlemania became a worldwide phenomenon during the 60s, and in Vietnam it was no exception. There were so many young bands inspired by them, and even one of our big song-writers Phạm Duy was a fan of them. The Beatles left a foot print in our flow of music during the war. And iirc, there was a commotion (?) relating to the rock n roll wave and The Beatles in the late 60s - early 70s. In old magazines, image of The Fab Four were on almost every pages! It shouldn't be a surprise to me but i'm still so shocked to learn about how the 4 guys brought love to my beautiful homeland, and so many early fans who were, and still are in love with them, like me, a youngster in 21st century. I mean, who am i even kidding, not my country being an inspiration behind those well-known songs.

The 1987 tape was produced by Dạ Lan Productions (originally Mây Productions), and it was numbered the 46th.

Some fyi/disclaimer ig: I did mentioned of why this is a conservative topic. I am a nothern Vietnamese. And Dạ Lan Productions was a product by the overseas singers who followed the lead of RVN/South Vietnam. But i have been growing up with many kind of music without bothering to care whether it is against the government's ideal. And i'm not the only one who has that thought. Most Vietnamese are working class/peasants, and not much gain access to higher education. Music is the beauty of life, and the heart of the composer. Whether it's bad or good deed, it's only love that matters. Not like all of us understand the true nature of communism or capitalism, we only want peace and love, and that war is over. Our current government is no longer against most RVN artists and it's legal for this kind of music to be spreading now.

Dạ Lan tape 46 is a cassette tape featured 10 translated Beatles songs by various artists, with Yesterday/Mới hôm qua, And i love her/Và tôi yêu nàng, Here comes the sun/Vầng dương sáng ngời, Michelle/Michelle yêu dấu, Strawberry fields forever/Tình yêu cuối trời on side A; and I want to hold your hand/Đôi tay thiên thần, Let it be/Chớ âu lo, Ob-la-di Ob-la-da/Cuộc tình Desmond Molly, The long and winding road/Dấu đường tình, If i fell/Một mai nếu yêu anh on side B. Most of them stay accurate to the og, except the Vietnamese version of SFF has a whole new name and meaning (roughly translated as Love in the end of the world??). Mind you that when western music arrived to this land as a result of the first colonization by French, there started a trend named "nhạc ngoại lời Việt", which means creating a whole new lyrics on the original foreign song. I mean it's obvious that not many understand about copyright back then, and the music was only circulated in the country. That era was called "Tân nhạc Việt Nam" (Vietnamese modern age music), along with the modern changes of literature and many forms of art. The overseas singers who moved to a new land during the war mostly were against VietCong, so this kind of music was banned in the northern. Except it broke the wall and bridge that held the grudge.

I will make this a long series to break down the history of The Beatles and Vietnam's connection (will have tag as well if anyone's interested and want to follow) and compare the difference between both versions, as well as finding more information on this topic bc im so invested. There are still concerts and shows running by this generation fan of The Beatles, and im so grateful to be a part of it. I mean, isn't it wonderful that The Fab are still listened by 21st children, like what Brian once predicted?

Thanks for coming to my Ted yap (i'm a professional yapper)

#long post #the beatles #vietnam #The Beatles and Vietnam #john lennon #paul mccartney #george harrison #ringo starr

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gillyo · 5 years

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Day 1: Travel day

✈️Planes, Trains “und” Air-Conditioning...

So as I said, I’m trying something different for this trip. I’ll be blogging here on tumblr (using the hashtag #MozWag) I decided to forgo my usual travelogue on FB/IG and just put everything here. As I've said before, on other trips, I do this as a digital catalogue of memories for myself so I can recall what piece of art or music or history I experienced where... plus the food... oh, yeah! (I've actually scoured through old posts to find pictures of delicious plates from fascinating places so I can try to recreate a memorable meal when hopping on a plane isn't an option 😍) it might get a bit wordy and/or indulgent but I’m giving you fair warning for my ramblings 😁

(Having a Cali style brekkie at a 5 hour layover in Heathrow - needed something real after 11 hours of airplane food)

🥰This will be my first SOLO overseas trip (excluding trips to my English homeland to visit family) and I have enjoyed the planning🗺 just as much as I anticipate I'll enjoy the trip itself. Thank you to my sweet ❤️FRED❤️ for the best birthday gift ever. He knows that I yearn to learn and love to travel!

He’s also a really cute driver 🥰

A small collection of my dad’s classical collection of LP’s

I'll be spending 9 days moving through southern Germany, into Austria then back into Germany and ending in London. How did I pick this itinerary? I've had a 35 year love affair with classical music. It began with being exposed to BBC Classical Radio 3 in my youth. I remember poring over The Radio Times - a weekly publication listing all programs and individual pieces of music so I was able to plan and build a collection of pirated cassette tapes of numerous pieces, and then also discovering my late father’s collection of classical LP's of many composers (most of whom I now adore) and to which my sister and I would dance imagining were were the principals of Swan Lake 🤣My first real memory of classical music is very clear. I remember hearing Rossini's Stabat Mater one day on the radio and it moving me in such deep place. I didn’t know what I was listening to at the time but I recorded it and memorized it, loving the harmonies and orchestration... it wasn’t until many years later, living in the US, that I heard it and was able to find out what it was🥰. I know for a fact that music is in my blood and my soul from my father who was a musician, composer/arranger, and conductor. On my last trip to the UK I spent a little time with the aforementioned LP collection and realized our taste was very similar ❤️ but I digress.... back to why I wanted to go to Bavaria...

As you can guess, I admire many composers but I especially adore Mozart and Wagner (#MozWag) . Mozart for his sheer genius of composing 626+/- works in his short life, he died when he was 35... started composing at around 5 years old so that’s about 20 compositions a year. And it was good stuff, too! Wagner, I love for the absolute intensity, commanding, emotional, a master of drama. But, not for the new listener, IMO. I worked my way up to him😉 Both composers either lived, worked, died, and were born or buried in the regions I will visit. And yes, Mozart died and was buried in Vienna but I already did that trip 3 years ago.

Ok... that’s the background on the trip - so you can guess my focus will be around music and performance but I’ll definitely have time for seeing some art, churches, architecture and food. And shoe shopping. My posts from now on will be more fun 😁

My first day was SFO-LHR 10.5 hour flight, followed by a 5 hour layover which allowed time for lunch at Gordon Ramsey’s Plane Food and shopping for English makeup - a new Charlotte Tilbury lipstick and a Max Factor mascara 🤣 then a 2 hour flight to Munich and a 1 hour train to my hotel. A long day of travel - about 27 hours I think? And I was so grateful for a cool, clean room to check in to at 5pm. Oh, did I mention that I had a ticket for the opera? I’ll do a separate post on just that. It deserves it.

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withinthescripts · 7 years

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Season 2, Cassette 4: Bardo Museum (1975)

[tape recorder turns on]

Welcome to the international Bardo Museum of Tunis. I am Ama Cudjoe, director of curations. We are proud to present this audio cassette guide of “Unfinished Nightmares”, the new sketches of Claudia Atieno. These drawings were discovered two years ago in a previously unknown crawl space below Atieno’s Cornwall home. This audio guide will be narrated by historian and expert in Atieno’s oeuvre, Roimata Mangakāhia. While Atieno’s whereabouts remain a mystery, these sketches give eery insight into her last creative thoughts before her disappearance. This special exhibit is located on level 2. Works with audio guidance are numbered and begin on your left, moving counter-clockwise around the room. Each narration will be followed by a tone, so that you may pause the cassette between pieces. Please return the cassette player, headphones, and shoulder strap to the member services desk on the ground floor.

[bell chimes]

Sketch One. “Untitled Figure with Hat”.

This drawing is of the society’s secretary of trade, Vishwati Ramados, wearing a wide-brimmed fedora. You can see a wry smile on Ramados’s face, like in reference to the brown western hat juxtaposed against her soft blue sari. The staff at the Bardo disagreed with my identification of Ramados. Rather, they do not believe the figure is meant to be anyone in particular, but I know her face well. Ramados was a frequent visitor to Atieno’s Cornwall home, as well as her Mwanza apartment. I knew Ramados, and while I was not close to her, I know she greatly respected Atieno’s artistic talents.

Ramados also greatly resented Atieno’s constant critique of the societal council, her frequent jibes about Ramados’s capitulation to bureaucratic strictures. Ramados, like most of Atieno’s invited guests, was an avid art collector and ardent fan of Atieno’s work.

Ramados had a technically perfect smile. One that is vibrant and beautiful, regardless of her intentions. Look at her smile in this sketch. What are Ramados’s intentions? What are your intentions?

One of Atieno’s most notorious paintings, “(-- [0:03:26] Madurai”, currently part of Manhattan Museum of Modern Art’s permanent collection, featured a verdant ravine covered in ferns. In the center of the gully, a single camera held by two seemingly disembodied hands literally suggesting a nature photographer, but figuratively critical of the council’s surveillance scandal of 1958 where staff members, under the oversight of the trade commission, kept secret and extensive records of international merchants, including artists such as Atiano.

Placing the subject of the painting in Ramados’s birthplace of Madurai was a particularly harsh jab at a powerful and, it has been rumored, vindictive woman. The surveillance records were unearthed by four journalists from Vancouver, but they could not prove Ramados directly authorized the surveillance of these merchants. Ramados was publicly (-) [0:04:20] for this direct violation of the Citizen Espionage Act of 1951, but never faced a tribunal for these crimes. In “Untitled Figure with Hat”, Atieno did not detail much of Ramados’s surroundings, just her face, smile, hat, and shaded eyes. But notice the pencil stroke in the upper left, suggesting the flat horizon of the ocean.

I believe this was drawn on the patio of Atieno’s Cornwall home overlooking the sea. Ramados’s contagious charms are made vivid in this drawing, and were likely her salvation in the congressional hearings on her scandal. Ramados was friendly with Atieno for the most part, and they had lively conversations about everything except politics. But in the time I spent with Ramados in Cornwall, I sensed she was always planning every word, every gesture. She was carefully choreographed, her intentions were complex and hidden.

[bell chimes]

Sketch two. “Untitled Automobile with Driver”.

Scholars at the Royal Cornwall Museum noted that it was a 1950 Rolls Royce Silver Wraith, a vehicle which was owned by late president of the Bank of Western Europe, Archie McPherson. In the sketch, however, the man standing next to the vehicle is not Archie, who was a large man, broad-shouldered and tall, with a round belly and young face. The man in the sketch is small, barely taller than the vehicle itself. He is wearing thick-rimmed eyeglasses and wearing an unbuttoned shirt.

Look carefully inside his jacket. There appears to be a pistol on a shoulder holster. Although this is a small debate among critics. Notice the shape? The handle of the supposed gun is longer than seems ordinary for a pistol. How long is a pistol?

This man also does not bear any of the uniform elements common to the International Police, who are the only people legally allowed to carry firearms. So either it is not a pistol, perhaps an unfinished umbrella or poorly drawn driver’s gloves, or this unknown man is a guard/driver for a wealthy non-political individual such as McPherson.

Look in the windows of the car. Do you see the outline of a heavyset banker? What does wealth look like?

Hiring armed private guards would also be a criminal offense, but one which money or influence could help alleviate. McPherson owned a large collection of private works by Atieno, Pavel Zubof and Cassandra Reza. He underwrote an exhibit of Atieno’s work at the Tate Modern in 1971. He was one of Claudia’s supporters in her critique of the new society. McPherson believed Ramados and other high-ranking members of the society were covertly constructing an institute in the former United States to imprison violators, the Family Dissolution Act of 1955. He claimed the institute kidnapped and tortured adults who sought to reconnect with their birth families.

Archie and Claudia did not just enjoy sharing conspiracy theories, they actively believed them.

McPherson was found dead outside his home last year. The official statement claimed he died of a heart attack, and this is not an appropriate forum for speculating about the honesty of official statements.

Look again in the windows of the car in the sketch. Who else was in the vehicle? Do you see yourself inside the car?

[bell chimes]

Sketch three. “Untitled Waves”.

Atieno had drawn a cross-section of waves crashing upon a rocky shore. Look closely along the top of the water. She has masterfully depicted the turbulent force of sand and seaweed caught in an undertow, using only a pencil. She has colored darkly the sky, ostensibly just bad weather, but also symbolizing the nightmare of being dragged out alone into the ocean.

The markings are boldest near the rocks. Look at the rocks and follow the lines out into the sea. See how the pressure of the pencil lightens significantly? The charcoal sky dissipates, not into light but into nothingness. Fear of the void. Of loneliness.

The cliffs of the Cornwall home were always my favorite scene to sketch. Sitting on Claudia’s patio deck overlooking the cliffs, I would often practice shading gradients. Claudia asked me once why I drew this scene so often. I explained to her it was a relaxing way to pass the time, particularly when I needed to keep busy but lacked motivation to create new work. It wasn’t long after that before her sketch pad was filled with drawings of the same scene. You can see here in “Untitled Waves” that even with pencils, Atieno was masterful. I hated her for that. I hated that about her.

Look again at her gradients. Don’t they make you mad? Think about everything you are incapable of achieving.

[bell chimes] [tape recorder turns off] [ads] [tape recorder turns on]

Sketch four. “Untitled Dinner Party”.

Dinner parties were common at the Cornwall house, with visiting artists and dignitaries. I say “dinner parties”, but due in part to the remoteness of the house and in part to the untamed nature of parties, they ran through the night and into the next day, when people could more safely make their way back to land. On occasion, the parties bled through to the next day and further. Atieno was well known for her social events, and many of these were wild engagements with drinks, music, dancing and gregarious unpredictable personalities who sang, or told stories. Or in the case of several dancer friends, stripped naked and performed improvised dance routines on tables.

In this drawing, though, the party seems subdued. Look at how the well dressed figures gingerly hold their glasses of wine, standing stiffly about cocktail tables, with little sign of the debauchery I associate with Atieno’s get-togethers. It is difficult here to discern specific identities, but it is likely that these are representatives from the Council. I believe Atieno was attempting to capture the Council’s trepidation about what they had interpreted as political art. I am not so sure of this interpretation, especially given the source. If you’re looking for dissidence, you’re likely to see it, whether or not it’s really there.

She welcomed friends and enemies alike, and in the case of World Council and Architects of the New Society, she would have happily invited any of her well-appointed detractors into her home, as long as they told good stories and didn’t ruin the fun. The Council were happy to attend the parties, as long as they could mentally know who was there, and what they said.

Atieno’s home country of Tanzania was dissipated during the creation of the society in 1939. The founders of the society removed national bonders in favor of the nine united regions. While this gave way to an eastern Africa independent of English imperialist rule, it stole away the agency of the smaller Tanzanian officials fighting for their own governance. The sub capital of Dodoma now reports to the regional seat in Nairobi. Europeans no longer govern the former Tanzania, but the open trade enabled astronomic growth in several reasons of Africa, and the European population grew there in two decades following the war. Atieno felt disconnected from her homeland and family in Mwanza, as well as with the dilution of the [Ipo] population by the English-speaking Europeans. Still, as a globe traveling artist, many of her childhood friends dissociated from Atiano, feeling she had abandoned her home. Perhaps she had. It would not be the only time she had abandoned her home.

In “Untitled Dinner Party”, we likely see a room full of politicians watching and recording Atieno subtly, as Atieno subtly watched and recorded them in return, in her own way. Look at the revellers in the sketch. Or is “revellers” an appropriate word to use? Which of these people do you think last saw Claudia?

[bell chimes]

Sketch five. “Untitled Artists at Work”.

This meta-sketch of a sketch is quite indicative of the occasions when guests would work together to develop new work. Someone would paint, as you see here in this sketch, a painting on an easel, three artists gathered around discussing the work. I used to believe that one of the figures was Claudia herself, as the painting on the easel, the art within the art, appears to be her, and appears to be her work, “Sunshine Afternoon”. But “Sunshine Afternoon” was painted in 1968. This sketch, while not dated, is likely from the early 1960’s if not late 1950’s. This painting is someone else’s entirely. It was not uncommon for artists to work together to share ideas and paint similar concepts, but an oft-had discussion with other artists in Atieno’s circle was: when does inspiration become theft? I have no proof that another artist originally created “Sunshine Afternoon”. In fact, Claudia might have created it first in this sketch, only to realize it fully in oils years later. But one of the artists in this work, so you see the woman with the long dark hair, I’m certain is Vanessa Wynn. The more I think about her signature rays of light, I think that “Sunshine Afternoon” was certainly her original idea, or at least I had my suspicions.

Look at the sketch in the sketch. Do you recognize that as an early study of “Sunsine Afternoon”? Does this serve as proof, of anything? Are all affirmatives true, until they are successfully debunked?

[bell chimes]

Sketch six. “Untitled Rope and Parrot”.

This, of all the newly discovered sketches, disturbs me the most.

As a sketch, it is simple and beautiful. It is the least suggestive of sinister guests. As you can see it is just a square knot lying atop a wooden table. Next to the tope is a bird. The curators at the Bardo have called this bird a parrot, but it is specifically a kea. Note its long narrow beak. I argued with the curatorial staff about this, and they noted it was more likely an African grey parrot, a bird Atieno would have seen in her parents, as opposed to a kea, native in New Zealand, a place she had never been.

I know this bird to be a kea, even if Atieno had never seen one in person. First, the bird is missing the patterns of the grey parrot, but there is a more significant reason for my certainty. Second, I had an identical painting: a kea on a table, next to a knotted rope. It was one of my earlier attempts to capture wildlife stills. I was fortunate enough to have a friend who worked in nature conservation in the south Ireland, specifically maintaining the help of native birds. She’d taken in an injured kea. She had nursed it back to health. But it could no longer fly. I remember clearly the bird had a small plaster rap, almost like a cast, at the base of one of its wings. My friend allowed me to paint the immobilized bird, and it was a good subject, as it held perfectly still.

Notice in Atieno’s sketch the shoulder area on the bird’s left side. Do you see where the pencils are absent in a horizontal swathe? Is that an unfinished section, or merely Atieno playing with light and shadow, or is it a plaster band?

I brought the painting with me to London early in my career, hoping to get a showing in a gallery. At the time, I thought it captured a unique perspective and approach to still lifes. But over time, I began to feel the painting was not satisfactorily executed, so I left it with other early studies and incomplete paintings in a trunk in my closet.

Atieno rarely came to see me in my small flat in Plymouth, because it was so far from her home. For all of her love of world travels, she detested long commutes to others’ homes. Plus, as I said it was a small flat. But a few weeks after her last visit to my flat in 1970, I noticed that my trunk was open and a handful of my papers and drawings were missing. Since I did not check the trunk regularly, I thought it had perhaps broken open in transit and I’d just never noticed. But upon seeing these sketches, this year, I recognize the sketch of the bird and the rope, and I suspect Atieno had found my old painting. She not only stole the picture, but bettered it. Even without the richness of color and the depth of oil on canvas, Atieno captures shadows and light so well, even the kea, without the motion blur of a realistic photograph, Atieno.. [chuckles] using only a pencil, shows the bird’s lack of attention spam, its nervous energy sitting next to a human. Even the chips and dents along the table’s edge, where the bird had bit away the wood. I don’t recall ever including that detail in my original painting.

What is most maddening about Atieno is her talent. Even in plagiarism, she makes it perfectly her own.

[bell chimes]

So this concludes your audio tour of “Unfinished Nightmares – the New Sketches of Claudia Atieno”. Before you turn in your cassette player at the members desk, I’d like to say a word about Claudia’s absence. She may never return to us, but I believe she’s not dead. Just as she left her home in Mwanza, she left her home in Cornwall. Perhaps she will continue to make art and we will find her once again.

Her former partner Pavel Zubov told the staff at Bardo Museum that he found the sketches for this exhibit in a crawl space in Claudia’s home. I’m not certain what he was doing in her home recently, but I’m weary of the idea that the simply found these in one place no one had ever looked. I admit to looking thoroughly through her home when she wasn’t there. I never saw these. I’m hoping his claims are false, and that Claudia gave them to him to put in the Bardo. It’s possible she simply doesn’t want it known that she’s still somewhere in the world making art.

I expect more exhibits of newly discovered works by Claudia Atieno. [softly] I hope, anyway.

[tape recorder turns off]

“Within the Wires” is written by Jeffrey Cranor and Janina Matthewson and performed by Rima Te Wiata.

With original music by Mary Epworth. Find more of Mary’s music at maryepworth.com.

#within the wires #within the wires transcripts #season 2 #sesaon 2 cassette 4 #bardo museum (1975)

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