Interview with Alex Wilson
interviewed by Safoura Nourbakhsh—
For most people it is difficult to conceive of gender and sexuality as social constructions
Showing Love in Our Actions
Tasting Manna
by Mary Lane Potter—
When the Hebrew slaves fleeing Mitzrayim (Egypt), literally “the narrow place,” on the way
CultureWatch – Film Review
UNTIMELY WITNESSING
von Trier’s Breaking the Waves, Still
film review by Maria Dasios
Breaking the Waves is not a new film. Originally released in 1996, it has received substantial critical acclaim and courted significant controversy: cries of misogyny continue to dog Danish director Lars von Trier, as his proclivity to violently punish his female protagonists has demonstrated itself as enduring as it is difficult for audiences to endure. Less punishing, perhaps, than both of von Trier’s more recent offerings, Antichrist and Nymphomaniac I and II, Breaking the Waves might nevertheless appear a strange film to revisit in our current moment. In Toronto, the Jian Ghomeshi trial has just wrapped up. It is but one of many contemporary high profile cases precipitating a heightening of critical and popular discourse around issues of consent, the insidiousness of sexual violence, and institutionally and culturally sanctioned abuses of power. Today’s viewers and readers have become increasingly savvy at recognizing how systemic violence, thinly veiled, is embedded and reproduced in cultural products.
Pervasive misogyny (still) is increasingly being outed. So revisiting a film in which the sexual degradation of its female protagonist both ends in her death, and yields, concurrently, a dubious transcendence might thus appear… politically suspect, in poor taste, or at the very least, untimely. Why endure (still) a narrative in which both poles of the eternal feminine— virgin and whore—are transposed on a single figure who, as a good exemplum of both, suffers as both must?
Simply (and maddeningly): because watching the film both confirms the validity of these critiques and insists on what they miss. The story of a woman who sacrifices her life to save her love, Breaking the Waves (set off from the damning pattern of von Trier’s subsequent productions) does not present as gratuitous, callous, or trite. With minimal fuss (sparse dialogue, even sparser music, a hand-held camera, and a particularly commanding performance by Emily Watson in the lead), the film produces a powerful feeling. It is arresting and nuanced in its depiction of human relationships in a way that a caricature or cliché could not be, and it invites active, difficult witnessing rather than passive viewing.
Photo: ©PUBLIC DOMAIN
Featured Artist
OLIVIER ADAM a physicist, graduated from the Ecole Normale Supérieure in Paris, but through the years he became a photographer. He is now a freelance photographer and a teacher at a Paris photography school. For several years he has been studying the Tibetan culture and Buddhism. He has worked with Sofia Stril-Rever, Matthieu Ricard and Manuel Bauer on the book Kalachakra: un mandala pour la paix. Since 2008, he has been interested in the lives of the Tibetan nuns in exile. Daughters of Buddha is his series on the Buddhist female universe, supplemented by sounds and interviews collected by Dominique Butet.
Featured Poet
JOY LADIN is the author of seven books of poetry, including Impersonation, Lambda Literary Award finalist Transmigration, and Forward Fives award winner Coming to Life. Through the Door of Life: A Jewish Journey Between Genders, was a 2012 National Jewish Book Award finalist. Her work has been recognized with a Fulbright Scholarship and a 2016 National Endowment for the Arts Creative Non-Fiction Fellowship.
She holds the David and Ruth Gottesman Chair in English at Stern College of Yeshiva University, and has taught in the Graduate Program in Creative Writing at Sarah Lawrence College, Princeton University, Reed College and the University of Massachusetts at Amherst.
Paul Weber: A Tribute 1951-2016
Paul Weber was an exceptional friend, guide, mentor, father, champion of all in hardship, seer of truths and flaws and beauty.
Paul was a complex soul of searing intelligence, unfathomable steadfastness, irreverent humor, and deep, abiding love. His clear blue eyes saw right through you, unflinching and solemn. And then the clouds would part, his face would soften, he’d tilt his head, and a conspiratorial smile would unfold. It was hard to look away from that face, so full of courage and solitude.
Though his focus was on the inner, he walked this world with fascination and finesse. He was educated at Yale and Columbia, and never stopped sharpening his intellect and acquiring knowledge. He was a natural athlete, playing and coaching soccer, hiking and skiing the Alps. As a young high school English teacher he wanted to roam the world with a book of poetry and a notebook in a rucksack. But his steel-trap mind and steely resolve landed in law school instead. As a corporate lawyer, he played the game expertly, yet redefined the rules with his integrity and generosity.
There is not room here to tell all the ways in which Paul was a teacher: in khaniqah, at work, in life. But perhaps these few scenes from his life might give us a glimpse of how he lived:
Here he is at the law office. Uncharacteristically, he’s leaving at noon. It’s December 23rd, and an important deal closes the morning of the 24th. By late afternoon the heat is on; the client’s lawyers want to know where he is and the junior partners are making excuses since they don’t know. At 8 p.m. he returns, brushes past them and works through the night. The deal closes on time. Years later it was discovered he had left to buy and deliver gifts to sick kids at St. Vincent’s Hospital.
He’s on a bus, lurching and inching through traffic. This could take all day. He’s going to a 1st birthday party and he’s got a small gift bag in his hand, pink tissue sticking out. He’s everyone’s family, and he shows up when someone needs him to be their only family.
Last March. He’s slowing down a bit. The tulips push up through the ground in Abingdon Square, and voices of children waft from the playground. On a bench, he sits in silence. The bench. Sitting for a moment after a lifetime of forward motion. Taking in warmth after a long winter. Shining like the sun.
The final snapshot: a starburst of light. He’s been lifted from his troublesome vessel. The vessel that he pushed and pushed to incredible lengths. He’s throwing rays, glinting this way and that, through each of us he’s ever touched. His love endures. His love inspires. His love can be found in the hearts of all who knew him. And in a toolbox, on the shelf, in the basement, of 306 W. 11th Street.
This tribute was compiled and written by Dani Kopoulos.
Other stories, memories and reflections about Paul can be shared on his memorial website:
http://nurejan5.wix.com/paul-weber