post april 30: series #1 TUONG THUONG TIEC

A piece of art, no ideology, no propaganda, just humanity and witness of history  -- destroyed

 Vietnam: North vs. South -- North claimed military victory in 1975, but where was heroism, and who really won the war? 

END OF YEAR LOOKING BACK TO FALL IN LOVE AGAIN WITH THE COLOR VIOLET

TÍM

Tím cả lòng tôi, tím nỗi buồn
Tím như mặt đất lúc mưa tuôn
T́im như quê cũ giờ ly biệt
T́ím quãng đời qua, trót bỏ suông

Tím màu vương giả của Từ Nguyên
Tím theo khóe mắt ṃe tôi hiền
T́ím như áo tím ngời son sắt
Tím thành giai thọại của Rồng Tiên

Tím như tình nghiã thuở Văn Lang
Cha đi xuống biển, ṃe lên ngàn
Trăm con xin chớ quên nguồn cội
Mai mốt quay về đốt nén nhang

Tím ỏ lưng đèo mây ủ ê
Tím d̀òng lưu lạc, tím tình quê
Hải Vân tím ngắt khung trời cũ
Tím cả không gian, tím não nề

Tím hết thiên thu tím đơi chờ,
Tím như lưu luyến của ngày thơ,
Sông Hương cũng tím sương hiu hắt,
Gác bến con đò, tím ngẩn ngơ...

T́im như xứ Huế, ngoại tôi ngồi
Bên con nước đục để chờ tôi
Ở̉ đâu Ngưng Bích, Kiều lưu lạc?
Ở̉ đấy con thuyền viễn xứ trôi...

Tím như non nước tổ tiên nằm
Tím loen giọt lệ̣ ướt vầng khăn
Đêm khuya tỉnh giấc cò̀n nhung nhớ
Tiếng vọng san hà của cổ nhân

Tím như tranh vẽ cho mẹ thương
Tím màu thiên lý của miên trườ̀ng
Những ai ly khách xin cùng hát
"vọng cố hương hề thiên nhất phương..."

DNN Copyright May 3-4 2017

Michael Angelo's Pieta versus Mozart's Don Giovanni

If Michael Angelo's PIETA is the painting of spirituality and the holiness of a mother's love for her son, then the pix of the late opera-great Dmitrii Hvorostovsky as Don Giovanni is the capture of realism about the plight of humans: Don Juan en route to hell!

Michael Angelo's talent is at its best.

The stage artistry of Dmitrii to bring to life the beauty of Mozart is also at its best!

In Pieta, human artistry is the PERFECT portrayal of PERFECTION, when the narrow passage has opened for humans' heavenly upward nobility, toward the light (or what a Buddhist, in a different epistemology, will name as "enlightenment" or the state of Nirvana). For, what can be more perfect than humans' ennobled yearning for an unbeatable, undying belief in goodness, and what can be more perfect than mother-child selfless love, and selfless sacrifice of the self for the good of others?

On the other hand, in Dimitrii's Don Giovanni, artistry is the PERFECT portrayal of human IMPERFECTION, when the narrow passage has been closed, leaving the doomed human in the darkness called Hell...For, what can be more hellish than a man's realization that he is paying in eternity for the cost of his self-indulgence: the suffering of another human being should NEVER be the source of pleasure for another human being! Again, a Buddhist may call this common-sense principle the wheel of Karma, or the mathematics of cause-effect equalization.

And, perhaps, just perhaps, the whole system of social justice in this life should then be the equalization between the two, on a well-administered scale: the suffering of one human being, on one end, weighted against, on the other end, the benefit enjoyed by another human being who has occasioned such suffering, without remorse!

In a society where technology rules, the only difference between humans and animals or machinery lies in the human ability to make moral decisions and to exercise moral judgement, as Confucius, the teacher of the East, has stated in NINE WORDS: Ky so bat duc vat thi u nhan!

In the portrayal of such anguished struggle lies the beauty of art.

DNN C Nov 27 2017