madmadmad's blog

In ancient times, venturing into unknown lands frequently meant relying on the kindness of strangers.  Since the survival of travelers depended on the considerations of the people they encountered along the way, hospitality was a central concept within early travel narratives.  For example, Odysseus and his men were generously accommodated with feasts, wine, and women upon their arrival in new land. Similarly, Ibn Battuta was welcomed with “hospitality gifts” as he journeyed from town to town, and Kublai Khan lavishly accommodated Marco Polo and his men upon their arrival. 
 
There are many reasons why hospitality between traveler and host was significantly more prevalent in early travel narratives than it is today. Logistically, travelers were more dependent on the accommodations of hosts because the hotels and restaurants relied on by travelers today were not an option, and because travel was significantly more difficult and dangerous in these earlier times.  Cabeza de Vaca, for example, would not have been able to survive the cold winters without the food and shelter he was provided by natives. The hospitable relationship between guest and host evolved out of an understanding of these circumstances regarding ancient travel.
 
Another reason why hospitality was especially prevalent in early travel narratives was because of its cultural significance.  As demonstrated within “The Odyssey”, hospitality was a meaningful aspect of Greek culture; a generous ‘guest-friend’ relationship between traveler and host was a Greek convention. In “The Odyssey”, hospitality was believed to be both pleasing to the gods and beneficial to the spreading of one’s reputation in addition to being pleasing to guests. 
 
This notion of hospitality as a cultural standard was similarly evident in the narrative of Ibn Battuta, in which hospitality was described as an expected measure of good character. The ‘hospitality gifts’ Ibn Battuta received throughout his travels seemed to capture a naturally understood obligation between traveler and host.   
 
Despite an understanding of why hospitality was so prevalent in ancient times, at times, the tremendous hospitality extended from traveler to host seemed unusual and excessive. For example, I found the degree of honor and respect with which Marco Polo was received by Kublai Khan and other local hosts to be bizarre: "The host bids his wife do everything that the guest wishes. Then he leaves the house and goes about his own business and stays away two or three days. Meanwhile the guest stays with his wife in the house and does what he will with her, lying with her in one bed as if she were his own wife; and they lead a gay life together."
 
The relationship between host and traveler is not black and white, however.  While there are examples of hospitality provided by the natives for Christopher Columbus, Columbus’s cruel exploitation of the natives does not suggest a friendly relationship between stranger and guest.  Likewise, Prospero’s hospitality to his guests in the Tempest was often laced with deception and cruelty. 
 

 
As others have mentioned in their responses, Shakespeare’s The Tempest can be approached from a multitude of angles.  The work contains many layers of meaning that can be deciphered in terms of political and historical contexts, art and aesthetics, illusion versus reality, and many other interpretative frameworks.  
 
Since I am particularly interested in the power of art to influence viewers and confront boundaries, an interpretation of The Tempest that focuses on its theatrical elements is most fascinating to me. In many of Shakespeare’s plays, Shakespeare is known to explore an interest in the power of theater. In the past, I have studied Shakespeare’s open contemplation of the nature of theater in plays such as Hamlet and Julius Caesar.  In reading The Tempest, I noticed a similar awareness of art and theater throughout.  Not only is art—particularly theatrical performance—vital to the presentation of The Tempest as a play, it is also significant within the story itself as notions of art influence the events and the characters. Prospero, for example, seemed to reflect the role of an artist by metaphorically scripting a theatrical world of his own.  Prospero’s magic seemed to parallel the creative role of Shakespeare, who also used language (like Prospero’s knowledge attained from books) to create a world that blurred the lines between reality and illusion (The Tempest).
 
It is interesting how Shakespeare used theatrical production of The Tempest as a device to contemplate this very nature of art and theater. Viewers and readers of the work are able to consider the realities of The Tempest from the outside, and in doing so they attain greater knowledge than the characters within. In this way, Shakespeare emphasize the power of art to shape or distort reality. It is interesting how on one hand, the power of art to distort reality can be dangerous,  yet on the other, it can lead to greater awareness by influencing an audience to confront or think more critically about their own realities. 
 

I stumbled upon a bunch of youtube videos by a visionary music ensemble called “The Cabeza de Vaca Arcestra”.  Not only does this ensemble share the same name as the 16th century conquistador, but so does it’s conductor—James Cabeza de Vaca .  After watching videos of this orchestra perform, I couldn’t resist using them for my blog post. This experimental ensemble fuses sound and light to create magical, transporting auras at their performances which are often described as chilling and spiritual. Although I have no idea whether or not this orchestra makes any intentional reference to the Cabeza de Vaca we read in class, I found many parallels between the Arcestra and its conductor James Cabeza de Vaca, and the 16th century de Vaca.

In a series of interviews, conductor James Cabeza de Vaca reveals the incorporation of ritual and religion into his compositions. For example, performances of the Cabeza de Vaca Arcestra have included séances and exorcisms.  The ensemble's ritualistic performances and incorporation of the occult is comparable to the role of Cabeza de Vaca and his men as physicians. Moreover, James Cabeza de Vaca, who claims to have had a ‘musical rebirth’, is particularly comparable to Cabeza de Vaca because both represent leading figures inspired by a ‘greater force’.  Like Cabeza de Vaca, James works to 'gently guide' those around him in a certain direction; in describing the experience and mood he creates at performances, he states: “I let things happen naturally…let them go where they're supposed to go and just gently guide them” (interview).
 
Another statement by James Cabeza that reminded me of Cabeza de Vaca was in response to a question he was asked about unexplainable or supernatural experiences:
“I have magic hands, you know? I’ve been through a lot, physically, experiencing insane amounts of pain…and I think that takes you to a really far out place. It brings you a huge amount of empathy as well. It’s taken my magic to a different level" (interview).
Both Cabeza de Vacas have suffered and have found strength and value in this suffering.  Also, James' reference to his own ‘magic hands’ could also be related to Cabeza de Vaca as a healer or as a saving, Jesus-like figure. 

I attached a video to the post, but here is another:
Cabeza de Vaca Orchestra - March to Mount Shasta

 
On the island of Malhaldo, Cabeza de Vaca’s descriptions of the customs of those who lived there revealed a unique social position held by physicians. For example, de Vaca explained how the men of this island each had one wife except for physicians, who “are the most unconstrained; they can have two or three wives” (92). Cabeza de Vaca’s descriptions of the island peoples’ burial traditions likewise revealed differential treatment of physicians: it is the peoples’ custom “to bury their dead, except those among them who are physicians, whose remains they burn” (91).  The burning of the physicians’ bodies was an honorary and celebratory event, and one year later the people continued to pay homage to the physicians by drinking their pulverized bones in water. The unique burial treatment of the Malhaldo physicians and their other social distinctions (such as the number of wives they were permitted) reveal physicians were special and revered members of the community.
 
In Cabeza de Vaca’s travels, a high regard for physicians seemed to be a significant recurrence. The veneration for healers was particularly evident after de Vaca and his men transformed themselves into physicians and began performing their own cures.  As healers, de Vaca and his men were regarded as if they were god-like figures: “people came from many areas looking for us. And they said that we were truly children of the sun…they had so much confidence that they would be cured if we performed the cures, that they believed that as long as we were there, non of them would die” (119). 
 
Moreover, as de Vaca and his men traveled onward, their roles as physicians proved vital to their survival.  Because they had developed a reputation for their curing abilities, they were often welcomed and honored by those they encountered. For example, the Avares people (who had heard news of de Vaca’s great healing powers and this admired him greatly) provided de Vaca and his men with prickly pears and hospitality in the coldest months of winter. In this sense, the healing abilities of de Vaca and his men may have been even more beneficial to their own survival than to those they were ‘curing’.
 
 

The above painting, “The Discovery of America by Christopher Columbus”, was painted by Salvador Dali in 1958 and 1959.  Since Salvador Dali is one of my favorite artists, I decided to use this post to explore why Dali chose to paint Columbus and what he intended to reflect through this representation.
 
After doing some research, I found that “The Discovery of America by Christopher Columbus” was commissioned by A. Reynolds Morse and Eleanor R. Morse—two “United States millionaire industrialists, philanthropists and collectors of Dalí's works” (article).  These two commissioned Dali’s piece to be hung in their office in the Huntington Hartford Gallery, near Columbus Circle in New York City. 
 
Since Dali’s painting seems to be an obvious glorification of America, I was not surprised to learn it had been commissioned by two Americans to hang near Columbus Circle.  However, I found it especially interesting to learn that Dali’s main intention in painting this artwork was actually to patriotically glorify Catalonia, his homeland in Spain.
 
According to the same article, one of the major influences that inspired Dali to create this piece was the approaching 300th anniversary of the death of Valazquez, who was greatly important to Dali. Through his painting, Dali intended to pay homage both to Valazquez and Spain.  Even more significantly, since Dali was commissioned at a time when there was great academic debate regarding the true nationality of Columbus, he was able to seize the opportunity to paint “The Discovery of America by Christopher Columbus” in order to reflect his own patriotic ideals. In the painting this is reflected in Dali’s representation of Columbus as a Catalonian rather than an Italian. 
 
When researching this painting, I stumbled upon another interesting article titled “America by Salvador Dali” relating the personalities of Christopher Columbus and Salvador Dali. At one point the author writes that although Dali was obsessed with money and with creating a “Dali brand”, his artwork was nonetheless grounded in true talent and inspiration.  This reminded me of Columbus, who was likewise a confident and talented traveler despite his obsession with money and power, and his other character flaws. 
 
In another part of the article, the writer himself draws connections between Columbus and Dali:
 “America became a new home for Dali, where he developed many of his best-known works. Critics claim that in America Dali “realized wide-range creativity which he could not find in Europe”. Just like Columbus, Dali discovered a New World, he depicted its prosperity…its emerging power… and finally he conquered a New World with his talent and  creativity.”

It was not able to enjoy Christopher Columbus’s travels as much as some of the other narratives we have read previously. I think that I could more easily immerse myself within the experiences of other travelers such as Ibn Battuta or Marco Polo because I was compelled by the detailed descriptions of their cultural encounters, and by their personal fascinations as they experienced unknown places and peoples .  However, Columbus's accounts did not absorb me in this way. Columbus's personal experiences were much less fascinating to me because I found it difficult to overlook his greed and arrogant attitude of entitlement.

Columbus's ignorance and exploitation of peoples reveal a darker side of travel. It was clear that Columbus's motives for traveling were to gain riches and power; he was driven by the prospects of wealth and dominance. These motives seemed shallow in comparison to those who traveled for knowledge or spiritual discovery. Moreover, I felt that Columbus's motives were matched by an equally shallow personality. This is demonstrated by his deceptive and condescending treatment of natives: “They should be good servants and very intelligent, for I have observed that they soon repeat anything that is said to them, and I believe that they would easily be made Christians, for they appeared to me to have no religion”.  Statements like these carry an over-confident attitude and arrogant sense of entitlement which I found to be the most off-putting aspect of Columbus's narrative.
 
I thought it was interesting how Columbus’s confidence extended to other aspects of his personality aside from his attitude of superiority surrounding those he encountered. Throughout his voyage, Columbus asserts a confident outlook about the many unknown aspects of his travels.  Not only does he have the confidence to embark on the voyage in the first place, he also maintains composure at times when his crew is distracted by fear. Columbus cunningly uses his composure to calm (and deceive) the worries of the crew-members.  Although I found aspects of his personality frustrating,  it seems Columbus's over-confident, sly nature worked in his favor.

At the end of Tuesday’s class we discussed ‘centers’ of cultural or religious significance similar to the Mecca. Since then, I have continued to think about contemporary destinations that people travel to in search of either shared values or the fulfillment of a kind of spiritual quest.  I think it is interesting to consider journeys of personal and moral significance that do not hold the same religious values as pilgrimages to sacred places like Mecca.
 
For example, in the 70s and the 80s hippies sometimes traveled throughout India in search of spiritual peace.  Hippies journeyed to certain destinations because of the spiritual meanings associated with particular locations, and more generally because of the spiritual meanings fostered by the surrounding culture.  However, hippie pilgrimages are different from the pilgrimages made to sacred places like Mecca or to cultural centers such as one’s homeland.  Instead of being motivated by religious or ethnic values, hippie journeys seem more reflective of their cultural beliefs and the ideals of a bohemian existence.  
 
Today, people continue to travel the same routes traveled by hippies in the 70s and 80s.  I think it is interesting to consider how over time, sacred journeys and spiritual destinations have developed new meanings.  Not only do people embark on the hippie trail to discover spiritual peace—now there is also the desire to travel the route to experience the bohemian lifestyle it has become associated with. 
 
The diversifying meanings of spiritual travels is well demonstrated by the Beatles visit to Rishikesh—a historic religious town in India.  While the Beatles traveled on a spiritual quest and were drawn to Rishikesh because of its religious importance, today Westerners travel to this holy town only because of its association with the Beatles. 

After reading Ibn Battuta, I also read the suggested article by Marina A Tolmacheva “On Women's Travel in the Dar al-Islam”.  Just to recap, this article explores Ibn Battuta’s accounts of women’s travel in order to analyze the situation of Islamic women in the fourteenth century. Rather than focus solely on the attitudes towards women in Ibn Batutta’s accounts, I am interested more generally in Ibn Battuta’s open-minded approach to discussing the varied situations of women, as well as other cultural aspects he encounters. Marina Tolmacheva touches upon this idea when she points out how Ibn Battuta was an expert witness—he “received training as a legal scholar in the Maliki school of Islamic law and served as a judge on several occasions”.  She continues to discuss how because Ibn Battuta was well versed in Islamic law, it is increasingly significant how very few of his observations were “openly critical or disparaging of women or of society's "permissiveness" in regard to their social manner or mobility in public space”. 

Battuta’s openness concerning attitudes towards women and other cultural differences was a quality I noticed several times throughout his accounts.  While he did judge certain practices as “bad” and “immoral”, as Tolmacheva pointed out, more often he used restrained words like “interesting” or “strange when referencing local customs.  For example, in one account Battuta discusses the shock of seeing unclothed bathers—while he explains this was something that alarmed him because he had never seen such a thing before, he does not criticize or condemn difference.  In these descriptions, Battuta exhibited the qualities of an anthropologist.  The ability to view another culture without the limitations of one’s own cultural bias requires an awareness of the structures that form our own realities.  Since it is easy to naturalize our cultural surroundings, this can be very difficult. 

Within Ibn Battuta’s travels—and similarly in parts of Herodotus and the Travels of Marco Polo—there are fascinating examples of openness and exchange between cultures. While I would expect traveler’s accounts of to be most critical and biased at this early phase of history (since there had been less contact with ‘others’ at this point it seems natural that there would also be less of an understanding of their differences), instead, I found Battuta’s openness with other cultures refreshing…especially in comparison to the prejudices of race and class that seem to grow only more prevalent in travel narratives thereafter.  
 

Marco Polo has become the most famous traveler of the Silk Road. However, Polo was neither the first nor the last to use the trade route between the Mediterranean Sea and China.  According to an article by Jona Lendering, the first users of the Silk Road must have lived in the first millennium BCE—twelve hundred years before Polo.  In the West, the route to China was eventually termed the "Silk Road" because silk was a rare and expensive material considered more precious than gold. "The Silk Road" was not the only link the West made between China and silk—westerners referred to the Chinese people as simply “silk people” and to Chang'an—the capital of the Han Dynasty—as “silk city".
 
Today, travelers continue to follow the footsteps of Marco Polo’s famous travels along the Silk Road. In 2005, a group of six motorcycle riders from New Zealand calling themselves “the silkriders” embarked on a 3 month long motorcycle journey starting in Venice and ending in Xanadu.  The group of cyclists departed on the 750th anniversary of Marco Polo’s birthday hoping to retrace his travels.
 
Apparently, like Marco Polo, the Silkriders experienced the insecurities of travel along the Silk Road. One article tells how the riders were put under house arrest in iran for their suspiciously large vehicles. According the the New Zealand herald, the Silkriders were detained by local police in the Caspian Sea town of Babolsar, who claimed they were causing “too much disturbance”. The cyclists were only detained for one night, but they complain of being housed in a rat-infested hotel.  For a gang of motorcyclists they seem like sissies, unprepared to face the Silk Road with the same bravery and determination as Polo.  
 
The book "Silk Riders: Jo and Gareth Morgan's Incredible Journey on the Trail of Marco Polo" was created by the Silkriders to document their travels. However, the book seems to have mainly negative reviews:
 
“The entire book is one long sonnet to the very excellence of it's writers – where they denigrate every country they travel through, praise the locals in only the most condescending terms – refer to some as 'road lice' and even account in approving terms of one of the travelers assaulting their local guide.”

Leonardo Da Vinci and Marco Polo are both world famous Italians. But do their similarities stop there? In Marco Polo’s Travels, the in depth descriptions of plants, animals, and people reminded me of a literary version of Leonardo’s Notebooks (a text I have recently reviewed for my colloquium).  Both are captivating, detailed, and offer a glimpse into an individual’s mind and perspective.  The similarities between Leonardo and Marco Polo are not limited to the shared characteristics of these two texts.
 
Leonardo Da Vinci—the great Renaissance man—was passionately curious, artistically masterful, and technologically ingenious. As an artist, he used the power of observation and empirical evidence to precisely capture nature in its scientific forms. Similarly, Marco Polo used the power of observation in order to precisely capture an objective truth: “we will set down things seen as seen, things heard as heard, so that our book may be an accurate record, free from any sort of fabrication” (33).  Whether or not Marco Polo exaggerated his claims, his proclamations make clear that he intended, above all, to provide accurate descriptions and representations.  This quest for accuracy and precision mirrors the intentions behind Da Vinci’s artwork—during the Renaissance, a good artist was defined a master of representation capable of imitating the exact forms produced in nature. 

Furthermore, as historical figures, Leonardo and Marco Polo both owe their fame to the documents they left behind. In some 13000 pages of notes, Leonardo documented his thoughts, ideas, observations and inventions. Our awareness of Da Vinci’s scientific studies and artistic innovations would not exist today had Leonardo not used lifelong notebooks to document his ideas. Today, Da Vinci’s notebooks are amongst his most famous works; they have undeniably influenced his fame as a historical figure. 
 
In the case of Marco Polo’s fame, documentation has played an equally significant role. As demonstrated by the following quote, it was not important whether or not Marco Polo was the first to travel extensively. What was important, however, was that he was the first to record his travels: “The claim put forward in the prologue, that its author had travelled more extensively than any man since the Creation, is a plain statement of fact, so far at least as it relates to anyone who has left a record of his travels” (7).
 
In my opinion, the recipe for Polo’s success= recorded travels+Gutenberg’s printing press.  If Polo had not recorded his travels, would we even recognize his name today? Both Marco Polo’s Travels and the Notebooks of Leonardo Da Vinci confirm the significance of documentary media.  Documentations across all mediums preserve the lives, thoughts, and ideas of individuals, effectively capturing historical and cultural moments. They are of great educational value, allowing a glimpse into a foreign mind, culture, and perspective.
 

 An article on Herodotus by A.P. David has interested me in the parallels between contemporary culture and Herodotus as “an inquirer” and his accounts as an “inquiry”. In the article “Travel Writing as History”, David explains that we should not consider Herodotus as an informant but as “an inquirer into the ever-present human condition”. He develops this idea by showing how according to two senses of the word ‘history’—firstly, the sense involved in such phrases as making history, history will show, or the end of history, and secondly, the sense of history as a discipline—Herodotus does not qualify as a historian, but merely a story-teller.
 
However, David reveals that Herodotus does relate to an understanding of the Greek word historia, which is unlike either of the previous two senses of ‘history’: “historia means inquiry or investigation…and this is the spirit of Herodotus' publication. He is a seeker, and one might as well adopt his attitude as naively as one can, in order to see the world and its workings afresh”.
 
Considering Herodotus as “an inquirer” into the human condition rather than as an informant has led me to consider contemporary uses of inquiry vs. informant; in particular, the Iraq Inquiry.  In my opinion, both ‘inquiries’ are comparable. 
 
The Iraq Inquiry is criticized for assessing information with the bias of its committee’s interests: like Herodotus’ accounts of Egypt, the conclusions reached by the Iraq Inquiry present a subjective view.  Both examples demonstrate the confusion between an informant and an inquirer, as both cases can be criticized for presenting skewed information as solid evidence.  Moreover, similar to how Herodotus has been challenged as “the king of lies” rather than the “king of history”, the Iraq inquiry has been challenged as a farce and a collection of lies that serve the ends of its creators. 

Despite naïve claims, inaccurate logic and shoddy thinking, Herodotus offers what I found to be some impressive demonstrations of scientific thinking and critical inquiry.  It is interesting how Herodotus’ accounts of Egypt, which at times seem assumptive and void of reasonable evidence, are at other times demonstrations of highly developed problem-solving.
 
One example of Herodotus’ advanced analysis I found especially interesting was his speculative discussion of the Nile, in which he explores the Nile’s annual flooding and why this river’s nature is opposite to that of all other rivers. 
 
Concerning this question, Herodotus explores in depth several theories of reasoning that have been previously presented.  Using advanced thinking, especially for his time, Herodotus questions the ideas of the previous thinkers and develops counter-evidence revealing their mistakes and illogic. 
 
For example, Herodotus disproves one account of the Hellenes by pointing out how if their ideas were correct, all other rivers flowing in the same direction as the Nile would likewise be affected in the same way. Herodotus continues to critically question two other accounts of the Hellenes. In analyzing the third theory, which he considers “the most specious, but nevertheless the most mistaken of all”, he develops a counter-argument by providing several pieces of contradictory evidence.
 
Herodotus’ reasoning in this section uses intuitive observations and an understanding of science and nature including the nature of the wind, the rain, and animal behaviors. Not only does Herodotus impress by critically engaging and providing evidence against so many scientific accounts, he continues by declaring his own opinion about the nature of the Nile.
 
The opinion Herodotus’ suggests, which involves the nature of seasons, the sun and the wind, seems well developed and intuitive. Regardless of whether or not the analysis and thinking that Herodotus uses to disprove other theorists and to develop his own ideas are entirely accurate, his use of evidence and advanced problem solving techniques should not go unnoticed. 

Reading about Odysseus’s travels makes me feel as if I am playing a video game.  I am Odysseus and I must overcome a challenging maze of obstacles using my wit and deception.  Each level is a new whimsical land full of mythological creatures to defeat...will I make it home to Ithaca? I have to be careful not to anger the Gods and I must not give in to temptation; if I do I will be sent backwards a level and lose points.  Since I think that Odysseus's travels would make a great premise for a video game, I have searched online for existing games. I found two but neither of them are very exciting. In case you are interested:
1. The Odyssey—Winds of Athena: http://www.hiddenobjectgames.us/the-odyssey-winds-of-athena
2. Video of an Odyssey 'mini-game' designed by David Yen. I like the graphic design: http://vimeo.com/9157084.   

On a totally different note, I think that Odysseus’s adventure-filled journey encompasses many of the same ideas and expectations about travel held by travelers today. When I travel, I hope for adventure and anticipate being swept away by a world of unknown. Though not quite as extreme, I think that many travelers long for whirlwind experiences similar to those of Odysseus.

The recurrence of food was another travel-related expectation I noticed throughout Odysseus’s travels.  Odysseus and his men seem to be constantly eating.  The places they visit are frequently characterized by an abundance of tempting foods like the exotic Lotus in the land of the lotus-eaters the sheep and cheese inside the Cyclops’ cave. Today, food and drink remain a significant aspect of traveling to a new place.  We are attracted to places for their unique delicacies and when we travel, we expect to eat and drink and indulge.