Avuncular American

Summer of Scaffolding

 

 

Teetering chimney repairs, summer 2012

Inside, outside - everywhere.  The Legation is undergoing needed repairs, despite the general Ramadan slowdown.  Ramadan doesn't mean that work grinds to a halt.  It just means that crowding all your daily eating, drinking, smoking, socializing - and maybe some sleep - into the 9 hours of darkness means that something has to give during daylight hours.  So work proceeds, at an altered pace.

One thing that also requires alteration is our museum circuit.  The Pavilion's Malcolm Forbes toy soldier exhibit, the Paul Bowles wing: out of bounds, blocked by scaffolding.

Conference room map exhibit: emptied for renovations.  The James McBey collection of paintings: off limits due to urgent plumbing work.  The part of the museum that is visitable is now down to about six rooms.

But this is all for a good cause.  Consider the conference room, whose baseboard (photo, above) disintegrated at the touch of a finger when the painters started scraping.

Elsewhere, we've found that when you poke a hole in a wall looking for a leak, you'll be amazed at what you might find.  Rotting joists after years of moisture, leading to termite infestation, and barely supporting the floor above.  Main sewage pipes patched with the equivalent of chewing gum.  Storm drainage pipes blocked by cement.  Out of sight, out of mind.

So thanks to the American Embassy Rabat OBO Facilities Maintenance Officer, we're getting a series of urgently needed repairs underway.

In addition to our museum visitors getting a truncated tour of the facilities, we've also had to adjust our usual activities.  No chance of doing a summertime Movie Night.  And this year, we have had to break our tradition of the Ramadan Andalusian music concert.  That's really a pity, as it is always well received - a bit of Moroccan culture to take people's minds off the fasting.  Sorry, our concert space is a construction work site.

In fact, this is what we need to do on an extended, continual basis.  A few weeks ago, I wrote here about our crumbling Pavilion building, the 1930s oeuvre of Minister Maxwell Blake, who did so much to make the Legation one of the gems in the crown of American diplomatic buildings.

Yes, we need a sustained program of renovation and restoration of this historic building.  So that we don't look like a patchwork quilt of newly-repainted walls cum crumbly mold, all in the same viewfinder frame.

Gerald Loftus

The Everlasting Appeal of James McBey's Zohra

Arabic language online magazine Marigha.com (named after an oasis near Marrakesh) stopped by recently for one of their quick video pieces on Morocco's cultural attractions.

Here it is, focusing on Zohra, James McBey's 1952 oil painting at TALIM's museum (image above from Enchantment: Pictures from the Tangier American Legation Museum).

Diana Wylie, who devotes an entire chapter to McBey and his world in Enchantment, wrote this of the enigmatic model:

[P]ainting portraits of wealthy Americans sustained [McBey] during the war years in the US.  He had a gift for flattering portraiture, but he could insinuate subtle insights, too.  In this 1952 portrait of a servant girl named Zohra he has captured a look that is both soft and guarded; the girl has already learned how to defend herself against the aggression of the street.

What brought Marigha.com and many others to the Legation is the notion that Zohra is the "Moroccan Mona Lisa."  McBey did endow Zohra with eyes that can follow you from whatever angle you gaze at the portrait.

Luckily Zohra navigated those mean streets successfully, and 60 years later, can contemplate the meanderings of chance, when she was painted by a Scottish artist in Tangier, whose work is displayed at the American Legation.  Zohra now is a proud grandmother, and her American connection that started years ago (James McBey was married to American Marguerite Loeb McBey) has only been reinforced: Zohra's sons live in the US, and she is a regular Transatlantic visitor.

James McBey's works are primarily in three places: his native Aberdeen, Scotland; the Tangier American Legation; and the Imperial War Museum in London.  McBey served as an official artist in the British Army during World War I, and his portraits of Lawrence of Arabia, General Allenby, and others are visible at this great BBC website.

Gerald Loftus

Tangier 1949: Gore Vidal Ambushes Truman Capote

Headline: "Gore Vidal dies; imperious gadfly and prolific, graceful writer was 86"

Washington Post, Michael Dirda, August 1, 2012

Dirda's article mentions in passing that Gore Vidal was a friend of Paul Bowles, whose short stories Vidal said "are among the best ever written by an American."  Vidal was an occasional visitor to Tangier.

Thanks to Daniel Rondeau, French man of letters and current ambassador to UNESCO, we have a glimpse of Gore Vidal as a young man, when in 1949, Jane Bowles accompanies Truman Capote through France en route to Tangier.  This is an informal translation from Tanger et autres Marocs, Rondeau's 1997 ode to a city and its cultural fixtures:

It's 1949, and Capote is 25 and has just published, to great acclaim, his first novel.  Paris adulates him, and he's asked: "Sir, what are you planning now?"  He pretends to have only one thing in mind, and smilingly answers his admirers: "Spend the summer in Tangier."

Capote's best enemy, Gore Vidal, gets wind of these plans.  Vidal is the same age as Capote.  He has published, to critical acclaim, his first two novels.  They travel in the same circles.  They hate each other.

Vidal, as nasty as he's smart, if that's possible, departs secretly for Tangier.  A few days later, he's hanging out on the docks, hands in his pockets, looking nonchalant, almost innocent, when Truman Capote gets off the ship from Marseille.

Bowles, who was waiting for him, told me: "Truman Capote fell apart when he spotted Gore Vidal.  His face looked like a soufflé that had suddenly been put in the freezer.  He even broke down for a few seconds and went behind the bulwark to regain his composure."

Gore Vidal drags out the practical joke for a few more days, leaving Capote with the impression that he too was in Tangier until September.  Less than a week later, he departs, satisfied to have ruined the arrival of his Enemy Number One.

The Vidal-Capote hatred continued throughout their lives, and even when Truman Capote passed away, Vidal could not resist twisting the knife.

Gerald Loftus