SPRING FOODS

“An onion can make people cry, but there has never been a vegetable invented to make them laugh.” - Will Rogers

I was in Brisbane today for work and it has been rather a long day, considering I woke at 4:00 a.m. and my plane landed back in Melbourne after 8:30 p.m. and I wasn’t home until after 9:00 p.m. Nevertheless, getting back home is what is important and what better than a nice home-cooked meal to come back to?

It is Spring here in Melbourne and some wonderful Spring vegetables are making their appearance. Asparagus and broad beans, artichokes and Brussels sprouts, leeks and morel mushrooms, baby carrots and radishes… I don’t think there is a vegetable that I don’t like and in Spring, what delights there are to tempt us!

One delicious Spring offering from the garden is the newly greening vine leaves. These are used in Greek cooking to make dolmades – stuffed vine leaves. Although pickled vine leaves are on sale in your delicatessen, the best leaves to use are the tender young ones in Spring, straight from the vine. A few minutes in boiling water to blanch them until they become tender and one may stuff them with a savoury mixture, which varies widely from place to place and also country to country, as stuffed vine leaves are also popular in Turkey and other middle Eastern countries. Rice is a universal ingredient of the stuffing, as are herbs such as mint, parsley, sometimes dill.

One may use minced meat in the stuffing, one may not. Grated tomato pulp may or may not be added. Usually, grated onion is an ingredient, unless one chops up Spring onions to add instead. Pine nuts and raisins are added by some cooks, but this practice is shunned by others. In any case, a rather runny stuffing is made, and mixed well. The vine leaves are stuffed, shiny side out, and the finished product must be a neat little cylindrical bundle. The dolmades are put next to each other and stacked in an orderly fashion in a heavy metal pot, some vine leaves are spread out on top and any juices left over from the stuffing are poured over them, as well as the juice of a lemon or two. A plate is inverted and place on top of the pot and the dolmades are heated on the stove until tender and well cooked.

The traditional sauce one serves them with is an egg and lemon mousseline sauce, but one may simply put dollops of Greek-style yogurt on them. Delicious!

HAPPY THANKSGIVING!

“Not what we say about our blessings, but how we use them, is the true measure of our thanksgiving.” - W.T. Purkiser

It is a special day in the USA today – Thanksgiving, which is a day of celebration firmly associated with the Pilgrim Fathers, the pioneer spirit and the difficulty of taming a wild land, such that its rich bounty could be harvested from its firm hold. The origins of the day are traditionally based on the Thanksgiving Feast held by the Pilgrims who sailed in the good ship “Mayflower” to settle in America in the early 17th century.

A pilgrim is any person who makes a journey, often long and difficult, to a special place for religious reasons. The term, in the USA especially, applies to the members of a group of English Puritans who were fleeing religious persecution in Britain and who sailed in the “Mayflower” to found the colony of Plymouth, Massachusetts, in 1620.

The first harvest of crops was plentiful and so they 
gave thanks to the Lord. There is some disagreement as to whether this was the basis for the tradition but it is generally held to be the origin. Although the holiday had religious origins with a superadded harvest festival tradition, Thanksgiving nowadays is secularised. Today, Thanksgiving is celebrated on the second Monday of October in Canada and on the fourth Thursday of November in the USA. Thanksgiving dinner is held on this day, usually as a gathering of family members, with traditional foods such as turkey, cranberry sauce, pumpkin, corn, mash, various pies, cornbread and other foods characteristic of the New World.

Happy Thanksgiving to all my American friends!

And for the word of the day:

pilgrim |ˈpilgrəm|noun
a person who journeys to a sacred place for religious reasons.
• (usually Pilgrim) a member of a group of English Puritans fleeing religious persecution who sailed in the Mayflower and founded the colony of Plymouth, Massachusetts, in 1620.
• a person who travels on long journeys.
• chiefly poetic/literary a person whose life is compared to a journey.
verb ( -grimmed, -grimming) [ intrans. ] archaic
Travel or wander like a pilgrim.

DERIVATIVES
pilgrimise |-ˌmīz| |ˈpɪlgrəˈmaɪz| verb ( archaic).
ORIGIN Middle English : from Provençal pelegrin, from Latin peregrinus ‘foreign’.

The painting above is "The First Thanksgiving" by Jean Louis Gerome Ferris.

DO YOU LOVE ME?

“Only in love are unity and duality not in conflict.” - Rabindranath Tagore

Do you Love me?

“Do you love me,” she said, “do you love me?”
And I – I stood silent and looked on, transfixed.
“Do you care for me,” she asked, “do you?”
And I – I turned away and looked at her no more.

“Why are you silent?” she spoke again,
And I – I searched inside me, for words
Were hard to find and language failed me.
“Speak, answer, tell me!” she commanded.

My eyes looked upon her and all I could think of
Were bright red thoughts and chords of A major joy.
Sweet tasting sherbet melodies and cooling draughts
Of pure spring water on a summer’s day.

“Do you love me,” she said, “do you love me?”
And I – I stood silent and looked on, transfixed.
“Do you care for me,” she asked, “do you?”
And I – I turned towards her and looked deep in her eyes.

And there were velvet leaves in my gaze,
On mellow September afternoons;
And my fingers were extended in silken threads
To bind our hands together like steel gossamer.

And my tongue moved powerless in the prison of my mouth
Forcing volumes of words unspoken down a dry throat.
My lips painted a sunset of a smile, and my eyes
Spoke only three eloquent words, silently,
So softly that only she could hear them with her heart
That resonated perfectly with their insistent rhythm.
“Hush, love!” she said, “not so loudly!
For we must not tempt jealous fate with our bliss;
The gods have punished mortals for lesser offences than
This sweetest hubris…”

The heady joy of newly-experienced love inspired this poem and when dragging it out of an old notebook the words stirred memories of fresh emotions, new and seemingly unique. Ah, youth! How innocent we all are when we begin on our love journeys!

POSTCARD FROM ADELAIDE

“Travel and change of place impart new vigor to the mind.” - Seneca

Adelaide has a good atmosphere about it. It is a little big city. While it has all of the facilities, attractions, conveniences of a modern megalopolis, it still is small enough to retain the charms of a large town. It has gracious old buildings, beautiful stone houses, large parks and an arts-conscious, cultured population. The nearby towns and villages of Hahndorf, Birdwood, Lobethal, Stirling, Woodside and the picturesque Adelaide Hills provide a perfect foil to the City and are all very enjoyable daytrips if you are staying in the City. Lovely beaches and seaside suburbs complement the Hills and the red desert sands of the Outback are only a relatively short drive out of town. One should not forget to mention the world-famous wine growing region of the Barossa Valley, only about 60 km northeast of Adelaide.

One of my favourite towns and one of the Adelaide Hills’ most famous is Hahndorf, which is Australia’s oldest surviving German settlement. There's still a strong German atmosphere in Hahndorf, most evident in the smallgoods outlets and German bakeries that line the busy main street. Hahndorf means “Hen Village” in German and there is still a rustic feel to the place, even though it is a major tourist attraction and has facilities that are geared towards satisfying the visiting tourists. There are plenty of souvenir shops, craft outlets and galleries, including the Hahndorf Academy, a regional centre for the arts and heritage based in a charming 150-year-old building. There are four galleries to see, a migration museum, resident artists’ studios, art classes and a retail gallery.

“The Cedars”, the former home and studio of famous German-Australian artist Sir Hans Heysen is in Hahndorf and one may take a guided tour of this gracious old home, which is still owned by the Heysen family. It is home to a fine collection of paintings and drawings that display Heysen's remarkable versatility in subject and medium. Also on the grounds, is the artist’s working studio, his painting materials and tools, sketches, notes and more.

If you like strawberries, then Beerenberg is the place to go, near Hahndorf. You can pick your own strawberries and half the fun is trying to find the biggest, ripest, juiciest berry and one of course has to subject all candidates to the taste test. If wine is more to your taste, there are several good winery cellar doors in the area.

It is probably a good idea to stay in Hahndorf overnight and there are several good motels and hotels around. Hahndorf Inn Hotel has an award-winning restaurant on site and it offers traditional German fare and a delightful range of fresh food and local favourites. Traditional German recipes and cooking methods are a feature and one can also sample a variety of local and imported beers.

Needless to say that this time around I shan’t have a chance to visit the Adelaide Hills or Hahndorf as my trip is all work, work, work and no time for pleasure…

MOVIE MONDAY - BLAZE

“We'd all like to vote for the best man, but he's never a candidate.” - Frank McKinney "Kin" Hubbard

I am travelling for work again and this time it’s lovely Adelaide. However, as it is Movie Monday, here is a brief review of a film we watched last weekend. It is Ron Shelton’s 1989 movie “Blaze”, with Paul Newman and Lolita Davidovich. It is a biographical comedy/drama of the life and times of Earl K. Long, three-time Governor of the US state of Louisiana between 1939 and 1960. His affair with Blaze Starr, a stripper dominates the story and the title of the movie shifts the emphasis a little from the politician to the “entertainer”. It is a romanticized and somewhat sanitised version of the truth, but one may have difficulty in determining what indeed may be the real truth. Especially where politicians are concerned…

The film was mildly amusing and the two leads played tolerably well, although Newman’s brilliance is lacking and the film suffers from pedestrian direction and predictable story-telling in a plot that is formulaic despite the real-life steamy hot mix that was available to the screenplay writer (Ron Shelton). The film lacks a clear theme. It starts out as a biographical drama of Blaze’s life, then the larger-than-life Earl comes into the scene, and there is a half-baked attempt at making the film relevant to equal rights issues. A very strange mix that doesn’t work particularly well, but which has a few good moments and is saved by the acting of the leads.

A sin of omission (and commission) in this movie is that Earl was married to Blanche Revere Long while he was having his affair with Starr. In the film he is a bachelor who is a bit of a dirty old man. It was in fact Blanche that got him committed to a mental asylum, from which (bizarre as it may seem) he continues to run the state as there was no law at the time to prevent a mentally incapacitated governor to continue his office. Real life Blaze Starr herself has a small part in the movie (as Lily).

There are a few good one liners in the movie and one may chuckle here and there. However, for a two-hour long movie, it fails to deliver what could have been made into an engrossing (seemingly short) Long-tale. Earl K. Long was certainly a colourful character and I am sure that fact must surely have been stranger than fiction in his case. If you come across the movie have a look at it, but don’t go out of your way to specifically look for it.

Have a good week!

ART SUNDAY - GOYA

“Every artist dips his brush in his own soul, and paints his own nature into his pictures.” - Henry Ward Beecher
Francisco de Goya y Lucientes (1746-1828) is one of the greatest artists that Spain has ever produced and is considered the “Father of Modern Art”. His works, which are world renowned, changed the way artists saw the world. His work spanning 60 years from about the last half of the 18th century to the first quarter of the 19th century portray a celebration of life and a realistic view of the world.

Goya was born in the province of Zaragoza. When he was a teenager, he entered the service of a local artist. Later on, he travelled to Madrid, where he was greatly influenced by the last of the great Venetian painters. After several failed attempts to enrol in the Royal Academy of San Fernando, Goya went to Rome. Returning to Spain in the decade of the 1770s, Goya painted frescoes in several churches of his native province.

After his wedding, Goya began to rise in fame, working under Mengs, and then finally joining the royal academy and becoming King Charles III’s court painter. In 1799, Goya became the official painter of King Charles IV. But by this time he had suffered an illness, which left him deaf, and his alienation from the pomposity of the Court began. He produced dark works at this time. Goya with his wild imagination portrayed sordid images of a surreal world. Unable to present his works to his usual clientele, he is forced, under the threat of the Inquisition, to withdraw his works. Meanwhile he continued with his services as court painter.

By this time political and social upheaval connected with the Napoleonic kidnap of the Spanish crown and the invasion of Spain, Goya produced the famous painting “2nd of May of 1808”, and other pieces in which the artist epitomised the suffering and the realism of war as never before seen. Ferdinand VII, King of Spain, appoints Goya as the court painter again after the war, but by this time the artist’s convictions lead him to witness the vanity of court life. This begins his period known as the black paintings. A decade later, after having witnessed the excesses and the attempt to enforce an absolutist regime by Ferdinand VII, Goya decides to leave Spain to settle in Southern France where he died.

Because of the richness of works from Goya, one can witness how his attitude towards life and the world evolves and changes, as the socio-political events surrounding him shift. Goya is considered, with El Greco and Diego Velázquez, one of the greatest Spanish masters. Just as Goya found inspiration in the work of Velázquez, so Goya in turn inspired Edouard Manet and Pablo Picasso. He left no immediate followers of consequence, but his influence was strongly felt in mid-19th-century painting and printmaking and in 20th-century art.

Here is one of Goya’s lightest and breeziest paintings from early in his career. It is called “The Parasol” (1776-8) and evokes sunny carefree days of youth and insouciance. The artist’s wonderful sense of colour and light is already apparent in this canvas and his composition is masterly.

VOCALISE

“Nostalgia is a seductive liar.” - George Wildman Ball

As time passes our memory dulls acute pains of yesterday while the pleasures we have felt in former times become idealised into something exquisite. The nostalgia we feel for the past sometimes intrudes into the present moment and jars our experiences, which somehow feel deficient. If used well our album of memories can be a balm, a soothing unguent for the present’s woes. If we look backward all of the time and choose to live in the past, nostalgia becomes poisoned wine.

Sergei Rachmaninov (1873-1943) is one of my favourite romantic composers – perhaps the last great romantic. Here is a piece of his that reeks of nostalgia. There is both balm and poison in this piece and depending on your frame of mind it can heal or kill…

“Vocalise” Op. 34 No. 14 published in 1912 as the last of his Fourteen Songs, Opus 34. Written for voice (soprano or tenor) with piano accompaniment, it contains no words, but is sung using any one vowel (of the singer's choosing). It was dedicated to soprano Antonina Nezhdanova. Here is Renée Fleming singing it with orchestral accompaniment.

TV CHEFS

“He who distinguishes the true savor of his food can never be a glutton; he who does not cannot be otherwise.” - Henry David Thoreau

Today is World Television Day and seeing as it is also Food Friday, I’ll combine the two and talk about TV chefs and TV food programs. Any channel worth its salt has one or two of these programs around and it is not unusual for TV chefs to become national or international celebrities as a direct result of these programs. Julia Child, Jeff Smith (a.k.a. The Frugal Gourmet), Justin Wilson (a.k.a. The Cajun Cook), James Beard (a.k.a The Father of American Cooking), Jamie Oliver (a.k.a The Naked Chef), Gordon Ramsay (a.k.a The Chef of Hell’s Kitchen), Nigella Lawson, Madhur Jaffrey, Kylie Kwong, Stefano de Pieri, Iain Hewitson, Vefa Alexiadou, Ilias Mamalakis, Gabriel Gaté, etc, etc, etc.

They come from all places, cook in an amazing array of styles, national idioms, have mind-boggling variety of approaches, employ different gimmicks and have hundreds of thousands (some millions!) of loyal followers that often extend beyond the confines of their own nation. Their programs can be quite straight-forward and to the point “how-to-cook-xyz”, brief and no-nonsense, but many of them have themed extravaganzas that pull out all stops and besides the obvious primary theme of food, have secondary themes including travel, culture, nutrition, self-sufficiency, etc.

The term “celebrity chef” is often applied to these TV chefs in a derogatory way. They are often seen by the serious foodie as charlatans who prostitute their art and who are peddling their craft to the marketplace in a virtual world where the products of their toil in the kitchen are not enjoyed as they would be if they worked in a restaurant. A real chef working in a real restaurant, producing real food for real people is what a foodie would describe as an ideal situation. If that real chef is consummate in his art, then his fame will be well earned and surely his celebrity status is deserved.

I personally don’t like the TV chef. Especially so if they are gimmicky and rely on heir notoriety more than their skill to attract viewers. I abhor the tactics of Gordon Ramsay and find his manner odious, in fact I doubt whether I’d even taste any of his food (remember the finger incident?). Jamie Oliver is similarly distasteful. The ones I like tend to be low key and rather boring for general consumption. They tend to be more pedestrian in their approach and they see themselves as teachers of their craft. There is much science in food – chemistry, physics, thermodynamics. One must understand the processes in order to be successful and some TV chefs are happy to share their knowledge.

The celebrity chef is not a new discovery. The first such chef to attain this status was Antoine Carême (1784-1833) who was called “The king of chefs and chef of kings”. He built on the “haute cuisine” style of French cooking, full of elaborate, complicated and grandiose dishes. Although born in poverty and abandoned by his parents as a child, he managed to be apprenticed in a cheap Parisian eatery and gradually worked his way to the top in a fashionable patisserie. He progressed to being the chef of many a crowned head and many an influential person in Europe.

Carême is credited with creating the standard chef's hat (the toque), with the invention of new sauces and dishes, and the establishment of the haute cuisine. He published a classification of all sauces into groups, based on four basic sauces. He is also credited with replacing the practice of service à la française (serving all dishes at once) with service à la russe (serving each dish in the order of courses). He wrote several cookery books, above all L' Art de la Cuisine Française (5 volumes, 1833–34), which included, aside from hundreds of recipes, plans for menus and opulent table settings, a history of French cookery, and instructions for organising kitchens – a veritable encyclopaedia of cooking. He died at the age of 48 in Germany, possibly from the effects of inhaling toxic gases from the burning coal of the kitchen fires he was constantly exposed to.

ThE DORD OF THE PRONIAL BREAN...

“Be not the slave of Words.” - Thomas Carlyle

Do you know what a “ghost word” is?

ghost word |gōst wərd|noun
a word that is not actually used but is recorded in a dictionary, grammar or other reference work. It usually gets into that scholarly work as a result of a misreading or misinterpretation, as by mistaking a typographical error for an actual word.

The classic example of a ghost word is the word “dord”. It began its short life in 1931 when G. and C. Merriam Company's staff included it in the second edition of its Webster’s New International Dictionary, in which the term was defined as “density”. It is due to an error made when transcribing a card that read "D or d" (meaning a capital D or lower case d) as an abbreviation for “density”, such as in “The formula for finding density is D = V/M” (Density equals volume divided by mass).

A new typed up slip was prepared for the printer and the part of speech assigned along with a pronunciation for typesetters to include in the printing. The word got past proofreaders and appeared on page 771 of the dictionary around 1934. In 1939, an editor noticed “dord” lacked an etymology (word origin, or derivation) and investigated. Soon an order was sent to the printer marked “plate change/imperative/urgent”. The word “dord” was removed and the definition of the adjacent entry “Dore furnace” was expanded from “A furnace for refining dore bullion” to “a furnace in which dore bullion is refined” to close up the space.

Since major dictionaries are very carefully compiled and edited (I should know!), ghost words are rare in reputable reference works. However, dictionary writers have been known to copy entries from one another without looking for citations, where the word is in use (i.e. in books, magazines, newspapers, journals, etc), which means that some ghost words can be propagated.

Other examples of ghost words are: “pornial”, a mistake for “primal” which appeared first in the Century Dictionary and was then copied into Funk & Wagnalls Dictionary. When the original Oxford English Dictionary was being compiled ghost words would regularly appear, or were close to appearing in the dictionary. One which almost did appear was the word “brean” The lexicographer was suspicious, however, contacted Robert Louis Stevenson directly (from whose work came the citation which contained the word) and asked him about it. It turns out “brean” was a printer’s mistake and the word should have been “ocean”.

Bad eyesight, bad handwriting, bad transcription, bad work by volunteers and bad dictionary writing practice (copying other dictionaries!) all traditionally contributed to the appearance of ghost words in dictionaries. However, apart from traditional dictionaries, there are a whole host of less scrupulously compiled word lists that pander to people’s lurid appetite for odd or unusual words. A mistake, or even a misleading definition, can definitely propagate ghost words (especially nowadays with the Internet where odd words get passed around – no questions asked!).

So if you want to know the “dord of the pornial brean”, it was less dense than today’s oceans because there was less salt dissolved in it!

WITHOUT YOU

“Love is, above all, the gift of oneself.” - Jean Anouilh

Without your Love

Without leaves, a twig is dead wood.
Without water, a river is not worthy of the name.
Without music, a song is so many empty words.
Without your love, I am nothing.

Without stars, the night sky is an abyss.
Without fish, the sea is but a bucket full of water.
Without birds, the air is not alive with song.
Without your love, I am not whole.

Without an oasis, the desert is endless hopelessness.
Without sunshine, the night will last forever.
Without abatement, the storm will drown all.
Without your love, the world ends for me.

IN GOOD HUMOUR

“In nothing do men more nearly approach the gods than in giving health to men.” - Cicero

I had a meeting with my publisher today and we discussed a project of mine concerning a book to come out next year. In our discussions we started talking about the history of medicine and more specifically we talked about the ancient humoral theory of disease. This was a philosophy that originated with the ancient Greeks and which aligned the four “elements” (earth, fire, water and air) with the four body fluids or “humours” (blood, phlegm, black bile and yellow bile). The importance of this system of medicine in history cannot be stressed enough as it held sway for many centuries before it finally gave way to the new ideas heralded by the Renaissance and which took over in the age of enlightenment.

The four elements was an attractive theory, because it seemingly explained how all things were made up. If one took wood, for example, it was full of water when fresh and one had to dry it to remove it. When one heated it, it was set alight, liberating its content of fire and ultimately, as the air was driven out of it in the form of smoke, ash would be left behind as the last component, earth. Different things were made up of different proportions of earth, fire, air and water, accounting for their different textures and properties.

Similarly, the four humours of the body made up the flesh and fluids. When one was healthy, there was a good balance of these humours. We still speak of someone being “good-humoured”. There are disorders of the blood that the haematologist still refers to as “dyscrasias” – literally a “bad mixture”.

An excess of blood made the person “sanguine” or “plethoric” and these people tended to be obese, but also robust and active, moderately hypersexed with a good appetite and a full strong pulse. The way to treat them was to bleed them, relieving them of their excess of blood! Many poor patients were bled to death by the overzealous ministrations of their physician. A sanguine person nowadays still describes someone cheerfully optimistic.

Too much phlegm made the person “phlegmatic”: Flaccid and obese with thin hair, narrow blood vessels and white pasty skin. They were said to be slow in movement and intelligence, even-tempered and not given much to gastronomic or sexual pleasures. We still use the word rather disparagingly to describe someone who has an unemotional and stolidly calm disposition.

Having too much black bile in your body made you “melancholic”, which term has been retained in the language to describe someone who feels sad, gloomy, or depressed. In humoral medicine the melancholic type was usually, dark, hairy, with narrow blood vessels, slow pulse, large appetite and inclined towards excessive sexual activity. Quite often these people were purged with powerful drugs or herbs in order to rid the body of the excess humour.

The last humour yellow bile, in excess, made someone “choleric” (meaning today bad-tempered and irritable). This type of person tended to be thin, energetic, with a strong inclination to sexual pleasure, fastidious of food, a strong rapid pulse and good blood vessels. Emetics were prescribed to rid the body of the yellow bile which was in excess (an obvious in the vomit brought up!).

Around about 450 BC, the Greek philosopher Empedocles developed the theory of correspondence between the four elements with the four bodily humours and described disease in terms of imbalances between the elements and the humours. Unfortunately, this philosophically attractive theory which was not based much on fact or supported by experiment became the dominant theory in medicine, influencing many Greek and Roman medical schools, Islamic medicine and subsequently European medicine well into the Renaissance.

We no longer think there only four elements, and we know precisely what makes up the body and it’s not four humours. We know about disease, its causation, its diagnosis and its treatment. However, it is amusing that even in this day and age we retain the antiquated terms of the humoral theory even in our common language…

MOVIE MONDAY - APOCALYPTO

“We are born princes and the civilising process makes us frogs.” – Publilius Syrus

Last weekend we watched Mel Gibson’s 2006 film “Apocalypto”. I had been aware of the mixed reviews this film received when it first opened, but had missed catching hold of it until now, where once again I found it in the bargain bin of our local video store. The concept was an interesting one and when reading the back of the disc package I was intrigued to see that the film was in the Maya language with English subtitles. This was reason enough to see the film as I had never before had heard a single word of Mayan! This represents an authenticity that some films nowadays try to attain where one is transported to a time and place where the film-maker has attempted to recreate as much as possible the atmosphere and ambience as realistically as possible. It actually reminded of the other Mel Gibson film “The Passion of the Christ”, which was shot with the actors speaking Latin, Hebrew and Aramaic, the language actually spoken by most people at Christ’s time in Palestine. I love subtitles, so these are not an issue for me and the authenticity of hearing the right language spoken in the time and place the movie is set is a great touch.

Apocalypto is set in Central America, at the peak of Mayan civilization. The film starts innocently enough in a small village where a group of villagers hunt a tapir (yes, it is a scene full of blood and gore). Jaguar paw, is a simple villager whose idyllic life with his young family is brutally disrupted by a violent invading force of more “civilised” Mayans. The village is burnt and pillaged, many are killed and the young men are taken as slaves to the Mayan kingdom’s capital. Jaguar Paw faces certain death but through a quirk of fate he manages to escape and tries to return to his village in order to save his trapped wife and child.

In this film, Gibson combines many elements that spell success in Hollywood: Drama, adventure, hero versus villain, struggle and final redemption. However, what is novel is the exotic setting, the many authentic details (although the film is not historically accurate in its totality) and the richness of the striking visuals. The movie is very violent and if human sacrifice depicted graphically will disturb you then this is not the film for you. This is a major problem with the accuracy of the movie as it was the Aztecs and not the Mayas that sacrificed humans in the way depicted. The other inaccuracy has to do with the solar eclipse that seems to surprise everyone, but this is unlikely as the Mayans had excellent astronomical knowledge and very accurate calendars.

However, if you do not see the film, you will be missing out on some touching, some spectacular, some highly entertaining and some poignant parts that make the whole of the film quite enjoyable and overall a positive viewing experience. The cinematography is quite spectacular and the central portion of the film set in the Mayan capital is awe-inspiring in its barbaric splendour. I would have preferred more scenes in this very visually rich and amazingly intricate setting rather than the long chase sequences in the rain forest, however, the film works as it is. The music was not memorable, which I guess can be interpreted as an advantage – it must have not been jarring or obtrusive at the time and complemented the visuals. The acting was excellent and Rudy Youngblood as Jaguar Paw does a remarkable job. The other actors (nearly all completely unknown and draw from the native populations of Mexico and central America) all play well also.

The film’s last scene depicting the arrival of the Spaniards is another historical boo-boo (The peak of the Maya civilisation was between 200-900 AD, and the Spaniards arrived about 600 years later!), but one can forgive Mr Gibson for introducing this as it is a warning to us. Just as the “civilised” tribe terrorized and destroyed Jaguar Paw’s village, the more “civilised” Spaniards would go on to pillage, destroy and massacre all of the pre-Columbian societies they came into contact with in Central and South America. This can be a warning to our present “civilised” society also with its overwhelmingly destructive “globalising” pressures.

ART SUNDAY - ALONE IN LONDON

“Twilight drops her curtain down, and pins it with a star.” - Lucy Maud Montgomery

For art Sunday this week, a favourite painting of mine by Thomas A. Graham (1840-1906), a Scottish artist. I don’t know much about this artist, nor can I find out much from the internet. However, I like this painting as it has a great deal of atmosphere and a beautiful sense of luminosity that is evoked in the twilight it depicts. The solitary figure, looking towards the horizon is forlorn and withdrawn, in keeping with the loneliness implicit in the title: “Alone in London”.

Enjoy your week.

IF YOU WERE TO COME BACK...

“In every parting there is an image of death.” - George Eliot

For Song Saturday today, a beautiful Greek song from one of the most popular female singers in Greece currently, Peggy Zina. I have translated the lyrics for you.



If you were to come back

And suddenly all became dark in front of me,
And suddenly, I met up with loneliness.
My eyes became filled with pain,
Because you’re not with me any more.
I know what went wrong,
And I am not angry with you,
You know what went wrong too.

And if you are far from me now,
I can still love you,
To worry about you, to wait for
A sign from you to see.
If you were to come back,
You’d see how much I have missed you –
If you were to come back,
You’d see how I love you more than anybody else.

And hurriedly, you left and went away for ever
And hurriedly, you hide yourself in someone else’s embrace.
And I don’t care where you are,
As long as I know that you are happy and well.
And if they ask me how I feel about you,
I’ll have much to say…

And if you are far from me now,
I can still love you,
To worry about you, to wait for
A sign from you to see.
If you were to come back,
You’d see how much I have missed you –
If you were to come back,
You’d see how I love you more than anybody else…

If you were to come back,
You’d see how much I have missed you –
If you were to come back,
You’d see how I love you more than anybody else…

Να ‘Ρθεις

Και ξαφνικά όλα σκοτείνιασαν μπροστά μου
Και ξαφνικά συνάντησα τη μοναξιά
Κι είναι γεμάτα τα μάτια μου πόνο
Γιατί δε σ’ έχω πια.
Ξέρω τι φταίει, και δε σου θυμώνω,
Ξέρεις κι εσύ καλά.

Κι αν είσαι τώρα μακρυά μου,
Εγώ μπορώ να σ’ αγαπώ,
Ν’ ανησυχώ, να περιμένω
Ένα σημάδι σου να δω.
Να ‘ρθεις, να ‘ρθεις –
Πόσο μου έλειψες να δεις,
Να ‘ρθεις, να ‘ρθεις –
Που σ’ αγαπώ όσο κανείς…

Και βιαστικά φεύγεις και χάνεσαι για πάντα
Και βιαστικά πηγαίνεις σ’ άλλη αγκαλιά
Και δε με νοιάζει καθόλου που θα ‘σαι
Φτάνει να ‘σαι καλά.
Κι αν με ρωτήσουν για σένα πως νοιώθω
Θα ‘χω να πω πολλά.

Κι αν είσαι τώρα μακρυά μου,
Εγώ μπορώ να σ’ αγαπώ,
Ν’ ανησυχώ, να περιμένω
Ένα σημάδι σου να δω.
Να ‘ρθεις, να ‘ρθεις –
Πόσο μου έλειψες να δεις,
Να ‘ρθεις, να ‘ρθεις –
Που σ’ αγαπώ όσο κανείς…

Να ‘ρθεις, να ‘ρθεις –
Πόσο μου έλειψες να δεις,
Να ‘ρθεις, να ‘ρθεις –
Που σ’ αγαπώ όσο κανείς…

If you liked this song, here is another of this singer, called “With you”:

WORLD DIABETES DAY 2008

“He who takes medicine and neglects to diet wastes the skill of his doctors.” - Chinese Proverb

November the 14th has been designated as World Diabetes Day (WDD) and has become the day for highlighting a global awareness campaign of people suffering from diabetes, and their families. The International Diabetes Federation (IDF) and the World Health Organization (WHO) in 1991 introduced the concept of a world day to raise awareness for diabetes in response to the sharp rise in diabetes incidence around the world. The United Nations marked the observation of the Day for the first time in 2007 with the passage of the United Nations World Diabetes Day Resolution in December 2006, which made the existing World Diabetes Day an official United Nations World Health Day.

World Diabetes Day is a campaign that features a new theme chosen by the International Diabetes Federation each year to address issues facing the global diabetes community. While the themed campaigns last the whole year, the day itself is celebrated on November 14, to mark the birthday of Frederick Banting who, along with Charles Best, first conceived the idea, which led to the discovery of insulin in 1922.

In 2007 and 2008, the theme of World Diabetes Day is Diabetes in Children and Adolescents. Diabetes is one of the most common chronic diseases of childhood. Type 1 diabetes is growing by 3% per year in children and adolescents, and at an alarming 5% per year among pre-school children. It is estimated that 70,000 children under 15 develop type 1 diabetes each year (almost 200 children a day). Currently, an estimated 440,000 children live with type 1 diabetes globally. Type 2 diabetes was once seen as a disease of adults but today, it is growing at alarming rates in children and adolescents.

The International Diabetes Federation's two-year focus on children through the World Diabetes Day campaign, aims to increase awareness among parents and caregivers, teachers, healthcare professionals, politicians and the public. World Diabetes Day is celebrated worldwide by the over 200 member associations of the International Diabetes Federation in more than 160 countries, all Member States of the United Nations, as well as by other associations and organizations, companies, healthcare professionals and people living with diabetes and their families.

The World Diabetes Day logo is the blue circle (being the global symbol for diabetes which was developed as part of the Unite for Diabetes awareness campaign). The logo was adopted in 2007 to mark the passage of
 the United Nations World Diabetes Day Resolution. The significance of
 the blue circle symbol is overwhelmingly positive. Across cultures, the circle symbolizes life and health. The colour blue reflects the sky that unites all nations and is the colour of the United Nations flag. The blue circle signifies the unity of the global diabetes community in response to the diabetes pandemic.

In terms of diet and diabetes, there is a common misconception out there that eating too much sugar or too many sweet foods habitually will give you diabetes. This is not true. The connection between diet and diabetes is that certain types of diabetes that people are predisposed to genetically, will be manifested when the person becomes overweight. Overweight people who have a poor diet (including much processed food and simple carbohydrates like sugar) often present with diabetes (especially type 2). Of particular concern are overweight children who are increasingly being diagnosed with this type of diabetes. However, if your genes do not predispose you to diabetes and if you are of normal weight, even if you live on sugar alone you will not get the disease.

A good way to prevent many types of diabetes is to maintain your weight within normal range, eat sensibly, have a balanced diet and exercise regularly. Even people who are genetically predisposed to diabetes can stave off the disease if they modify their lifestyle sufficiently.

AEROPHOBIA

“There are only two emotions in a plane: boredom and terror…” - Orson Welles

I am in Brisbane again for work. The flight was rather bumpy as we encountered a great deal of turbulence, and we landed with quite a thump, which elicited quite a few gasps from my fellow travellers. This was to be expected with our Spring weather - cloudy skies, winds and changeable outlook over the next few days. The traffic into the City from the airport was horrendous, driving home the point that Brisbane infrastructure is not coping well with increasing population and increasing tourism. The day has been a bit of whirlwind, with much activity and lots of things getting done. Another busy day here tomorrow with a special workshop/seminar to attend.

My word for the day is “aerophobia”:

Aerophobia |e(ə)ˈro-ˈfōbēə|noun
Fear of flying; this is a fear of being on a plane while in flight. It is also sometimes referred to as aviatophobia, aviophobia or pteromechanophobia. Related to it is the term aeronausiphobia, the fear of vomiting secondary to flying.

Each year, fear of flying causes millions of people needless distress. One in eight people deliberately avoids commercial air travel, and for some the feelings are so intense it is a phobia. More than a healthy concern about airline safety, fear of flying is a significant problem that can cause panic attacks even when a person contemplates the possibility of being in an airplane. Symptoms often include shortness of breath, rapid breathing, irregular heartbeat, sweating, nausea, feeling of dread. Though anti-nausea drugs are often prescribed for people suffering from this phobia, they do not always help and side effects can occur.

On the other hand, ornithophobia relates to an irrational fear of birds and herpetophobia is an irrational fear of reptiles… Now think of the situation of an aerophobic/herpetophobic on a plane watching the on-flight movie “Snakes on a Plane”!

LOVE KILLS

“Ah me! Love can not be cured by herbs.” – Ovid

I found an old letter amongst some papers I was clearing out in my office today and I was slightly taken aback because amongst the detritus of work correspondence, old meeting agendas and yellowed timetables there was a billet-doux. Sweet nothings scribbled on a piece of lavender paper, a pet name, an envelope sealed with a kiss… That old flutter of the heart has long disappeared, but its memory lives on and it was enough for that little slip of lavender paper to bring old emotions to the fore, like dance steps that one automatically remembers, once the old tune begins to play.

One of the wonderful joys of love as it awakens within our heart is the bittersweet insecurity it breeds deep within us. “She loves me, loves me not…”, “Shall I speak or remain silent?”, “Is this true love or a simple infatuation?”. The joy of love is only one side of the coin, the misery of love is the other side of the coin. When we love we toss the coin up and await breathlessly for it to fall, hoping against hope that we win the toss…

Love Kills

I stand before you and will only say:
My love can thrill
My love can kill;
You choose, and tell me what will play.

You love me back and you shall see
My love will grow.
My love will throw
Back towards you, love thrice three.

As long as you will find the proper way,
My love will flourish
My love will nourish.
Or else, all will be death, an end, decay.

But even if all is as it should be, Love,
My love corrupts,
My love disrupts,
It brings all which lies below, above.

Beware, don’t tempt me, love me true;
My love can lie
My love can die,
You are the one who will decide my cue.

I stand before you and you’ll agree:
My love can thrill
My love can kill;
You choose, and tell me what will be.

REMEMBRANCE DAY AND POPPIES

“Mankind must put an end to war, or war will put an end to mankind.” - John F. Kennedy

The eleventh hour of the eleventh day of the eleventh month represents a very important moment on what is commemorated as Remembrance Day in many countries around the world. Thousands of people attended a service at the Australian War Memorial in Canberra today, and in Australia in nearly all cities and towns, ceremonies were held, 90 years after the end of World War I. The guns fell silent on the Western Front on November 11, 1918, but not before ten million soldiers lost their lives in the Great War, with 60,000 of them being Australians.

The sacrifice of fallen soldiers is on the minds of all Australians today, as we commemorate this anniversary. The tradition of Remembrance Day began soon after World War I, what is still known as the “Great War”. It really affected everybody, and it certainly affected every family in Australia at that time. Crowds at today's ceremony were invited to lay poppies on the tomb of the unknown soldier in Canberra, while everywhere artificial poppies were on sale to raise money for the veteran community. Poppies are significant for Remembrance Day because they were the first flowers to bloom on the Western Front at the end of the First World War after all the fighting had finished.

Claude Choules, a107-year-old veteran of both World Wars has used Remembrance Day to call for Australian troops to be brought home. He enlisted in the British Royal Navy when he was 14-years-old and was present at the scuttling of the German Fleet at Scapa Flow at the end of World War I. He moved to Western Australia in 1926, and served with the Royal Australian Navy during World War II. Mr Choules says he would like to see an end to the conflicts in Iraq and Afghanistan: "I don't want to see any more wars. Seeing war is not exciting, like it used to be.” As they say, old age brings wisdom…

Here is a poem by Siegfried Sassoon, a World War I soldier and poet:

Suicide in the Trenches (1918)

I knew a simple soldier boy
Who grinned at life in empty joy,
Slept soundly through the lonesome dark,
And whistled early with the lark.

In winter trenches, cowed and glum,
With crumps and lice and lack of rum,
He put a bullet through his brain.
No one spoke of him again.

You smug-faced crowds with kindling eye
Who cheer when soldier lads march by,
Sneak home and pray you’ll never know
The hell where youth and laughter go.

Siegfried Sassoon (1886-1967)

MOVIE MONDAY - FLAWLESS

“Maybe all one can do is hope to end up with the right regrets.” - Arthur Miller

What is the price of a life? If you are walking down a dark, deserted alley in a part of town that is noted for its illegal activities, your life may not be worth much at all – just the loose change in your pocket. Similarly, if you are a soldier on a battlefield, or the hostage of a terrorist, your life is worth as much as the toss of a coin – heads you win, tails you lose, as chance would have it. If, however, you are living peacefully in a developed country, if you are a law-abiding citizen, your life begins to gain value. The higher up the social scale you climb, the greater the price on your life. You only have to look at the bodyguards surrounding the rich and famous, protecting one individual’s life with their own to understand what I mean.

But think of a person you love. How much is the life of your son, your daughter, your spouse worth? What value do you put on that life? To what lengths would you go to preserve that life, to what lengths would go to defend it, to what lengths to avenge its wrongful discontinuation? Maybe it all boils down to whether you are giver or a taker by nature… The film we watched last weekend is superficially a thriller, a comedy, a heist caper. But more deeply it examines the questions I’ve just asked. It is the Michael Radford’s 2007 “Flawless”. It stars Demi Moore and Michael Caine, both of whom do a sterling job of their roles.

The story is set in swinging 1960s London, which nevertheless is very conservative and where the business world is very much a man’s domain. Demi Moore is Laura Quinn, an intelligent and beautiful executive at the London Diamond Corporation. She finds herself frustrated by a glass ceiling after years of faithful employment, and all sorts of sacrifices including her choice of career over relationship and family. Man after man is promoted ahead of her despite her greater experience and ability. Michael Caine is Hobbs, the night-time cleaner at London Diamond who is all but invisible to the executives that work there. Hobbs has over the long time of his employment amassed a great deal of knowledge about the company. His astute eye catches Laura’s frustration and he convinces her to help him steal a thermos flask full of diamonds, which will be enough to set both of them up more than comfortably for the rest of their lives.

The film has a good atmosphere, one that almost convinces you that it was actually made in the 1960s. The soundtrack was very mush an element in this, with “Take Five” by the Dave Brubeck quartet being just perfect foil for the slick imagery. Ms Moore has an astonishing wardrobe that sets off her rather lissome figure and Michael Caine shows in his maturity a worthy restraint in what is a very underplayed but significant role. The production is excellent and the film hangs together very well. It can be watched superficially as a typical heist movie, however, the message is much strong with several well developed sub-themes: Equality of the sexes, greed, power, the value of life, money and the value we place on it, corruption, generosity, social stratification, belief in a worthy cause, are all elements of this film and one can view it as deeply or as shallowly as one wishes. We enjoyed it quite a lot and despite its “message” or “moral”, deeply it can be enjoyed as a bit of an escapist flick, as well.

Enjoy your week!

ART SUNDAY - OEDIPUS

“Fate laughs at probabilities.” - E.G. Bulwer-Lytton

A painting by the 19th century French artist Jean-Léon Gérôme. It is an example of the popular “orientalist” movement popular at the time, where things exotically Eastern were depicted with enthusiasm. This school was particularly popular in France amongst the circles of the Academy painters (the one abhorred by the impressionists), which produced highly polished works the subject matter of which often allowed depictions of nudes, and which were therefore quite saleable.

This painting is an interesting as it depicts Napoleon during his Egyptian campaign, gazing at the Sphinx of Giza. It is titled “Oedipus” and is a reference to the Greek myth. Oedipus was the one who was separated from his royal parents as a baby after an oracle foretold of tragedy and death which would be caused by him. Instead of being killed, Oedipus was taken into the forest, abandoned there an found and raised by shepherds. When he grew up he went back ot Thebes, on the road meeting the Sphinx, which asked him her famous riddle, which had been the undoing of many before him:

“What is that goes with four legs in the morning, Two legs at noon and Three legs in the evening?”

Oedipus successfully solved the riddle and destroyed the Sphinx. Unfortunately he went to unknowingly kill his father and marry his mother, fulfilling the prophecy.

Gérôme makes a poignant statement about Napoleon in this painting, hinting at the conquest of Egypt, Napoleon’s rise to power and his subsequent downfall and ignominious end, just like a new Oedipus.