CRETAN CALTSOUNIA

“It is better to rise from life as from a banquet - neither thirsty nor drunken.” - Aristotle

Today is Lady Day, the Feast of the Annunciation of the Virgin Mary. On this day Mary received the news from the angel Gabriel that she was to be with child. It was a textbook pregnancy and nine months to the day later, baby Emmanuel was born. It is an important Feast in both the Catholic and Orthodox Church calendars, with much rite and pomp accompanying the doxology of the proceedings. It is one of the high holidays of the church ever since the cult of the Virgin became widespread in early Christianity.

It is also the Independence Day of Greece, as it was on this day in 1821, that the Greek Revolution began, having as its goal the expulsion of the Turks who had held it in thrall for 400 years. It is a public holiday in Greece, it being a double feast day, both a religious one, as well as a lay one. It is customary for big military parades to be organized on this day in the big cities.

As it is the Great Lent and everyone in Greece would normally fast for 50 days before Easter, here is a Lenten recipe which is healthful and vegetarian, but also adheres to the rules of the Greek Orthodox fast. It is from the island of Crete, where during the 17th century the Venetian occupation left some linguistic and culinary traditions. The Cretan Caltsounia are a derivation of the Italian “Calzoni dolci”.

CRETAN LENTEN CALTSOUNIA
Ingredients
1.5 kg flour
1 tsp baking powder
3 heaped tbsp. sugar
1 cup tahina (sesame pulp, available in Greek or Middle Eastern shops)
1 cup marmalade
1 cup sultanas
1 cup roasted, coarsely ground walnuts
1 cup chopped glacé fruits (cherries, citrus peel, apricots, figs, pears)
Orange flower water (available in Greek or Middle Eastern shops)
Icing sugar for dusting

Method
•    Sift the flour and baking powder, adding the sugar and tahina, mixing well with your fingertips so that it becomes crumbly. Add a few tablespoonfuls of water and knead gently to form a soft dough.
•    Mix the marmalade with the sultanas, walnut meal and glacé fruits.
•    Take a piece of dough the size of two walnuts and roll out till it becomes as big as a saucer.
•    Put a large tablespoonful of the marmalade mixture on one half of the rolled out dough, wet the edges of the dough and then fold over the filling to shape like a half moon. Use a fork to seal the edges.
•    Repeat to use up all the dough and filling.
•    Bake in a moderate oven for about 20 minutes until golden brown. As son as they are out of the oven sprinkle with orange flower water and dust with icing sugar.

POSTCARD FROM ADELAIDE

“The difference between a job and a career is the difference between forty and sixty hours a week.” - Robert Frost


I am in Adelaide for the day today and unusually for Adelaide, the day was rather dull and gray, with the temperatures low in keeping with the season. I say unusually, as Adelaide generally has warmer weather than Melbourne and more often than not one can expect a sunny day here. At least it did not rain and I was able to go everywhere I needed to by walking. Adelaide City is a very pleasant one to walk in and as well as going to our College Campus here I also visited the TAFE SA campus and the UniSA campus. It ended up being a very hectic day, but at least many things got done. It does make for a long working day, however, when one leaves home at the crack of dawn and doesn’t get back until well into the night.

One of the things I had on my agenda today was to have a meeting with students who had some issues with the way the College processes operate. I always like to talk to students directly as someone in my position rarely gets a chance to do this under normal circumstances and I tend to get shielded from such contact by various academic and administrative layers. Information can be distorted as it passes through these layers and sometimes I am unaware of some important issues, or they are reported to me second and third hand, which can give me an inaccurate perception of them. Talking to students directly gives me an accurate idea of what the student experience is like and I can then investigate the issues they divulge in a more informed manner.

I think politicians, CEOs, directors and other executives should always strive to listen to the voices of the people they serve, lead or represent, and if possible do it in a manner that is the least intrusive possible (maybe incognito?). That way they will get an idea of what is really going on and they will be able to understand what is happening at the grass roots level in an unfiltered and undistorted manner. One would have to ensure that the sample was an unbiased and representative one, but many small samples is another way of getting to appreciate the truth of the matters at hand.

My meeting with the students today made me see certain matters in a new light and I took out of that meeting several action items. Tomorrow I shall be able to confront some members of my staff with some apt questions that will certainly highlight a few deficiencies in our system. Acting on the information that I gathered today will be a very delicate matter. One has to be informed, certainly, but one must also allow any party involved the right of reply and justification. We all know that after one hears both sides of an argument, the truth must lie somewhere in between…

The other interesting thing that happened today, was an information session that I attended regarding the changes that are happening in tertiary educational regulation and quality assurance in Australia. Legislation has been introduced into Parliament, which will allow the creation of a single national authority that will take over all such regulatory and quality assurance activities in Australia from January 1, 2012.

The new body is TEQSA (Tertiary Education Quality and Standards Agency), which will take over from AUQA, various Offices of Higher Education that are state-based, and will also assume the responsibility of overseeing the education of international students in Australia. This new system promises to be a unified and unitary system that will have greater power to intervene and enforce compliance, combining regulatory and quality improvement activities.

It will simplify much of the bureaucracy that now rules several related areas in regulatory and legislative compliance and will increase the efficiency of all processes relating to oversight of tertiary education in Australia. It is something that was triggered by the 2008 review of Tertiary Education in Australia carried out by Denise Bradley. I am personally overjoyed at this turn of events as it will reduce the cost of our regulatory compliance, decrease the time we need to accredit and approve our degree programs, but also increase the overall efficiency of all of our compliance-related activities.

LOVE LOST

“An act of love that fails is just as much a part of the divine life as an act of love that succeeds, for love is measured by fullness, not by reception.” - Harold Lokes

I’ve had a very busy couple of days at work, and in particular, today was rather stressful as the whole afternoon was taken up by a couple of staff mediation interviews that were very tough going for everyone concerned. Dealing with staff issues and their resolution can take up a great deal of time and one must invest in the process much effort and sensitivity, as well as proceeding in a fair, transparent and unprejudiced manner. These interviews today were unpleasant, but I was satisfied with what was achieved under the difficult circumstances. Nevertheless, I felt drained at the end of the day…

The autumnal weather is continuing and more rain is predicted for tonight and tomorrow. Temperatures are low and the skies leaden, with the occasional shower bathing the vegetation and carrying messages of winter’s approach. More leaves turn to yellow and the chrysanthemums are budding, while the garden is slowly becoming a place less attractive.

Here is a poem I wrote a long time ago, but remembered today as it was written in a autumnal mood and during the time of fall.

Pity

Pity…
A pity that you failed to accept me
As the gift that I made of myself to you,
Freely and earnestly given.
You sent me away, lost me, forgot me,
Killing what was most beautiful in me.
I am a desert now, a burnt and barren wasteland
Filled only with cold gray ash.

Pity…
A pity that you didn’t learn the language of tangerines,
You didn’t catch the moonbeams I handed to you plaited in a skein,
Forever lost as they sublimated around your clenched fists.
You failed to appreciate their worth,
Failed to even outstretch your hand in a token gesture of acceptance,
Leaving without turning back,
Leaving behind all of my offerings.

Pity…
A pity that the syllables I whispered in your shell-pink ear
Secretly spoken with vowels of daisies and consonants of lilacs,
Fell softly, echoing briefly in empty rooms.
A pity that you stopped your ears lest you hear
The speech of affection and the song of love.
You didn’t feel, didn’t understand, didn’t even sympathise
With my savage need and urgent desire.

Pity…
A pity that I was lost to you, was distanced from you,
All on a whim, you exiled me and banished even my memory,
Leaving with me only the remembrance of your rejection.
A pity that my heart remained a scorched place,
Refused the nourishing rain of your presence.
A pity that you left me, negating even my ability
To say that I lost you as I never had you.
A pity, as the greatest loser is you.

WORLD WATER DAY 2011

“We never know the worth of water till the well is dry.” - Thomas Fuller

Water: Essential for life, indispensable nutrient, great solvent, excellent cleanser! Our bodies are about 70% water and 71% of our planet’s surface is covered by water. However, only 3% of this water is fresh water and even less is safe for human consumption. We can live many weeks without food, but without water we die within a day or two depending on our environment…

International World Water Day is held annually on 22nd March as a means of reminding people of the importance of fresh water and advocating for the sustainable management of fresh water resources.

An international day to celebrate fresh water was recommended at the 1992 United Nations Conference on Environment and Development (UNCED). The United Nations General Assembly responded by designating 22 March 1993 as the first World Water Day. Each year, World Water Day highlights a specific aspect of fresh water.

This year’s theme, Water for Cities: Responding to the Urban Challenge, aims to spotlight and encourage governments, organizations, communities, and individuals to actively engage in addressing the challenges of urban water management. This is the first time in human history that most of the world’s population live in cities: 3.3 billion people, in fact are city dwellers and the urban landscape continues to grow as urbanization becomes more widespread in the very populous developing countries. A significant proportion (38%) of the growth is represented by expanding slums, while the city populations are increasing faster than city infrastructure can adapt.

The objective of World Water Day 2011 is to focus international attention on the impact of rapid urban population growth, industrialisation and uncertainties caused by climate change, conflicts and natural disasters on urban water systems. We expand our cities, our population grows, pollution becomes more widespread, rainfall less reliable and ground water contaminated, while demand for fresh water of good quality increases every day. And even in cities where tap water of excellent quality is to be found (we are fortunate in Melbourne to enjoy this), the amount of bottled water marketed is ridiculously high.

Water is life and without water, there is no living. Water is so essential, that when scientists explore the universe for life out there in the galaxy, they look for signs of water. Over 1 billion people in the world lack sustainable access to fresh water. Safe drinking water and basic sanitation are intrinsic to human survival, well-being and dignity. Cities cannot be sustainable without ensuring reliable access to safe drinking water and adequate sanitation. Coping with the growing needs of water and sanitation services within cities is one of the most pressing issues of this century. Sustainable, efficient and equitable management of water in cities has never been as important as in today’s world.

Within two decades, nearly 60% of the world’s people will be urban dwellers. Urban growth is most rapid in the developing world, where cities gain an average of 5 million residents every month. The exploding urban population growth creates unprecedented challenges, among which provision for water and sanitation have been the most pressing and painfully felt when lacking. Next time you turn the tap on and you fill your glass with clean, fresh water that is safe to drink and bathe in, spare a thought for the majority of the people on our planet who cannot do that and many of whom risk dying of thirst and dehydration, or of water-borne diseases.

MOVIE MONDAY - DORIAN GRAY

“Every portrait that is painted with feeling is a portrait of the artist, not of the sitter.” - Oscar Wilde

At the weekend we saw the 2009 Oliver Parker film “Dorian Gray”. It is based on Oscar Wilde’s only novel, “The Picture of Dorian Gray”, first published in 1890 in Lippincott’s Magazine. The plot concerns a handsome young man, Dorian Gray, who becomes the subject of a painting by artist Basil Hallward. Basil is infatuated by Dorian’s beauty and believes that this portrait and Dorian’s beauty is responsible for a new phase in his art. Lord Henry Wotton, a friend of Basil meets Dorian and the young man finds a surrogate father figure in Lord Wotton. Unfortunately, Lord Wotton is a hedonistic roué who suggests to Dorian that the only things worth pursuing in life are beauty and fulfilment of the senses. Dorian realises that his beauty is ephemeral and he half-jokingly expresses a desire to sell his soul to ensure the portrait Basil has painted would age rather than himself. Dorian’s wish is fulfilled, and he plunges into debauchery and heinous crimes. The portrait serves as a reminder of the effect each act has upon his soul, with each sin displayed as a disfigurement of his form, or through a sign of aging.

The novel of course is powerful and allegorical, it is full of Wilde’s wit and beauty and holds a worthy place amongst the great literary works. It is a gothic horror story but nevertheless, full of philosophical questions, explorations of the human condition and the nature of the soul. The film follows the novel, but is an adaptation and introduces some variants, stresses some parts (the bawdy bits) and glosses over some other more important ones (the philosophical and emotional bits), which is an attempt to make the film more marketable and appealing to the 21st century audience with the jaded palate. It is inevitable that any novel adapted for film will be changed and reinvented for the new medium, however, a good adaptation preserves the spirit of the novel, rather than magnifying the sensationalist parts and ignoring the essence.

In terms of the actors, Ben Barnes as Dorian Gray was miscast, in my opinion, as he is not striking handsome nor “beautiful” in the way that Basil sees him. His acting is poor and he simpers throughout most of the role and once cannot garner enough emotion to love him or hate him. He inspires boredom more than anything else. Colin Firth as the hedonistic dandy Lord Wotton is a better choice, although his part is rather static (at least for the first three quarters of the film) and his lines predictable. Ben Chaplin does a good job of tackling a bit of a pastiche of the role of Basil as there is not much time nor character development meted out to him in the film. Rachel Hurd-Wood as Sybil Vane looks delightful and plays her small part beautifully.

The scenery, costumes and cinematography are well done, however, the special effects are more worthy of a B-grade horror film. The music was not memorable, therefore unobtrusive and adequate. The direction a trifle pedestrian, and the emphasis placed on Dorian’s licentious sexual escapades in the bedroom overly long. Not much is done to explore Dorian’s fascination with murder, drugs and his relationship with Lord Wotton. As was mentioned above, this is an eminently marketable film, and as it aiming towards the masse of illiterate crowds, it did the best it could.

BRUNSWICK ST GRAFFITI

“Graffiti is one of the few tools you have if you have almost nothing. And even if you don’t come up with a picture to cure world poverty you can make someone smile while they’re having a piss.” - Banksy

The weather was just perfect today, warm and sunny with a slight breeze. We had a leisurely breakfast, ambled about in the back garden and then decided to go for a drive down to Brunswick Street in Fitzroy. This is a famous Melbourne street which is trendy and modern, old-fashioned and retro, sophisticated and daggy all rolled into one. There, one can find restaurants and cafés, galleries and exhibition spaces, bookshops and clothes stores, gift shops and flower shops, pubs and wine bars, warehouses and boutiques. The people are as mixed-up and crazy as the shops. Innocent young teens, goths and missionaries, arty types and yobbos, rednecks and multicultural intellectuals, flibbertigibbets and strong silent hulks, druggies and squeaky clean preppies, straight and gay, all are represented here. Add to that the “sightseers” and “tourists” who are always ambling up and down to check out the place.

For many years I had a part-time job in a College off Brunswick St, so I know this neighbourhood and its denizens quite well. It is still a fashionable place to have a stroll in and as we hadn’t been there for ages, we decided to go there and have lunch in one of the many cafés. One of the features of this neighbourhood is its many pieces of street art. There are mosaics on the pavements, decorated ceramic benches, statues, cast ironwork, fancy shop signs but also lots of graffiti and posters on many walls. This street art together with the galleries and exhibitions lend a rather bohemian, arty cast to the street.

Many people are annoyed by the graffiti, but I feel there is a place for it if it is confined to certain areas. It can be harnessed to decorate and make a social comment, it can amuse and surprise, it can sometimes achieve interesting and amazing visual effects. However, there is also the mindless, destructive graffiti of the “piss-on-the wall”, “mark-my-territory” variety that is boring, ugly and defacing. Also of course, graffiti that is inappropriately placed is rather hideous and obtrusive, as well as offensive.

For Art Sunday today, here is a large piece of Brunswick St “graffiti art”, well in keeping with the unconventional and avant-garde nature of this non-conformist part of Melbourne. It is brash and colourful, more than a little tongue-in-cheek and very well executed. Not the sort of thing most people would want to have on their wall, but for where it is just right… I know some people that object violently to any graffiti, wherever it is and whatever it is. In many parts of Melbourne, graffiti is part of the streetscape and some progressive councils actually collaborate with graffiti artists in order to use graffiti in a decorative and streetscape-enhancing manner. What do you think?

MARCH "SUPERMOON"

“Moon! Moon! I am prone before you. Pity me, and drench me in loneliness.” – Amy Lowell

The biggest full moon in 19 years is with us tonight and the rags have already dubbed it “supermoon”. This Saturday, the moon will arrive at its closest point to the Earth in 2011: a distance of 356,575 kilometers away. The moon has not been in a position to appear this large since March 1993. At its peak, the “supermoon” of March may appear 14 percent larger and 30 percent brighter than lesser full moons (when the moon is at its farthest from Earth). Yet to the casual observer, it may be hard to tell the difference. The variation of the moon’s distance is not readily apparent to observers viewing the moon directly.

Unless the moon lies close to the horizon, when it can appear absolutely enormous. That is when the famous “moon illusion” combines with reality to produce a truly stunning view. For reasons not fully understood by astronomers or psychologists, a low-hanging moon looks incredibly large when hovering near trees, buildings and other foreground objects. The fact that the moon will be much closer than usual this weekend will only serve to amplify this strange effect.

Driving back home tonight, I saw the moon up in the clear sky and yes, it looked stunningly beautiful but not much larger than usual. Obviously I did not catch it early enough when it was close to the horizon.

The “supermoon” will not cause natural disasters such as the Japan earthquake, a NASA scientist has stressed…

For Song Saturday, something apt: A piece from Karl Jenkins’ suite “Imagined Oceans”, which set in music lunar landscapes, and more specifically the names of the imagined oceans on the moon;s surface. Here is his Mare Serenitatis – “Sea of Serenity”.

PROFITEROLES

“Look, there’s no metaphysics on earth like chocolate.” - Fernando Pessoa

It has been a short but extremely busy week at work. There have been non-stop meetings, numerous urgent things to take care of, hundreds of emails and a couple of crises to resolve. I am certainly glad it is the weekend. As a special treat this weekend the following will be made:

Profiteroles
Ingredients for the Choux Pastry
260 mL milk
1 tsp sugar
pinch of salt
100g unsalted butter, diced
120g plain flour
4 free-range eggs

Method for the Choux Pastry
•    Preheat the oven to 220˚ C.
•    For the choux buns, combine the milk, sugar, salt and diced butter in a heavy-based saucepan. Heat gently and stir until the butter has melted.
•    Quickly sieve the flour into the saucepan and whisk together with the liquid ingredients.
•    Keeping the heat low, beat the ingredients together vigorously for about five minutes.
•    The paste is ready when it clumps together in a smooth ball and comes away cleanly from the sides of the pan. Remove from the heat and allow to cool.
•    In a mixing bowl, beat the eggs together thoroughly until there are no strings of egg white. Slowly, in two or more batches, beat the eggs into the paste.
•    Fit a piping bag with a nozzle and spoon the choux pastry mixture into the bag.
•    Pipe balls the size of a 50 cent coin onto baking sheets lined with silicone paper, or greased baking trays.
•    Bake in batches in the oven for 20-25 minutes, or until golden brown and crisp (if the buns are just yellow, they will deflate upon cooling). When they are done, the inside should be hollow. Tip them on to a wire rack to cool.

Ingredients for the Profiterole Filling and Sauce
Vanilla ice cream
250 g of couverture cooking chocolate, cut into small pieces
200 mL milk
100 mL double cream
50 mL crème de cacao liqueur

Method for the Sauce and Assembling
With a small knife slice open each choux ball.
Fill with vanilla ice cream, and put in the freezer immediately.
Make the chocolate sauce by heating the milk, cream and liqueur.
Once the milk mixture is just about to boil, add the chocolate pieces, stirring all the while.
Remove from the heat once the chocolate has all molten and the mixture is a rich dark brown colour.
Once ready to serve, put 5-6 ice-cream filled choux balls into a dessert or parfait glass and pour hot chocolate sauce over them.
Serve immediately.

SIEVERT

“Self-sacrifice is the real miracle out of which all the reported miracles grow” - Ralph Waldo Emerson

The word of the day today is sievert.
sievert |ˈsēvərt| (abbr: Sv) noun
Physics: The SI unit of dose equivalent (the biological effect of ionising radiation), defined as that which delivers a joule of energy per kilogram of recipient mass.
ORIGIN 1940s: named after Rolf M. Sievert (1896–1966), Swedish radiologist.
1.0 Sv = 1.0 joule/kilogram or 100 rem.

The sievert has the same units as the gray and is equal to the absorbed dose times the quality factor, which compares the health consequences of that type of radiation with those of x-rays. The rem bears the same relationship to the rad as the sievert does to the gray.

Just in case you got lost in that definition, let’s put it in a practical context. Firstly, one Sievert of radiation is a huge dose, which will do great harm to living things. That is why we generally speak of millisieverts when talking about daily or even yearly exposure under normal circumstances. A millisievert (mSv) is a thousandth of a sievert. Contextualising it further: An average person would probably absorb six millisieverts per year from natural and artificial (e.g. X-rays for diagnostic purposes) sources. A radiation worker would be expected to absorb about 20 millisieverts per year, averaged over five years with a maximum of 50 millisieverts in any one year. You can see now what I mean about the sievert being a huge dose of radiation…

The workers in Japan working to limit the effects of radiation leaks in the stricken nuclear reactors have to access areas where their exposure is 600 millisieverts, equal to several years of daily exposure limit. These workers are putting their health and life at great risk as exposure to such levels of radiation can be highly destructive. These effects are divided into short-term and long-term:

Short term effects: Exposure to high levels of radiation can harm exposed tissues of the human body. Such radiation effects can be clinically diagnosed in the exposed individual; they are called deterministic effects because once a radiation dose above the relevant threshold has been received, they will occur and the severity depends on the dose. They include the symptoms of radiation poisoning such as burns, tissue damage, blood cell damage, death of rapidly dividing cells (causing nausea, vomiting, diarrhoea, hair falling out, anaemia, immune deficiency, etc).

Long-term effects: Studies of populations exposed to radiation, especially of the survivors of the atomic bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, have shown that exposure to radiation can also lead to the delayed induction of cancer (thyroid, leukaemia, bone, skin, breast, lung, etc) and hereditary damage. Effects such as these cannot usually be confirmed in any particular individual exposed but can be inferred from statistical studies of large irradiated populations.

Let’s contextualise again: Exposure for a short time to a single 1 sievert (1,000 millisievert) dose of radiation would cause (temporary) radiation sickness such as nausea and decreased white blood cell count, but not death. However, exposure to 1 sievert of radiation is estimated to increase the lifetime risk of fatal cancer by around 5%. Above this, severity of illness increases with dose. For example, a single dose of 5 sieverts (5,000 millisievert) would kill about half those receiving it within a month. Survivors would have chronic disease and a greatly increased risk of cancers.

There about 180 emergency workers at Japan’s damaged Fukushima Dai-ichi complex of nuclear power stations. They are already being lauded as heroes by the Japanese as they are putting themselves at a huge health risk and premature death through radiation exposure. Another word springs to mind immediately:

kamikaze |ˌkämiˈkäzē| noun
(in World War II) A Japanese aircraft loaded with explosives and making a deliberate suicidal crash on an enemy target.
• The pilot of such an aircraft.
adjective [ attrib.]
Of or relating to such an attack or pilot.
• Reckless or potentially self-destructive: He made a kamikaze run across three lanes of traffic.
ORIGIN Japanese, from kami ‘divinity’ + kaze ‘wind,’ originally referring to the gale that, in Japanese tradition, destroyed the fleet of invading Mongols in 1281.

The last definition of the word may be applied to these workers in that they act self-destructively in order to achieve their mission. Which makes me think of:

altruism |ˈaltroōˌizəm| noun
The belief in, or practice of, disinterested and selfless concern for the well-being of others: Some may choose to work with vulnerable elderly people out of altruism.
• Zoology Behaviour of an animal that benefits another at its own expense.
DERIVATIVES
altruist noun
altruistic |ˌaltroōˈistik| adjective
altruistically adverb
ORIGIN mid 19th century: From French altruisme, from Italian altrui ‘somebody else,’ from Latin alteri huic ‘to this other.’

We are a strange species, we humans. A curious mixture of the angelic and the demonic; of the evil and benevolent, the bad and the good. We may choose to kill others of our kind with abandon, or go to great lengths to preserve the life of strangers, not caring about our own well-being or our own life… We destroy and then preserve, we demolish only to build up again. We exploit and then relent, in order to conserve. Oh, the glory and curse of being a human!

SIX HAIKU FOR AUTUMN

“Youth is like spring, an over praised season more remarkable for biting winds than genial breezes. Autumn is the mellower season, and what we lose in flowers we more than gain in fruits.” - Samuel Butler

Autumn sunshine ushers in the beautiful warm days and cool nights of a Melbourne autumn. We have been warned that this year may be another one where we may have lots of rain and a cold winter. I always have my doubts regarding these long-term weather predictions, considering the weather report is so often wrong for the day, but it was explained to me once in terms of planet-wide atmospheric modelling and input from historical statistical data, which at the time made sense. However, I am inclined to believe more in crystal ball gazing, especially these days where climate variation is becoming more marked and ever more uncharacteristic and unpredictable…

One of the wonderful things about the public holiday last Monday was our walk in the Darebin Parklands. The day was glorious, warm and sunny, not too hot, not too cool, not windy and the vegetation was lush and verdant, hints of autumn colour here and there, but still looking its best as late summer would have it; the added bonus being that the frequent rains had kept everything green.

I remember the day and luxuriate in it and I am mindful of the rich offerings of nature that we are privileged enough to enjoy here and now. Furthermore, we are fortunate enough to live in a peaceful country, I have a job, a home, a family, friends, prosperity enough to be lacking none of our needs, no threat of calamity in the near future. How grateful this makes me feel, especially in the context of the recent disasters and atrocities that are occurring worldwide! How lucky we are and how thankful we must feel…

For Poetry Wednesday, a seasonal offering six haiku specially composed for the mellowness of approaching Autumn.

Haiku for Autumn

A thrill in the bough:
A hidden bird? No, surprise
At first yellow leaf…

Warm sun; fair, mild, day;
Benign, calm nature. Yet the
Dusk brings bad temper.

Flowers finish blooming,
Leaves turn to red; grass to hay –
Fruit turns to honey.

The first chill needs wool;
Long night needs heavy blanket;
Sandals exiled now.

Contentment of Fall:
Rich harvest, vintage, nutting –
But grasshopper dies…

Cold sheets, lengthening night
Beg your warm embrace. Alas!
You left; like summer.

THE IDES OF MARCH AND FALSE FRIENDS

“An open enemy is better than a false friend” -  Greek proverb

On this day, the ides of March, in 44 BC Julius Caesar was assassinated. According to second century historian Plutarch, Caesar was warned to beware the Ides of March by a soothsayer while his wife Calpurnia also insisted that he not venture out on that day as she had dreamed that he would be killed.  Caesar dismissed them both and went to the senate as he had planned. When entering the senate building he saw the soothsayer and greeted him ironically with the words: “The Ides of March be come…” upon which the soothsayer replied softly: “…but yet they are not yet past!”  Moments later Caesar lay dead on the floor of the senate, murdered by his colleagues and “friends”.

Amongst the 16 conspirators wielding daggers was his good friend Brutus. Caesar seeing Brutus attacking him, is said to have uttered: “Et tu, Brute…” meaning, “You too, my friend, Brutus?” However, this may not have been what Caesar actually uttered. Some other authors claim that Caesar in fact said, in Greek (which he as other noble Romans spoke fluently): “Kαὶ σὺ, τέκνον…” translated as “You too, my son…” While both of these phrases are taken as evidence of Caesar’s recognition of utter betrayal, the Greek words may have a more sinister meaning. A proverbial Greek phrase common amongst Romans at the time began in this way, and translated was: “You too, my son, will have a taste of power…” Caesar was thus pointing out to Brutus that his turn too would come when he was powerful to be betrayed in a similar way. His last words therefore rather than expressing bitter despondency at the betrayal of his friend, may be interpreted as a threat or a curse…

Betrayal is hard to stomach, especially if it comes from someone that we are close to. Its normally bitter taste becomes a hundred times more unpleasant in that case and we find it hard to contain our misery and distress. False friends are indeed more pernicious and destructive than open enemies. Their actions bring to us great heartbreak. Our feelings of misplaced trust and our lost faith in our friend adds insult to our injury.

Japan has placed its trust in an old enemy that has been masquerading as a friend. Nuclear power wrought the shocking destruction in Nagasaki and Hiroshima in 1945 when the atom bombs were dropped by the Americans in a desperate and horrific act that ended the war. It is this same old enemy of nuclear power that was befriended by the Japanese and their trust was placed in this false friend fuelling the nuclear reactors that supplied their country with electricity – cheap, efficient, non-polluting power…

In the wake of the quake and tsunami, damage to the nuclear reactors has caused consternation as radiation leaks and a potential meltdown have alerted the world to the possibility of a nuclear disaster bigger than Chernobyl. Dangerous levels of radiation leaking from the crippled nuclear plant has now forced Japan to order 140,000 people to seal themselves indoors after the explosions and fire in the power stations dramatically escalated the crisis at the Fukushima Dai-ichi plant. The old scars on the psyche of the Japanese people have been scratched and the threat of another contamination with its concomitant misfortunes have awakened painful memories of Hiroshima, Nagasaki, the Hibakusha (survivors of the nuclear blasts) and the nation’s terrible aftermath in the wake of the atom bomb blasts.

Anti-nuclear demonstrations have begun in earnest worldwide, as our fragile planet is once again threatened by our inane activities. It is surprising that a sentient species such us continues to repeat mistakes of the past, continues to play with the fire that has burnt us deeply previously, and we fail to learn from our past experiences. We continue to strike up friendships with pernicious and covert enemies and we act surprised when such false friends are revealed for what they are.

MOVIE MONDAY - EAT PRAY LOVE

“Selfishness is not living as one wishes to live, it is asking others to live as one wishes to live.” - Oscar Wilde

It was a public holiday in Melbourne today, Labour Day. The day was sunny and fine and we started it by taking a long walk to the Darebin Parklands. It seems that many other people had the same idea as us, with the place was full of families, cyclists, children and adults, people walking dogs and many others like us. Yesterday it had rained fairly heavily and the creek was full of water, the rushing water flowing rapidly and carrying now and then debris. Twigs, broken branches. On the banks there some uprooted saplings and one could see on the banks that yesterday the water level was much higher.

We came back home rather tired and seeing how I still haven’t recovered from my cold, we sat down and watched a movie. We saw the Ryan Murphy 2010 film “Eat Pray Love”, the screen adaptation of Elizabeth Gilbert’s best seller. We had got this film yesterday at the Latrobe University Sunday market and seeing how we had heard so much about it, we decided to watch it today. It was really quite disappointing…

First, let me say that we haven’t read the book and most of the good things I have heard concern the book. Yes, yes, I know, don’t judge a book by its film, but this is a book I have now not been inspired to read. However good the book is, the film has ruined it pre-emptively for me. This was a movie that went on and on for two-and-a-half hours and the only relief was the scenery in Italy, in India and in Bali. But it was no travel documentary, but a “deep-and-meaningful voyage of self-discovery by a woman who is going through a mid-life crisis”. Yawn… Wake me up when it’s over, please.

Julia Roberts plays Liz Gilbert who has achieved success as an author, has a husband, friends, a house, a career she likes, and lives the good life in New York. Yet like so many others in her shoes (those who have not experienced real misfortune, or need, or poverty, or deep tragedy), she finds herself lost, confused, and unsatisfied with all the wonderful things that life has offered her. She decides to start searching for what she really wants in life. She gets a divorce (and presumably with quite a lot of cash in hand), embarks on a journey around the world that becomes a quest for self-discovery. In her travels, she discovers eating in Italy; praying in India, and, finally loving in Bali. Her character comes out as selfish, ungrateful and mawkish in a self-pitying sort of way. She whines a lot…

The travels of Liz are inward-looking and her whole wide-world is an insulated water-coloured one untouched by economic crises, wars, terrorism, natural disasters, poverty, uncertainty, climate change, religious intolerance, or any other major issues of philosophical importance. The world inhabited by Liz is Lizocentric and everything revolves around her paying homage to her shallow existence and short-sighted view of the narrowest perspective.

She visits Italy and her Italy is a caricature of some 50s and 60s films of the type “Gidget Goes to Rome” or “Three Coins in the Fountain”. She goes to Italy for the food, not the art nor the literature; not the history nor the philosophy. Even her attempts at learning the language are pathetically related to the food… She goes to India next and her India is some mystical fun-fair that reeks of supermarket-shelf religion: “On Special Today – Guru Meditation at Ashram”. Nothing deep and meaningful, no insight, no true enlightenment, no involvement in Indian society and its multitudinous current-day problems. No involvement in the religious issues posited by the coexistence of Islam and Hinduism. She is not touched by the real India. Her interaction with other inmates of the Ashram is self-serving and her brand of Indian spirituality is that which she could have found easily in New York. She flies to Bali and Liz’s Bali is shallow and comfortable. Her interaction with the medicine man is trite. Her only selfless act is her charitable gesture towards a traditional healer in need. But is it really selfless or does she do it as a moral catharsis that makes her feel better? She finds love in Bali and she scorns it because she doesn’t need it, or so she says. She has no compunction in telling the man that offers her his love: “I don’t have to love you to love myself!” Amazing self-obsession!

This is an extraordinary story of a woman who is so selfish for the most part, that all she wants out of life and people is to take, take, take. There is no natural selfless giving, no gracious sharing, no acceptance of the bounty of good fortune, but always a quest for ever more things and people according to what she feels she needs at that moment. This is a spoilt brat all grown up, an egotistical woman, a mediocre human being (not really evil, but at the same time not really good or virtuous or gracious), a boring person, a shallow existence. Poor Julia Roberts does her best to give the role all she can, but this is individualistic and selfish bilge dressed up as a philosophical-religious-mystical-emotional homily. Is this heroine what modern women aspire to?

I may sound a trifle acerbic, but the film was quite annoying in many ways. It was a fantasyland of platitudinous, facile and superficial tediousness. It was presented in such a didactic, life-changing, aggrandising way that one was immediately distanced by it. I did not want to do anything with this Liz woman, as shown by the movie. This was not a human being that I felt had made the world a better place to be in. Liz had striven hard to make Liz feel better, more comfortable, more loved, more spoilt, more content. And of course for Liz and every other Liz, “Après moi, le déluge”…

JAPAN EARTHQUAKE III

“Noble souls, through dust and heat, rise from disaster and defeat the stronger.” - Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

Japan continues to dominate newscasts and increasingly horrific news stories surface as the full extent of the disaster becomes known. The world watches anxiously as nuclear calamities now threaten the already devastated country and its people. Donations are already being collected here in Australia, and the world over, and most countries are helping Japan in a very palpable way through the sending of supplies or personnel. Please help if you can!

“The Great Wave off Kanagawa” is a very famous image by the Japanese artist Katsushika Hokusai (1760-1849) from his series of woodblock prints “36 Views of Mt Fujiyama”. Hokusai’s most famous picture and probably the most famous image of Japanese art is a seascape with Mt. Fuji in the distance. Hokusai loved to depict water in motion and this is an amazing image where fishermen do battle with the giant wave. The impending crash of the wave brings tension into the composition. In the foreground, a small peaked wave beneath the towering one above it, forms a miniature Mt. Fuji, which is repeated hundreds of miles away in the enormous Mt. Fuji in the background which shrinks through perspective; the wavelet is larger than the mountain.

Although this print is often used in tsunami literature, there is no reason to suspect that Hokusai intended it to be interpreted in that way. The waves in this work are sometimes mistakenly referred to as tsunami (津波), but they are more accurately called okinami (沖波), great off-shore waves.

This is an uncharacteristic Japanese image, as instead of shoguns and nobility, we see tiny fishermen huddled into their boats as they try to negotiate the stormy sea. The yin-violence of the sea is counterbalanced by the yang-relaxed confidence of expert fishermen. Although it’s a stormy sea, the sun is shining. Traditional Japanese artists would have never depicted lower-class fishermen (at the time, fishermen were one of the lowest and most despised of Japanese social classes); they would not have used perspective; they wouldn’t have paid much attention to the subtle shading of the sky. We, as westerners liked this type of woodblock print because it uses conventions that are familiar to us.

The elements of this Japanese scene originated in Western art. It includes landscape, long-distance perspective, nature, and ordinary humans, all of which were foreign to Japanese art at the time. The Giant Wave is actually a Western painting, seen through Japanese eyes. By the late 1700s, Dutch paintings had become very popular and common so that their etchings were used as cheap illustrations. Dutch merchants smuggled their goods into Japan. These wares were often wrapped in paper that had been illustrated with these etchings. For Hokusai and other artists, the thrown-away wrappers were more interesting than the imports.

Hokusai found Western art fascinating and was greatly stimulated by it. He transformed Dutch pastoral paintings by adding the Japanese style of flattening and the use of color surfaces as a element. His masterpieces were in fact a reinterpretation of Western art in Japanese style. By the 1880s, Japanese prints were all the rage in Western culture and Hokusai’s prints were studied by young European artists, such as Van Gogh and Whistler, in a style called Japonaiserie. Thus Western painting went to Japan, was transformed after it inspired Japanese artists, then returned to the West and inspired westerners again!

This image is an icon of Japanese art and a glorious testimony of Japanese culture and spirit. Japan will survive this disaster and rise again to take its place amongst other great nations of the world.

JAPAN EARTHQUAKE II

“I beg you take courage; the brave soul can mend even disaster.” – Catherine II

More distressing news keeps filtering in from Japan. More than 1,000 people have been confirmed dead and tens of thousands are missing. The explosion in one of the nuclear reactors at Fukushima has generated speculation that a meltdown will occur in the reactor and there may be radiation leaks and contamination, or even worse. The rescue efforts are well underway, but aftershocks continue to rock the battered regions. Many countries have begun to send aid to Japan, including Australia, which sent tens of rescue workers specially trained for precisely such missions.

The thoughts of most people around the world are with Japan at this stage, with much sympathy and support going to the afflicted populace.

JAPAN EARTHQUAKE

“We must embrace pain and burn it as fuel for our journey.” - Kenji Miyazawa

News of the massive earthquake and tsunamis in Japan awaited me as soon as I got home this evening. The pictures on television are frightening and awesome. One cannot comprehend the scale of destruction simply by looking at the aerial shots where the crest of the tidal wave carries every bit of imaginable flotsam as it covers fields, roads, houses, factories and woods. We thought that the Christchurch earthquake was bad enough, but this is just horrific. Even a country like Japan, used to earthquakes as it is, is now reeling after this latest quake, which neared the magnitude of 9 Richter units.

The 8.9 Richter earthquake hit on Friday, March 11, 2011 at 05:46:23 UTC (4:46:23 pm, Melbourne time) at 38.322°N, 142.369°E, which off the east coast of Honshu, 130 km E of Sendai (population ≈1 million), 178 km E of Yamagata (population ≈300,000), 178 km ENE of Fukushima (population ≈310,000), and 373 km of Tokyo (population ≈30 million). Today’s earthquake was preceded by a series of large foreshocks over the previous two days, beginning on March 9th with a 7.2 R event approximately 40 km from today’s earthquake, and continuing with a further 3 earthquakes greater than 6 R on the same day.

Although the structural damage in the affected parts of Japan may not be as extreme as in other places due the fact that the Japanese have long built anti-seismic constructions, the post-quake effects are many and extreme, largely due to the destructive force of the tsunamis that followed the quake. At least two people are reported dead at this stage (four hours after the quake), one hit by a collapsing wall at a Honda factory. Several people are reported buried in a landslide.

The tsunami generated was up to 10 metres high, with waves sweeping across farmland, carrying away homes, crops, vehicles, triggering fires. A tsunami of 7 metres later hit northern Japan. An inn collapsed in Sendai city and many are feared buried in its rubble. Strong aftershocks hit northern Japan, each the magnitude of a major quake. Tsunami warnings issued for eastern Indonesia, Taiwan’s north and east coasts.

Power has been cut to four million homes in and around Tokyo, while fourteen fires blaze in Tokyo. A major fire and explosions at Chiba refinery near Tokyo is causing much damage. Many sections of Tohoku expressway serving northern Japan are damaged. Bullet trains to the north of the country stopped.

Narita airport closed, flights halted, passengers evacuated. Tokyo underground, suburban trains halted. Sendai airport in the north has been flooded. Several nuclear power plants in Japan have shut down automatically. Tepco’s Fukushimi No. 1 plant had an equipment problem after the quake, but safety is ensured, officials say. At least one nuclear power station is still operating normally. Oil refineries have shut down and a major steel plant was ablaze.

More quakes have been predicted in the north of Honshu, while more tsunamis in Japan and in Pacific nations have been predicted…
Really terrible news…

THESAURUS THURSDAY: JEALOUSY & ENVY

“O! Beware, my lord, of jealousy;
 It is the green-eyed monster which doth mock
 the meat it feeds on.” - William Shakespeare

Pennyroyal, Mentha pulegium, is the birthday plant for today. Its generic name is derived from the Greek word for mint. The specific name is derived from the Latin pulex = flea, in reference to the supposed flea-killing properties of the herb.

The Greek myth to explain the origin of mint concerns a nymph, Minthe who lived in Elis in Southern Greece. Minthe was the lover of Hades, the god of the underworld. She was in love with him but he was fickle. When Hades saw the lovely Persephone on Mount Etna in Sicily, he fell in love with her and abandoned Minthe. Hades took Persephone to the underworld and made her his queen. The discarded Minthe complained bitterly, and raved foolishly for jealousy, and Demeter (Persephone’s mother and goddess of crops, fertility and vegetation) in anger trampled upon her with her feet and destroyed her. For she had said that she was nobler of form and more excellent in beauty than dark-eyed Persephone and she boasted that Hades would return to her and banish Persephone from his halls. From poor Minthe’s corpse, the earth sprouted forth the fragrant herb that bears her name.

In the neighbourhood of Pylos, to the north of Olympia, there was a hill called after Minthe, and at its foot there was a temple of Pluto, and a grove of Demeter. Around the temple grew mint abundantly, so even after her death, Minthe embraced the object of her affection.

In Scotland, the herb is also known as “pudding grass” as it was used to flavour haggis pudding.  Pennyroyal growing in the garden protects against the evil eye but at the same time, it was worn by witches.  Medicinally the herb was used to expel the afterbirth, and presently pennyroyal tisane is thought to relieve colic and to aid in digestion.  Pennyroyal in the language of flowers conveys the sentiment: “Go away, flee!”  It is under the dominion of Venus, astrologically.

jealous |ˈjeləs| adjective
• Feeling or showing envy of someone or their achievements and advantages: He grew jealous of her success.
• Feeling or showing suspicion of someone's unfaithfulness in a relationship : a jealous boyfriend.
• Fiercely protective or vigilant of one's rights or possessions : Howard is still a little jealous of his authority | they kept a jealous eye over their interests.
• (of God) Demanding faithfulness and exclusive worship.
DERIVATIVES
jealously adverb
jealousy noun
ORIGIN Middle English: From Old French gelos, from medieval Latin zelosus from Greek zēlos, zeal.

I remember at school I learnt that jealousy was not the same as envy. Jealousy had a specifically romantic or sexual connotation, whereas envy had a broader meaning. It is possible to be envious of another’s success, but one is jealous of a successful rival for the affections of one’s girlfriend. Othello was jealous, but not envious. The meanings are now being conflated and blurred, and one routinely hears that someone is jealous of someone else’s fame (as is apparent from the first definition above). This is regrettable as the two emotions (material envy and romantic jealousy) are not at all the same, and a clear linguistic distinction between them should be maintained.

SUMMER'S END

“Everyone must take time to sit and watch the leaves turn.” - Elizabeth Lawrence

A cool, grey, rainy day today. The weather bureau has reported that the La Niña pattern affecting Australia is the strongest since 1917. It started in the middle of last year and has contributed to the warmest oceans on record around Australia. Floods have drenched wide areas in recent months, wrecking properties, cutting off roads and filling rivers and dams. The current weather cycle is expected to end in the next two months and the forecast beyond is for a wetter-than-normal winter and a drier-than-normal spring.

When I came home from work today, I sat for a few minutes under the covered gazebo, looking at the garden. The rain was quietly falling and the picture was one of summer departing gently. A cool, wet summer that came in reluctantly and now is leaving us on tiptoe. As if we are sleeping and wishes to cede its reigning place to Autumn surreptitiously. I felt tired and old all of the sudden. The lingering cold that I have has not helped and sniffling, coughing and sputtering I hurried inside, mindful of my silliness and shaking off my chill.

I have a meeting later this week with the publishers that I work with to discuss a new edition of one of my books. It is going well and it is its time to be updated in a new edition. This signals another big project looming ahead. Summer’s end, autumn’s beginning. The season of fruitfulness an abundance, ushering in the desolate winter with its deathly chill…

The poem below written just now:

Summer’s End

Sun rises reluctantly each morning now,
And evening falls all of the sudden rapidly.
The leaves started to yellow on the bough,
And evening drags on, lengthening vapidly.

Rain falls, the garden yields a harvest rich;
Cool now at night, mist rises lazily at dawn.
Water collects in puddles, runs in dirty ditch;
And afternoons become greyer, long-drawn.

Flowers fade, rose hips start to redden
While fruits on branches ripen steadily.
Melancholy sets in, optimism starts to deaden
And thoughts turn to maturity readily.

My life’s work is reaching now its summer’s end
A bounteous autumn or a barren winter to attend.

INTERNATIONAL WOMEN'S DAY 2011

“Remember, Ginger Rogers did everything Fred Astaire did, but backwards and in high heels.” - Faith Whittlesey

It is International Women’s Day today, an commemorative day that first began to be observed at the turn of the century, which in the industrialised world was a period of expansion and turbulence, booming population growth and radical ideologies. In accordance with a declaration by the Socialist Party of America in 1909, the first National Woman's Day was observed across the United States on 28th February that year. Women continued to celebrate it on the last Sunday of that month through to 1913.

The Socialist International, meeting in Copenhagen in 1910, established an International Women’s Day, to honour the movement for women’s rights and to assist in achieving universal suffrage for women. The proposal was greeted with unanimous approval by the conference of over 100 women from 17 countries, which included the first three women elected to the Finnish parliament. No fixed date was selected for the observance. As a result of the decision taken at Copenhagen the previous year, International Women's Day was marked for the first time (19th March 1911) in Austria, Denmark, Germany and Switzerland, where more than one million women and men attended rallies. In addition to the right to vote and to hold public office, they demanded the right to work, to vocational training and to an end to discrimination on the job.

Less than a week later, on 25th March 1911, the tragic Triangle Fire in New York City took the lives of more than 140 working girls, most of them Italian and Jewish immigrants. This event had a significant impact on labour legislation in the United States, and the working conditions leading up to the disaster were invoked during subsequent observances of International Women’s Day.

As part of the peace movement that was active just before World War I, Russian women observed their first International Women’s Day on the last Sunday in February 1913. Elsewhere in Europe, on or around 8th March of the following year, women held rallies either to protest the war or to express solidarity with their sisters. With 2 million Russian soldiers dead in the war, Russian women again chose the last Sunday in February 1917 to strike for “bread and peace”. Political leaders opposed the timing of the strike, but the women went on anyway. In the same week, the Czar was forced to abdicate and the provisional Government granted women the right to vote. That historic Sunday fell on 23rd February on the Julian calendar then in use in Russia, but on 8th March on the Gregorian calendar in use elsewhere.

International Women’s Day has developed into a truly international anniversary and commemorates the struggles women have had to deal with and are still dealing with in order to be treated as equals to men. The international women’s movement has been gaining strength over 100 years, and was supported by four global United Nations women’s conferences. The commemoration of International Women’s Day is a rallying point for coordinated efforts to demand women’s rights and participation in the political and economic process. Increasingly, International Women’s Day is a time to reflect on progress made, to call for change and to celebrate acts of courage and determination by ordinary women who have played an extraordinary role in history.





This is Australian singer Helen Reddy singing her great hit "I Am Woman"


I Am Woman

Artist: Helen Reddy from "Helen Reddy's Greatest Hits": EMI ST 11467
Peak Billboard position # 1 for 1 week in 1972
Words and Music by Helen Reddy and Ray Burton


I am woman, hear me roar
In numbers too big to ignore
And I know too much to go back an' pretend
'cause I've heard it all before
And I've been down there on the floor
No one's ever gonna keep me down again

CHORUS
Oh yes I am wise
But it's wisdom born of pain
Yes, I've paid the price
But look how much I gained
If I have to, I can do anything
I am strong (strong)
I am invincible (invincible)
I am woman

You can bend but never break me
'cause it only serves to make me
More determined to achieve my final goal
And I come back even stronger
Not a novice any longer
'cause you've deepened the conviction in my soul

CHORUS

I am woman watch me grow
See me standing toe to toe
As I spread my lovin' arms across the land
But I'm still an embryo
With a long long way to go
Until I make my brother understand

Oh yes I am wise
But it's wisdom born of pain
Yes, I've paid the price
But look how much I gained
If I have to I can face anything
I am strong (strong)
I am invincible (invincible)
I am woman
Oh, I am woman
I am invincible
I am strong

FADE
I am woman
I am invincible
I am strong
I am woman

MOVIE MONDAY - DINOSAUR

“What makes the desert beautiful is that somewhere it hides a well.” - Antoine de Saint-Exupery

We watched Eric Leighton’s and Ralph Zondag’s 2000 movie “Dinosaur” at the weekend. We had bought the DVD on special a couple of years ago, but had never watched it as it sat forgotten on a lower shelf amongst already viewed DVDs. It pays to do some dusting and tidying up, rearranging of shelves and general sprucing up around the house. One tends to discover all sorts of interesting things! In any case, we were in the mood for something lightweight and a Disney film was deemed appropriate. I am great lover of children’s books and films and will often indulge myself as I believe that one must always feed the hungry little child within.

The film was very polished (almost too polished, as can be the case with computer-generated animation) with CGI taking over in a big way and generating effects and animation that are quite amazing. However, in some of the scenes the CGI creatures can look plastic and one can be distracted from the action. One is immediately tempted to compare the Disney “Dinosaur” with Steven Spielberg’s 1993 “Jurassic Park”, as computer graphics and special effects feature prominently in both of these dinosaur films. However, where “Jurassic Park” was exciting, adventurous, thrilling, scary, funny at times with a rollicking good story, “Dinosaur” tends towards saccharine sweetness and didactic moralising – besides which, the story is rather unoriginal and seems to have been compounded from a host of other films: A dash of “Bambi”, a peck or two of “The Land Before Time”, a sliver of “Ice Age”, a soupçon of “Ice Age 2”, a touch of “Mowgli” etc, etc.

The plot revolves around pack dinosaurs known as Iguanodon. During an attack on a pack of Iguanodon, an egg is saved although stolen by predators and ends up in the possession of a group of lemurs. The lemurs care for the young iguanodon hatched from it, which they call Aladar. Aladar becomes an “honorary lemur” as he grows up and spends his time peacefully on an island far away form other dinosaurs. When a meteor hits the earth, a huge tidal wave forces Aladar and his family to leave their homeland. They meet up with a huge group of dinosaurs, led by Kron and Bruton, fellow iguanodons, as well as other dinosaur species. In the wake of the meteor disaster, they try to reach their nesting grounds, but the way there is fraught with danger and great struggles.

The film is full of factual errors and anachronisms, but that is immaterial as it is not a documentary, it is a fantasy. If you can accept that dinosaurs can talk and exhibit anthropomorphic characteristics, it is not hard to accept that lemurs (which evolved 55 million years ago) and dinosaurs (which became extinct 65 million years ago) coexisted. What’s ten million years between friends? The size of the creatures is also misrepresented. The carnotaurs that hunt the iguanodon have been increased in size to make them look more terrifying and the triceratops and apatosaur are not to scale. The habitats of the animals depicted also do not coincide, with animals that lived on different continents being put side by side. But never mind!

If we overlook the deficiencies of the film, it is a good film to watch in one’s lighter moments and children will love the animals and the simple story. Although there are some violent scenes that could scare smaller children (or over-sensitive adults). The music by James Newton Howard is discreet and suits the action, while top marks go to the artists that conceived the background art, which in my opinion s quite ravishing, to the extent of being almost distracting. I found myself admiring the skies and seas, waterways and grasslands, forests and deserts rather than the animals, which were speaking trite homilies at times.

Well worth seeing this film if you find it, but once again if you like a juicier story and a more exciting film, go for “Jurassic Park”!

ART SUNDAY - JAEME NEWTON

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

For Art Sunday today, a whimsical and talented artist from the USA, Jaeme Newton. She has a distinctly personal style and uses a variety of media to create striking drawings of fantastical creatures and mythical animals. The drawings are detailed and very fluid, showing evidence of a rich inner voice and an imagination that leaps and flies into wonderful new worlds.

Jaeme Newton was born the 19th of May, 1982 in Green Brae, California. She spent her childhood traveling to various places throughout the western United States with her father (a political satirist, poet and children's book author) and her younger brother. Shortly after turning fourteen, Jaeme and her brother moved to Huntsville, Alabama to live with their mother and other siblings.

From 1998 Jaeme moved again and furthered her study of art in school at Miami, Florida, and began to paint in her home on a daily basis. Six months later Jaeme’s family moved again, and Jaeme began attending school at Albertson College of Idaho shortly after graduation from Fruitland High School in May of 2000.

Jaeme moved to Somerset, Kentucky where a friend of hers was starting a band named "nemo" in which Jaeme took up the bassist position and toured with 2003. Jaeme took time out to really explore the musician in her. In the course of three years, Jaeme produced three LPs , and one full length CD named “Live from the Theatre of Memory”, which there are very few copies of today.

The drawing above is called “Bridge” and shows a rich tapestry of images, wonderfully vibrant colour and a vivid imagination. I can relate to this drawing personally as it resembles very much some of my own drawings and the composition is very reminiscent of a series of drawings I did several years ago in my “visual diary”. There is a strong rhythmic element to the drawing with the central bridge linking the two sides of the drawing, which surround the bridge and yet are separated by it. There are astronomical figures, rainbows, exuberant swirls of colour and plant elements, as well as the two faces in the lower left that interlock an seem to mirror the two sides of the bridge. The bridge separates the two sides, but also joins them. The faces are joined and yet are different. Yin and Yang, night and day, good and evil, all melding together in a complex and multifaceted drawing that is quite satisfying to explore and delve into.