A LUNAR ECLIPSE

“Don’t tell me the moon is shining; show me the glint of light on broken glass.” - Anton Chekhov

Depending on where you are in the world, on Wednesday night or early on Thursday morning the full moon will plunge into the longest and deepest total lunar eclipse in more than a decade.
Moon gazers across the Eastern Hemisphere will be able to watch the moon turn shades of orange and red as the moon moves into the darkest part of Earth’s shadow for almost two hours. This is because the path that the moon is taking through Earth’s shadow is almost directly through the shadow’s centre, making for the longest possible path and so the longest duration.

Because of the tilt of the moon’s orbit around Earth, the moon usually passes slightly above or below Earth’s cone-shaped shadow, so no lunar eclipse is usually seen. Sometimes, however, the geometry is just right for the moon to cross the Earth’s orbital plane, which always happens during a full moon. As all three bodies (sun, earth, moon) line up, the moon passes through Earth’s shadow and we see a lunar eclipse. Partial eclipses happen when the moon grazes Earth’s shadow, while total eclipses occur when the whole moon passes through the shadow.

On June 15th 2011, the Earth’s shadow will start to darken the moon around 18:22 universal time (UT). The total lunar eclipse will begin at 19:22 UT and will last for more than a hundred minutes. The deepest part of the eclipse will occur at 20:12 UT, as the moon plunges into the umbra, the dark center of our planet’s shadow. The last hint of Earth’s shadow will slip off the moon around 22:02 UT.

Except for northern Scotland and Scandinavia, most of Europe as well as eastern South America and western Africa will see totality underway around moonrise—just as the sun begins to set on June 15th. The best location for viewing the entire eclipse is eastern Africa, the Middle East, Central Asia, and the western tip of Australia. From Indonesia to New Zealand, viewers will get to see the moon’s face slowly eaten away by the initial stages of the lunar eclipse just before the moon sets on June 16th. The eclipse will not be visible from North America, and moon gazers there will have to wait until December 10th, when western parts of the continent will be treated to the next lunar eclipse.

Looking at the rising moon this evening, inspired me to write this poem:

Winter Moon Gazing

“There is a rabbit in the moon, not a man…”
She said, looking up high,
“…Or so the Chinese say.”
I looked up and saw a rabbit,
Quite clearly, just as she said,
And I believed her truly,
For she is Chinese.

“My grandmother said the moon
Shows the murderous handprint of Cain…”
And I pointed it out;
“…And she was Greek and full of myth,
Whether biblical or pagan.”
She looked up and her laugh rang out
Like silver bells tinkling.

“You Greeks are full of stories,
And you make gods of men,
And women of trees,
You sometimes mark the moon with Selene’s face,
And at another, with Cain’s marks.
That is what I like about you
Your chameleon ways…”

“But my mother, who is English,
Insists that there is a witch on the moon,
Carrying sticks…” I said.
We looked up and tilted our heads
And looked into each other’s eyes,
In the moonlight,
And we kissed, bewitched.

NEW CALAMITIES

“Often it takes some calamity to make us live in the present. Then suddenly we wake up and see all the mistakes we have made.” - Bill Watterson

Another earthquake in New Zealand with roads, bridges and all schools closed in Christchurch again today. Yesterday’s 6.3 and 5.7 quakes were followed by aftershocks, including a 4.7 quake overnight. Fortunately there have been no deaths, but hospitals have been treating people hit by falling debris. It is quite upsetting to think that 20,000 residents were without power and many were without water, driven out of their homes and fearing for their lives. All this in winter, with no heat and with the threat of more shocks to come. One can only imagine the terrible feelings they must be experiencing, especially those with young families.

News reports talked of more than 50 buildings collapsing yesterday in the earthquake-damaged area of the city where demolition and clearing work has been carried out since the previous quake in February that killed 182 people. Only workers who were carrying out the operations were injured as this area of the city is off-limits to the public. Eyewitnesses describing the scene said they were dodging debris as they struggled to get out of damaged buildings that were collapsing around them during the quake.

Up to 50,000 have already abandoned the Christchurch, seeking a new life in other New Zealand cities and in Australia. And now we have heard that more Christchurch families are to leave the city. I have visited Christchurch three times and have wonderful memories of a beautiful city with friendly and hospitable people. To think that is has been reduced to this with its population forced to leave it, is very sad.

I am to travel to Sydney on Thursday, but at this stage it is uncertain whether or not my flight will go ahead. Over the past few days air traffic has been disrupted in southern Australia and it looks as though it will continue to be disrupted for a few more days yet. The ash cloud from the Puyehue volcano is Chile is drifting across the Pacific to the Tasman Sea and it looks like even Perth may be affected in the next 48-72 hours. About 12,000 Qantas passengers are still grounded by the cancellations of flights with New Zealand and Tasmanian flights still not open.

All of this drives the point of the smallness and connectedness of our world. A volcanic eruption in Chile affects us here in Australia thousands of miles away. A nuclear accident in Japan poisons the seas and the air for hundreds of kilometres around. Our technology and “progress” is poisoning our atmosphere and polluting our land and seas all over the earth. The melting of the ice in the poles will affect millions of people worldwide. When will all of this sink in? Are we that stupid as a species? As if the natural disasters weren’t enough, we actively contribute to the destruction and despoliation ourselves.

MOVIE MONDAY - THREE REVIEWS IN ONE

“Miracles are a retelling in small letters of the very same story which is written across the whole world in letters too large for some of us to see.” - C. S. Lewis

Over the last week we have seen three movies that could all be classed as “chick flicks” or light romantic comedies (well at least two out of three, one of them was a bit darker). All of these movies had in fact the same basic plot, but each dressed it a little differently. I read somewhere once that all novels, all movies and all short stories have a basic plot that is one of the twenty commonly used ones. Therein lies their success. Here are the 20 basic plots (I googled it!):

Tobias, Ronald B. "20 Master Plots". Cincinnati: Writer’s Digest Books, 1993. (ISBN 0-89879-595-8).
This book proposes twenty basic plots:
•    Quest
•    Adventure
•    Pursuit
•    Rescue
•    Escape
•    Revenge
•    The Riddle
•    Rivalry
•    Underdog
•    Temptation
•    Metamorphosis
•    Transformation
•    Maturation
•    Love
•    Forbidden Love
•    Sacrifice
•    Discovery
•    Wretched Excess
•    Ascension
•    Descension

One can elaborate these further, of course and there are enough variations and window dressing to keep us interested, as well as combination of the above themes through subplots. However, by looking down such a list one realises just how limited the choice of plot is when we strip the story down to its bare essentials. Hence, the importance of the talent, craft and experience of a great writer or a good director in making something original and engaging out of a well-worn storyline.

The three films we saw are in brief as follows:
The 2010 Gary Winick movie “Letters to Juliet” is the classic “girl-in-an-unfulfilling-relationship-meets-a-new-man-she-initially-detests-but-comes-to-love” plot. There is a subplot of “love-lost-and-love-regained”, which allows two veteran actors (Vanessa Redgrave and Franco Nero) to shine. The film is very attractively packaged with the gorgeous Tuscan location adding great window dressing to the film. The young leads (Amanda Seyfried and Christopher Egan) do well enough and the film is a pleasant diversion. Light and fluffy and not too taxing on the neurones.

Anand Tucker’s 2010 “Leap Year” is of the same “girl-in-an-unfulfilling-relationship-meets-a-new-man-she-initially-detests-but-comes-to-love” plot, without the benefit of a subplot. The whole film hinges on the old Irish tradition of women being allowed to propose to the man they want to marry on Leap Day, February 29th. Add some gorgeous Irish scenery and pleasant enough two young leads (Amy Adams and Matthew Goode) and this is another pleasant film that will raise a few smiles, however unlikely the scenario is.

The third film, even though of the same “girl-in-an-unfulfilling-relationship-meets-a new-man-she-initially-detests-but-comes-to-love” plot has a little more depth as there are a few subplots that compete with the main storyline. It is Julie Anne Robinson’s 2010 “The Last Song”. We expected a little more from this film than what we received, having being written by Nicholas Sparks. He wrote the screenplay for this movie as a vehicle for Miley Cyrus (and it shows), and then adapted the novel from it. The novel was released shortly before the movie. Nevertheless, the film was a little laboured and the sentiments somewhat worn and mawkish.

Miley Cyrus as the teenage rebel is not terribly convincing, or perhaps I should rephrase that – terribly unconvincing, while her beau, Liam Hemsworth, is just too much to be convincing; I mean: A young, popular, sporty, handsome, rich, sensitive, understanding, intelligent, environmentally aware, public spirited, well-educated, literary (and speaks Russian), who is a good faithful friend, come on! Apparently, this film may have been the beginning of the real-life romance between the two leads, but I am not up to date with the lifestyles of the rich and famous, nor do I particularly care.

Greg Kinnear, playing the father, was a little annoying in this movie as he used about three expressions for the whole length of the film in quick succession of one another. I found his deteriorating health rather unbelievable given his good physical shape. Overall, this was stock Hollywood melodrama and a vehicle for what the studio hoped to be a rising new film star. What they ended up with was a cheap tear-jerker that lacked originality and conviction.

Out of the three films “The Last Song” was the most disappointing. Given the lightness of the previous two movies, one would not have expected much enjoyment from them. However, they were more genuine despite their unlikely plots and studious romanticised view of reality. The sugar coating held a soft centre of syrup and one could savour the cloying sweetness till the end. “The Last Song” was a saccharine coated bitter pill of cod liver oil. If one did not swallow it whole, buying into the film lock stock and barrel, one was left with a very bad taste. Presumably the film would have the same beneficial effect on our emotional health as cod liver oil has on our physical health…

ART SUNDAY - VASARELY

“Every form is a base for colour, every colour is the attribute of a form.” - Victor Vasarely

For Art Sunday today, the art of Victor Vasarely, or in his native Hungarian: Viktor Vásárhelyi   (born, April 9th, 1908, Pécs, Hungary – died March 15th, 1997, Paris, France). He was a painter of geometric abstractions who became one of the leading figures of the “Op Art” movement. Vasarely was trained as an artist in Budapest in the Bauhaus tradition. In 1930 he left Hungary and settled in Paris, where he initially supported himself as a commercial artist but continued to do his own work.

During the 1930s he was influenced by Constructivism, but by the 1940s his characteristic style of painting animated surfaces of geometric forms and interacting colours had emerged. His style reached maturity in the mid-1950s and 1960s, when he began using brighter, more vibrant colours to further enhance the suggestion of movement through optical illusion. Vasarely became a naturalised French citizen in 1959. Much of his work is housed in the Vasarely Museum, at the Château de Gourdes, in Vaucluse Département, southern France. In 1970 he established the Vasarely Foundation, which in 1976 took up quarters near Aix-en-Provence in a building that he designed.

For those of you with a Macintosh computer, download a free MacApp called “Kortil”. It is a virtual exhibition of Vasarely’s works in the Kortil Gallery in Rijeka, Croatia. Courtesy of the Regional Museum Janus Pannonius in Pécs, which has a collection of Vasarely’s works, the Rijeka Gallery hosted an exhibition in association with the City of Rijeka Department of Culture. Through modern technology, we too may enjoy this exhibition on our computer screen through a virtual gallery space.

BLACK ROSE

“A rose is the visible result of an infinitude of complicated goings on in the bosom of the earth and in the air above, and similarly a work of art is the product of strange activities in the human mind.” - Clive Bell

It was a beautiful, fine day today and perfect for some gardening. And so it was. Alas, my hands are blistered, scratched and cut from the serious pruning and weeding that took most of the day, however, it was all worth it as the garden looks all the better for it. Most of our rose bushes are getting a little old, which is sad as we have a large and varied selection. I like a rose to possess fragrance as well as look beautiful, so most of our roses are both fragrant and also every shade available: White, yellow, gold, orange, all shades of red, burgundy, many pinks,  and lavender. However, we need to do some serious culling, taking out the oldest and start replacing them with new bushes in the spring.

And as we are speaking of roses, here is some world music performed by “Rosa Negra” (Black Rose). Rosa Negra is a five-piece “novo fado” group, a variation on the age-old traditional Portuguese genre of the fado (popular songs of love, loss and fate). This is a flexible genre that allows the influence of other music to seep through and assert themselves. This piece from 2006, “Fado Ladino”, has significant Asian and Arabic influences that infiltrate the familiar Iberian, but not enough that the music gives itself up totally to foreign genres and loses its natural Portuguese soul.

The lush string instrumentation is amplified by trumpet, piano, accordion and percussion, which together creates a sensual and dramatic tapestry of emotions and textures. But the heart of the group is the vocals of Carmo the lead songstress, whose interpretation of the typically gloomy lyrics (intense songs about love, loss of love, longing for past, and fado itself) are, theatrical and utterly captivating. Her navigation of that fine line between the ancient and the new is quite compelling.

Here is the gist of the lyrics:
“A warm breeze inside me blows and raises me towards the East. Is it real or a mirage on the road? Will it have an end? Perhaps the wind hides my destiny behind the shadows of loneliness… Fado Ladino, my heart is like a black rose, waiting amongst the delights of the garden. A rose in an oasis of eternal hope, a feeling of jasmine memories in my heart.”

WINTER COMFORT FOOD

“The first fall of snow is not only an event, it is a magical event. You go to bed in one kind of a world and wake up in another quite different, and if this is not enchantment then where is it to be found?” - J.B. Priestley

I had a very full and busy day today with many meetings, quite a few loose ends to take care of and many staff members coming to see me. In between everything I was finalising a submission, which thankfully got put in the mail on time. I managed to finish by five o’clock and at that stage felt rather tired, having been in at work since 7:00 am. Everyone, not the least myself, was looking forward to the end of the day as we have the Queen’s Birthday long weekend ahead of us. This is traditionally the opening of the ski season.

Our winter has come early and with bared claws this year so it is no surprise that most of the alpine resorts in Victoria are reporting a good coverage of snow and are expecting crowds of visitors and skiers for the long weekend. Snowmakers have been topping up the natural snow cover and the forecast is for mostly fine conditions throughout the long weekend with a chance of some isolated snow showers. This link will take you to the official Snow Report page of the Victorian ski fields.

I haven’t been skiing for a couple of decades now and don’t feel inclined to go in a hurry! I regard it as one of the follies of my youth, so consequently as I am no longer young, there is no reason for me to resume that particular folly. Snow is delightful to watch as it falls, of course, preferably from inside a warm room where the fireplace is glowing with a bright fire and the hot eggnog is sending its nutmeggy aroma through the room. The last time it snowed in metropolitan Melbourne was about 30 years ago, but there is sightseeing snow within an hour’s drive at Lake Mountain.

This is the time of the year for comfort food. As we had roast lamb a couple of days ago, here is a recipe that will utilise the leftovers in the fridge:

SHEPHERD’S PIE
Ingredients
For the filling
    30 g lard
1 large onion, peeled and chopped
    1 large carrot, peeled and diced
    1 cup of frozen peas
    450 g leftover roast lamb, minced
    1-2 cloves garlic, peeled and crushed
    1 tbsp plain flour
    1 tbsp tomato purée
    300 ml beef stock
    2 dashes of Worcestershire sauce
    1 tbsp chopped fresh parsley
    1/2 tsp ground mace

For the topping
    450 g potatoes
    2 tbsp double cream
    130 g unsalted butter
    2 pinches nutmeg, freshly grated
    grated parmesan (optional)

Method
1. For the filling: Melt the lard in a large frying pan and add the onion. Cook for a few minutes until soft but not browned. Add the carrot and peas.

2. Add the minced lamb and fry for 2 minutes, then add the tomato purée, garlic if using it, and flour, mixing well. Add the mace.

3. Add the stock and bring to the boil, then simmer for 10-15 minutes until the stew thickens but does not stick to the pan.

4. Stir in the Worcestershire sauce, parsley and some salt and pepper, and remove from the heat. Put into a pie dish of about 900ml and leave to cool.

5. For the topping: Peel the potatoes then cut them into even pieces and put into cold salted water. Bring to the boil and cook until tender, then drain and return to the pan. Put back on the heat to dry out carefully, stirring all the time.

6. Put the double cream and 90 g of the butter into a clean pan and bring to the boil.

7. Mash the potatoes or pass them through a potato ‘ricer’ and add to the cream mixture. Stir well, season with salt and pepper and add some nutmeg. Allow to cool. Preheat the oven to 180˚C.

8. Put the potato into a piping bag with a 2cm star nozzle and pipe on to the meat mixture in the pie dish. Put the pie dish into the preheated oven for 10 minutes to set the potato topping.

9. Melt the remaining butter and carefully brush over the top of the pie and add the parmesan on top if using. Put back in the oven for a further 20 minutes or until golden brown. Serve immediately.

ADORNMENT

“Know, first, who you are; and then adorn yourself accordingly.” – Epictetus

The desire to adorn ourselves is something that has its origins deep in our dim and distant past. Something that is ingrained within our genetic make-up, reflecting our animal origins where ostentatious display signifies readiness for mating and where the brightness and splendour of the display could prove to make a big difference between reproducing many times or not reproducing at all. The feathers of a peacock, the mane of a lion, the plumage of a bird of paradise are all cases in point.

The sporting of bright clothing, enormous hats, outrageous hairdos, extensive tattoos, exaggerated make-up and shiny jewellery by humans certainly developed from this type of animal display and its purpose of course is to attract potential mates. The way that we adorn ourselves can prove to be a powerful attractant and the character of the adornment will send out signals as to who we are and whom we wish to draw to us. The display of a rooster will leave a peahen quite unmoved, while the bristling, spotted fur of a hyena will fail to attract a lion. The beautifully made-up face of an attractive woman who wears earrings, has carefully coiffed hair and is dressed appropriately will attract many a blue-blooded male who will gravitate towards her. A similar style of adornment on a male (à la Boy George) will turn most males right off, but then again may attract some other people who are so inclined to admire such adornment.

Adornments can also be worn to embellish, enhance, or distinguish the wearer. They can define cultural, social, or religious status within a specific community. When items of adornment display economic status, they are often rare or prohibitively expensive to most others. Adornments include cosmetics, jewellery, clothing accessories, medals, ceremonial additions to clothing or hair, facial hair, fingernail modification, piercing, lip plates, tattooing, braiding, and head gear.

Personally, I will tolerate no jewellery or other adornment on me, and it is even grudgingly that I wear a watch (which is functional and quite plain). My clothes could best be described as drab (dark shades of gray, blue, black and navy), while my hair is very short and cut in a very conservative style. Oh, I don’t wear any make-up either. I do tend to blend into a crowd. Perhaps that may explain that there are no potential mates beating a path to my door…

The picture above is of Elaine Davidson, a former nurse, born in Brazil but now residing in Edinburgh, Scotland. According to the Guinness Book of Records, Elaine Davidson is the “Most Pierced Woman in the World”. In May 2000, Davidson had 462 piercings, with 192 in her face alone. By August 9, 2001 when she was re-examined she was found to have 720 piercings. Performing at the Edinburgh Festival in 2005, the Guardian reported that she now had 3,950 body piercings. She has more piercings in her genitalia than in any other part of the body - 500 in all, externally and internally. The total weight of her jewellery is estimated to be about 3 kilograms. As of May 2008, Davidson’s piercings totalled 5,920. In February 2009 her piercings totalled 6,005, while in March 2010, Elaine reported a total of 6,725 piercings.

Elaine appeared at the Edinburgh registry office having added another ring to her collection of jewellery, this time a wedding ring. She was married to an unnamed man today. Which proves the point that her jewellery display was a strong attractant to a mate…

adorn |əˈdôrn| verb [ trans. ]
Make more beautiful or attractive: Pictures and prints adorned his walls.
DERIVATIVES
adorner noun
adornment noun
ORIGIN: Late Middle English: Via Old French from Latin adornare, from ad- ‘to’ + ornare ‘deck, add lustre.’

WORLD OCEANS DAY

“The sea has never been friendly to man. At most it has been the accomplice of human restlessness.” - Joseph Conrad

We had a small dinner party last night, which was very pleasant. As it was midweek it finished relatively early, but we enjoyed it very much.

Today is World Oceans Day. In 2008, the United Nations General Assembly decided that, as from 2009, 8th June would be designated by the United Nations as “World Oceans Day” (resolution 63/111, paragraph 171). Many countries have celebrated World Oceans Day following the United Nations Conference on Environment and Development, which was held in Rio de Janeiro in 1992. The oceans are essential to food security and the health and survival of all life, power our climate and are a critical part of the biosphere. The official designation of World Oceans Day is an opportunity to raise global awareness of the current challenges faced by the international community in connection with the oceans.

Here is an apt poem for this day:

Sea Fever

I MUST go down to the seas again, to the lonely sea and the sky,
And all I ask is a tall ship and a star to steer her by,
And the wheel’s kick and the wind’s song and the white sail’s shaking,
And a gray mist on the sea’s face, and a grey dawn breaking.

I must go down to the seas again, for the call of the running tide
Is a wild call and a clear call that may not be denied;
And all I ask is a windy day with the white clouds flying,
And the flung spray and the blown spume, and the sea-gulls crying.

I must go down to the seas again, to the vagrant gypsy life,
To the gull’s way and the whale’s way, where the wind’s like a whetted knife;
And all I ask is a merry yarn from a laughing fellow-rover,
And quiet sleep and a sweet dream when the long trick’s over.

John Masefield (1878-1967)

TULIPS, VESTALIA & BIRTHDAYS

“Growing old is mandatory; growing up is optional.” - Chili Davis

Vesta is the Roman goddess of the hearth fire and is analogous to the Greek goddess Hestia. Vesta is one of the most ancient of the Roman deities, and her cult goes back to the 7th century BC. Tradition has it that the cult of Vesta was instituted by Numa Pompilius (753-673 BC; the legendary second king of Rome, 715-673 BC, succeeding Romulus).

The cult of Vesta was in the hands of the Vestal Virgins, a special female priesthood. Vesta only had one temple in Rome, the circular Temple of Vesta in the Forum Romanum. Inside the round temple burnt the eternal fire, the symbolic hearth of Rome and all the Roman people. If the fire was extinguished it was thought that it would have grave consequences for the Romans. Also inside the temple, to which only the six vestal virgins had access, were kept the objects that Aeneas was said to have brought with him on his flight from Troy. This included the Palladius (an ancient wooden statue of Minerva), and the images of the Penates (guardian spirits of the pantry). Vesta was represented by the burning fire. There was no cult statue in the temple, but Augustus had a statue placed on an altar in his house on the Palatine Hill in 12 BCE.  Other round temples have erroneously been attributed to Vesta by architectural analogy.

The Vestalia Festival of ancient Rome honoured Vesta, the goddess of the household and the hearth.  Her temple was the home of the Vestal virgins and it was closed, forbidden to everyone throughout the year.  On the 7th of June, the Vestal Virgins opened the shrine to married women of Rome for eight days. The matrons walked to the temple barefoot and there took part in rituals honouring the family hearth and household. On the 15th June, the matrons returned home and the temple was closed to outsiders until next year.

Some people born today:

Pope Gregory XIII, (1583);
John Rennie, civil engineer (1761);
George Bryan ‘Beau’ Brummel, English dandy (1778);
Richard Doddridge Blackmore, author (1811);
(Eugène Henri) Paul Gauguin, artist (1848);
Knud Johan Victor Rasmussen, explorer (1879);
Imre Nagy, Hungarian revolutionary (1896);
George Szell, conductor (1897);
Elizabeth Bowen (Elizabeth Dorothea Cole), writer (1899);
Virginia Apgar, physician (1909);
Jessica Tandy, actress (1909);
Pietro Annigoni, artist (1910);
Dean Martin (Dino Paul Crocetti), actor/singer (1917);
Rocky Graziano, pugilist (1922);
Virginia McKenna, actress (1931);
Tom Jones (Thomas Jones Woodward), singer (1940);
Prince (Rogers Nelson), musician (1968).

A red tulip, Tulipa gesneriana, is today’s birthday flower.  It symbolises ardent love.  The tulip is an importation into the West from Turkey and Persia, the word tulip being derived from the Turkish word tulband, meaning “turban”.  Young men in Persia would present their love with red tulips, this signifying their heated countenance (red petals) and their heart burnt to a coal (the black base of the petals).  The tulip also stands for eloquence, oratory and fame.

For each ecstatic instant
We must in anguish pay
In keen and quivering ratio
To the ecstasy.

For each beloved hour
Sharp pittances of years,
Bitter contested farthings
And coffers heaped with tears.
                Emily Dickinson (1830-1886)

MOVIE MONDAY - BRIGHT STAR

“Poetry is the journal of the sea animal living on land, wanting to fly in the air. Poetry is a search for syllables to shoot at the barriers of the unknown and the unknowable. Poetry is a phantom script telling how rainbows are made and why they go away.” - Carl Sandburg

Bright Star

Bright star, would I were stedfast as thou art –
Not in lone splendour hung aloft the night
And watching, with eternal lids apart,
Like nature's patient, sleepless Eremite,
The moving waters at their priestlike task
Of pure ablution round earth’s human shores,
Or gazing on the new soft-fallen mask
Of snow upon the mountains and the moors –
No – yet still stedfast, still unchangeable,
Pillow’d upon my fair love’s ripening breast,
To feel for ever its soft fall and swell,
Awake for ever in a sweet unrest,
Still, still to hear her tender-taken breath,
And so live ever – or else swoon to death.

John Keats (1795-1821)

We watched the Jane Campion 2009 film “Bright Star” at the weekend. Its title is taken from the sonnet by John Keats reproduced in its entirety above. The poem was used by Keats as a declaration of love for his muse Fanny Brawne, a young woman who seemingly had nothing in common with the poet. However, she inspired in him a great love and in turn loved him earnestly and steadfastly. Their love was never consummated, a love cut short by Keats’ untimely early death.

The film concentrates on the short period of time when John Keats and Fanny Brawne meet and interact, eventually falling in love. The movie starts in 1818 in Hampstead Village on the outskirts of London. Poet Charles Brown lives in one half of a large house, while the Dilkes family live in the other half. Through their association with the Dilkes, the fatherless Brawne family get to know Mr Brown. The Brawne’s eldest daughter, Fanny Brawne dislikes Mr Brown a feeling he reciprocates. She thinks him arrogant and rude, while he thinks that she is pretentious and uneducated. He dismisses her as a “seamstress”, knowing only how to sew (although well, as she makes all her own fashionable clothes). He criticises her for being a shallow flirt and accuses her of giving opinions on subjects she knows nothing about. The struggling impoverished poet John Keats comes to live with his friend, Mr Brown. Miss Brawne and Mr Keats have a mutual attraction to each other, a relationship which, however, is slow to develop in part since Mr Brown does his utmost to keep the two apart. When they do eventually manage to get together, other obstacles face the couple.

The film is slow and contemplative. Anyone who comes to watch it expecting a rich plot, endless scintillating repartee, twists and turns of narrative, and adventurous action will be sorely disappointed. This is a film highlighting the romance of two young and immature, romantically inclined and sensitive people, one of whom happens to be a brilliant poet. The plot plods along and follows their insecurities, self-doubts, misapprehensions and weaknesses. Their romance follows a rocky path, which is not helped by their inexperience and their overwhelmingly doubtful and tentative attempts at initiating their love affair. Fanny’s verbal exchanges with Mr Brown are the only amusing thing in the film and there are some witty one-liners there.

Jane Campion is well known to cinemagoers from her previous successful work and her 1993 film “The Piano” is one which remains memorable for a long time after one sees it. I was half expecting something similar with this film and there are touches reminiscent of “The Piano” here and there. For example, Toots, Fanny’s young sister is very much like Flora (Anna Paquin) in the older film. There are some stunningly beautiful images that resemble a moving painting in both films and the acting is overall very good. Music is apt and well-selected for “Bright Star” also, although lacking the passion and tempestuousness of “The Piano”.

We so wanted to like this film immensely, but unfortunately it left us strangely unsatisfied. It was well acted, well photographed, conveyed the atmosphere of the time well and was overall well-crafted. It contained some beautiful moments and the photography was beautiful, with some stunning images at times. Nevertheless, the plot was weak and the subplot insubstantial and more of a distraction than anything else. As a movie it was forgettable, although some of the images were quite memorable including the one illustrated above where Fanny is reading one of Keats’ letters in a field of bluebells.

Watch the movie if you would like something to distract you and would like some beautiful images to admire. However, there was no bite or deep emotion in the film and even some very sad moments failed to move us. No poignancy and no climax, rather, a very pedestrian, ambling type of film where the characters walk on and off their scenes acting well, but somehow not managing to be truly passionate about what they were feeling. Perhaps it is a true reflection of the times and of the people involved. Deep romantic love but no spark of passion to ignite their deepest feelings and needs.

ROUSSEAU & WORLD ENVIRONMENT DAY

“The earth we abuse and the living things we kill will, in the end, take their revenge; for in exploiting their presence we are diminishing our future.” - Marya Mannes

Today is World Environment Day, which is an annual event aimed at being the biggest and most widely celebrated day for positive environmental action, worldwide. The commemoration of this day began in 1972 and since then the day has grown to become the one of the main vehicles through which the UN stimulates awareness of the environment and encourages political attention and action all around the world.

The UN Environment Programme is able to personalise environmental issues and enable everyone to realise not only their responsibility, but also their power to become agents for change in support of sustainable and equitable development.  This is also a day for everyone to come together to ensure a cleaner, greener and brighter outlook for themselves and future generations. This is the day to do something positive for the environment: Organise a neighborhood clean-up, stop using plastic bags and get your community to do the same, plant a tree or better yet organise a collective tree planting effort, walk to work, start a recycling drive. The possibilities are endless and it’s up to everyone of us to invest in them, not only today, but every day of the year.

Art Sunday today looks at a very apt work. It is one of the jungle pictures of Henri Julien Félix Rousseau (1844 –1910), the French naïf artist. It is “The Hungry Lion” and it features a scene in the African jungle. The rain forest’s thick green foliage is illuminated by a deep red setting sun. In the centre, a lion bites deeply into the neck of an antelope. Other animals are visible in the dense undergrowth: A panther at the right, an owl holding a bloody strand of meat in its beak in the centre, with a second bird to the left, and a dark ape-like shape lurking in the left. Rousseau based the central pair of animals on a diorama of stuffed animals at the Paris Muséum National d’ Histoire Naturelle, entitled “Senegal Lion Devouring an Antelope”.

Rousseau himself supplied a very long subtitle to his work: “The lion, being hungry, throws itself on the antelope, [and] devours it. The panther anxiously awaits the moment when it too can claim its share. Birds of prey have each torn a piece of flesh from the top of the poor animal, which sheds a tear. The sun sets.”

“The Hungry Lion” is now held by the Fondation Beyeler and is exhibited at their gallery at Riehen, near Basel, in Switzerland. It is a huge canvas, 200 cm × 301 cm painted in oils. Despite its apparent simplicity, this and other jungle paintings of Rousseau were built up meticulously in layers, using a large number of green shades to capture the lush exuberance of the jungle. One cannot but immerse oneself in this painting and glorify in the pristine natural depicted. The violence of the scene is hardly alarming as it depicts something one expects to see in nature. Survival of the fittest, the food chain in action and the great balance of the environment.

Rousseau was a clerk in the Paris toll service who nevertheless dreamed of becoming a famous artist. He is also known as “Le Douanier”, meaning the “Toll Officer”. His “day job” allowed him to support his family but also gave him the means to pursue his true passion, art. From his post at the toll gates and on strolls through the suburbs of Paris, Rousseau observed the world and filled numerous notebooks with sketches from nature. He retired at age forty-nine to become a full-time artist.

Although he painted many exotic scenes, Rousseau never left France. He often explored the Jardin des Plantes, a botanical garden and zoo in Paris where he studied and drew plants and wild animals. He visited museums for artistic inspiration, and based some painted characters on pictures in books and magazines. The public laughed at Rousseau’s bold, primitive style, but he was admired and championed by modern artists such as Pablo Picasso and the surrealists.

Rousseau’s work is characterised by heavy dependence on line, stiff and unrealistic portraiture, wild juxtapositions and flattened perspective from which the Cubists and Surrealists drew heavily. His imagination plays a major role in his work and it seems wrong to label his work as “primitive” without acknowledging the sense of wonder behind it. Though no contemporary artist was doing anything even remotely like his work, and critics were unkind (as critics so often are), Henri Rousseau remained supremely confident in his talent. He took it as his due that a younger generation of artists - Picasso, Toulouse-Lautrec, Redon, Gauguin and Kandinsky among them - would draw inspiration from and champion his vision. Rousseau’s ultimate goal was to have his paintings hung in the Louvre. This came to pass, even if it was unfortunately posthumously.

SCENES FROM CHILDHOOD

“Sweet childish days, that were as long
 as twenty days are now…” - William Wordsworth

I was out driving this afternoon whilst going out to meet up with friends and I passed by a park in Carlton. It was a cool but fine afternoon and many people were about. I stopped at a red traffic light and my eye caught and father and his two young children. They must have been three or four years old and they were having such fun. They were playing in a big pile of fallen autumn leaves. Jumping into the midst of the heap, tossing up the dry leaves, rolling around them while squealing with delight. Their father was laughing while watching them, and I too stared from across the road, smiling and partaking vicariously of their carefree and joyous pleasure.

How short our childhood is, in retrospect! While we are young time flows so slowly, and our perception of time is dilated by our limited experience of it. Just as is perception of distance, which seems to be judged by our smaller stature. “Are we there yet?” – that ever-familiar cry seems to exemplify the enormity of both time and space as experienced by the child. Yet, while looking a the scene in the park this afternoon, I thought ruefully how now, in my middle age, time seems to rush by (nearly half the year is over – where did it go?). Cars, trains, planes, our busy lives have made space smaller, and all too quickly “we are there”.

When was the last time I experienced the pure unadulterated pleasure those children playing in the fallen leaves this afternoon were enjoying? Surely decades ago, when I was a child myself. The magic kingdom of childhood, a happy place, a carefree place, a place where we enjoy life the best, or so it should be. For some children things are not as rosy as this…

Today is the United Nations’ International Day of Innocent Children Victims of Aggression, which is observed every year. The purpose of this day is to acknowledge the pain suffered by children throughout the world who are the victims of physical, mental and emotional abuse. This day affirms the UN’s commitment to protect the rights of children. The day originated when UN workers raised the alarm as they were appalled by the great number of innocent Palestinian and Lebanese children victims of war. On August 10th, 1983, the United Nations General Assembly decided to commemorate June 4th of each year as the International Day of Innocent Children Victims of Aggression.

While considerable progress has been achieved in the past few years in obtaining a framework of international norms and commitments that protect the rights and wellbeing of children, the general situation for children remains grave and unacceptable.

It is only appropriate that tonight’s music for Song Saturday is devoted to children and what better than Robert Schumann’s “Kinderszenen” (Scenes From Childhood - 1838) played by Vladimir Horowitz. This is a 1962 studio recording from New York City.

Movement 1: Von Fremden Ländern Und Menschen (Of Foreign Lands and Peoples)
Movement 2: Kuriose Geschichte (A Curious Story); starts at 1:33
Movement 3: Hasche, Mann (Blind Man's Bluff); starts at 2:42
Movement 4: Bittendes Kind (Pleading Child); starts at 3:18
Movement 5: Glückes Genug (Happiness); starts at 4:13
Movement 6: Wichtige Begebenheit (An Important Event); starts at 5:02
Movement 7: Träumerei (Reverie); starts at 5:49

GARDEN SALAD

“How fair is a garden amid the trials and passions of existence.” - Benjamin Disraeli

Today we had a salad that was made only from produce of our garden. Although most of our garden is devoted to flowers, we also cultivate seasonal vegetables and herbs, almost as a decorative addition between the clusters of rose bushes, clumps of bulbs and flowering shrubs. The vegetables, herbs and flowers coexist happily and the added benefit is that we always have fresh seasonal vegetables and herbs for our table.

Presently, we have lettuce, spring onions, ochrus vetch, radishes, nasturtiums, broccoli, a variety of herbs (dill, rosemary, parsley, mint, peppermint, oregano, thyme, perennial basil, etc) all growing happily and cropping. Add to that the ripening citrus and the bright red tamarillos and you will see that a salad was there crying out to be made!

I suspect you may not be not familiar with ochrus vetch (Lathyrus ochrus), so I shall provide some explanation. This is a pulse that has been in cultivation for millennia in the Mediterranean region. The Minoans of ancient Crete cultivated it as a vegetable nearly 5,000 years ago and modern day Greeks still enjoy its distinctive flavour. It is available here in Australia although you may have to go out of your way to find it!) and I am sure that it is also known in other parts of the world. The best way to always have it on hand it sow some seeds in the garden in autumn and pinch off the young growing tips to use in salads.

The tamarillo (Cyphomandra betacea) is a very rewarding fruit tree, which requires little care and crops heavily (suits us very well!). It is native to the Andes of Peru, Chile, Ecuador, Colombia and Bolivia. Today, it is still cultivated in gardens and small orchards for local production, and it is one of the most popular fruits in these regions. It is also cultivated widely in South Africa, India, Hong Kong, China, United States, Australia, and New Zealand.  The first internationally marketed crop of tamarillos in Australia was produced around 1996, although permaculture and exotic fruit enthusiasts had increasingly grown the fruit around the country from the mid-1970s on.

Dill (Anethum graveolens) of course, is a popular herb and is a standard ingredient in Greek lettuce salad. It has a highly distinctive flavour and is another plant that has a history of thousands of years of culinary use.

The salad below is an unlikely combination of ingredients that was dictated by the availability of the produce of our garden, but which nevertheless works well!

LETTUCE, DILL, VETCH AND TAMARILLO SALAD

Ingredients
    • Half a lettuce
    • 2 handfuls of young ochrus vetch tips
    • Several young dill shoot tops
    • Three ripe tamarillos
    • 2 spring onions
    • 1/3 teaspoonful dry mustard
    • Olive oil to taste
    • Lemon juice to taste
    • Salt to taste

Method
Wash and dry the lettuce leaves and heart. The tender stem is chopped and added to the finely shredded leaves.
Wash the vetch leaf tops and add them to the lettuce, stirring through.
Chop the dill finely and add to the salad.
Wash and clean the spring onions, chop finely and add to the salad.
Peel the tamarillos and half them lengthwise. Then slice thinly and add the salad.
For the dressing, combine the oil, lemon juice, salt and mustard and pour over the salad, tossing well.

TANIS

“Every civilization is, among other things, an arrangement for domesticating the passions and setting them to do useful work.” - Aldous Huxley

On the 30th of May, the BBC aired an episode in a program called “Egypt’s Lost Cities”, which recounted a marvellous archaeological discovery in the northern part of Egypt. One may hardly blink an eyelid because in a large country like Egypt which has such a long history, has been civilised for thousands of years and is so rich in artifacts, yet another discovery like this is not unusual. However, the strange thing about this discovery was that it was spotted by infrared satellite imaging.

The satellite image revealed a distinct pattern of streets and buildings in the buried ancient city of Tanis. This new imaging technique that has been recruited by archaeologists has also shown the sites of 17 lost pyramids as well as thousands of tombs and settlements. Dr Sarah Parcak of the University of Alabama at Birmingham uses satellites to probe beneath the sands, where she has found cities, temples and pyramids. Now, with Dallas Campbell and Liz Bonnin, they are off to Egypt to discover these magnificent buildings buried under the sands.

It is possible that only one percent of the wonders of Ancient Egypt have been discovered, but now, thanks to this pioneering approach to archaeology, the means that we make our discoveries is about to change. The satellites that orbit 720 km above the surface of the earth provide the images, which the researchers analyse and enhance to display the patterns of ancient streets and settlements, temples and pyramids. This gives them very precise information about where to dig and by looking at the satellite image it is almost as if they have a road map of the ancient site.



The city of Tanis is relatively unknown among Egypt’s historical sites, although it yielded one of the greatest archeological treasure troves ever found. Tanis was once the capital of all Egypt, and the royal tombs of Tanis have yielded artifacts on par with the treasures of Tutankhamun. Movie buffs may remember Tanis as the city portrayed in the Indiana Jones film “Raiders of the Lost Ark”. In this movie, the city was buried by a catastrophic ancient sandstorm and rediscovered by Nazis searching for the Ark of the Covenant. This is Hollywood fiction, as in reality the Ark was never hidden in Tanis, the sandstorm didn’t happen, and the Nazis never battled Indiana Jones in the site’s ruins. However, Tanis does exist and its ruins hide many wonderful secrets.

Ancient Egyptians called Tanis “Djanet”, and the Old Testament refers to the site as “Zoan”. Today it’s known as Sân el-Hagar. The site of the city is in the Nile Delta northeast of Cairo, and Tanis was capital of the 21st and 22nd dynasties, during the reign of the Tanite kings in Egypt’s Third Intermediate period. The city’s advantageous location enabled it to become a wealthy commercial centre long before the rise of Alexandria. However, political fortunes shifted, and so did the river’s waters, which led to the city’s abrupt abandonment. It was long known that the ancient city was hidden somewhere in the area, but not exactly where.

In 1939 Pierre Montet, a French archaeologist, discovered Tanis after nearly a dozen years of excavation. He unearthed a royal tomb complex that included three intact and undisturbed burial chambers, a rare and amazing find. The tombs were full of dazzling funereal treasures such as golden masks, coffins of silver, and elaborate sarcophagi. Other precious items included bracelets, necklaces, pendants, tableware, and amulets. Statues, vases, and jars also filled the tombs, all part of an array that still bears witness, after thousands of years, to the power and wealth of the rulers of Tanis. One of the kings, Sheshonq II, was unknown before Montet discovered his burial chamber. But he wore elaborate jewellery that once adorned the more famous Sheshonq I, who is mentioned in the Bible.

Montet’s discoveries were extraordinary, but the timing of his finds was unfortunate. The discovery of Tanis was completely overshadowed by the nearly simultaneous eruption of World War II. Even today, few people know the tale of the treasures Montet discovered. Although the objects of Montet’s excavations are exhibited in Cairo’s Egyptian Museum, they draw far fewer visitors than their more famous counterparts such as the treasures of Tutankhamun’s tomb.

Tanis was found largely as it had been abandoned in ancient times, so the city is home to many archaeological treasures in addition to the tombs. Temples of Amun and of Horus, have been found, with many more to be excavated. Even large urban districts of the ancient city remain, and the site continues to host archaeological expeditions in search of more finds. The “blueprint map” of the city that the satellite images have disclosed is likely to yield rich finds that the archaeologists will now unearth.

It is easy to underestimate the achievements of our ancestors and the size and extent of past human settlements. Visiting many ancient sites one is amazed by the degree of comfort and luxury that ancient people enjoyed, as well as by the advanced science and technology they used to build marvellous edifices. Finds such as Tanis should be instrumental indemonstrating to us that our forebears were sophisticated and highly civilized people who lived complex and highly organized lives in cities that rival many modern-day towns and make other modern towns seem primitive.

infrared |ˌinfrəˈred| adjective
(Of electromagnetic radiation) having a wavelength just greater than that of the red end of the visible light spectrum but less than that of microwaves. Infrared radiation has a wavelength from about 800 nm to 1 mm, and is emitted particularly by heated objects.
• (of equipment or techniques) using or concerned with this radiation: Infrared cameras.
noun
the infrared region of the spectrum; infrared radiation.
ORIGIN: from Latin infra ‘below.’

OFFICIALLY WINTER...

“In seed time learn, in harvest teach, in winter enjoy.” - William Blake

The first day of winter Downunder started frostily this morning with a brisk 3˚C, as I was reaching the train station to catch the 6:31 a.m. train into the City. As I was climbing the stairs of the overpass to cross the tracks, I could see the crystals of ice on the steps, shining like strewn diamond dust under the spotlights. The sky was clear of clouds and the stars shone brightly, with the bright sparks of Jupiter and Venus coruscating in the eastern sky. As the sun came up the day turned out to be cool, but beautiful and sunny. Crisp air and bright sunshine lasted the whole day long, warming the air to about 17˚C and feeling very pleasant as one walked out and about.

Here is a poem I wrote a few years ago inspired by the season, but the difference is that I have now evicted the winter from within me and enjoy a warm summer inside of me while the cold winds may howl outside:

Winter Walks

Winter sun for silver sunshine
And a cold, hard, stony-blue sky.
Denuded trees that clutch at sunbeams
With a myriad twigs weaving like spinnerets
Intricate lace of light and shade
On soft, sweet-smelling carpet
Of fallen leaves.

Winter snow for roaring blazes
And steamed up window panes.
Rain that falls in glum, melancholy gardens,
The drizzle like a fine gauze,
Imprisoning butterfly-leaves of bright evergreens.
Silence and advancing dusk
Suffocate a soul’s scream.

Winter winds for soft rich furs
And the smug caress of many layered warmth.
Icy breaths that chill the heart
Cutting like razors made of sharp icicles.
Deep iceberg green and rainy blue mingle
Keeping me company with the whistling of the wind
In winter’s frozen solitude.

SAY HELLO!

“There is no friend like an old friend who has shared our morning days, no greeting like his welcome, no homage like his praise.” - Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr.

If you are visiting this page for the first time, welcome!

If you are returning, welcome back!

Take some time to leave a comment and say “Hello”, in your own language if you like!

It seems that there is a lot of traffic on this page, but people rarely say anything.

Don't be shy, say hello!

WORLD NO TOBACCO DAY 2011

 “A custom loathsome to the eye, hateful to the nose, harmful to the brain, dangerous to the lungs, and in the black, stinking fume thereof nearest resembling the horrible Stygian smoke of the pit that is bottomless.” - James I of England

Today is World No Tobacco Day, which is celebrated around the world on the last day of May every year. In 1987, the World Health Assembly of the WHO passed Resolution WHA40.38, calling for April 7, 1988 to be “a world no-smoking day”. This date was chosen as it was the 40th anniversary of the WHO. The aim of the day was to urge tobacco users worldwide to stop using tobacco products for 24 hours, an action they hoped would help those trying to quit. In 1988, Resolution WHA42.19 was passed by the World Health Assembly, calling for the celebration of World No Tobacco Day, every year on May 31. Since then, the WHO has supported World No Tobacco Day every year, linking each year to a different tobacco-related theme.

This year, the WHO celebrates the successes of the WHO Framework Convention on Tobacco Control (WHO FCTC) in the fight against the epidemic of tobacco use. At the same time, WHO recognises that challenges remain for the public health treaty to reach its full potential as the world’s most powerful tobacco control tool. Since the WHO Framework Convention on Tobacco Control was adopted by the World Health Assembly in 2003, 172 countries and the European Union have become Parties to the WHO FCTC. Among other measures, the Parties are obliged over time to:
•    Protect people from exposure to tobacco smoke
•    Ban tobacco advertising and sales to minors
•    Put large health warnings on packages of tobacco
•    Ban or limit additives to tobacco products
•    Increase tobacco taxes
•    Create a national co-ordinating mechanism for tobacco control.

These initiatives may seem extreme, especially in developing countries that are facing what most people think are much more serious heath problems. However, it is useful to keep in mind some basic statistics regarding tobacco use. Tobacco kills nearly 6 million people each year, of whom:
•    More than 5 million are users and ex-users
•    More than 600 000 are non-smokers exposed to second-hand smoke
•    After high blood pressure, tobacco use is the biggest contributor to the epidemic of non-communicable diseases (such as heart attack, stroke, cancer and emphysema), which accounts for 63% of deaths
•    Smokers are more susceptible to certain communicable diseases, such as tuberculosis and pneumonia

No consumer product kills as many people and as needlessly as does tobacco. It killed 100 million people in the 20th century. Unless we act, it could kill up to 1 billion people in the 21st century. All of these deaths will have been entirely preventable. It is also sobering to realise that as most Western nations are beginning to drastically reduce their tobacco consumption, developing countries are the largest users of tobacco products, with use increasing rather than decreasing in many of these. In India, about 20% of the population (about 241 million people) use tobacco products and usage is increasing.

The WHO says the following countries have the highest use of tobacco:

And just in case you were wondering, Ethiopia has the lowest reported rate, with only 52 cigarettes/adult/year being reported.

There are more than 4000 chemicals in tobacco smoke, of which at least 250 are known to be harmful and more than 50 are known to cause cancer. Tobacco is the second major cause of death in the world, after cardiovascular disease, and is directly responsible for about one in ten adult deaths worldwide, equating to about 6 million deaths each year. Cigarettes kill half of all lifetime users. Half die in middle age - between 35 and 69 years old. No other consumer product is as dangerous, or kills as many people. Tobacco kills more than AIDS, legal drugs, illegal drugs, road accidents, murder, and suicide combined…

It’s time we quit!

MOVIE MONDAY - VANITY FAIR

Society bristles with enigmas which look hard to solve. It is a perfect maze of intrigue.” - Honoré De Balzac

At the weekend we watched Mira Nair’s 2004 film, “Vanity Fair” starring Reese Witherspoon, James Purefoy, Romola Garai, Bob Hoskins, Jonathan Rhys Meyers, Gabriel Byrne and Tony Maudsley. The film is from the classic novel of the same name by William Makepeace Thackeray (1811-1863), the famous English 19th century novelist. “Vanity Fair” is Thackeray’s satirical masterpiece of contemporary English society and manners. In it he creates the unforgettable portrait of the roguish upstart Becky Sharp, who although is quite amoral, one cannot but defer to in terms of her being a survivor by virtue of her wits. Another famous novel of his transferred to a now classic film is “Barry Lyndon” directed by Stanley Kubrick in 1975.

The director Mira Nair one may remember from her 2001 film “Monsoon Wedding”, which was quite popular and very enjoyable. She also has other films to her credit, including the wonderful “The Namesake” of 2006, and the confronting debut film “Salaam Bombay!” of 1988. She is an accomplished Film Director/Writer/Producer who was born in India in 1957 and educated at Delhi University and then at Harvard. She began her film career as an actor and then turned to directing and writing. Her films if not about India and Indians are often full of references to her homeland, evident even in “Vanity Fair”.

Nair’s “Vanity Fair” is very English and very 19th century, however, India was very English at that time as well. Thackeray was actually born in Calcutta to parents associated with the British East India Company. When his father died, young William was sent back to England at the tender age of 5 years to be confined in a boarding school. His childhood memories of India surface in his books, “Vanity Fair” not being an exception. The novel “Vanity Fair”, first appeared in serialised instalments beginning in January 1847. Even before Vanity Fair completed its serial run, Thackeray had become a celebrity, sought after by the very lords and ladies he satirized, who hailed him as the equal of Charles Dickens.

The plot concerns itself with the life and times of Becky Sharp, the poor daughter of a French “opera singer” and a starving English artist. Her mother’s abandonment and her father’s death leave the young girl at the mercy of the principal of a home for orphaned girls. She manages to work her way into a governess’s position in the home of a shabby aristocrat. As new opportunities arise, she hastily abandons her post to become the companion to a wealthy relative, Miss Crawley. Much to Miss Crawley’s displeasure, Becky wastes no time to climb the social ladder by secretly marrying Miss Crawley’s nephew. He is sent off to war and on his return, their marriage is rocky due to his gambling debts, her living beyond their means, and her never-ending quest to raise their status. When Becky meets a nobleman who collects her late father’s paintings, she uses his money and his influence to continue her rise in the social hierarchy, causing more stress in her marriage.

Thackeray’s novel is a panoramic cavalcade rich in detail, full of remarkable characters and many plot twists and turns, as well as numerous sub-plots. Nair has tried to cover the expansive novel, but by necessity must distil the essence and leaves the characters somewhat undeveloped. Becky is portrayed by Nair rather sympathetically as a victim of the social system who by her razor-sharp wit and keen mind is merely taking advantage of opportunities that present themselves to her while allowing circumstances and events to benefit her grand plans. This contradicts with Thackeray’s Becky, who is less likeable: She is a vicious, manipulative and cunning woman, who turns events into anything that will benefit her rise up the social ladder. Nair has changed the essential features of the character and has robbed the plot of its cutting satire.

The film more than makes up for this in the richness of its visual splendour, authentic period detail. Declan Quinn’s beautiful cinematography is a feast for the eyes and the Indian touches are quite sumptuous (although Becky’s Indian dance is a bit questionable). There is quite good acting (even with Witherspoon doing an English accent, which fails every now and then, but we forgive her that!). Bob Hoskins has such a whole lot of fun in his role as the scungy nobleman, as does Eileen Atkins as Miss Crawley. James Purefoy and Jonathan Rhys Meyers as the male leads do a good enough job and Romola Garai as the gentle Amelia is contrast enough to Becky.

The film is not a true distillation of Thackeray’s novel. Its spirit and biting satire have been lost, Becky Sharp has become laundered into a victim of circumstance rather than the heartless and calculating vixen Thackeray describes her as. For someone who has not read the novel, Nair’s film would be quite satisfying and enjoyable, perhaps. However, if you have read Thackeray’s “Vanity Fair” this film disappoints.

There have been numerous other translations of this novel to the screen, notable being Rouben Mamoulian’s 1935
“Becky Sharp”, which also has the distinction of being the first, full-length Technicolour film with Miriam Hopkins in the title role. One of the better adaptations is the BBC mini-series from 1987, which at eight hours can afford to be more faithful to the original.

Nair’s “Vanity Fair” is worth seeing, but do judge it on its own merits and divorce yourself from Thackeray’s novel. It is a modernisation, an adaptation, a derivative artwork. Just as we admire both the original “Mona Lisa” and Marcel’s Duchamp’s irreverent L.H.O.O.Q. so we should enjoy reading both the novel and Nair’s interpretation of it. Let’s just call Nair’s “Vanity Fair” by the name: “Becky Sharp with a Moustache”…

THE ART OF STILL LIFE

“Man will begin to recover the moment he takes art as seriously as physics, chemistry or money.” - Ernst Levy

A still life is a work of art that typically shows inanimate subject matter, either natural (flowers, plants, rocks, food, shells, etc) or manufactured (books, vases, drinking glasses, jewellery, coins, pipes, etc). The origins of this type of art is to be found in Ancient Greece with many extant examples, but also numerous descriptions of (now lost) art works in literature. In the Middle Ages, a rich trove of still life painting can be found in illuminated manuscripts, while with the advent of the popularity of the panel painting, Flemish, Dutch and German exemplars were soon imitated across Europe.

Still life paintings give the artist freedom of expression, as well as allowing much leeway in selection of subject matter, colours, composition and technique than do most other genres of painting (e.g. portraits). Still life paintings before 1700 often contained religious and allegorical symbolism relating to the objects depicted. For example, a common example of still life with an obvious meaning is the “Vanitas” type, where the mortality of human beings is highlighted by the depiction of ephemeral beauty (e.g. a flower), an example of death (e.g. a skull) and a reference to the passage of time (e.g. an hourglass).

Other types of thematic still life paintings especially popular in the baroque period were flowerpieces, usually of very ornate vases filled with a profusion of flowers of every kind; the four seasons, with reference to objects typical of each one; the four continents, the four elements and so on. Other types of still life painting chose as their theme various occupations (butcher, fishmonger, cook, man of letters, etc) and the objects depicted were appropriate to the métier illustrated.

Another common example of allegorical still life was the depiction of the five senses: Sight, hearing, touch, smell and taste. This allowed the artist free rein to pick subjects that illustrated the five senses, but there was also a formulaic association of certain objects with the senses. Musical instruments were always a good choice for the sense of hearing, flowers for the sense of smell, items of food for taste, rich cloth like velvet for touch and a mirror for the sense of sight. The contemplation of such paintings could be the source of much reflection and philosophising, especially if one considered the deterioration of the acuity of the senses with advancing age. Similarly, the artist could introduce much contrast in the objects depicted, giving a didactic indication of “good versus evil” where the senses are concerned.

Illustrated here is a typical such still life depicting the five senses. It is by Frenchman Jacques Linard, who had many such thematic works in his oeuvre. Still life paintings have always been popular as they are highly decorative and appeal to a wide variety of tastes. Artists could make a decent living from still life paintings if the public found their work appealing.

Jacques Linard (1597-1645) was baptised on the 6th of September, 1597. The first record of being an artist was in the 1620’s. He was in Paris by 1626, and his first securely attributed still-life work is dated the following year. He was married in 1626 to the daughter of a Parisian Master Painter. He lived in the Saint-Germain-des-Prés district, where a number of French still-life painters such as Louise Moillon and Lubin Baugin worked alongside Flemish artists specialising in this genre.

In 1631 he was created Peintre et Valet de Chambre du Roi, a post that guaranteed him a degree of financial independence. Linard’s works of 1627-44 were mainly of fruit and flowers; with Louise Moillon, however, he was among the first French artists to combine successfully the female form with still-life elements. A painting such as Basket of Flowers (Paris, Louvre) owes something to Flemish prototypes in the anachronistic grouping of flowers that span several months. Patiently recording the flowers as they bloomed, and working on the picture from a series of drawings and sketches, Linard demonstrated his commitment to working from nature. However, this work also has a distinctively French elegance and economy of composition.

In the painting above, “The Five Senses”, Linard follows the well-established successful formula of this type of still life painting, with numerous references not only to the senses, but also with acknowledgement of the moralisation common in other types of still life like the “Vanitas”. There is a sumptuous blue velvet purse illustrating touch, but next to it are cards and silver coins. The moral there is: “Beware! Lovely to hold, but easy to lose if you succumb to the evil of gambling…” A landscape painting within this painting and a mirror refer to sight, as does the vase of multi-coloured blooms. The flowers of course refer to the sense of smell, as does the fruit, which pays homage to both smell and taste. The open music manuscript book is a reference to the sense of hearing. The contents of the two boxes are perhaps to add fuel to our sense of curiosity, but maybe not!

TELEMANN ON A SATURDAY

“Music is enough for a lifetime, but a lifetime is not enough for music” - Sergei Rachmaninov

A very restful day today, with a relatively late awakening and breakfast at 7:30 a.m. Then some household chores and shopping, culminating with a visit to the library. I love visiting the public library and spending some time there looking at the new arrivals, new CDs and DVDs. We always manage to borrow something despite the huge number of books, CDs and DVDs at home…

Today, it was a CD of Telemann’s music that attracted my attention. Georg Philipp Telemann (born March 14, 1681, Magdeburg, Brandenburg; died June 25, 1767, Hamburg), was a German composer of the late Baroque period, who wrote both sacred and secular music but was most admired for his church compositions, which ranged from small cantatas to large-scale works for soloists, chorus, and orchestra.

Telemann was the son of a Protestant minister and was given a good general education but never actually received music lessons. Though he showed great musical gifts at an early age, he was discouraged by his family from becoming a professional musician, which at that time was neither an attractive nor a highly remunerative occupation. He taught himself music, however, and he acquired great facility in composing and in playing such diverse musical instruments as the violin, recorder, oboe, viola da gamba, chalumeau, and clavier. In 1701 he enrolled at the University of Leipzig as a law student, but his musical activities won over his undivided attention and were to engross him for the rest of his life.

For his 18th-century contemporaries, Georg Philipp Telemann was the greatest living composer. The dreaded critic Johann Mattheson wrote of him: “Corelli and Lully may be justly honoured but Telemann is above all praise.” Through his public concerts Telemann introduced to the general public music previously reserved for the court, the aristocracy, or a limited number of burghers. His enormous output of publications provided instrumental and vocal material for Protestant churches throughout Germany, for orchestras, and for a great variety of amateur and professional musicians.

Telemann’s multiple musical activities and the prodigious number of his compositions are remarkable. In his lifetime he was most admired for his church compositions. These vary from small cantatas, suitable for domestic use or for use in churches with limited means, to large-scale works for soloists, chorus, and orchestra. His secular music also has a wide range, from simple strophic songs to the dramatic cantata “Ino”, written at the age of 84. Many of his operas were successful, particularly “Pimpinone”. His orchestral works consist of suites (called ouvertures), and concerti. His chamber works are remarkable for their quantity, the great variety of instrumental combinations, and the expert writing for each instrument.

Here is his Concerto in A minor, TWV 21:25, played by Collegium Musicum 90 with Simon Standage.