A RESTFUL DAY

“Rest is not idleness, and to lie sometimes on the grass under the trees on a spring day, listening to the murmur of water, or watching the clouds float across the sky, is by no means a waste of time.” - John Lubbock

Each little routine of a Saturday morning at home, how delightful it is! Each blessed chore, each morning ritual, each ordinary moment, how grateful we should be for them all… The smell of cooking in the kitchen, the sun shining through the clouds, the violets blooming in the garden and the people whom we love and who love us just being around us. Days of peace, noontime rest, freshly baked bread, the small homely comforts, how beautiful they are…

As the evening falls, the lights come on, it is a night of calm and serenity. As the moon rises, and as it plays hide and seek with the clouds, how wonderful it all is. The touch of a soft hand, the kiss of the one we love, how special it is. How little do we sit and think about it all, how little do we appreciate each of these small perfect moments that we enjoy freely and which are denied to so many around the world…

A beautiful Saturday, a perfect day!

FOOD FRIDAY - RISOTTO

“Rice is born in water and must die in wine.” - Italian Proverb

It has a been a tiring few days of travel, meetings, presentations and talks in Brisbane. It was wonderful to come home on Friday night and even though it was cold and rainy in Melbourne, it is home and it felt lovely. Especially so walking in form the cold outside into a warm house where the delicious cooking smells pervaded the kitchen. Nothing like a hearty risotto on cold winter’s night to warm you up!

Risotto Milanese

Ingredients

1 litre chicken stock
Pinch saffron threads
1 and 1/2 tablespoons olive oil
1 onion, finely chopped
2 garlic cloves, crushed
1 and 1/2 cups arborio rice
1/2 cup dry white wine
1 cup frozen peas
bunch of asparagus spears, chopped and blanched
1/3 cup finely grated parmesan cheese
30g butter, chopped
Shaved parmesan cheese, to serve

Method
Place the stock and saffron in a saucepan. Cover. Bring to the boil over high heat. Reduce heat to low. Simmer until needed.
Heat the oil in a large saucepan over medium heat. Add the onion and garlic. Cook, stirring, for 5 minutes or until softened. Add rice. Cook, stirring, for 1-2 minutes. Add the wine and bring to the boil. Boil for 1 to 2 minutes or until wine is reduced by half.
Add 1/3 cup stock to rice mixture. Cook, stirring, until stock has absorbed. Repeat with remaining stock, adding 1/3 cup at a time, until all liquid has absorbed and rice is tender and creamy, adding peas and asparagus to rice mixture with final 1/3 cup stock.
Cook for 5 minutes or until the peas and asparagus are heated through. Remove from heat. Stir in cheese and butter. Season with salt and pepper. Serve topped with shaved cheese.

This post is part of the Food Friday meme,

and also part of the Food Trip Friday meme.

GREETINGS FROM GRIFFITH UNIVERSITY

“Freedom of inquiry, freedom of discussion, and freedom of teaching - without these a university cannot exist” - Robert Maynard Hutchins 

The weather in Brisbane has been glorious. Sunny, warm and fine with at least some opportunity in between meetings to walk around a little and enjoy the sunshine. This is the benefit of a subtropical Brisbane winter compared to our cold, wet and gray Melbourne one. However, it is quite nice for a week or two but I still prefer the definite Winter weather and the distinction of the seasons we get in the more Southern latitudes of Melbourne.

I have been extremely busy with work and with the visits to various campuses of Universities here in Brisbane. At least, the meetings have been interesting and I have met with some very intelligent academics and have had some useful discussions. All is going very well...

Griffith University is where I am spending most of my time, and this is a public research university in the southeastern region of the Australian state of Queensland. The university has five satellite campuses located in the Gold Coast, Logan City and in the Brisbane suburbs of Mount Gravatt, Nathan and South Bank. Current total enrollment is approximately 43,000 with 4,000 full-time equivalent staff. Griffith University offers undergraduate and postgraduate degrees across ten discipline areas including Arts, Education, Business, Health, Law, Engineering, Information Technology, Environment, Music and Visual Arts.

In 1965, 174 hectares of natural bushland at Nathan were set aside for a new University campus. Initially the site was to be part of the University of Queensland which was experiencing strong demand in humanities and social sciences. However, by 1970, a new institution was being suggested, this to be independent of the University of Queensland. The university was formally founded in 1971 and opened its doors in 1975 to 451 students in four schools: Australian Environmental Studies, Humanities, Modern Asian Studies and Science.

The University started with its Nathan campus, and several of its campuses are distinctive for their nature-based settings within large urban agglomerations. Buildings were designed to fit into the environment by following the slope of the land and by using architectural means of cooling. The library building was designed by Robin Gibson and won the first national award for library design. The clusters of buildings, sports facilities, bushland reserves and recreational areas are connected by integrated networks of walking paths.

The university was distinguished by its “problem-based” rather than disciplinary approach to course design and research. The University is named after the former Premier of Queensland, and High Court of Australia justice, Sir Samuel Walker Griffith, who was also the principal author of the Australian constitution. The QS World University Rankings places Griffith in the 291st place amongst universities in the world.

TRAVELLING TO BRISBANE

“The real voyage of discovery consists not in seeking new landscapes but in having new eyes.” - Marcel

I am travelling to Brisbane for the rest of the week for work and have been very busily trying to get as much done as I can before I leave. It is always difficult to fit travel into an already busy schedule, especially if it turns out to be more than a day trip, as it is in this case. The only thing that I look forward to is that Brisbane is enjoying much better weather than Melbourne at the moment, with predicted top temperatures in the low twenties, as opposed to the low to mid-teens in Melbourne! I doubt whether I will time to enjoy the weather or sunbathe, but nevertheless it may be very pleasant to try and walk in the sun for a little while if it can be managed!

MOVIE MONDAY - THE IRON LADY

“Being Prime Minister is a lonely job. In a sense, it ought to be: You cannot lead from the crowd. But with Denis there I was never alone. What a man. What a husband. What a friend.” – Margaret Thatcher
 
Old age can be a terrible thing if one’s health is compromised. More so of course if dementia sets in and one cannot enjoy one’s final years with full control of one’s mental faculties. This is particularly heart-breaking for individuals who have lived by their wits and have been an intellectual for all their lives. Not only is it confusing and exceedingly distressing for the elderly person in the process of becoming demented, but even more so is it harrowing for the friends and family who see the decline and experience the fading away of the persona of the individual they once knew, into a neutral, living, vacuous shell of the person they once were.

These and many more related thoughts were going through our mind during watching the movie we saw at the weekend, and afterwards, as we discussed it. It was the 2011 Phyllida Lloyd film “The Iron Lady”, starring Meryl Streep, Jim Broadbent and Richard E. Grant with a screenplay by Abi Morgan. This is a famous and somewhat controversial film of the rise and decline of Margaret Thatcher, Britain’s first female Prime Minister, notorious during the 1980s.

Margaret Hilda Thatcher, Baroness Thatcher, LG, OM, PC, FRS, née Roberts (born 13 October 1925) is a British politician and the longest-serving (1979–1990) Prime Minister of the United Kingdom of the 20th century, and the only woman ever to have held the post. A Soviet journalist nicknamed her the “Iron Lady”, which later became associated with her uncompromising politics and leadership style – hence the name of the film. As prime minister, she implemented conservative policies that have come to be known as “Thatcherism”.

Thatcherism introduced a series of political and economic initiatives to reverse what Thatcher perceived as Britain’s precipitous national decline. Her political philosophy and economic policies emphasised deregulation (particularly of the financial sector), flexible labour markets, the privatisation of state-owned companies, and reducing the power and influence of trade unions. Thatcher’s popularity during her first years in office waned amid recession and high unemployment, until economic recovery and the 1982 Falklands War brought a resurgence of support, resulting in her re-election in 1983. Thatcher was re-elected for a third term in 1987, but her Community Charge (popularly referred to as “poll tax”) was widely unpopular and her views on the European Community were not shared by others in her Cabinet. She resigned as Prime Minister and party leader in November 1990, after Michael Heseltine launched a challenge to her leadership. Her withdrawal from politics saw her remaining active as a public figure for a number of years.

Thatcher’s husband, Sir Denis Thatcher died on 26 June 2003 and was cremated on 3 July. She had paid tribute to him in “The Downing Street Years”, writing of their life-long devotion t one another. After collapsing at a House of Lords dinner, Thatcher was admitted to St Thomas’ Hospital in central London on 7 March 2008 for tests. Her daughter Carol has recounted how she was first struck by her mother's dementia when she muddled the Falklands conflict with the Yugoslav wars; she has also recalled the pain of needing to tell her mother repeatedly that Denis Thatcher was dead…

The film concentrates on the everyday life of an elderly, dementing Margaret Thatcher who talks to the imagined presence of her recently deceased husband as she struggles to come to terms with his death. All the while, scenes from her past life, from girlhood to British prime minister, intervene. Intervene is the right word as the flashback style of storytelling used is jarring, intrusive and distracting. The scenes from young adulthood and the moments of Thatcher in action are too far and few between to really make the impact they should have. One can see that this is the screenwriter’s way of getting the viewer to understand Thatcher’s mental state as she is dementing - dementia involves an immediate and profound loss of recent memory, but as the individual goes backwards in time, the more distant memories are the ones retained the longest and most vividly. However, it is an annoying device after the first few scenes. The sporadic flashbacks among the more elongated stretches of following the elderly and mentally fragile Thatcher makes for a flawed film. Some stories are so interesting and involving that they need no device to be told. A nice beginning, middle and end suffices.

The film won a slew of awards, including two Oscars, one for Meryl Streep (deservedly) as best actress in a leading role and one for best achievement in make-up. Streep’s performance is remarkable, with accent, facial expressions and appearance being utterly convincing. She once again displays the fine gamut of her acting abilities and one can be totally transported by her into the life of Thatcher. Jim Broadbent as Denis Thatcher also does a fine job in the supporting role, and there is a host of other excellent supporting actors.

Overall, we were glad to watch the movie, despite its flaws. It was interesting from the point of view of a portrait of a person undergoing dementia and thus it paints a rather sympathetic portrait of Margaret Thatcher as the human being, without being too controversial. Its focus is squarely on Thatcher’s later years in decline rather than her active years as Prime Minister. I guess one should watch a documentary or two, in order to see the latter. It reminded us of the other famous film of British conservatism, “The Queen” with Helen Mirren (see my review here). There may be many who object to the film, seeing it as an invasion of Thatcher’s privacy and her supporters may indicate that the snippets of Thatcher in action are not too sympathetic to “Thatcherism”. However, this is not a political film nor is it a documentary. It is a biopic about an elderly woman who had an active and intellectual mind trying to cope with the loss of her mental faculties. As such, it is a good movie.

ART SUNDAY - GERRIT DOU

“Which painting in the National Gallery would I save if there was a fire? The one nearest the door, of course.” - George Bernard Shaw
 

Gerrit Dou was a Dutch artist, born in 1613 in Leiden, The Netherlands, and died in 1675 in Leiden. Dou’s father was a glass engraver and he gave his son his first painting lessons. The young Gerrit was then apprenticed to a distinguished printmaker and glass painter, receiving additional formal artistic training from the Leiden glaziers’ guild. At fifteen he was appointed to the enviable position of apprentice in Rembrandt’s studio, where he studied for six years.

After Rembrandt left Leiden in 1631, his influence on Dou waned. Dou continued to paint on wood in a small scale but adopted cooler colours and a more highly refined technique characteristic of the fijnschilders (fine painters), a group of Leiden artists who painted small, highly finished pictures. Portraits in impasto gave way to domestic genre subjects, enamel-smooth and rich in accessory details. Dou became one of the highest paid artists in the Netherlands and the founder of the Leiden painters’ guild. Royal patrons from all over Europe sought him out. King Charles II of England even offered him the post of court painter, which he refused. Despite his international reputation, Dou scarcely left his native Leiden.

Dou was greatly praised during his lifetime because of his carefully realistic portrayal of nature and the visual illusions and the common occurrence of trompe l’oeil effects in his works. Dou’s paintings expressed the “paragone debate” around his time. The paragone debate was an ongoing competition between painting, sculpture and poetry about which of them was most capable in representing nature. The discussion was especially heated in Leiden, as the painters wanted to obtain the rights of a guild from the town council, in order to have laws enacted for their economic protection.

The “Sleeping Dog” of 1650, is an oil on panel work, 16.5 cm x 21.6 cm. It is in the Rose-Marie and Eijk van Otterloo Collection. It is typical of the work of Gerrit Dou, with a detailed, finely crafted depiction of the subject matter – in this case, a seemingly run-of-mill domestic scene. A dog sleeps besides a basket, an earthenware container, a bunch of sticks and a pair of clogs. The objects are chosen to highlight and contrast a variety of textures and colours, the soft pale fur of the dog, the glazed pottery, the rough sticks and the woven wickerwork. The artistry and skill of the painter is consummate and the composition wonderful.

However, the work can also be interpreted using the symbolism of the objects. The dog as a symbol of faithfulness and guardianship, the pot and basket as symbols of industry and domesticity, the bunch of sticks as a symbol of strength and the clogs implying intimacy. One may draw whatever conclusions one wants from this assemblage of objects and the things they symbolise, something like: If one lets one’s guard down (sleeping dog) and strays from the everyday chores of life (pot and basket) that are the basis of virtuous life giving one strength of character (sticks) one may fall victim to one’s sexual passions (a common symbol in the 17th century was the removal of slippers as evidence of succumbing to sexual passion or immorality). One may hazard all sorts of other interpretations or simply enjoy the scene for what is superficially appears – a sleeping dog, and perhaps we should just let sleeping dogs lie!

SAD SATURDAY

“Many men are melancholy by hearing music, but it is a pleasing melancholy that it causeth; and therefore to such as are discontent, in woe, fear, sorrow, or dejected, it is a most present remedy” - Robert Burton
 
A melancholy Saturday, grey, wet, cold and miserable. We went out for some shopping and to do some routine chores, but we came back home early as the weather was really foul. We watched a movie after lunch and then a quiet evening in.
 
Here is Edvard Grieg’s Holberg Suite, Op. 40 (“From Holberg’s Time: Suite in the Olden Style”), and in particular the fourth movement, “Air”, which is also my favourite. This music was written for the bicentenary Year of Ludvig Holberg’s birth. Ludvig Holberg (1684 -1754) was born in Bergen, and became Professor in Metaphysics, Latin, Literature and History, at the University in Copenhagen. But he is most famous, both today and during Grieg’s time, for writing Comedy, and he is recognized as one of the most important personalities in the Danish-Norwegian joint Literature.
 
The Holberg Suite was finished in August 1884, and the 7^th of December it was performed for the very first time in Bergen. Grieg chose the French baroque dance suite as the music base. But he has put his own personal stamp on the separate movements, so there isn’t the slightest amount of doubt that this is Grieg, in French seventeenth century costume.  The Suite was originally written for the piano, and later arranged by the composer for string orchestra. Enjoy!

FOOD FRIDAY - BURFI

“Work is the meat of life, pleasure the dessert.” - B. C. Forbes
 
I enjoy eating Indian dishes, but even more I enjoy eating some Indian sweetmeats and desserts. Barfi or burfi is a type of very popular confectionery from the Indian subcontinent. Plain burfi is made from condensed milk, cooked with sugar until it solidifies. The many varieties of burfi include besan burfi (made with gram flour), kaaju burfi (made with cashews), and pista burfi (made with ground pistachios). The name of this sweetmeat is derived from the Persian word “burf” which means “snow”, since burfi is similar to ice/snow in appearance.
 
Burfi is often flavoured with fruit or nuts and spices such as cardamom. The pieces are sometimes coated with a thin layer of edible metallic leaf known as vark. The sweets are typically cut into square, diamond, or round shapes. Different types of burfi vary greatly in their colour and texture. Here is the recipe of a typical example of burfi.
 
Fruit and Nut Burfi
Ingredients

• 500 g full cream milk powder
• 180 mL cream
• 30 mL ghee (clarified butter)
• A few cardamom pods
• Grated nutmeg
• 50 g chopped blanched toasted almonds
• Red glace cherries
• 500 mL water
• 500 mL sugar

Method 
Mix the powdered milk, cream and ghee together. Use a mortar and pestle and bash cardamom pods to release seeds. Remove pods and grind the cardamom to a fine powder. Add together with nutmeg and almonds to powdered milk mixture. Set aside.

Bring the water to the boil and add the sugar. Stir until the sugar has dissolved. Lower the heat and simmer for 15 - 20 minutes until thick and syrupy. Add the syrup to the powdered milk mixture and mix well.
Press into a 25cm x 20 cm x 2.5 cm high dish lined with waxed paper. Leave overnight to set. Cut into diamonds and garnish with cherries and almonds.

This post is part of the Food Friday meme,
and also of the Food Trip Friday meme.

A UNIVERSITY VISIT

“A human being is not attaining his full heights until he is educated.” - Horace Mann
 

I visited Macquarie University for work yesterday, and as this was my first time at this University I was pleasantly surprised. Having been to other universities in Sydney it was wonderful at last to visit this large, significant university, which sits on a large, park-like campus in Sydney’s northern suburban area and is very dissimilar to the grand, historic University of Sydney or the very modern and bustling University of Technology Sydney, both in the City. I also found the staff at Macquarie extremely hospitable and approachable, intently interested in what they were at but also displaying a very collegiate attitude and willing to cooperate amongst themselves, and also with external academics.
 

Macquarie University is an Australian public teaching and research university located in Sydney, with its main campus situated in Macquarie Park. Founded in 1964 by the New South Wales Government, it was the third university to be established in the metropolitan area of Sydney. Macquarie’s 126-hectare (310-acre), park-like campus belies its setting within the high-technology corridor of Sydney’s Northern suburbs.
 

The university comprises four faculties, enrolling approximately 37,000 students and having 2,468 (full-time equivalent) academic and professional staff, making it the fourth largest University in Sydney. At present, the university offers 87 undergraduate courses and 124 different postgraduate courses to students. The university is governed by a 17-member Council. Macquarie University also has the largest student exchange programme in Australia.
 

The Academic Ranking of World Universities listed Macquarie as seventh among Australian Universities in its 2009 rankings. The university is also ranked among the national top five recipients of relative research income. Also affiliated with the university are several research centres, schools and institutes including the Macquarie Graduate School of Management, Australian Proteome Analysis Facility, the Institute of Human Cognition and Brain Science, the Macquarie University Research Park and the Macquarie University Hospital. Macquarie University’s linguistics department developed the Macquarie Dictionary, the copyright on which it still owns.
 

It will be interesting to see what happens over the next few months at Macquarie, given that a new Vice Chancellor has been appointed. Professor S. Bruce Dowton is currently Clinical Professor in Pediatrics at Harvard Medical School and until recently was Vice President and Chief Operating Officer of Partners Harvard Medical International. Professor Dowton is also an Emeritus Professor at the University of New South Wales where he was Dean of the School of Medicine between 1998 and 2005. Professor Dowton had been chosen from an exceptionally strong field of applicants from Australia and overseas, after proving himself on the international stage. Professor Dowton will take up his position later this year, becoming only the fifth Vice-Chancellor in Macquarie University’s 48-year history.

UNIVERSITIES IN AUSTRALIA

“Only the educated are free.”  Epictetus
 

I am in Sydney for work visiting a university that I have not been to before. It is always good to visit new places and I like especially seeing the various campuses of universities around the world. There are of course many things in common amongst universities in Australia (and of course similarly when one compares universities in Australia with those around the world), however, each campus has its own character and atmosphere. This says much about the institution, its ethos, its courses and the types of students it attracts.
 

Increasingly in the last few years, universities in Australia have had to change the manner in which they operate. They have had to become less dependent on government funding (although all of the public universities still receive quite sizeable commonwealth operating grants from the government) and have begun to generate varying amounts of income themselves. Several people object to this saying that it detracts from the core activities of the university that should be to educate, to do research and to act as a forum for all sorts of other academic activities.
 

While I don’t agree that universities should operate like profit-making “businesses”, I think that tertiary institutions should be accountable, they should generate some of their own funds and they should be excellent in their account-keeping, ensuring that funds (whatever their source) are well spent.
 

In some countries funding of public universities by governments is minimal and the institutions do function like a business. Private universities of course have no other choice.  This does not imply that they are not academically sound, but often the money-making aspect receives an overwhelmingly disproportionate attention simply because it is the life-blood of the institution. Issues of quality come up immediately, in terms of students being admitted and if the university has solely a “user-pays” policy, it may have to make concessions in terms of dealing with academically weak students, who nevertheless pay their fees. It is a vexed issue, however, there are many successful private universities of high academic standards, which implies that a balance may be possible.
 

In Australia we have recently had introduced by our Federal Government a national body that regulates higher education and which ensures that quality standards are met. This is the Tertiary Education Quality and Standards Agency (TEQSA) whose remit is to be the regulatory and quality agency for higher education. TEQSA’s primary aim is to ensure that students receive a high quality education at any Australian higher education provider. This includes public and private, self-accrediting and non-self accrediting institutions. It uses the same standards to assess all higher education programs offered by all providers and it has the legislative power to audit institutions, being able to bring about all forms of disciplinary action (including deregistration of a higher education provider!).
 

The activities of TEQSA will hopefully bring about uniformity in terms of standards, achievement of certain non-negotiable quality benchmarks and an assurance of a good university education for all students who are admitted into any Australian higher education institution. I am observing with interest the activities of this regulatory watchdog…

HAPPY NAAG PANCHAMI

“Even if a snake is not poisonous, it should pretend to be venomous.” - Chanakya
 
Naag Panchami, or the Festival of Snakes, is celebrated in India on this day today. Snake worship has ancient roots and is found worldwide in many cultures. It probably owes its origin to humans’ natural fear of these reptiles. Hindu mythology is full of stories and fables about snakes, the most important being the Sheshnaga of Lord Vishnu (it is on this snake that Lord Vishnu reclines while sleeping in the sea).
 
Naag Panchami is one of the most ancient feasts in India and also finds mention in the Puranas (a class of Sanskrit sacred writings containing Hindu legends and folklore of varying date and origin, the most ancient of which dates from the 4th century AD). This feast day is believed to be one of the most auspicious days of the entire year. According to the Bhavishya Purana, when men bathe snakes with milk, on the fifth day of the bright fortnight of the month of Shravan, they ensure freedom from danger for their families.
 
There are a number of legends associated with Naag Pancahmi. One has it that on this day, while tilling his land, a farmer accidentally killed some young serpents. The mother of these serpents took revenge by biting and killing the farmer and his family, except his one daughter, who happened to be praying to the Nagas (in Indian mythology members of a semidivine race, part human and part cobra in form, associated with water and sometimes with mystical initiation). This act of devotion by the daughter resulted in the resurrection of the farmer and the rest of his family. It is understandable then, that on this day, ploughing a field is forbidden.
 
There is yet another legend related to this festival. Young Lord Krishna was playing with the other cowherds near the river Yamuna, when their ball got entangled in the high branch of a tree. Krishna volunteered to climb the tree and fetch the ball. Below the tree, by the river used to live a terrible snake called Kaliya. When Krishna fell from the tree into the water, the terrible snake came up with anger, but Krishna started jumping on its head. Finally, Kaliya said sorry to Lord Krishna and he forgave the snake and let it go free. Since then, on Nag Panchami day, the victory of Krishna over the Kaliya snake is commemorated.
 
In India, snakes are so revered that temples have also been erected in their honour. There is a particularly famous temple in Mysore, at a place called Subramania (Sheshnaga). The Naga culture was fairly widespread in India before the Aryan invasion, and continues to be an important segment of worship in certain areas. After the invasion, the Indo-Aryans incorporated the worship of snakes into Hinduism. The thousand-headed Ananta is Vishnu’s couch and also holds up the earth, while snakes play an ornamental role in the iconography of Shiva.
 
In celebrating of Naag Panchami women fast on this day and they draw images of snakes on the walls of their houses with a mixture of cowdung, milk and black powder. Offerings of milk, ghee, sweets, water and rice are also made at sites of snake holes in the countryside. Devotees consider themselves lucky if snakes drink the offered milk.
 
The festival is mainly observed in Southern India, Maharashtra and Bengal. In Jodhpur, huge cloth effigies of the serpents are displayed at major fairs. Also in West Bengal and parts of Assam and Orissa, the snake deity worshipped on Naga Panchami is the goddess Manasa. In Kerala, huge crowds throng snake temples on this day to worship stone or metal icons of the cosmic serpent Ananta or Sesha. The Serpent God or Naag Devta is worshipped in many other places in India.

BROTHERHOOD OF THE WOLF - MOVIE MONDAY

“I believe that imagination is stronger than knowledge - myth is more potent than history - dreams are more powerful than facts - hope always triumphs over experience - laughter is the cure for grief - love is stronger than death” - Robert Fulghum

We watched Christophe Gans’ 2001 movie “Le Pacte des Loups” - Brotherhood of the Wolf  at the weekend. It starred Samuel Le Bihan, Mark Dacascos, Vincent Cassel, Monica Bellucci and Émilie Dequenne, with a host of other supporting actors, well-known in French cinema. The scenario was written by Stéphane Cabel and is a curious mixture of grand guignol, martial arts, sword and sorcery, and boys’ own adventure. Although the story is ultimately run-of-the mill and nothing extraordinary, the cinematography is superb, the music wonderful and the acting very good, presenting a very entertaining package for its 142 minute run time. The film combines the perfect mix of action, adventure and excitement for a wintry Saturday afternoon, with a big bowl of popcorn on hand.

In 1765, historical records show that “something” was lurking in the richly forested mountains of central France. This “beast” tore humans and animals apart with terrible ferocity. The case became so notorious that the King of France himself dispatched envoys to find out what was happening and to capture or kill the creature. By the end, the Beast of Gevaudan had killed over 100 people and to this day, nobody is sure what it was: A wolf, a hyena, or other exotic beast, or perhaps foul play? The “beast” is a popular folk myth in France, which nevertheless, seems to be rooted firmly in real events. The movie takes this record of events in the 18th century, and with a generous mixture of the stuff of folk myths compounds them into the plot of this movie.

Taking the legend of the “beast” as its starting point the movie quickly departs from historical fact and begins an action adventure with mildly supernatural overtones. The two heroes are Gregoire de Fronsac (played with aplomb by Samuel le Bihan – and reminiscent of Jean-Paul Belmondo in his 1962 “Cartouche” character) and Mani (played with suitable mystery and restraint by Mark Dacascos), his native American “blood brother”. De Fronsac has been dispatched by the King to find the beast. De Fronsac is a rational “new man” of the world of the Enlightenment confronting the backward, superstitious France of the countryside outside of the capital. Mani, an Iroquois shaman and hunter represents the “noble savage” and brings to the role another type of wisdom but also superb martial arts skills.

Two strong female leads balance the male leads. The elegant and coldly beautiful prostitute, Sylvia (Monica Bellucci), is a dangerous adversary, whose motives are obscure and one doesn’t know whether she will help or hinder the heroes. On the other hand, is the innocent and fragile Madeleine (Emilie Dequenne), younger sister of protective but crippled Jean François. De Fronsac dallies with both women, enjoying the company of the bedchamber with Sylvia, but falling in love with Madeleine.

The “beast” is shown sparingly, but its use is very effective and the design of the animal is wonderful. The CGI sequences together with the action will keep adventure/horror film fans quite happy. However, the film is quite beautiful cinematically with luscious, slow scenes that pick out atmospheric landscapes, character-developing conversations and interactions, that are mixed judiciously with brilliant camera work for the action scenes. A wonderful dissolve from a shot of a woman’s bare breasts to a snow-covered hilly landscape is quite clever! The interior scenes have a luxurious feel and the delightful detail of a period piece, with magnificent costumes and props looking very authentic. Candlelight and firelight are used to good effect, filling the screen with warm oranges and flesh tones (there is a lot of flesh shown ;-).  The exterior shots balance the interiors with rich dark blues, greens and misty watercolours that suit the chilly tale to a tee.

This film is not your “typical” European subtitled “art movie” (there is a rash of quotations marks in today’s post!). However, it is enjoyable entertainment and arty in terms of film-making. Superb cinematography, wonderful acting, great music, a good balance between action sequences and reflective character-building sequences and even hints at a sub-text where rationalism is played against superstition and monarchy is contrasted with the burgeoning republicanism of 18th century France. Overall, a highly engaging and entertaining movie.

DEGAS FOR ART SUNDAY

“Art is not what you see, but what you make others see.” - Edgar Degas
 

Edgar Degas was born Hilaire-Germain-Edgar de Gas on July 19, 1834, in Paris, France. His father, Auguste, was a banker, and his mother, Celestine, an American from New Orleans. Their family were members of the middle class with nobler pretensions (as is seen with the adopted affected spelling of their surname). Known to have influenced such great artists as Picasso and Matisse, Edgar Degas was an artist known as the “painter of the ballet”. However, he had an active mind and keen curiosity, working to perfect his skills in photography, lithography, oil paintings, pastels, etching and later in his life, sculpture. Degas’ numerous artistic innovations set the standards for the Impressionists. He was especially intrigued by Parisian life, and his depiction of women in the entertainment world are particularly notable.
 

Born in Paris, young Edgar was brought up in an upper, middle-class family who sent him to some of the best schools. Although his mother passed away when he was only thirteen years old, Degas dedicated his attention to his studies, books, and art. Only in 1855 did he begin attending the Ècole des Beaux-Arts where he mastered the drawing that would influence so positively his later creations. Degas soon left his formal studies and set out for Italy, where he lived in Naples and Rome supported financially by his father. He became very interested in medieval, Christian, and Renaissance art. He spent hours each day drawing, sketching, admiring art works, and learning about composition, light, colour and technique directly from the works of the great masters.
 

After spending three-years in Italy, Degas was ready to return to Paris where he would attempt to make a living from his art. Instead, he became a member of the National Guard during the Franco-Prussian War. After two years, he decided to travel to the United States to visit his family who had ties in New Orleans, in the cotton growing business. During this time, he became attracted to painting horses, racetracks and cafés. He was at this stage becoming quite famous in art circles for his previous work and was actually commissioned for a few pieces that brought him enough money to live comfortably.
 

When Degas returned to Paris, he found that he was tired of displaying his work in the traditional Salon and became associated with the impressionists. However, his paintings reveal an almost innate urge not to conform completely to all the fashions and trends of the day. Degas still worked on portraits and produced some of the best works in Paris. His later works are composed of carefully planned snapshots of Parisian life in all of its breadth and depth. His paintings of “Absinthe” and “Dancers Practicing at the Bar” are typical of his mature style and enjoy wide appeal. He often worked in pastel, his favourite medium, producing series of women, bathers, ballerinas, and horse races. From 1880 he modeled wax figures, which were cast in bronze after his death. He was the first of the Impressionists to achieve recognition. He died on September 27, 1917 in Paris.
 

The painting above, “Dress Rehearsal” of 1878-9 is an oil on canvas 52.5 × 71 cm exhibited in the Metropolitan Museum of Art in NYC. It is a characteristic piece of this artist’s ballet works with wonderful composition, delightful colour and light, and a great sense of place. The viewer is immersed in the scene, right there on stage with the ballerinas and the choreographers, feeling very much part of the ambience of the theatre, almost hearing the strains of music and the counting of the beat. There is an intense clarity in the colour and despite being painted in oils, the powdery feel of pure pastel tones is evident. A painting such as this with its underlying masterly drawing, great composition and delightful colour and light shows Degas’ immense talent and great workmanship.

CARA SPOSA

“When love beckons to you follow him, Though his ways are hard and steep. And when his wings enfold you yield to him, Though the sword hidden among his pinions may wound you. And when he speaks to you believe in him, Though his voice may shatter your dreams as the north wind lays waste the garden. For even as love crowns you so shall he crucify you. Even as he is for your growth so is he for your pruning. Even as he ascends to your height and caresses your tenderest branches that quiver in the sun, So shall he descend to your roots and shake them in their clinging to the earth...” – Kahlil Gibran
 

It was a very pleasant Saturday today, with some much needed rest and relaxation, after the rather hectic week that’s been. The weather today was also rather mild with some wintry sunshine warming us up. Then this evening, a quiet time with good company, a glass of wine and some nice food…

Here is George Frideric Handel’s Cara Sposa, an aria from his opera “Rinaldo”, sung by Andreas Scholl, countertenor.



Cara sposa, amante cara,
dove sei?
Deh! Ritorna a' pianti miei.

Del vostro Erebo sull'ara
colla face del mio sdegno
io vi sfido o spirti rei!

My dear betrothed, my dear one,
where are you?
Come back to my tears!

Evil spirits, I defy you
with the fire of my wrath
on your infernal altar.

FOOD FRIDAY - CHOCOLATE PUDDING

“Chocolate is a perfect food, as wholesome as it is delicious, a beneficent restorer of exhausted power. It is the best friend of those engaged in literary pursuits.” - Baron Justus von Liebig
 

It was delightful to come home on Friday night after being away for three days for work. It was a cold dark Winter’s night and coming home into a warm house that smelt delightfully of chocolate was great. Nothing better to warm one up than a hot chocolate pudding!

Chocolate Pudding
IngredientsFor the pudding
1 cup self-raising flour
2 tablespoons cocoa powder
2/3 cup brown sugar
100g butter, melted, cooled
1/4 cup milk
¼ cup crème de cacao liqueur
A few drops of vanilla essence
1 egg, lightly beaten
Thick cream or ice cream to serve

For the Sauce
3/4 cup brown sugar
2 tablespoons cocoa powder, sifted
1 tablespoon butter
50 g cooking chocolate melted in microwave
1 and 1/4 cups boiling water

Method

• Preheat oven to 180°C. Grease an 8-cup capacity ovenproof pudding baking dish. Sift flour and cocoa into a large bowl. Stir in sugar.
• Combine butter, milk, liqueur, vanilla essence and egg in a jug. Slowly add to flour mixture, whisking until well combined and smooth.
• Spoon into the baking dish. Smooth top.
• Place dish onto a baking tray. Bake for 35 to 40 minutes or until pudding bounces back when pressed gently in centre.
• Make sauce: Combine sugar and cocoa and pour boiling water in, stirring to mix. Add the butter and melted chocolate, and keep stirring until smooth.
• Serve hot with cream or ice cream.

This post is part of the Food Friday meme,

and also of the Food Trip Friday meme.

ADELAIDE FESTIVAL CENTRE

“Noble life demands a noble architecture for noble uses of noble men. Lack of culture means what it has always meant: ignoble civilization and therefore imminent downfall.” - Frank Lloyd Wright
 
I’ve had a very gruelling day full of meetings, presentations, forums, and one-to-one meetings with academics today, with hardly any time to blink. However, all meetings went very well including one group meeting that threatened to go pear-shaped as a couple of the academics started to argue about a third colleague of theirs who was not present at the meeting. I tactfully and carefully defused the bomb of a situation and steered the conversation back to the realm of common sense and logic. It wasn’t pleasant and a little surprising, however, on reflection I can understand that these highly intelligent people also get very passionate and emotional and sometimes they are not beyond getting petty either!
 
I walked by the Adelaide Festival Centre on the way back to the hotel, but it started drizzling and it was late so I hurried back. The Adelaide Festival Centre was Australia’s first multi-purpose arts centre, built in 1973 and opened three months before the Sydney Opera House. The Festival Centre is located approximately 50 metres north of the corner of North Terrace and King William Street, lying near the banks of the River Torrens and adjacent to Elder Park.
 
It is distinguished by its three silvery-white geometric dome roofs and its plaza consisting of lego block-like structures to the south and lies on a 45-degree angle to the city’s grid. It is the home of South Australia’s performing arts. The Centre is managed by a statutory authority under the Adelaide Festival Centre Trust Act 1971 which is responsible for encouraging and facilitating artistic, cultural and performing arts activities, as well as maintaining and improving the building and facilities of the Adelaide Festival Centre complex. As well as the now annual Festival of Arts, the Centre hosts the annual Adelaide Cabaret Festival in June and OzAsia Festival in September, and the biennial Adelaide International Guitar Festival.
 
The Adelaide Festival Centre was built in three parts from April 1970 to 1980. The main building, the Festival Theatre, was completed in 1973, remarkably within its budget of $10 million. (The Centre was completed for $21 million.) In comparison, the Sydney Opera House, also completed in 1973, cost $102 million. The Festival Centre is known for the excellent quality of its acoustics. The Southern Plaza was completed in March 1977. The lego-like forms and colourful paint work across the Plaza were designed to conceal an air-conditioning vent at the same time as providing a playful place to congregate. However, Adelaide’s citizens never warmed to the idea, and it remains one of Adelaide's most under-utilised public spaces.

POSTCARD FROM ADELAIDE

“I haven’t been everywhere, but it’s on my list.” – Susan Sontag
 
I am in Adelaide for work for three days and very full days they are too. I always enjoy visiting this city and even if I am very busy, walking around the CBD is quite a nice way to appreciate the architecture and some of the history of the place. Adelaide is the capital city of South Australia and the fifth-largest city in Australia. Adelaide has an estimated population of more than 1.2 million. The demonym “Adelaidean” is used adjectivally in reference to the city and its residents.
 
Adelaide is located north of the Fleurieu Peninsula, on the Adelaide Plains between the Gulf of St Vincent and the low-lying Mount Lofty Ranges that surround the city. Adelaide stretches 20 km from the coast to the foothills, and 90 km from Gawler at its northern extent to Sellicks Beach in the south. Named in honour of Adelaide of Saxe-Meiningen, queen consort to King William IV, the city was founded in 1836 as the planned capital for a freely settled British province in Australia.
 
Colonel William Light, one of Adelaide’s founding fathers, designed the city and chose its location close to the River Torrens in the area originally inhabited by the Kaurna people. Light’s design set out Adelaide in a grid layout, interspaced by wide boulevards and large public squares, and entirely surrounded by parkland. Early Adelaide was shaped by religious freedom and a commitment to political progressivism and civil liberties, which led to the nickname “City of Churches”.
 
As South Australia’s seat of government and commercial centre, Adelaide is the site of many governmental and financial institutions. Most of these are concentrated in the city centre along the cultural boulevard of North Terrace, King William Street and in various districts of the metropolitan area.
 
Today, Adelaide is noted for its many festivals and sporting events, its food, wine and culture, its long beachfronts, and its large defence and manufacturing sectors. It ranks highly in terms of liveability, being listed in the Top 10 of The Economist's World’s Most Liveable Cities index in 2010 and being ranked the most liveable city in Australia by the Property Council of Australia in 2011 and again in 2012.

A SAINT WITH MANY ALIASES

“Faith is a knowledge within the heart, beyond the reach of proof.” - Kahlil Gibran
 

Margaret the Virgin, also known as Margaret of Antioch, virgin and martyr, is celebrated as a saint by the Roman Catholic and Anglican Churches on July 20; and on July 17 in the Orthodox Church, where she is known as St Marina. Her historical existence has been questioned and she was declared apocryphal by Pope Gelasius I in A.D. 494. However, devotion to her cult was revived in the West with the Crusades. She was reputed to have promised very powerful indulgences to those who wrote or read her life, or invoked her intercessions; belief in these indulgences no doubt helped the spread of her cult.

According to the Golden Legend, she was a native of Antioch, daughter of a pagan priest named Aedesius. She was scorned by her father for her Christian faith, and lived with a foster-mother keeping sheep, in the country, which is now modern day Turkey. Olybrius, the praeses orientis (Governor of the Roman Diocese of the East), offered her marriage at the price of her renunciation of Christianity. Upon her refusal, she was cruelly tortured, during which various miraculous incidents occurred. One of these involved being swallowed by Satan in the shape of a dragon, from which she escaped alive when the cross she carried irritated the dragon's innards.

She was put to death in A.D. 304. The Eastern Orthodox Church knows Margaret as Saint Marina, and celebrates her feast day on July 17. She has been identified with Saint Pelagia - “Marina” being the Latin equivalent of the Greek name “Pelagia” (meaning of 'of the sea'). There are no historical documents on St Margaret as distinct from St Pelagia. The Greek Marina came from Antioch, Pisidia (as opposed to Antioch of Syria), but this distinction was lost in the West. It has been argued that the legends of Saint Margaret are derived from a transformation of the pagan divinity Aphrodite into a Christian saint. Such syncretism is a common finding with many Eastern Church saints.

The cult of Saint Margaret became very widespread in England, where more than 250 churches are dedicated to her, most famously, St. Margaret's, Westminster, the parish church of the British Houses of Parliament in London. Some consider her a patron saint of pregnancy. In art, she is usually pictured escaping from, or standing above, a dragon. She was included from the twelfth to the twentieth century among the saints to be commemorated wherever the Roman Rite was celebrated, but was then removed from that list because of the entirely fabulous character of the stories told of her. Margaret is one of the Fourteen Holy Helpers, and is one of the saints who spoke to Joan of Arc.

The birthday plant for this day, is caraway, Carum carvi.  The name is derived from a place in Asia Minor, Caria.  The seeds have been used form ancient times to flavour food, especially breads and cakes. The plant signifies the sentiment “you will grow to love me”.  Astrologically, it is under the rule of Mercury.

MOVIE MONDAY - THE BOY IN THE STRIPED PAJAMAS

“Innocence is always unsuspicious.” - Thomas C. Haliburton

At the weekend we watched a touching and poignant film, Mark Herman’s 2008 “The Boy in the Striped Pajamas. It is based on the novel by John Boyne and Mark Herman wrote the screenplay. It starred Asa Butterfield, David Thewlis, Vera Farmiga, Jack Scanlon, Amber Beattie and Rupert Friend. The film is set during WWII in Germany and has Holocaust themes, which some people may find extremely and especially distressing.

The film examines themes from several perspectives and in the first half hour one is lost in the everyday existence of a German family living in Berlin and dealing with the war. The viewpoint is very much from young Bruno’s eyes – an eight-year-old German boy played wonderfully by Asa Butterfield. The filmmakers have done a very clever thing: The accents of the Germans are faultlessly English and one cannot fail to identify (initially at least) with the familiar family environment and the routines of a family coping with the antics of two children. The sympathies of the viewer need be won early in order to increase the force of the punch delivered later in the film.

The family must relocate to the countryside when Bruno’s father (David Thewlis) is promoted and is assigned to take command of a prison camp. His wife (Vera Farmiga) and their two children will of course accompany him to the camp, living some distance away in a mansion behind tall walls. Bruno is bored and as his sister Gretel (Amber Beattie) becomes involved in Nazi ideology, he has to find ways to amuse himself. He discovers a way of leaving the house and gaining access to the delights of the countryside, and soon comes across the “farm” (or so he thinks) where everyone wears striped pajamas. He befriends another child, named Shmuel (Jack Scanlon) who lives behind the electrified fence of the camp. Bruno will soon find out that he is not permitted to befriend his new acquaintance as he is a Jew, and that the neighbouring “farm” is actually a prison camp for Jews awaiting extermination…

The theme of the film is how two innocent 8-year-old boys are affected by evil, and man’s inhumanity to man. The loss of innocence is documented as the movie develops and the children’s characters build slowly to show basic human foibles, but also the grandeur of the human spirit. The mother of the family who has “anti-establishment” thoughts and comes into conflict with her husband shows us what conversations and moral quandaries must have been prevalent in (what one hopes) were more than a few German households during the war. The father’s mother (the children’s grandmother) is also another of these questioners of the regime and this causes more friction and an uneasy situation within the family.

The film is extremely well-crafted with wonderful performances by all the cast, authentic sets and locations, accurate period costumes and a wonderful musical score by James Horner. As the fine English production pays attention to detail, one can simply concentrate on plot, character development and the meaning of the film. It is very hard not to get emotional when watching it and the ending is quite devastating. We were touched and stunned by the film and recommend it highly.

ART SUNDAY - REMBRANDT

“The very greatest things - great thoughts, discoveries, inventions - have usually been nurtured in hardship, often pondered over in sorrow, and at length established with difficulty.” - Samuel Smiles

Rembrandt Harmenszoon van Rijn was born on July 15,1606 in Leiden Netherlands. Although not at all wealthy, his family took great care with his education. At the age of fourteen he attended the University of Leiden.  However, he soon left university to pursue a career as an artist. He studied under local masters Jacob van Swanenburch and Pieter Lastman, the latter well known for his historical paintings. It was not long before Rembrandt was a master at his craft.

At twenty-two he began taking on students of his own. In 1631 he moved to Amsterdam and was married three years later to Saskia van Uylenburgh. Her cousin was a successful art dealer who introduced him to wealthy patrons who commissioned portraits. The “Portrait of Nicolaes Ruts” is an example of the type of portraits he painted during that period.  Besides painting portraits Rembrandt’s mythological and religious works were also much in demand.

Rembrandt was an artist who was quite famous and popular during his lifetime. Works of art such as “The Blinding of Samson” and “Stormy Landscape” had people in awe of his vision. Rembrandt’s seemed to have it all, at least when observed casually and from outside his family situation. He had a great career doing what he loved to do as well as the love of a good woman. While he should have been enjoying a prosperous career he and his wife suffered one great personal loss after another. Within a span of five years each of his three children died in infancy. In 1641 a son they named Titus would break that cycle. However, tragedy always seemed to prevail. Although their son lived, Saskia’s death would come one short year later.

In 1649 after a brief affair with his son's nanny Geertghe Dircx, Rembrandt found someone to share his life with. Hendrickje Stoffels (formally his housekeeper) soon became his partner in love and the subject for many of his paintings. Although he was successful in his career as an artist, teacher and art dealer Rembrandt was living well beyond his means which finally drove him to declare bankruptcy in 1656. Much of his collection of art and antiquities including the sale of his house went to pay his huge debts.

During the artist’s most difficult times, some of his greatest works were created. “The Jewish Bride”, “The Syndics of the Cloth Guild”, “Bathsheba”, “Jacob Blessing the Sons of Joseph”, and a “Self Portrait” were very successful. Rembrandt’s personal life seemed cursed as again he was robbed of a second chance at love. Hendrickje died in 1663 and two years later his only son would meet the same fate. Within a short year later on October 4th, 1669 at sixty-three years old Rembrandt died. His masterpieces have made him world famous and many people even though completely unschooled in art not only know his name but also are familiar with some of his works.

The “Blinding of Samson” illustrated above was painted in 1636. Although it has many stylistic elements conventional at the time, Rembrandt stamps it with his unmistakeable originality. Like many Baroque paintings, it contrasts a dark background with the lighting focused on the characters in the painting, as if they are spotlit. This creates a dramatic effect focusing the viewers’ eyes on the principal characters, while leaving some sections dark and forbidding, or even threatening – such as the silhouetted soldier on the left. Samson as the primary focus is centrally located and well-lit, with the gory gouging out of his eyes caught in a horrific snapshot. Delilah’s servant brandishing scissors and the shorn locks of Samson’s hair glowers and is also lit by reflected light, this also contributing to the drama of the scene. This is a masterpiece both technically as well as iconographically.