GOOD FRIDAY 2013

“At the cross God wrapped his heart in flesh and blood and let it be nailed to the cross for our redemption.” - E. Stanley Jones
 
Good Friday is the most solemn and sorrowful day in the Christian calendar.  Traditionally, no work was done on this day of prayer and reflection. All Christians go to church to hear the recounting of Christ’s passion and mourn for His death on the cross.  Tools made of iron are not to be handled and especially so hammers and nails. This is so that one does not act out the crucifixion of Christ anew.  Even clothes are not to be washed on this day, because if they are, a member of the family will die. If clothes are hung out to dry they will be spotted with blood.  This belief is from the apocryphal story that relates of a washerwoman mockingly throwing dirty washing water on Christ on his way to Calvary. Parsley seed can be planted on this day, provided a wooden spade is used. Parsley was associated with death and funerals since the days of the ancient Greeks.
 
Hot Cross Buns are baked on this day in memory of the kindly woman who gave Christ some bread on His way to Calvary.  It is said that no bread or buns baked on this day will grow mouldy.
            Good Friday comes this month, the old woman runs
            With one-a-penny, two-a-penny, Hot Cross Buns
            Whose virtue if you’ll believe what’s said
            They’ll not grow mouldy like ordinary bread.
 
Hot Cross Buns protect sailors from shipwreck and houses from fire. Good Friday bread should be dried and kept for if is soaked in milk and consumed will cure all sorts of stomach ailments.  On the other hand, Russian tradition and religious observance forbid baking on Good Friday. Here is a recipe for hot cross buns:
 
Hot Cross Buns
Ingredients
 
2 tsp dried instant yeast
500 g plain four
90 g sugar
300 mL milk
1tsp salt
1 tsp cinnamon
½ tsp ground allspice
¼ tsp ground cloves
¼ tsp fresh grated nutmeg
60 g butter
1 large egg
140 g sultanas
30 g mixed peel 
For the Crosses
2 tbsp self raising flour
2 tbsp cold water 
Glaze
4 tbsp sugar
¼ tsp cinnamon
150 ml boiling water
 
Method
Sift together flour, spices, salt and the add the yeast, stirring through to evenly distribute.
Warm the milk in a microwave and melt the butter into it.
In a separate bowl beat the egg.
Add the milk and butter mixture to the flour and mix thoroughly. Add the egg and mix well to form a dough.
Work in the dried fruit and peel.
Turn the dough out onto a lightly floured surface and knead until it feels smooth and is no longer sticky (approx 10 mins).
Place in a lightly oiled bowl, cover with plastic wrap and place in a warm spot to rise.
Leave for an hour or until doubled in size.
Punch the dough down and then separate it into 12 equal portions.
Place the buns close together on a lightly greased baking tray.
Cover and allow to prove until doubled in size and very light (about another hour).
For the crosses: Mix the flour and water thoroughly to form a thick paste. Spoon into a plastic bag, cut a little hole out of the corner of the bag and use it to pipe the mixture in crosses on top of the buns.
Bake the topped buns at 220°C for 15–20mins.
For the glaze: Mix together all ingredients, dissolving the sugar in the boiling water. Brush over the buns lightly while still hot.
 

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

MAUNDY THURSDAY 2013

“Christ died to save this lost world; he did not come to destroy, maim or pour out wrath.” - David Wilkerson
 
The Thursday before Easter is Maundy Thursday, and it is celebrated today by the Western Christian churches. The Eastern Christian churches celebrate Easter about month later this year (Easter Sunday is May 5th, 2013). On Maundy Thursday, Christians reflect on the Last Supper, when Jesus and his Disciples dined together for the last time before his death.
 
Jesus said: “Now is the Son of Man glorified and God is glorified in him. If God is glorified in him, God will glorify the Son in himself, and will glorify him at once. My children, I will be with you only a little longer. You will look for me, and just as I told the Jews, so I tell you now: Where I am going, you cannot come. A new command I give you: Love one another. As I have loved you, so you must love one another. By this all men will know that you are my disciples, if you love one another.” (John 13:31-35).
 
The word “Maundy” comes from the Latin word for commandment (mandatum), which Jesus talked about when he told his disciples that he was leaving them “a new commandment,” that they “love one another.” There must have been an electric atmosphere in that upper room where Jesus and the Disciples had their last supper together, with may thoughts and wild emotions in everyone’s mind. Not the least would have been bewilderment as Jesus told them that someone in that very room would betray him.
 
Jesus handed everyone (including his soon-to-be betrayer) bread and wine. Passing these around, he spoke momentous words: “This is my body… this is my blood.” An extraordinary dictum for an extraordinary Passover supper. These words connected with what he had said previously by the shores of the Sea of Galilee: “I am the bread of life. He who comes to me will never go hungry, and he who believes in me will never be thirsty…. whoever eats my flesh and drinks my blood has eternal life, and I will raise him up at the last day”. (John 6:35, 54).
 
Jesus told the Disciples to repeat this meal in the future, so they would remember him and do what he had taught them to do. Judas Iscariot skulked away to what he had been destined to do. Jesus and the Disciples followed and in the quiet olive grove, Jesus prayed in agony:

“My Father, if it be possible, let this cup pass from me; nevertheless, not as I will, but as you will.” And he came to the disciples and found them sleeping. And he said to Peter, “So, could you not watch with me one hour? Watch and pray that you may not enter into temptation. The spirit indeed is willing, but the flesh is weak.” Again, for the second time, he went away and prayed, “My Father, if this cannot pass unless I drink it, your will be done.” And again he came and found them sleeping, for their eyes were heavy. So, leaving them again, he went away and prayed for the third time, saying the same words again. Then he came to the disciples and said to them, “Sleep and take your rest later on. See, the hour is at hand, and the Son of Man is betrayed into the hands of sinners. Rise, let us be going; see, my betrayer is at hand.” (Matthew 26:39-56)
 
The events following this outline the divine plan and the betrayal, trial and execution of the Christ fulfil the prophecies of old and set in place the new covenant as outline in the New Testament, such that mankind be saved. Christians the world over commemorate Passion week and then rejoice at Easter with the tidings of Resurrection and the promise of life everlasting.

BEST AUSTRALIAN BLOG?

The 2013 competition is now open for entries. Entries in the competition will close on Thursday 28 March 2013.
 
There is over $18,000 worth of prizes, including cash, writing courses and books, to be won by finalists and winners.
 
You can follow the centre and the competition on Twitter. The hashtag is #bestblogs13

WORLD THEATRE DAY 2013

“The stage is a magic circle where only the most real things happen, a neutral territory outside the jurisdiction of Fate where stars may be crossed with impunity. A truer and more real place does not exist in all the universe.” -  P.S. Baber
 
World Theatre Day is celebrated on March 27th. It was the brainchild of the International Theatre Institute (ITI). Various national and international theatre events are organised around the world to celebrate this occasion. One of the most important of these is the circulation of the World Theatre Day International Message through which at the invitation of ITI, a figure of world stature shares his or her reflections on the theme of Theatre and a Culture of Peace. The first World Theatre Day International Message was written by Jean Cocteau (France) in 1962.
 
It was first in Helsinki, and then in Vienna at the 9th World Congress of the ITI in June 1961 that President Arvi Kivimaa proposed on behalf of the Finnish Centre of the International Theatre Institute that a World Theatre Day be instituted. The proposal, backed by the Scandinavian centres, was carried with acclamation. Ever since, each year on the 27th March (date of the opening of the 1962 "Theatre of Nations" season in Paris), World Theatre Day has been celebrated in many and varied ways by ITI National Centres of which there are now almost 100 throughout the world.
 
Each year a figure outstanding in theatre or a person outstanding in heart and spirit from another field, is invited to share his or her reflections on theatre and international harmony. What is known as the International Message is translated into more than 20 languages, read for tens of thousands of spectators before performances in theatres throughout the world and printed in hundreds of daily newspapers. Colleagues in the audio-visual field lend a fraternal hand, with more than a hundred radio and television stations transmitting the Message to listeners in all corners of the five continents.
 
Here is the 2013 World Theatre Day message, by Dario Fo, read by Julian Sands, English actor:

 
Theatre is a collaborative form of fine art that uses live performers to present the experience of a real or imagined event before a live audience in a specific place. The performers may communicate this experience to the audience through combinations of gesture, speech, song, music or dance. Elements of design and stagecraft are used to enhance the physicality, presence and immediacy of the experience.

The specific place of the performance is also named by the word "theatre" as derived from the Ancient Greek théatron, “a place for viewing”, itself from theáomai, “to see”, “to watch", “to observe”. Modern Western theatre derives in large measure from ancient Greek drama, from which it borrows technical terminology, classification into genres, and many of its themes, stock characters, and plot elements. Theatre scholar Patrice Pavis defines theatricality, theatrical language, stage writing, and the specificity of theatre as synonymous expressions that differentiate theatre from the other performing arts, literature, and the arts in general. Theatre today includes performances of plays and musicals.

IDENTITY

“Human identity is the most fragile thing that we have, and it's often only found in moments of truth.” - Alan Rudolph
 

René François Ghislain Magritte was born on November 21st, 1898 at Lessines, a province of Hainaut in Belgium. This surrealist artist is renowned and very popular for his thought-provoking images, which sometimes cause amusement, sometimes shock and often wonder and puzzlement. Magritte in his art, wishes to put an end to our sense of familiarity with the world. Although he depicted ordinary things in his canvases, he modified them with his imagination and presented them in absurd contexts and with such illusory blends and counter-logical associations that very often the viewers are moved to challenge their beliefs and question their frame of reference. Magritte’s work is thought provoking and his canvases present visual enigmas, which are sure to puzzle and challenge the spectators. Many contemporary artists have been influenced by the remarkable works of René Magritte. He died at the age of 68 on August 15th 1967, in Brussels of pancreatic cancer.
 

Magpie Tales has chosen Magritte’s “Not to be Reproduced” (La reproduction interdite), as the springboard on which we launch our creative endeavours this week. The painting is owned currently by the Museum Boijmans Van Beuningen in Rotterdam. This painting was commissioned by poet and Magritte patron Edward James and is considered a portrait of James although James’ face is not depicted. This painting was one of three produced by Magritte for the ballroom of James’ London home. The other two were “The Red Model” (1937) and “Time Transfixed” (1938).
 

The book on the mantel is a well-worn copy of Edgar Allan Poe’s The Narrative of Arthur Gordon Pym of Nantucket (written here in French as Les aventures d’Arthur Gordon Pym). Poe was one of Magritte’s favourite authors and he made other references to the author and his work. Magritte painted another portrait of Edward James titled “The Pleasure Principle” (1937). It depicts James from the front, sitting at a table; however, his face is obscured by a bright flash like that produced by a camera flash.
 

Here is my poem based on Monsieur Magritte’s painting, which I have reproduced shamelessly and counter to his imperative.
 

Identity
 

Whence have I come?
Where am I at?
Whither shall I go?
 

The stranger I am looking back at in the mirror
Stays silent and will not answer my questions.
 

Who is he?
Why does he remain silent?
How will I get to know him?

The years pass by, all too swiftly now,
As the sand grains run out of my hourglass.
 

How many years more?
Which way to the finish?
Wherefore have I lived?
 

My life before outweighs the life I have after the present minute
A ratio tending towards infinite minuteness.
 

Who is that man?
Why does he not speak?
How shall we become acquainted?
 

My life spirals downwards, and as I descend in ever smaller whorls,
The infinitude below overwhelms me.
 

Whence have I come?
Where am I at?
Whither shall I go?

MOVIE MONDAY - THE WEDDING DATE

“Too many women throw themselves into romance because they’re afraid of being single, then start making compromises and losing their identity. I won’t do that.” - Julie Delpy
 

We seem to watch an awful lot of chick flick rom coms lately. But on reflection, maybe not, it just seems that way… The genre is a popular one so moviemakers churn these types of films out with great regularity. Once again, the movie we watched at the weekend was retrieved from the specials bin and the only reason we watched it was that we wanted nothing heavyweight, depressing, or anything that would get us thinking about deep and meaningful stuff – so fluff and nonsense it was to be. It was the 2005 Clare Kilner film, “The Wedding Date” starring Dermot Mulroney, Debra Messing, Jeremy Sheffield, Amy Adams, Jack Davenport. It was based on the novel “Asking for Trouble” by Elizabeth Young and the screenplay was by Dana Fox.
 

Kat (Debra Messing) is a successful airline executive living in the USA, while most of her family is in the UK. She has been through a traumatic relationship break-up with ex of seven years, Jeffrey (Jeremy Sheffield), who is still living in the UK. Her half-sister will have her wedding in London and the best man is Jeffrey. Kat who still loves Jeffrey and who is still single, whishes to go to the wedding accompanied by a man whom she can pass off as her new boyfriend. Kat spends $6,000 plus business class tickets for Nick (Dermot Mulroney) a professional escort, to accompany her to London pretending to be her boyfriend. Kat’s sister, Amy (Amy Adams) has planned a wedding extravaganza to last four days, complete with picnics, cricket, parties, hens’ and stag nights, and more. However, there are some dark secrets that will be revealed and most of the characters will have to make choices that will affect their whole lives.
 

Critics crucified this movie, but it resonated well with much of the public. At a cost of $15 million the film grossed $47 million worldwide, $11 million of that made on the opening weekend in the USA. The film is formulaic, predictable and sprinkled with Hollywood glitz – the UK locations being the gimmick (and this works well). The cast is more or less likeable and they do a more or less good job with the material they have been given. Some of the minor supporting cast characters were the most enjoyable for us, and we actually disliked the leads (Mulroney and Messing), which didn’t help.
 

I wonder if these types of movies nowadays fulfill some sort of grown-up penchant with romantic fairy tales of old – wish fulfillment “Cinderella” stories that extend our childhood fantasies. Needless to say that these grown-up fairy tales are peppered with soft porn, the sex spicing the story in an obvious way, whereas in the traditional fairy tale the eroticism was symbolic or understated. The same could be said of the literary chick lit genre or the “Hills of Doom” type of romance novels. They work and they are popular because they are written to a strict formula, they have stock characters and plot lines so that their fans are not greatly surprised or disappointed when they read them.
 

This film is average as far the genre goes. It is not original nor is it ground-shaking moviemaking at its best. However, it has no pretence about itself. The tag-line for the movie “Love Doesn’t Come Cheap” summarises the aspirations of the movie quite well. While it is not pure bathos, it lacks the sparkle and charm of the 1990 “Pretty Woman” by Garry Marshall, a similar plot with the genders reversed. We watched “The Wedding Date”, it didn’t tax our minds greatly, we liked the scenery, we smiled once or twice, and that was it. The film will be promptly forgotten… If you have 90 minutes up your sleeve and  it’s on, watch it and don’t have great expectations – it’s fluff. Otherwise don’t go out of your way to seek it out.

ART SUNDAY - VAN DYCK

“Turn your face to the sun and the shadows follow behind you.” - Maori Proverb
 

Anthony van Dyck (born March 22, 1599 Antwerp, Belgium, died December 9, 1641) was a Flemish painter and draughtsman who lived in England for quite a few years of his life. Anthony was the seventh of twelve children born to a wealthy silk merchant in Belgium. The child was very talented and began to paint at an early age. By the age of nineteen, he had already become an art teacher in Antwerp. Soon afterward, he collaborated and trained with the famous Flemish painter Peter Paul Rubens.
 

In 1620, at the instigation of George Villiers, Marquess of Buckingham, van Dyck went to England for the first time where he worked for King James I of England, receiving £100. It was in London in the collection of the Earl of Arundel that he first saw the work of Titian, whose use of colour and subtle modelling of form would prove transformational, offering a new stylistic language that would enrich the compositional lessons learned from Rubens.
 

After moving back to Flanders, Van Dyck decided to go to Italy in 1620, where he studied the paintings of Titian and Paolo Veronese and worked for six years as a successful portrait painter for the Italian nobility. He became so well known that in 1632 King Charles I of England summoned him to London to be his exclusive court painter and eventually gave him a knighthood. Van Dyck’s numerous portraits of Charles I and his family were greatly admired by his contemporaries.
 

Realising that Charles’s political and financial fortunes were in decline, van Dyck left England in for Antwerp and Paris. A year later, after several unsuccessful projects abroad, he returned to London in 1641 in ill health and died shortly thereafter. Van Dyck is buried in Saint Paul’s Cathedral, a distinction reserved only for illustrious British subjects.
 

Most major museum collections include at least one van Dyck, but easily the most outstanding collection is the Royal Collection, which still contains many of his paintings of the Royal Family. The National Gallery, London (fourteen works), The Museo del Prado in Madrid, (twenty-five works), The Louvre in Paris (eighteen works), The Alte Pinakothek in Munich, National Museum of Serbia in Belgrade, The National Gallery of Art in Washington DC and the Frick Collection have splendid examples of all phases of his portrait style.
 

Van Dyck’s portraits of men, notably Charles I and himself, are painted with the short, pointed beards then in fashion; the result is that this particular kind of beard was much later (probably first in America in the 19th century) named a vandyke or Van Dyke beard (which is the anglicised version of his name).
 

In the self-portrait above (painted after 1633), Van Dyck paint himself wearing a rich red silken overshirt with a heavy gold chain draped and displayed prominently over his right shoulder. This is a prominent display of the painter’s status as a successful and lauded artist. He holds a sunflower (then recently introduced to Europe from the Americas), which is a symbol of adoration, as they turn their heads to the sun, which is the origin of their common name. Perhaps Van Dyck is making a rather unsubtle and none too modest statement about his noble status and great talent. An alternate meaning of the sunflower is “pure and lofty thoughts” so if we wish to be kinder to the artist, perhaps we should ascribe this menaing to it…

SONG SATURDAY - STABAT MATER

“I remember my mother’s prayers and they have always followed me. They have clung to me all my life.” - Abraham Lincoln
 
A Saturday full of the usual little routines of the weekend. For Music Saturday a wonderful choral piece, surely one of the masterworks of the repertoire of sacred music. It is Pergolesi’s “Stabat Mater”.  Stabat Mater refers to a 13th-century Catholic hymn to Mary, variously attributed to the Franciscan Jacopone da Todi and to Innocent III. The title of the sorrowful hymn is an incipit of the first line, Stabat mater dolorosa (“The sorrowful mother stood”).
 
The Dolorosa hymn, one of the most powerful and immediate of extant medieval poems, meditates on the suffering of Mary, Jesus Christ’s mother, during his crucifixion. It is sung at the liturgy on the memorial of Our Lady of Sorrows. The Dolorosa has been set to music by many composers, with the most famous settings being those by Palestrina, Pergolesi, Scarlatti, Vivaldi, Haydn, Rossini and Dvořák.
 
The Dolorosa was well known by the end of the fourteenth century and Georgius Stella wrote of its use in 1388, while other historians note its use later in the same century. In Provence, about 1399, it was used during the nine days processions. As a liturgical sequence, the Dolorosa was suppressed, along with hundreds of other sequences, by the Council of Trent, but restored to the missal by Pope Benedict XIII in 1727 for the Feast of the Seven Dolours of the Blessed Virgin Mary.
 
Giovanni Battista Pergolesi (4 January 1710 – 16 March 1736) was an Italian composer, violinist and organist. In his short life he managed to write some amazing music and one wonders what further marvellous works his genius would have been capable of had he lived longer. The "Pietá" above is by Giovanni Bellini.

FOOD FRIDAY - CHIA

“The way you think, the way you behave, the way you eat, can influence your life by 30 to 50 years.” - Deepak Chopra
 

Chia is an edible seed from the desert plant Salvia hispanica. It grows abundantly in southern Mexico and is a member of the mint family. Ancient Aztec warriors are thought to have used it as rations, with one teaspoon sustaining a warrior for 24 hours! The name chia is Mayan for “strength”.
 

Chia seeds are rich in vitamins A, B, E, D, and have abundant omega-3 fatty acids – they are 30% oil, of which 30% is omega 3 and 40% is omega 6. They also have approximately two times the protein concentration and up to ten times the oil concentration of other grains, and are digestible without grinding. Chia seeds also provide fibre (25 grams give you 6.9 grams of fibre) as well as calcium, phosphorus, magnesium, manganese, copper, iron, molybdenum, and zinc.
 

Chia has a nutlike flavour, and as with flaxseeds, you can sprinkle ground or whole chia seeds on cereal, in yoghurt or salads. You can grind chia seeds and mix them with flour when making muffins or other baked goods. Chia seeds are small and have the unique feature of a shell that turns gelatinous when it gets wet. When added to water and allowed to sit for 30 minutes, chia forms a gel. This gel can be mixed with foods such as mayonnaise, sauces and jams.
 

Chia Fruit and Nut Cake
Ingredients
 

2 cups apple juice

8 tbsp ground chia
3/4 cup chopped roasted walnuts
1/2 cup sultanas
1/2 cup chopped dried apricots
2 bananas, mashed
3 tbsp honey
2 tbsp vegetable oil
1 tsp baking soda
1/2 tsp ground cinnamon
Pinch of ground cloves
Pinch of ground nutmeg
Enough flour to achieve a porridge-like consistency
 

Method
Mix together the honey, juice and bananas in a food processor. Add in the ground chia and let the food processor run until the seeds are completely mixed in. Transfer the mixture to a bowl with the walnuts and raisins and mix them in thoroughly by hand. Add oil and mix thoroughly. Add the soda, spices and the flour little by little, stirring until the mixture resembles porridge. Pour into a greased bundt baking dish and cook in an oven preheated to 180˚C for about 50 minutes or until a skewer stuck in the bread comes out clean. Allow to cool a little and remove from the tin, dusting with icing sugar.
 
This post is part of the Food Friday meme,
and also part of the Food Trip Friday meme.

THE EQUINOX AND BACH

“Autumn is a second spring when every leaf is a flower.” - Albert Camus
 
March 21 marks the Spring Equinox in the Northern Hemisphere and the Autumnal equinox in the Southern Hemisphere. The Ostara festival is celebrated by the modern branch of witchcraft known as Wicca.  This festival celebrates the return of the sun on the Spring Equinox and the Teutonic goddess of Spring, Eostre is feasted on this day.  Rituals are carried out that symbolise awakening, renewal and rebirth.  The egg is a primary symbol of Eostre and eggs may be dyed, forming as much of the Wiccan ritual as they do of Christian Easter. Easter is obviously etymologically derived from Eostre.
 
It is the feast day of St Benedict (ca 480-550 AD) who is the patron saint of speleologists (cavers and potholers) and schoolchildren. St Benedict was the son of a rich Italian family. As a boy he was sent to Rome to study and growing up there he became with the vice that he saw around him. He left the city and became a hermit in a cave in the mountain of Subiaco, where he spent three years in prayer. He was often led into temptation by the Devil and one day when he almost succumbed to a vision of a lovely lady, he threw himself into a bush with long sharp thorns that gouged his body and he overcame the temptation. He founded twelve monasteries in Subiaco and then in Cassino he built the most famous monastery of all, establishing the Benedictine Order of monks. St Benedict and his monks helped the people around the monastery by teaching them to read, write, farm and work at different trades.
 
Traditionally, Iran’s New Year begins on this day, with celebrations lasting for 13 days.  Rites involving fire are common in Zoroastrianism and to welcome the new year in, bonfires are lit. Everyone jumps over the flames symbolically leaping into the new year, while purifying themselves of the previous year’s indiscretions.  Eggs play a part in this springtime festival and in the celebrations the egg symbolises an egg, which reawakens in Spring.  When the year changes the earth is thought to tremble and an egg is placed on mirror as the year changes, shivering slightly in sympathy with the earth’s great shudder.
 
Today is also the birthday of one of the greatest composers of all time, Johann Sebastian Bach. He was part of a great musical family and many of his own sons were great composers in their own right.  His oeuvre encompasses all great forms of the baroque with the exception of opera.  His music was all but forgotten until Felix Mendelssohn began the revival that re-established him as the master amongst the composers of the baroque.  His magnificent music is replete with command of form, originality, technical competency of the instrument and vocal parts he was writing for, as well as luscious melody and wonderful harmonies.  Some of his works that I love are: Chromatic Fantasy and Fugue in D minor, BWV 903 - a heart rending work; Cantata No 4: Christus lag in Todesbanden a choral work for Easter; Keyboard Concerto in D minor BWV 1052; Fugue in G minor BWV 578, a little gem for the organ.  His six Brandenburg Concertos BWV 1046-1051 are a set of masterworks that show off Bach’s genius most explicitly!
 

FREE EDUCATION

“While I have life and strength I shall never cease from the practice and teaching of philosophy, exhorting any one whom I meet and saying to him after my manner: You, my friend – a citizen of the great and mighty Athens – are you not ashamed of heaping up the greatest amount of money and honour, and reputation, and caring so little about wisdom and truth and the greatest improvement of the soul, which you never regard at all?” – Socrates
 
I have been brought up by a family who valued education. Beginning with my grandparents, then my parents, my uncles and aunts, even our family friends, they all extolled the virtues of a good education. I grew up in a household where to be educated was the rule. It was never questioned that I should do anything else but progress through school, enter University and then possibly continue on by studying further. My love affair with education, which was aided and abetted by my family, was supported by my own love of learning and the end result was that I became a dyed in the wool academic, never far from education and the pursuit of learning.
 
In the society I grew up in, education was not only respected, but put on a pedestal as the solution to that society’s many ills. A university education assured one of a certain social status, a good job, and a tacit understanding that one’s efforts would not be in vain but that they would contribute to the social good and resolve the problems that beset the country. I am showing my age and my nationality to a certain extent, as views on education (particularly university education) have changed, especially now that I am in a country where the ability to make as much money in as short a period of time as possible is seen as the real measure of success – education be damned. To be called an academic in Australia carries with it a stigma, I sometimes think...
 
Being educated in Australia and finishing my degrees here, but also after working for many years in academia, have disabused me of some of my romantic notions about education as being the panacea for all the ills of the world. Nevertheless my experiences in tertiary education have convinced me that tertiary education can be a transformative, life-changing experience. The ways in which one’s mind can be opened and the breadth of one’s existence can be expanded are astounding.
 
Major Australian universities in the “Group of Eight” (our Australian version of the Ivy League) are committed to several important activities: Tertiary education in the undergraduate and graduate arenas, cutting edge creativity and thought leadership in the arts and sciences, professional education and world-class research. All of these activities are essential assets and the best of our universities are up there with the best universities in the rest of the world. But all is not well in Camelot. Universities also have problems, even if they are in the top tier, or perhaps because they are in the top tier.
 
Why is does it cost so much to attend a university and spend such a great deal of money in order to be educated? Why do universities always demand more and more money from the government (and increasingly from their students also)? Why do universities try and attract more and more international students, who pay higher tuition fees? Are universities financially responsible and do they operate on a good business model? Are universities as scrupulous and accountable as they ought to be? Do our august universities concentrate too much on research and postgraduate education to the detriment of the undergraduate courses? Are universities truly independent and are their staff able to operate in the spirit of true academic freedom, that is, freedom of speech and enquiry? It is such questions that have been debated for decades and have created tensions between academia and our broader society.
 
In the last year or two, it seems that tertiary education has been thrust willy-nilly into a rack and forced into a situation of great stress. This is perhaps the most disruptive time in the entire history of tertiary education. The internet and its widespread, highly scalable use globally as well as the growing popularity of online education as a viable alternative to on-campus education has been a catalyst for this. The appearance of the Massive Open Online Courses (MOOCs) into the tertiary education landscape with the consequent opportunity for students to have access to free tertiary level online study was the slap in the face that awakened universities from their complacency and forced them to ask some soul searching questions.
 
A student nowadays has many options regarding study – whether they choose to go to a physical university or not. In this rapidly changing environment becoming well educated need not be equated necessarily with being admitted to a “Group of Eight” university and paying inordinate amounts of cash to study. Flexible and global education solutions at different levels geared towards any individual are now readily available at a fraction of the cost (or free). Ultimately this empowers the learner who can make an informed decision and take responsibility for their own learning.
 
The question that arises out of this concerns the credibility, validity and validation of the education programs on offer. What is their quality, what is the ability for the learning achieved to be authenticated in a secure way, and primarily perhaps, whether or not the overall online experience is engaging, interesting and motivating enough for the learner accessing learning through the internet – i.e. the “onlinearity” of the offering: Onlinearity being the appropriateness and judicious choice of technology, good learning design and pedagogy, suitability of course material and learning objects, reliable delivery platform and media, in order to run an engaging, effective, quality online course.
 
Today Open Universities Australia launched their “Open2Study” subjects in Canberra.  This platform introduces free online subjects at a foundation level and makes them available in a format that shows good “onlinearity”. Enrolments are open in ten different subjects and they look really good. Have a look at them and see what the future holds for online learning.

THE DEATH OF MY DESIRES

“A mind all logic is like a knife all blade. It makes the hand bleed that uses it.” - Rabindranath Tagore
 

Picasso it is today for Magpie Tales’ creative writing meme. Here is my contribution.

The Death of my Desires
 

This is the evening
Of the death of my desires,
Subdued by all the arguments
Of my logic and cool reason.
 

This is the night
When I transcend my animal passions
Changing them to swift-flying thought,
That wings me away from temptation.
 

This is the morning after,
When I have changed myself
Into a creature of rationality,
Embarking on noetic voyages.
 

And in the blinding noonday sun
Of growing wisdom,
I shall sacrifice my heart,
On fires that are fuelled by burning flesh
And dedicate all of my animal instincts
On the altar of Diana and Athene.

MOVIE MONDAY - MARIGOLD HOTEL

“Old age, believe me, is a good and pleasant thing. It is true you are gently shouldered off the stage, but then you are given such a comfortable front stall as a spectator.” - Confucius
 
We watched a delightful movie at the weekend, which provided us with an opportunity to relax, sit back and enjoy a thoughtful, amusing and poignant statement on old age. It was John Madden’s 2011 “The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel", starring Judi Dench, Bill Nighy, Dev Patel, Penelope Wilton, Tom Wilkinson, Celia Imrie, Ronald Pickup and Maggie Smith. The film is based on the novel “These Foolish Things” by Deborah Moggach, with a screenplay by Ol Parker.
 
The film concerns a motley group of British retirees who for different reasons, decide to “outsource” their retirement to exotic India. The grounds for moving there are varied and range from the economic, to the medical, to the lure of adventure, to the call of the past. They are attracted by advertisements for the newly-restored best, exotic “Marigold Hotel”, near Jaipur, but when they arrive they find an ancient, crumbling palace which is merely a shadow of its former glorious self. It is run by a young, inexperienced but enthusiastic landlord who has his own battles to fight. The interactions amongst the British tourists themselves as well as their interactions with the Indians are a source of humour, exasperation, sympathy, pleasure and perplexity for the viewer – not to mention the complex goings-on amongst the Indians.
 
The movie provides a wonderful vehicle for the talents of the geriatric British cast. Maggie Smith playing a prejudiced Englishwoman forced to “live in hell” is a wonderful study in small-minded parochialism, which nevertheless is ripe for redemption. Judi Dench acts wonderfully the role of a woman searching to find herself as a widow who in the past has relied too much on her husband. Nighy and Wilton play a couple with old scars and deep marital problems, brought to the fore by their recent penury and their forced expatriation to an India that is fascinating to one but repugnant to the other. Ronald Pickup plays a randy old man who is in search of paramours, while Imrie is the former society divorcée (with many notches on her belt) who searches for her next rich husband (or maybe that should be, victim…).
 
Perhaps the most poignant role is played by Tom Wilkinson, a newly-retired high court judge who has come to India to find the long-lost love of his youth. Dev Patel hams it up slightly as the landlord, and represents the young, vibrant India, which is desperate to catch up with the rest of the world and take the opportunities offered by rapid development. He has to fight not only to succeed as the hotel owner, but he also must defend his love, which is attacked by his traditional and all-too-sensible mother.
 
This is an intelligent, thoughtful movie with its fair share of wry humour, poignant moments, love and hate, pleasantry and seriousness. It makes a comment on old age and youth, love and lust, tradition and progress, prejudice and tolerance, religious fervour and agnosticism. It is an ensemble piece that works the plot in multihued threads, as the characters’ lives ravel and unravel, working their way in patterns created by the warp and woof of the story.
 
We enjoyed the film immensely and although it is not a particularly deep film nor is it one that will give you deep belly laughs, it combines humour and melancholy in the right doses to give one a pleasant viewing experience that is tinged with the right amount of poignancy to make it suitably bitter-sweet and perfect for a lazy Sunday afternoon, while the rain is falling outside. We recommend this film and give it a rating of 7.5/10.

ART SUNDAY - BERNADETTE KIELY

“Out of Ireland have we come, great hatred, little room, maimed us at the start. I carry from my mother’s womb a fanatic heart.” - William Butler Yeats
 
Saint Patrick’s Day is a predominantly Irish holiday honouring the missionary credited with converting the Irish to Christianity in the 5th century AD. He was born around 373 AD in either Scotland (near the town of Dumbarton) or in Roman Britain (the Romans left Britain in 410 AD). His real name is believed to be Maewyn Succat .  He was kidnapped at the age of 16 by pirates and sold into slavery in Ireland . During his 6-year captivity, while he worked as a shepherd, he began to have religious visions, and found strength in his faith. He finally escaped, going to France, where he became a priest, taking on the name of Patrick.  When he was about 60 years old, St. Patrick travelled to Ireland to spread the Christian word. Reputedly, Patrick had a winning personality, which helped him to convert the fun-loving Irish to Christianity. He used the shamrock, which resembles a three-leafed clover, as a metaphor to explain the concept of the Holy Trinity. Saint Patrick allegedly drove all snakes out of Ireland.  This may be an allegory, as the snake was one of the revered pagan symbols.
 
As it is an Irish day today, why not feature an Irish artist for Art Sunday? Bernadette Kiely is a contemporary Irish artist who was born in County Tipperary. She lives in Thomastown, Co. Kilkenny. She attended the National College of Art and Design, Waterford and the Slade School of Fine Art, London. Her work is in numerous public and private collections, including those of the AIB, the George Moore Society, the Butler Gallery, the Garter Lane Art Centre, the University of Limerick, and the Ballinglen Arts Foundation.
 
She has been involved in a number of artists’ residencies (Cill Rialaig Artists Retreat in Co. Kerry and the Tyrone Guthrie Centre in Co. Monaghan). Her work has been included in major international group shows including Famine and has had a number of exhibitions in London. She teaches part time at Grennan Mill Craft School, Thomastown, Co. Kilkenny.
 
Kiely’s paintings convey a sense of fascination with and passion for the ephemeral, transient phenomena in nature. Her narrow focussed view of the landscape provides a private view of the world and a quasi-abstracted narrowness of vision that forces the viewer to examine the detail of the scene, examine the light and be fascinated by the colour as interpreted in the instant the painter has chosen to capture.

ROSES ARE GREY

“A single rose can be my garden... A single friend, my world.” Leo Buscaglia
 

I’m in a strange mood all day today: Sunshine and rain, laughter and tears, success and failure, major and minor, pleasure and pain… Here is the perfect song that encapsulates my day. Seal’s “Kiss from a Rose”.

FOOD FRIDAY: GADO-GADO

“The wish for healing has always been half of health." - Lucius Annaeus Seneca
 
Gado-Gado is an Indonesian vegetable dish, which means “mixtures”. The exact composition of the vegetable mixture varies, but usually comprises seasonal vegetable that are locally available. Typically, authentic gado-gado does not have carrot and tomatoes. Depending on your greengrocer’s stocks and how well Asian vegetable are represented you may use the following (vegetarians may omit the objectionable ingredients):
 
Gado-Gado (Jakarta Style)
Ingredients
 
Blanched: Shredded, chopped, or sliced green vegetables such as cabbage, kang-kung, young boiled jack fruit, string beans, bitter melon, and corn

Uncooked: Sliced cucumber, bean sprouts and lettuce

Fried: Tofu and/or tempeh

Sliced boiled potatoes

Boiled eggs, sliced
 
Peanut sauce dressing is the characteristic feature of the dish, and this is poured on top of the vegetable salad before serving. The composition of this peanut sauce varies also, but it is warmed before mixing and serving.

Ground fried peanuts (kidney beans may be substituted for a richer taste)

Coconut sugar/palm sugar (can substitute brown sugar)

Chillies (according to taste)

Lime juice

Terasi (dried shrimp paste)

Tamarind water to dilute
 
Method

Assemble the cold vegetables and eggs in a pleasing arrangement on lettuce leaves. Pour on the warm peanut sauce and serve immediately. This is a complete meal in itself. Gado-gado is always served with krupuk (kind of crackers, usually tapioca crackers), or also with emping (Indonesian style fried crackers, which are made from melinjo). In Indonesia, Gado-gado is usually served with rice or lontong (rice cake wrapped in banana leaf).
 
This post is part of the Food Friday meme,
and also part of the Food Trip Friday meme.

WOLF IN GRENADA, GATHERING IVY

“Learn as if you were to live forever; live as if you were to die tomorrow.” - Proverb
 

Today is the National Day of Grenada, an island country and Commonwealth realm consisting of the island of Grenada and six smaller islands at the southern end of the Grenadines in the southeastern Caribbean Sea. Grenada is located northwest of Trinidad and Tobago, northeast of Venezuela, and southwest of Saint Vincent and the Grenadines. Grenada is also known as the “Island of Spice” because of the production of nutmeg and mace crops of which Grenada is one of the world's largest exporters. Its size is 344 square kilometres, with an estimated population of 110,000. Its capital is St. George’s. The national bird of Grenada is the critically endangered Grenada Dove.
 

Today is also the anniversary of the birthday of:
Innocent XII (Antonio Pignatelli), Pope of Rome (1615);
Charles Bonnett, naturalist of parthenogenesis fame (1720);
Joseph Priestley, chemist (1733);
Josef II, Holy Roman Emperor (1741);
Percival Lowell, astronomer (1855);
Hugo Wolf, Austrian composer (1860);
Hugh (Seymour) Walpole, novelist (1884);
Janet Flanner, writer (1892);
Henry Hathaway, director (1898);
George Seferis (Yorgos Seferiadis), Nobel laureate (1963) Greek poet (1900);
Walter H. Annenberg, publisher/philanthropist (1908);
Ron(ald Lafayette) Hubbard, US scientology cult founder/author (1911);
Tessie O’Shea, actress (1918);
Neil Sedaka, singer/songwriter (1939);
Deborah Raffin, actress (1953).
 

Today’s birthday plant is the ivy flowerheads, Hedera helix.  It is symbolic of a need of support, tenacity, wedded love, fidelity and immortality.  It is a plant of Saturn and in some circles considered an evil omen as it kills whatever it embraces.
 

The planet Uranus was discovered on this day in 1781 by the astronomer William Herschel. The planet was originally called Georgius Sidus to honour king George III, patron of Herschel.
 

Hugo Wolf (1860–1903), an Austrian composer is one of the great masters of the German art song. He wrote over 300 lieder, in which he adapted Wagner’s musical conceptions. He also wrote an opera, Der Corregidor (1895), choral works, and chamber music. He is best known for his musical settings of the poetry of Goethe and Italian and Spanish writers. His Italian Songbook, a setting of mainly anonymous Italian folk lyrics, is lovely.
 

Dying on this day: In 1619, Richard Burbage, English actor who built Shakespeare’s Globe theatre; in 1881, Czar Alexander II of Russia was assassinated by anti-monarchist bombers; 1901, Benjamin Harrison, 23rd US president; in 1943, Stephen Vincent Benet, US poet best known for John Brown’s Body; in 1947, Angela Brazil, English author.

SO FAR FROM ME

“Though lovers be lost, love shall not; And death shall have no dominion.” - Dylan Thomas
 
Another week, another image from Magpie Tales for our delectation and inspiration. Pardon me, Robin Gosnall, for turning the lights out on your vista, but the moon was waiting too impatiently in the wings…
 
So Far from Me
 
You are so far,
So far away from me,
O’er land and sea;
As far as star above
In evening sky, my love,
Still bright to see…
 
You are so far
Away from me, as moon,
Or sun above, at noon;
So far and yet so near
Like music in my ear,
So good to hear…
 
You are so far,
An island so alone,
In midst of sea unknown;
So far away you flee,
And yet a part of me
Forever here…
 
You are so far,
Untouchable, you seem
A silver moon’s beam;
As far as distant shore
Where love you swore
Eternally…
 
You are so far,
Forever gone from me,
A lock without a key;
As far as heaven high,
And yet forever nigh,
Deep in my heart.

BELATED MOVIE MONDAY - '13'

“Gambling is a disease of barbarians superficially civilized.” – Dean William Inge
 
Last weekend we watched the 2010 Géla Babluani thriller “13”, starring Sam Riley, Alice Barrett, Mickey Rourke, Ray Winstone, Jason Statham and Gaby Hoffmann. This was a good little thriller that was based on the Russian roulette idea and highlighted the perils of gambling, especially when the stakes are so high that they involve human lives. It paints a horrible picture of the lowest forms of human and the evil aspects of human nature.
 
The story begins in Talbot, Ohio, where an honest family of limited means finds themselves in dire economic straits when the father requires expensive, life-saving surgery. The son Vince (Riley), an electrician, overhears a man talking about making an obscene amount of money in just one day. Vince is fixing the electrical wiring in the man’s house and when the man overdoses on drugs, Vince finds a letter with instructions and a mobile phone that the man has received, both of which are connected with the money-making operation. Vince takes the man’s place and travels to New York to await contact and further instructions. He ends up at a remote house where wealthy men bet on who will survive a complicated gambling game of Russian roulette. Vince is Number 13 and even though his false identity is discovered very early in the piece, it’s too late for the gamblers not to use him. The psychological stress on Vince is immense as he attempts to cheat injury and death and make enough money to save his family.
 
The film is seems slightly overlong (even at 91 minutes) and could do with some editing down or alternatively a more substantial subplot. The flashbacks showing the lives of a selected few other players are a digression and an annoyance rather than a genuine subplot that highlights the main plot. Apparently this is a remake of a 2005 French film “13 Tzameti” by the same director, which has received more positive criticism and a higher rating in IMDB. I have not seen this earlier film, but I suspect that as is the case with many Hollywood remakes of foreign films, the second version is inferior.
 
The film is nevertheless a good study of gambling and how far gambling men will go to get their thrills. Cock-fights and dog-fights seem very tame compared to the “game” portrayed in this film. That such a gruesome gambling scheme could exist is a horrifying thought, but the way that it is depicted on film is quite chilling and the violence – both explicit and implicit is alarming. This film is not for the lily-livered and could cause many people to flinch and turn the DVD player off. It lays bare the dregs of humanity that resort to such activities and exemplifies very well the saying that “Humans are the basest of beasts”.

ART SUNDAY - FRANCISCO BAYEU

“Faith is to believe what you do not see; the reward of this faith is to see what you believe.” - Saint Augustine of Hippo

Francisco Bayeu y Subías (1734-1795) was a Spanish painter famous for his paintings in the Romantic, Neoclassical and Baroque styles. Bayeu y Subías was also a part of a famous family of artists, which included his two brothers, Ramón and Manuel. Little is known of Francisco Bayeu y Subías’s early childhood except that he was born in Zaragoza and it is therefore most likely that he began his education here either with the Jesuits or the Escolapios. At the age of fourteen, Francisco began training with the Baroque Spanish painter José Luzán Martínez until the year of 1753. When the painter Antonio González Velázquez arrived in Zaragoza, he hired Francisco Bayeu y Subías as an apprentice. The relationship between the two must have been good as for many years, Antonio González Velázquez financially supported the young Francisco with his studies in Madrid at the “Academia Real de Bellas Artes de San Fernando”.

From 1753, Francisco Bayeu y Subías worked as an artist in Madrid. In 1758 he returned to Zaragoza where he acquired a large clientele. Here he married Sebastiana Merclein y Salillas, the daughter of another local painter who was familiar with the Aragonese art market, which was in fact one of the reasons for the marriage. From this point on, Bayeu y Subías’s commissions increased and his works became popular. The most famous work of this period was the piece he painted for the “Monasterio Jerónimo de Santa Engracia de Zaragoza”

In 1763, Francisco Bayeu y Subías was invited to Madrid by Anton Raphael Mengs in order to work collaboratively on the decoration of the Royal Palace. With the help of Mengs, Francisco became one of the most popular artists in Madrid. From then on, the majority of Bayeu y Subías’s paintings would be for the Royal Court, and were often portraits of Royal Family. Francisco Bayeu y Subías was named an official Court painter in 1767 by the Spanish King, Charles III of Spain. While at Court in Madrid, Francisco Bayeu y Subías met the young Francisco Goya whom he protected and helped out. Goya even married Bayeu y Subías’s sister, Josefa Bayeu in 1773.

Bayeu y Subías was considered to be an excellent fresco painter and was often commissioned with the interior decoration of buildings. Together with Anton Raphael Mengs, Francisco painted many of the rooms in the various Royal palaces including the Palacio Real in Madrid, the Palacio de Aranjuez and the Palacio de El Pardo. During this time he also painted in many churches too such as the Convento de la Encarnación in Madrid, the Basílica del Pilar in Zaragoza, and the cloisters in the Cathedral of Toledo.

While painting the Basilica of Pilar in Zaragoza, Francisco Bayeu y Subías also employed Francisco Goya to help out as well as employing some members of his own family. It was during this project that the two artists fell out and became rivals, as both were considered to be important artists of the Royal Court.

In recognition of Bayeu y Subías’s work, he received many titles and awards. He became the Head Director of Painting at the Royal Academy of Fine Arts of San Fernando in Madrid in 1765, among other high positions in other Spanish art schools. He eventually became the director of the Academy in 1795. Francisco Bayeu y Subías also received much compensation from the Royal Court in reward for his achievements. Francisco Bayeu y Subías continued working and painting frescoes, content with his large salary from the Spanish Royal Family. However in 1795, he fell ill and did not recover, dying in the early morning of the 5th of August of the same year in Madrid.

His subjects at the Toledo cathedral are scenes from the life of St. Eugenio. There are fifteen works by the painter in the Museum of the Prado at Madrid. Among them are “The Coronation of the Virgin”, “The Ascension”, “The Evangelist St. Matthew”, “The Evangelist St. Mark”, “The Evangelist St. Luke”, “The Evangelist St. John”, “Olympus” — all studies for more important works. Don Francisco was also an etcher, and executed a small number of plates.

The work above is “Saint James being visited by the Virgin” (1760). Legend credited Saint James with bringing Christianity to Spain. When passing through Zaragoza he was visited by the Virgin, who gave him with a statuette of herself on a jasper columnar pillar. This gave the name of “El Pilar” to enormous basilica has grown on the site, one of the most venerated shrines in Spain. The subject is therefore popular in Zaragoza. Sketches made by Antonio Gonzales Velázquez in 1753 for frescoes in the dome seem to have influenced Bayeu’s design. This was a perhaps a private version of these works. It also shows the influence of Giaquinto on Bayeu.