MUSIC SATURDAY - LULLY

“Whether you like it or not, Paris is the beating heart of Western civilisation. It’s where it all began and ended.” - Alan Furst
 
As we progress towards the Southern Midwinter, it is good to be able to enjoy some sunny days, even though they are cold. The nights have been very cold with frost or fog, yet not unpleasant enough to not walk about in.
 
For Music Saturday, some gems from the French Baroque: Jean Baptiste Lully (1632-1687) for  L’ Orchestre du Roi Soleil. Symphonies, Ouvertures & Airs à jouer. “Le Bourgeois Gentilhomme”; “Le Divertissement Royal”; “Alceste’; Chaconne de “L’ Amour Médecin” played by Le Concert des Nations directed by Jordi Savall. In Federation Square the other day a busker was playing one of the menuets from here. Just goes to show what a cultured place I live in!
 
Jean-Baptiste Lully (Italian: Giovanni Battista Lulli) 28 November 1632 – 22 March 1687, was a Florentine-born French composer who spent most of his life working in the court of Louis XIV of France. He is considered the chief master of the French baroque style. Lully disavowed any Italian influence in French music of the period. He became a French subject in 1661.

Lully’s music was written during the Middle Baroque period, 1650 to 1700. Typical of Baroque music is the use of the basso continuo as the driving force behind the music. The pitch standard for French Baroque music was about 392 Hz for A above middle C, a whole tone lower than modern practice where A is usually 440 Hz.  Lully’s music is known for its power, liveliness in its fast movements and its deep emotional character in its sad movements. Some of his most popular works are his passacaille (passacaglia) and chaconne, which are dance movements found in many of his works such as Armide or Phaëton.
 
The influence of Lully's music produced a radical revolution in the style of the dances of the court itself. In the place of the slow and stately movements, which had prevailed until then, he introduced lively ballets of rapid rhythm, often based on well-known dance types such as gavottes, menuets, rigaudons and sarabandes.
 
Through his collaboration with playwright Molière, a new music form emerged during the 1660s: the comédie-ballet which combined theatre, comedy, incidental music and ballet. The popularity of these plays, with their sometimes lavish special effects, and the success and publication of Lully’s operas and its diffusion beyond the borders of France, played a crucial role in synthesising, consolidating and disseminating orchestral organisation, scorings, performance practices, and repertory.

FOOD FRIDAY - GARAM MASALA

“Once you get a spice in your home, you have it forever. Women never throw out spices. The Egyptians were buried with their spices. I know which one I'm taking with me when I go.” - Erma Bombeck
 
Garam masala (from Hindi: Garam “hot” and masala “spices”) is a blend of ground spices common in North Indian and other South Asian cuisines. It is used alone or with other seasonings. The word garam refers to intensity of the spices rather than capsaicin content. A typical Indian version of garam masala is: Black & white peppercorns, cloves, cinnamon, black and white cumin seeds, black, brown and green cardamom pods, mace and bay leaf.
 
Some recipes call for spices to be blended with herbs, while others for the spices to be ground with water, vinegar, coconut milk, or other liquids, to make a paste. In some recipes nuts, onion or garlic may be added. The flavours may be carefully blended to achieve a balanced effect, or a single flavour may be emphasised. Usually a masala is toasted before use to release its flavour and aromas. Here is a vegetarian recipe, which I got from friends of ours after enjoying it at a dinner at their house.

Vegetarian Masala
Ingredients
 
3 cm long piece of fresh ginger, washed, peeled, sliced
2 cloves garlic, peeled
1 can peeled tomatoes
1/2 teaspoon cayenne pepper
2 tablespoons olive oil
1 onion, chopped
1 small yellow capsicum, diced
1 small green capsicum, diced
2 potatoes, peeled and cubed
2 carrots, sliced
1 and 1/2 teaspoons garam masala
1/2 teaspoon chilli powder
350 g cauliflower florets
1/2 cup coconut milk
 
Method
Process ginger and garlic in food processor until finely chopped. Add tomatoes with juice and cayenne pepper, and pulse until combined. Set aside.
 
Heat oil in saucepan over medium heat. Add onion and capsicum, and sauté 10 minutes, or until softened. Stir in potatoes, carrots, cauliflower florets, garam masala, and chilli powder. Cover, reduce heat to medium-low, and cook 10 minutes, stirring occasionally.
 
Add tomato mixture, and 1/2 cup water. Simmer 20 minutes. Remove from heat, and stir in coconut milk. Season with salt and pepper to taste. Serve with steamed rice.
 
This post is part of the Food Friday meme,
and also part of the Food Trip Friday meme.

AUSTRALIAN POLITICS

“One of the penalties for refusing to participate in politics is that you end up being governed by your inferiors.” - Plato
 

Well, Australian politics has once again proven that it is a volatile, yet not unpredictable, arena of power games. On the 24th of June 2010, Kevin Rudd elected Prime Minister of the Labor Party is ousted form leadership by his deputy Julia Gillard who assumed the top job, becoming Australia’s first female Prime Minister. For nearly two years, Rudd and Gillard have been playing power games, garnering support in a Government that is hanging on the edge of a precarious, small majority. Various political scandals, leaks, squabbles and leadership speculation have made the Labor Party seem like a spent force in the political stakes and the alternative on the side of the Liberals is not an option that many Labor supporters would consider as an alternative on election day, especially given the leader of the opposition, Tony Abbott never a popular choice as Prime Minister.
 

On the 27th of February 2012, Julia Gillard won a leadership poll quite comfortably, with Rudd getting 29 votes to her 73 votes of support in the Labor Caucus. On the 30th of January Gillard announced a September 12th election this year. This marked the beginning of the end of hopes of a Labor party re-election with litmus test polls making it quite clear that she could never lead the Labor party to a win in this poll.
 

On June 26th Kevin Rudd was re-elected as Prime Minister by the Labor Caucus defeating Julia Gillard 57 to 45 votes. Rudd has taken back the PM position, three years to the week after he was pushed out. It is easy to imagine that Kevin Rudd may think that this has all been about righting a wrong, seizing back what was his “by right”. He did say in the press conference immediately after the ballot results were announced: “In 2007 the Australian people elected me to be their PM. That is the task that I resume today …” The leadership squabble has been costly to the party and contributed to, although is not responsible for, Gillard’s failures. This has not surprisingly, led to Gillard’s announcement about her retirement from politics.
 

These events of the past three years have highlighted that the Australian Labor Party nationally has experienced its most rancorous divisions since the split of the 1950s. The present situation, contrary to the split of the 1950s, involves the party in government, as opposed to the 1950s when the party was in opposition. More damning now, is the reason behind the divisiveness, which in the 1950s was due to ideological and philosophical differences within the party ranks while now, egos seem to be involved. This may reflect the deterioration of politics worldwide into polls based on personality and popularity rather than fundamental differences in political policy, ideology and key strategic directions.
 

The progressive, slightly left-leaning Labor party in Australian politics has in the last two decades moved towards the right, becoming more capitalistic, more conservative and more influenced by globalisation policies that favour big company interests. The conservative, rightist Liberal party is not much different from the Labor Party in ideology and policy, but perhaps they may be more honest in the rhetoric that admits the direction they advocate. Many people later this year will have a real problem when they go to vote. We may see quite a shift towards the minor parties, the worse case scenario being one of the small parties holding the balance of power, which may make governing the country difficult. We shall see what we shall see…

THIS MOMENT

“There is no pain so great as the memory of joy in present grief.” - Aeschylus
 

Magpie Tales has provided us with a photograph, “University of Michigan fraternity party” by Stanley Kubrick for “Look” magazine. This is the springboard for several creative endeavours that followers of her blog embark on. Here is mine:
 
This Moment
 
This moment will be the moment
That will be sweet remembrance,
As the years pass, and we shall be reminiscing.
 
The acrid smell of a lighter just struck,
And the billows of aromatic smoke,
As burning menthol of cigarette just lit, sublimates.
 
The glow of your moist eyes
Illuminated by the flame of love,
Or is it lust, perhaps, or maybe just pure desire?
 
The song that was playing,
Just before it became “our song”,
Will remain forever special, even beyond our separation.
 
This moment is the moment
That right now makes time elastic
The moment lasting forever, only because we wish it so.
 
The warmth of your body,
Because of its nearness, or is it mine?
Or perhaps the fire burning, crackling in the fireplace?
 
The sound of voices,
Uttering sweet susurrations
That vocalise our innermost thoughts and desires…
 
That moment was the moment
That we remember now,
Complete in every one of its myriad of details.
 
The moment has been the moment
That defined us and our separate lives;
A photograph just found, less accurate than our sweet memories.

BELATED MUSIC MONDAY - THE CONCERT

“Music in the soul can be heard by the universe.” - Laozi
 
When one travels the routine is disrupted and one’s schedule is thrown somewhat awry. This is especially the case with work trips that are often rushed and leave one little available time for oneself. Having said that, here’s the usual Monday Movie review, slightly belated. We watched this movie last weekend and it was just right for us at the time as it combined humour with pathos, poignancy with satire. We enjoyed it thoroughly and we recommend it for viewing.
 
It is Radu Mihaileanu’s 2009 film “The Concert” starring Aleksey Guskov, Dmitriy Nazarov and Mélanie Laurent. It is a European collaborative production with contributions from France, Italy, Romania, Belgium and Russia, with the soundtrack in Russian and French. The scenario is by Radu Mihaileanua and Alain-Michel Blanc, based on a story by Héctor Cabello Reyes and Thierry Degrandi.
 
The story begins in Moscow, where the former conductor of the Bolshoi Orchestra Andrey Simonovich Filipov is now, 30 years later, the cleaner of the theatre. Andrey fell in disgrace with the Communist Party for protecting the Jewish musicians of the orchestra and was forbidden to ever conduct an orchestra again. One night while cleaning the present orchestra director’s office, Andrey reads a just-received fax and inspired by its contents, he hides the document. The fax is from the Châtelet Theatre in Paris, which has just invited the Bolshoi Orchestra to perform a concert in Paris within two weeks.
 
Andrey shows the fax to his friend and cello player Aleksandr ‘Sasha’ Abramovich Grosman who now drives an ambulance and together they decide to reunite fifty-five former musicians of the Bolshoi Orchestra to travel to Paris and perform The Violin Concerto in D major, Op. 35, by Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky. This is to be done secretly as they will impersonate the current Bolshoi Orchestra, which is no longer up to international standard playing.

Andrey invites the Communist leader and former KGB man, Ivan Gavrilov, to manage the orchestra and he requests from the French organisers for the orchestrea to stay in Paris for three days and the prominent violinist Anne-Marie Jacquet to play the solo violin part. When the Russians arrive in Paris, Andrey meets Anne-Marie while the musicians go wild wandering around the city, partying but also raising money by doing odd jobs. The unprofessionalism of the Russian musicians forces Anne-Marie to call off the concert; but Sasha convinces her to come to the theatre.

Meanwhile Andrey reminisces an incident with the violinist Lea thirty years ago and he struggles to keep hiding a secret from Anne-Marie. Meanwhile, the real Bolshoi Orchestra director comes to paris with his family on holiday and sees advertisements for the Bolshoi concert. Will he interfere? What is the connection between Andrey and Anne-Marie? Will Andrey find his wandering musicians? Will the concert go ahead? Will Andrey be able to conduct after all these years without even a single rehearsal?
 
The film is well produced and directed and the acting is wonderful – especially the bumbling orchestra members, the caricatured Russian officials and the exasperated Frenchmen who are trying desperately to raise cash with this special concert. The music as one would expect is wonderful and Tchaikovsky’s score is supplemented by Armand Amar’s original incidental music. It was an enjoyable and often touching film.

POSTCARD FROM FREMANTLE

“Don’t worry about the world coming to an end today. It is already tomorrow in Australia.” - Charles M. Schulz
 

I am in Perth for work for a few days and I staying in Fremantle. Fremantle is a city in Western Australia, located at the mouth of the Swan River. Fremantle Harbour serves as the port of Perth, the state capital. Fremantle was the first area settled by the Swan River colonists in 1829. It was declared a city in 1929, and has a population of approximately 25,000.The city is named after Captain Charles Howe Fremantle, the English naval officer who had pronounced possession of Western Australia and who established a camp at the site. The city contains well-preserved 19th-century buildings and other heritage features. The Western Australian vernacular diminutive for Fremantle is Freo.
 

Being a weeknight in Winter last night, it was not surprising that the streets were quite deserted even though it was still early when I went out for a walk. Nevertheless, the atmosphere was one of eerie desolation, accentuated somewhat by the sodium lamps and their amber light. Winter in Perth is much milder than in Melbourne, with the temperature yesterday climbing towards 20˚C and falling to about 12˚C at night. Very pleasant, compared to the -1˚C minimum in Melbourne the other night.

Fremantle is quite an amazing town with many old, lovingly restored Victorian buildings. The University of Notre Dame has done quite a great deal in reviving and renovating whole blocks of the West End, with many of the streetscapes reminding one intensely of times gone by. There is great architectural heritage, including convict-built colonial-era buildings, an old jetty and port, and prisons; presenting a variety and unity of historic buildings and streetscapes. These were often built in limestone with ornate façades in a succession of architectural styles. Rapid development following the harbour works gave rise to an Edwardian precinct as merchant and shipping companies built in the west end and on reclaimed land.

ART SUNDAY - BERTHE MORISOT

“No great artist ever sees things as they really are. If he did, he would cease to be an artist.” - Oscar Wilde
 

For Art Sunday today, the French artist, Berthe Morisot (born January 14, 1841, Bourges, France and died March 2, 1895, Paris). Morisot was a French painter and printmaker who exhibited regularly with the Impressionists and, despite the protests of friends and family, continued to participate in their struggle for recognition. Her canvases are suffused with light and colour and some of her portraits of mothers and children are wonderful examples of the genre.
 

The daughter of a high government official (and a granddaughter of the important Rococo painter Jean-Honoré Fragonard), Morisot decided early to be an artist and pursued her goal with seriousness and dedication. From 1862 to 1868 she worked under the guidance of Camille Corot. She first exhibited paintings at the Salon in 1864. Her work was exhibited there regularly through 1874, when she vowed never to show her paintings in the officially sanctioned forum again. In 1868 she met Édouard Manet, who was to exert a tremendous influence over her work. He did several portraits of her (e.g., “Repose,” c. 1870). Manet had a liberating effect on her work, and she in turn aroused his interest in outdoor painting.
 

Morisot's work never lost its Manet-like quality, with an insistence on design. She did not become as involved in colour-optical experimentation as her fellow Impressionists. Her paintings frequently included members of her family, particularly her sister, Edma (e.g., “The Artist's Sister, Mme Pontillon, Seated on the Grass,” 1873; and “The Artist’s Sister Edma and Their Mother,” 1870).
 

Delicate and subtle, exquisite in colour with, often a subdued emerald glow, they won her the admiration of her Impressionist colleagues. Like that of the other Impressionists, her work was ridiculed by many critics. Never commercially successful during her lifetime, she nevertheless outsold Claude Monet, Pierre-Auguste Renoir, and Alfred Sisley. She was a woman of great culture and charm and counted among her close friends Stéphane Mallarmé, Edgar Degas, Charles Baudelaire, Émile Zola, Emmanuel Chabrier, Renoir, and Monet. She married Édouard Manet’s younger brother Eugène.
 

In the painting above, “In the Garden at Maurecourt”, Morisot’s style is shown well. The immediate effect of the “impression” that scene makes on the artist is apparent by the joyous brushstrokes, strong colours and the immediacy of the pose of the sitters. It is almost like a sketch in colour and yet an accomplished and finished art work.

SONG SATURDAY - FRIDA BOCCARA

“As soon go kindle fire with snow, as seek to quench the fire of love with words.” - William Shakespeare
 

For Music Saturday, a blast from the past. A song by French singer Frida Boccara (29 October 1940 – 1 August 1996). Frida Boccara was born in Casablanca, Morocco. She submitted the song “Autrefois” to the French Eurovision Song Contest selection panel in 1964 but she was unsuccessful. At the Eurovision Song Contest held in Madrid, Spain in 1969 she represented France and performed “Un jour, un enfant” (One day a child) – music by Emile Stern and text by Eddy Marnay. Her song (along with the entries from Netherlands, United Kingdom, and Spain) shared first place. Boccara renewed her links with Eurovision by participating in the French national finals of 1980 and 1981. However, neither song won. She died in 1996 in Paris, aged 55, from a pulmonary infection.
 

Here is a lovely song of hers with an olden sound and feel, as delicate as porcelain and crystal. It considers the travails of love and the difficulty of choosing between one’s heart and one’s reason… The illustration above is Jean‑Honoré Fragonard’s (1732–1806) “The Shepherdess”, of 1750/52.

Il faut te décider
 

Il faut te décider, ma jolie bergère,
Je crois qu’ il faut te décider,
Roland veut t’ épouser et tu aimes Pierre,
Je crois qu’ il faut te décider.
 

Choisis l’ un ou l’ autre
Si tu n’ as pas envie de perdre par ta faute
Pierre et Roland, le dauphin du roi ou le berger.
Oui, il faut te décider.
 

Roland veut t’ épouser et tu aimes Pierre,
Je crois qu’ il faut te décider.
Roland est un berger et tu es bergère,
Un roi ne te voudra jamais.
 

Entre l’ un qui t’ aime et l’ autre
Qui ne t’ a pas vu, ni parlé même,
Pierre ou Roland, le rêve ou bien la réalité,
Tu ne dois pas hésiter.
 

Roland est un berger et tu es bergère,
Alors, il faut aller danser.
Quand vous aurez dansé une nuit entière,
Tu sauras bien te décider.
 

A travers la ronde, tu verras qu’ il vaut mieux
Que tous les rois du monde,
Celui qui a plutôt des royaumes à te donner
Une couronne à garder.
 

Il faut te décider, ma jolie bergère,
Je crois qu'il faut te décider.
Roland veut t’ épouser, tu oublieras Pierre,
L’ amour est là pour décider.
 

You Must Decide
 

You must decide, my pretty shepherdess,
I think you have to decide:
Roland wants to marry you and you love Pierre,
I think you should decide.
 

Choose one or the other
If you do not want to lose both through your fault;
Pierre or Roland, the prince or the shepherd.
Yes, you must decide.
 

Roland wants to marry you but you love Pierre,
I think you should decide.
Roland is a shepherd and you're a shepherdess,
A king will never want you.
 

Between the one who loves you,
And the one that you have not seen, or even spoken to,
Roland or Pierre, dream or reality,
You should not hesitate.
 

Roland is a shepherd and you are shepherdess…
Now you must go dancing,
And when you have danced all night,
You’ll know what you must decide.
 

When you consider all, you’ll see that
Rather than choosing any of the kings,
Rather than all the kingdoms of the world, it is better
To choose the one who gives you a wedding crown.
 

You should you decide, my pretty shepherdess,
I think you should decide.
Roland wants to marry you, you’ll forget Pierre,
Love is there to decide for you.

FOOD FRIDAY - LENTIL RISSOLES

“The wish for healing has always been half of health.” - Lucius Annaeus Seneca
 
It is the Winter Solstice today in the Southern Hemisphere and we have been having very cold nights but fine and mainly sunny days, with the temperature hovering around 14˚C maximum. The short days and long nights have meant going to work early in the morning in the darkness and coming back home in the dark also. Nothing like a satisfying and hearty meal to revive one’s body and spirits. These vegetarian lentil rissoles are just the thing for these winter nights.
 
Lentil Rissoles
Ingredients
 
4 slices wholegrain bread, crusts removed
100 g unsalted cashews
100 g walnuts
1 egg, lightly beaten
1/4 cup chopped coriander
3 tablespoons tahini
Olive oil to fry
Salt and pepper
1 tsp ground cumin
Pinch of curry (optional, may add more if so desired)
400g brown lentils, soaked for several hours, boiled, rinsed and drained
100 g Greek-style yoghurt
 
Method
Place the bread in a food processor and process until coarsely chopped. Add the cashews, walnuts, egg, coriander, 1 tablespoon tahini, salt and pepper, cumin, curry, and process until well combined. Add the lentils and process until well combined.

Place the lentil mixture in a bowl. With damp hands, divide the mixture into 8 portions. Roll and flatten each portion into a flat, round shape. Place on a tray lined with non-stick baking paper and refrigerate for 20 minutes.

Heat a little olive oil in a large non-stick frying pan over medium heat. Cook the rissoles in batches for 4 minutes each side or until golden. Transfer to a plate and cover with foil to keep warm.

While the patties are cooking, combine 2 tablespoons of tahini and yoghurt.

Place the patties on serving plates. Serve with the sauce and a simple seasonal salad.
 

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

LET'S HAVE SOME MUSIC!

“I was born with music inside me. Music was one of my parts. Like my ribs, my kidneys, my liver, my heart. Like my blood. It was a force already within me when I arrived on the scene. It was a necessity for me-like food or water.” - Ray Charles
 
A bit of a heads for tomorrow! June 21 has been designated as World Music Day, an occasion when the whole world can celebrate the wondrous gift of music. The commemorative day originated in France when, in 1976, American musician Joel Cohen, proposed an all-night music celebration to mark the beginning of the summer solstice and since then, it has become a worldwide phenomenon with over 32 countries worldwide joining in with their own celebrations regardless of the season.
 
It is a day of free music, where musicians - local and amateur - are allowed and encouraged to perform their music in public spaces without any restriction. It is an important opportunity to actively celebrate the spirit of music in all its forms.
 
Music is the art concerned with combining vocal or instrumental sounds for beauty of form or emotional expression, usually according to cultural standards of rhythm, melody, and, in most Western music, harmony. Something like the simple folk song or the highly complex electronic composition belong to the same activity, and can be classified as music. Both are humanly engineered; both are conceptual and auditory, and these factors have been present in music of all styles and in all periods of history, Eastern and Western.
 
Music in one form or another, is part of every human society and one could argue that it is satisfies an innate human need. Modern music is heard in a bewildering array of styles, many of them contemporary, others engendered in past eras. Music is a protean art, lending itself easily to alliances with words, as in song, and with physical movement, as in dance. Throughout history, music has been an important adjunct to ritual and drama and has been credited with the capacity to reflect and influence human emotion.
 
Popular culture has consistently exploited the inherent possibilities of music, most conspicuously today by means of radio, film, television, and the musical theatre. The implications of the uses of music in psychotherapy, geriatrics, and advertising testify to a faith in its power to affect human behaviour. Publications and recordings have effectively internationalised music in its most significant, as well as its most trivial, manifestations. Beyond all this, the teaching of music in primary and secondary schools has now attained virtually worldwide acceptance.
 
Celebrate World Music Day tomorrow by listening to, playing, performing or composing some music! Here is Franz Schubert’s (1797-1828) Unfinished Symphony in B minor, No.8, D.759, performed by the Staatskapelle Dresden, conducted by Wolfgang Sawallisch (conductor) in 1967

NICK VUJICIC

“For every disability you have, you are blessed with more than enough abilities to overcome your challenges.” - Nick Vujicic
 
I came across a mention of Nick Vujicic today and I remembered having read about this extraordinary person some time ago. Presently 30 years old Vujicic was born limbless in Australia in a Serbian immigrant family. He is now renowned for his work as an evangelist and motivational speaker. He also holds a degree in Financial Planning and Real Estate from Griffith University. He and his wife Kanae married in 2012 and have just shared the news of the birth of their son, Kiyoshi James.
 
Nick, who is mainly torso, still manages to play football and golf, he swims, and surfs, and has a normal life, enjoying what many of us have no inclination or willingness to try. He has a small foot on his left hip, which helps him balance and with which he can kick. He uses his one foot to type, write with a pen and pick things up between his toes. His father was a computer programmer and accountant and he taught his son how to type with his toe at just 6 years old. His mother invented a plastic device that enabled him to hold a pen and pencil.
 
Nevertheless it wasn’t easy. When he was born, his shocked father left the hospital room to vomit, while his distraught mother (herself a nurse) couldn’t get herself to hold him until he was four months old. Although his disability was a sporadic occurrence, an unexplained congenital malformation, due to unknown causes, his mother still blamed herself for it.  Despite the risk of bullying, his parents insisted Nick attend mainstream school. Nick, was teased and bullied, had an electric wheelchair for mobility, and a team of carers to help him. But understandably, he was deeply depressed and when he was eight years old he went to his mother crying and told her he wanted to kill himself. At ten he tried to drown himself, but fortunately, he did not succeed. Growing up, with the help of his family, friends and his faith, Nick managed to pull through to become an international symbol of triumph over adversity.
 
Some time ago I overheard a conversation on the train where two “normal” people were discussing someone with a “disability” and I was rather appalled by their assessment of his predicament. His physical “disability” was equated with a “mental deficiency” and his company was shunned because of this perceived physical and mental handicap. I was appalled by the insensitive, crass, prejudiced and short-sighted attitude that was based on ignorance.
 
The International Classification of Functioning (ICF) defines disability as “the outcome of the interaction between a person with an impairment and the environmental and attitudinal barriers he/she may face.” Personally I have always regarded someone with a disability as a “differently-abled” person. We all know the stories of blind people having much more acute senses of hearing and touch, we all know of people who have lost their arms or hands making a wonderful career as artists, handling the brush most ably with mouth or foot and producing stunning artworks.
 
I am humbled by people like Nick Vujicic. When I realise what can be achieved by people with severe physical handicaps, my own feeble efforts pale into insignificance although I am fit, able-bodied and healthy. The achievements of Helen Keller, Stephen Hawking, Christy Brown, John Nash, Jean-Dominique Bauby, Sudha Chandran and Nick Vujicic are towering monuments to enormous reserves of inner strength that resides in each and every one of us. How much we are capable of is revealed by these people who are differently abled, who have been empowered by their disability to achieve so much.
 
What better example of a different sort of ability than Stephen Hawking, who says: “It is a waste of time to be angry about my disability. One has to get on with life and I haven’t done badly. People won’t have time for you if you are always angry or complaining.” And this is how most people with a disability that I have met (and I have met with quite a few!) live with that disability. They get on with their lives and make the most of it, using their other (often super-abundant) abilities.
 
Whenever I discuss “therapeutic” abortions with people, a lively argument ensues. Most people find themselves in a bind when they consider the ethics of considering what constitutes an “acceptable” child and an “unacceptable” one. And yet, with some people the choice is easy: Any potential child will be accepted and given the ideal of unconditional love, whatever the disability or handicap it may carry. For these people, an abortion is simply not an option. Most others would prefer not to have that unconditional-love relationship with a certain subset of children. True enough, every person would prefer health over sickness, fully abled over partially abled, but the situation becomes extremely complex with what our definitions of “healthy” and “desirable” and “fully able” are.
 
Our world is enriched by people like Nick Vujicic and through his contribution to society, through his interaction with others, he makes the world a better place. La Rochefoucauld remarks that “It is a great ability to be able to conceal one’s ability.” I think that many “disabled” people do precisely that and live a balanced life. We the fully abled ones wish to flaunt our own ability so much, that instead we exhibit glaringly our own disabilities…

THE FLIGHT OF LOVE

“There is no remedy for love but to love more.” - Henry David Thoreau
 

A Marc Chagall painting, “The Promenade” (La promenade), of 1917-18 (Oil on canvas. 169.6 x 163.4 cm. State Russian Museum, St.Petersburg, Russia) has been provided by Magpie Tales to function as the creative spark for all who will take up her challenge. Here is my offering, with a slightly modified image (with apologies to Mr Chagall!).
 

The Flight of Love
 

When first we touched,
My heart sang and my spirit rose;
Pink madder tinting my dreams,
And colouring my reality crimson.
 

When first we touched,
Our thoughts coalesced;
Droplets of water fusing,
Our emotions merging seamlessly.
 

When first we touched,
You flew up high, soaring;
A bird with wings spread wide,
Carrying me with you, effortlessly.
 

When first we touched,
Our flesh melded, amalgamated;
As gold dissolves in mercury,
A precious blend of our uniquenesses combined.
 

When first we touched,
It was but our fingers, intertwining;
And yet our souls commingled too,
And our hearts beat to the same rhythm,
And our bodies could hardly wait
To become one flesh.

ART SUNDAY - GEORGIA O'KEEFFE

“My advice to the women of America is to raise more hell and fewer dahlias.” - William Allen White
 

Georgia O’Keeffe was born on a farm near Sun Prairie, Wisconsin on November 15, 1887. Between 1905 and 1916 she studied art at the Art Institute of Chicago, Art Students League of New York, University of Virginia, and Teachers College of Columbia University. Her intention was to become an art teacher, and between 1908 and 1917 she taught studio classes at schools in Virginia, Texas, and South Carolina. In 1916, O’Keeffe’s drawings first came to the attention of Alfred Stieglitz (the important photographer and influential promoter of modern art), whom she married in 1924. Until his death in 1946, he regularly exhibited O’Keeffe’s paintings and drawings at his New York galleries, which helped establish her reputation as a leading American artist.
 

For more than seventy years O’Keeffe painted prolifically, and almost exclusively, images from nature distilled to their essential colours, shapes, and designs. Prior to 1929 she derived her subjects from her life in New York City (buildings and city views) and from long summers in the country at Lake George, in upstate New York (flowers and landscapes). After 1929, when she made the first of many extended trips to New Mexico, her interest shifted to objects and scenery that characterised the American Southwest (bones and mountains). In 1949 the artist moved to Santa Fe, New Mexico, where she resided until her death at age ninety-eight on March 6, 1986.
 

O’Keeffe’s early pictures were basically imitative, but by the early 1920s her own highly individualistic style of painting had emerged. Frequently her subjects were enlarged views of skulls and other animal bones, flowers and plant organs, shells, rocks, mountains, and other natural forms. O’Keeffe delineated these forms with probing and subtly rhythmic outlines and delicately modulated washes of clear colour. Her mysteriously suggestive images of bones and flowers set against a perspectiveless space inspired a variety of erotic, psychologic, and symbolic interpretations.
 

“Ram’s Head, White Hollyhock-Hills” (1935), exhibited in the Brooklyn Museum, is a typical painting of O’Keeffe’s highly personal style. This painting features an enlarged ram’s skull and antlers hovering emblematically over landscape and sky; the flower is an addendum that contrasts life with death, softness with sharp hardness. The organic lines and complex orifices of these nearly abstract forms conjure associations both phallic and feminine. Sexuality was a complicated issue for O’Keeffe. She famously denied that her landscapes or flower paintings were allegories of the female form, yet their lineage is obviously physical. In both cases, she asserted her own vision of the female body, camouflaged with protective layers of meaning.
 

In the 1930s, when this painting was executed, artists, musicians, and writers were interested in developing an indigenous American art form. It was an idea strongly supported by Stieglitz and his circle of artists, who sought to develop an American style of painting, rather than depictions of American subjects as produced by the Regionalists and the Social Realists. The painting is symbolic of America as O’Keeffe saw it, represented by the New Mexico desert and its relics.

MUSIC SATURDAY - MERCADANTE

“Everyone who plays the flute should learn singing.” - James Galway
 

Severio Mercadante was a prolific composer of opera during the nineteenth century, and was influential in his day for his “reformed” operas of the 1840s. Reacting to excesses in both bel canto style and grand-opera effects, he purposely restrained himself from those tendencies to arrive at a more effective drama on stage. These reforms were critical for the kinds of operas Verdi pursued early in his career.
 

Mercadante was born in Naples and studied with Niccolò Zingarelli between 1816 and 1820. While some of his earliest music was for various instrumental ensembles, he began to compose operas around 1819. With an opera buffa in Rossini’s style, Elisa e Claudio (1820), his seventh opera, Mercadante achieved notice in Italy, and he followed that work with many others.
 

From 1829 to 1830, Mercadante lived in Spain and Portugal, where he continued to compose. With no long-term contracts emerging at the time, Mercadante returned to Italy. He served as maestro di cappella at the Cathedral in Novara from 1833 to 1840, and it was then that Mercadante reconsidered his approach to opera. His “reformed” style begins with his most famous opera, Il Giurnamento. In this work he avoided any effects that did not serve the drama directly, and purposely varied the forms used in set pieces. This prevented his resorting to strings of da capo arias or diva-based scenas. Such self-imposed restrictions were part of Mercadante’s style for the rest of his career.
 

In 1839 Mercadante became director of the Liceo musicale in Bologna, and in 1840 he was offered the post that his teacher Zingarelli had held in Naples. He took the post in Naples and remained there for the rest of his life. While his compositional output during the latter part of Mercadante’s career lessened, it was nonetheless impressive for the workmanship present in the later works. For a while Verdi associated with Mercadante, but the two parted company soon after Mercadante assisted the younger composer with finding singers for a production of Macbeth in Naples in 1848. Soon Verdi’s career eclipsed that of Mercadante, and the dramaturgy that Verdi pursued was regarded as more effective than that of the older Mercadante. While Mercadante’s reputation declined, his operas are nonetheless interesting for the quality of the music in them. Mercadante also was a prolific composer of religious music, and is well-remembered for some of his flute concertos, and those compositions bear consideration for their refined and elegant style.
 

Here is his E minor Concerto for Flute and Strings played by the Turkish flautist Şefika Kutluer: 1) Allegro Maestoso; 2) Adagio; 3) Rondo Russo (Allegro Vivace Scherzando).

VEGETARIAN GRATIN

“Go vegetable heavy. Reverse the psychology of your plate by making meat the side dish and vegetables the main course.” Bobby Flay
 
Vegetarianism has been proven to be by much research to be a healthful eating option, and even if one is not a fully committed vegetarian, it is worthwhile reducing one’s meat intake to a minimum. Nowadays, there is a wide variety of fresh vegetables available throughout the year and one can eat a wonderful array of seasonal produce cooked in an interesting manner. As well as being healthful, vegetarian dishes can be tasty and appealing to the eye.

Vegetarian Thyme Gratin
Ingredients
2 tablespoons olive oil
2 onions, thinly sliced
2 cloves garlic, minced
500 g ripe red tomatoes, cut into 0.5 cm slices
2 green zucchini, cut diagonally into 0.5 slices
2 golden zucchini, cut diagonally into 0.5 slices
3 tablespoons olive oil
1/4 cup fresh thyme leaves
1 teaspoon coarse salt
1-1/4 cups freshly grated Parmesan cheese
1/2 cup breadcrumbs
Freshly ground black pepper to taste 

Method
In a medium frying pan, heat the olive oil over medium heat. Add the onions and sauté, stirring frequently, until golden brown, about 20 minutes. Reduce the heat to medium-low if they’re browning too quickly. Add the garlic and sauté until soft and fragrant, 1 to 2 minutes. Spread the onions and garlic evenly in the bottom of an oiled 2-litre, oval shallow gratin dish and let cool.
Heat the oven to 190˚C. Put the tomato slices on a shallow plate to drain for a few minutes and then discard the collected juices. Sprinkle with some thyme. Place in an oiled baking pan and put into the oven until they are soft. You may turn them over to ensure they are done well, then lay aside.
In a medium bowl, toss the zucchini and squash slices with 1-1/2 tablespoons of the olive oil, some thyme, and 1/2 teaspoon of the salt. Reserve half of the cheese for the top of the gratin.
 
Spread the zucchini on an oiled baking dish and bake until they begin to shrivel – don’t cook right through. Repeat until all zucchini is prepared and lay aside.
Sprinkle some thyme over the onions in the gratin. Starting at one end of the baking dish, carefully lay a row of slightly overlapping tomato slices across the width of the dish and sprinkle with a little of the cheese.
Next, lay a row of green zucchini, overlapping the tomatoes by two-thirds, and sprinkle with cheese. Repeat with a row of golden zucchini, and then repeat rows, sprinkling each with cheese, until the gratin is full.

Season lightly with pepper and the remaining 1/2 tsp. salt.
Drizzle olive oil over all. Combine the reserved cheese and breadcrumbs with a little thyme and sprinkle this over the whole gratin.
Cook until well-browned all over and the juices have bubbled for a while and reduced considerably, 55 to 60 min. Let cool for at least 15 minutes before serving.
 

This post is part of the Food Friday meme,

and also part of the Food Trip Friday meme.

ERT IS DEAD...

“Economy does not lie in sparing money, but in spending it wisely.” - Thomas Huxley
 

The global financial crisis is a fact and many countries around the world are facing enormous economic, social and development problems as the world economies contract, financial markets become uncertain, unemployment rates increase and austerity measures by governments are now a commonplace policy as governments reduce spending. Perhaps nowhere have the effects been as widely publicised as in the Southern European member states of the European Union. The financial woes and economic trials and tribulations of Greece, Spain and Portugal, especially are constantly appearing in news reports. But not only – the world economy can be influenced by the fiscal health of a relatively small stakeholder in the EU, hence the heavy-handed approach to budgetary constraints, financial policies and imposed cuts and austerity measures imposed by the EU powerbrokers and the notorious International Monetary Fund.
 

The most recent controversy has been the decision taken a few days by the conservative Greek government, to shut down ERT, the country’s public broadcaster. This is one of the most drastic measures yet to reduce spending on Greek public institutions as part of the widespread and unpopular austerity measures. It is a move that has angered the journalists, politicians and unions, not to mention the long-suffering populace.
 

ERT has not been a massively popular TV service over its long history (presently having less than 20% of the Greek TV viewing public), and sure enough its administration has not been exemplary. The government has characterised the broadcaster as a rotten apple, suffering from chronic mismanagement, lack of transparency and waste. Even ERT employees admit that ERT had a questionable past, being used for political appointments and offering exorbitant pay to a few handpicked reporters, executives and advisers. It appears, however, that these were the exception and it is unlikely that the 2,700 employees who have been laid off by ERT were all on sinecures and had all been political appointments. Apparently, government sources, maintain, that one of the many sins of ERT was that not a single employee had been hired transparently or on merit – which is hard to believe...
 

ERT radio service has been on air since 1938. It is sad to observe that was not silenced during the German occupation of Greece in WWII, or during the military junta in the late 1960s. On June 11, 2013, ERT was switched off and thousands of people suddenly were unemployed. Furthermore, as well as the broadcasting having ceased in Greece, all international transmissions were also stopped. We received the ERT international service, here in Australia, and it was a reassuring, dependable and familiar service for us Greeks of the Antipodes. Turning the TV on and tuning in to ERT, one could maintain links with the mother country, hear the Greek news first hand, watch the religious programs, enjoy some well-produced documentaries and travel programs, and every now and then some entertainment value programming. Sure enough there were a lot of programs that were of little value and a waste of time and resources – but isn’t that the case with any TV broadcaster, public or private?
 

Greek Prime Minister, Antonis Samaras, has stood by his move describing ERT as “the symbol of waste and lack of transparency”. He continued in a public address by saying that: “We are not closing down public radio and television. In fact, it is only now that we are going to get proper public radio and television.” The Opposition leader, Alexis Tsipras, urged President Carolos Papoulias to cancel an executive order closing ERT, however, the President responded by saying that he was powerless to do so. The situation became further complicated by protest rallies being held in support of laid off ERT staff, with thousands rallying outside ERT’s headquarters in Athens, and unions organising strikes.
 

This unprecedented draconian and remarkably rapid move by the Greek government has created world-wide interest and a tsunami-like response through social media, internet news sites, newspapers, radio and TV. The closure of ERT may precipitate a political crisis in Greece, whose fragile governing tripartite coalition is already in a precarious leadership position. Meanwhile, the government is reassuring the public by unveiling plans to open a slimmed down version of ERT in August, with an employee base of around 1,200, appointed on merit and without consideration of political affiliations. This has given rise to much skepticism and disbelief amongst the population, given the manner in which ERT was closed down.
 

The director general of the BBC, Tony Hall, has asked the Greek government to reopen the state broadcaster immediately condemning its sudden closure as “undemocratic and unprofessional”. In a petition to the Greek prime minister, the directors general of 50 European TV and radio broadcasters including the BBC urged him to see sense pointing out that “public service media and their independence from government lie at the heart of democratic societies”. The other signatories included the heads of German, French, Swiss, Danish, Spanish and Italian TV. This is likely to fall on deaf ears, as the closure of ERT was a rapid way of fulfilling the International Monetary Fund, European Union and European Central Bank’s demands that public sector staff numbers be shrunk by 2,000 by the end of the summer...
 

Attempts by governments or government agencies to financially stimulate an economy are a standard practice. An economic stimulus is the use of monetary or fiscal policy changes to kick start a lagging or struggling economy. Governments can use tactics such as lowering interest rates, increasing government spending and quantitative easing, to name a few, to accomplish this. It seems that the EU is forcing upon struggling economies of the Southern European countries directives and policies that have the opposite effect of economic stimulation. The closure of ERT is another of these counterproductive measures, which is causing hardship, discontent, increasing unemployment and the opposite effect to economic stimulation. The problems are deep and chronic, economic policies worldwide are not working and globalisation is having unfortunate and deeply problematic effects…

PHILIPPINES INDEPENDENCE DAY

“Of all manifestations of power, restraint impresses men the most.” - Thucydides
 
Today is the anniversary of the birthday of:
Johann Georg Ahle, German organist (1651);
John Augustus Roebling, bridge builder (1806);
Charles Kingsley, author (1819);
Egon Schiele, Austrian artist (1890).
Djuna Barnes, author (1892);
Anthony Eden, British PM (1897);
Leon Goosens, English oboist (1897);
Normal Hartnell, coutourier (1901);
Irwin Allen, movie producer (1916);
George Bush, US President (1989), (1924);
Vic Damone (Vito Farinola), singer (1928);
Anne Frank, diarist (1929);
Rona Jaffe, author (1932);
Jim Nabors, actor (1932);
Chick Corea (Armando Anthony Corea), musician (1941); 
Bert Sackman, German Nobel laureate (1991), physiologist (1942);
 
The pear tree, Pyrus communis, is the birthday plant for today.  It symbolises satire and the language of flowers ascribes the meaning “do not forget” to the pear.  Pear trees grow slowly, as the rhyme suggests: “Plant your pears for your heirs.”
 
Today is Independence Day in the Philippines (since 1898). The Philippines was a Spanish colony from 1565 to 1898 when it was ceded to the USA. It became fully independent in 1946. It is an archipelago in the Western part of the South China sea with three main island groups, with an area of 300,000 square km and a population of 62 million. The capital is Manila with other centres being Cebu, Quezon City, Bacolod, Davao and Zamboanga. It is subject to earthquakes, volcanic activity and typhoons.
 
Much of the Philippines is covered by rainforest thriving in the tropical monsoon climate. Fishing and farming on a small scale domiante the economy with rice and copra being the main produce. Textile production, electrical manufactuirng and forestry are becoming increasingly important economically but unemployement and emigration are still high in this developing country.

HAPPY INDEPENDENCE DAY, PHILIPPINES!

Dying on this day: In 816, Leo III, Pope of Rome; in 1842, Dr Thomas Arnold, English educational reformer; in 1982, Dame Maria Rambert, ballerina; in 1983, Norma Shearer, actress.

THE ISLAND AND THE GARDEN

“Love is the master key that opens the gates of happiness.” - Oliver Wendell Holmes
 

Magpie Tales has provided the image above. Followers of her blog are invited to write a creative piece stimulated by her prompt. Here is my poem related to this image of a Charleston door lock.
 

The Island and the Garden
 

Alone.
None talks to me,
None to listen.
Untouched, unkissed
Unloved, unyearned for
I am that island
That no man is.
 

Alone.
None searches for me
None has found me.
Unseen, unlooked for,
Unwon and undiscovered.
I am that island
That still holds its secret.
 

Alone.
None needs me
None cares for me.
Unused, unfrutiful
Untended and unhappy
I am a secret garden
Amidst the desert sands.

Alone.
None takes my key
None opens wide my door.
Unopened, unexposed
Unsearched, unsolved.
I still cling to my mystery,
All alone.

MOVIE MONDAY - HEADHUNTERS

“Violence, even well intentioned, always rebounds upon oneself.” - Lao Tzu
 

There have been some wonderful films out of the Scandinavian countries in the last few years and they have been refreshingly original, although often confronting and sometimes unpleasant to watch as they are raw and violent. We saw another of these films at the weekend, Morten Tyldum’s 2011 film “Headhunters” based on the novel by Jo Nesbø, and starring Aksel Hennie, Nikolaj Coster-Waldau, and Synnøve Macody Lund. No, the film is not about Amazonian primitive tribes hunting for heads to shrink, but rather it is about a man who works in an employment recruitment agency and who lives beyond his means – this of course, gets him into all sorts of trouble.

I should warn the faint-hearted that this film is extremely violent and contains some very gruesome scenes. This is often the case with many of these films (I am reminded of “The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo”) with the violence depicted, although excessive and unpleasant, forms an integral part of the plot. So it is with “Headhunters”, one of these new wave Norwegian films.
 

The plot revolves around Roger Brown (Aksel Hennie), who is one of the most powerful headhunters in a top employment agency in Norway. He has an extravagant lifestyle, a beautiful wife and an expensive mortgage. To support his lifestyle of the rich and famous he is also a part-time art thief, which he does in cahoots with his friend, the gun aficionado Ove Kjikerud, who work in a security company. Once they rob the art works, they replace the originals with forgeries, which go undetected at least until the trail back to the thieves goes cold. Brown is cool, calm and collected and he works hard to build a reputation as a top professional. However, this masks his insecurities, fuelled by his short stature at 1.68 metres.
 

Roger Brown feels that wealth and power are the only way to make his mark in the world and to get what he wants. He has a trophy wife, the beautiful art gallery owner Diana Brown (Synnøve Macody Lund). Roger seems to like the thought of what Diana represents more than Diana herself and he denies her what she most wants – a baby. Brown also he has a mistress on the side named Lotte. Diana introduces her husband to Clas Greve (Nikolaj Coster-Waldau), a successful and handsome businessman. Clas Greve seems to be the perfect candidate for the CEO position at Pathfinder, a high tech company, for which Roger is currently recruiting.
 

Greve is also in possession of a priceless Rubens, which if Roger and Ove can steal, would be by far their most lucrative art theft to date. Although Brown and Kjikerud steal the painting without hitch, things start going wrong for Roger. He find out that Diana is having an affair with Greve and that someone is trying to kill him. He learns that it is Greve, who seems to know his every move. The remainder of the film is a cat and mouse game with Brown and Greve crossing swords and secrets being uncovered...
 

Both Aksel Hennie and Nicolai Coaster-Waldau are perfectly cast and Synnøve Macody Lund does a good job in her debut-role. The rest of the cast is excellent in supporting roles and the direction is faultless, as one would expect of someone of Morten Tyldum’s stature. The editing is wonderful and punchy and the action rolls on relentlessly, keeping the viewer on tenterhooks throughout the length of the movie. Upon its release, the film was sold to over 50 countries - a record for any Norwegian film. Summit Entertainment bought the rights to produce an American remake of this film, even before its initial release. This seems a pity, given the calibre of the original.
 

We enjoyed the film, although as I said earlier, the violence is quite confronting and some of the scenes are quite gruesome. The morals of the story (and especially the ending) may be questioned by the puritan viewer, however, there are quite fundamental transformations that occur in the characters, the message being that redemption is not beyond the reach of any of us, not even the most hardened criminal. If you can stomach raw and violent scenes on screen, watch the movie and you will be enthralled.

ART SUNDAY - VINCENZO FOPPA

“Any book that helps a child to form a habit of reading, to make reading one of his deep and continuing needs, is good for him.” - Maya Angelou
 
Vincenzo Foppa (1430 – 1515) was a Renaissance painter from Northern Italy; an elderly contemporary of Leonardo da Vinci (1452 – 1519). He was born at Bagnolo Mella, near Brescia in the Republic of Venice. He settled in Pavia around 1456, serving the dukes of Milan and emerging as one of the most prominent Lombardy painters, eventually returning to Brescia in 1489.
 
His style shows affinities to Andrea del Castagno (1421 – 1457) and Carlo Crivelli (1435 – 1495). Giorgio Vasari (1511 – 1574) claimed Foppa had trained in Padua, where he may have been strongly influenced by Andrea Mantegna (1431 – 1506), who was an innovative perspectivist painter. During his lifetime, Foppa was highly acclaimed, especially for his skill in perspective and foreshortening. His important works include a fresco in the Brera Gallery of Milan, the Martyrdom of St. Sebastian, and a Crucifixion (1435) in the Accademia Carrara of Bergamo. Many of his works have been lost. In addition to major fresco cycles and altarpieces, he also painted touching images of the Madonna and Child for private devotion.
 
Foppa was influential in the styles of Vincenzo Civerchio (1470 – 1544) and Girolamo Romanino (1484 – 1562). His work now in the Uffizi Gallery, Madonna and Child with an Angel, has been said to reveal the artist’s “complex cultural personality” (Kren and Marx, Web Gallery of Art). It shows an influence from Northern European painting, specifically Flemish, additional to his Italian traditions.
 
“The Young Cicero Reading” of about 1464 is a delightful work of Foppa’s, showing the Roman philosopher as child reading (rather anachronistically) a book. It is the only surviving fresco from the Banco Mediceo, Milan. In 1455 Francesco Sforza gave the Palazzo to Cosimo de’Medici, who had it lavishly restyled. Foppa, the leading Lombard master of the quattrocento period, was commissioned to fresco the courtyard. The “Young Cicero Reading” may have been intended to accompany the Virtues as an emblem of Rhetoric, one of the Liberal Arts. Set in the open courtyard for four hundred years, the fresco was removed, c.1863, framed and extensively retouched, which explains some of the compositional inconsistencies which are now apparent. It is now exhibited in the Wallace Collection in London.