FOOD FRIDAY - CHICK PEAS

“Food for the body is not enough. There must be food for the soul.” - Dorothy Day
 
The chickpea (Cicer arietinum) is a legume of the family Fabaceae. Its seeds are high in protein. It is one of the earliest cultivated legumes: 7,500-year-old remains have been found in the Middle East. Other common names for the species include garbanzo bean, ceci bean, sanagalu, chana, hummus and Bengal gram.
 

Chickpeas are a source of zinc, folate and protein. Chickpeas are low in fat and most of this is polyunsaturated. Nutrient profile of desi chana (the smaller variety) is different, especially the fibre content which is much higher than the light-coloured variety. One hundred grams of mature boiled chickpeas contains 164 calories, 2.6 grams of fat (of which only 0.27 grams is saturated), 7.6 grams of dietary fiber and 8.9 grams of protein. Chickpeas also provide dietary phosphorus (168 mg/100 g), which is higher than the amount found in a 100-gram serving of whole milk. Recent studies have also shown that they can assist in lowering of cholesterol in the bloodstream.

Chick Peas
Ingredients
 
1 kg dried chick peas
2 onions
1 cup olive oil
1 shot glass full of white wine
salt and pepper
ground cumin
paprika
1.5 litres vegetable stock
4 tender stalks celery
1 + 1 tbsp baking soda
 
Method
Dissolve the 1 tbsp baking soda in a bowl of water that will contain the chick peas and soak the chick peas for about 20-24 hours (or at least overnight). Drain the chick peas well the following day and put them in a big tea towel with the other 1 tbsp baking soda and rub them vigorously through the towel with circular movements so that the skin of the chick peas is removed – these skins are then discarded. Once the chick peas are cleaned, put them in a colander and wash well, allowing them to drain once again.
 
Chop the onion and celery stick finely. Put half a cup of olive oil in a big kettle and heat up, putting in the celery and onions and stirring until the onion is golden. Put in the white wine and stir through. Add the vegetable stock and allow to come to the boil. Put in the chick peas and stir through. Boil for about 70-90 minutes until the chick peas are very tender. While they are boiling, some remaining pieces of peel may come to the surface, so remove these and discard. Stir periodically to prevent the peas sticking to the bottom of the pan. Add enough water to maintain a thick consistency (not too watery). Taste and season with salt, pepper and cumin to taste.
 
Once cooked, remove from the flame and cover the kettle with a tea towel and the kettle cover for about 5 minutes. Serve, drizzling each plate with a little olive oil, finely sliced onion (optional), paprika or parsley (optional).
 
Leftover chick peas can be blended to a pulp with crushed garlic, lemon juice and oil and some breadcrumbs to make hummus.
 
This post is part of the Food Friday meme,
and also part of the Food Trip Friday meme.

WORK-LIFE BALANCE

“By working faithfully eight hours a day you may eventually get to be boss and work twelve hours a day.” - Robert Frost
 
I have been extremely busy the past two days at work as I was attending some high level strategy meetings. These were very useful and interesting, however, they left very little for anything else. Hence this lapse from my daily routine of blogging and collecting a few thoughts together here…
 
I am certainly looking forward to the weekend where I plan to spend some time on myself –although there are also responsibilities and a long list of chores waiting to be done at home. It is very difficult to balance the demands of work, family and personal needs and wants at the moment. I await eagerly my retirement, where hopefully I will be able to spend more time on things that I have not had the ability to fit into my busy schedule at the moment.

LEFT-HANDERS' DAY

“Left-handers are wired into the artistic half of the brain, which makes them imaginative, creative, surprising, ambiguous, exasperating, stubborn, emotional, witty, obsessive, infuriating, delightful, original, but never, never, dull.” - James T deKay & Sandy Huffaker from “The World’s Greatest Left-Handers: Why Left-Handers are Just Plain Better than Everybody Else”
 
August 13 is International Left-Handers’ Day. It is on this day that left-handers everywhere can celebrate their sinistrality and increase public awareness of the advantages and disadvantages of being left-handed. This event is now celebrated worldwide, with activities such as left-vs-right sports matches, left-handed tea parties, pubs using left-handed corkscrews where patrons drink and play pub games with the left hand only, and “Lefty Zones” where left-handers’ creativity, adaptability and sporting prowess are celebrated, whilst right-handers are encouraged to try out everyday left-handed objects to see just how awkward it can feel using the wrong equipment! On the other hand (ahem!) Sinistrophobia is the fear of left-handedness or things on the left side and it is surprising that there is still some of this prejudice around.
 
Only about 10% of the population is left-handed. During the 1600’s people, thought left-handers were witches and warlocks. International Left Hander’s Day was first celebrated on August 13, 1976. It was started by Left-handers’ International. It is believed that all polar bears are left-handed. While many people are left-handed, very few are 100% left-handed. For example, many left-handers’ golf and bat right-handed (ambidextrous refers to being able to use both hands more less equally). Conversely, most of right handed are 100% right-handed. Lefties are also called “southpaws”. This term was coined in baseball to describe a left-handed pitcher.

Left- and right-handed people have different brain structures, particularly in relation to language processing. Research shows that poor infant health increases the likelihood of a child being left-handed. Compared to righties, lefties score lower on measures of cognitive skill and, contrary to popular belief, are not over-represented at the high end of the distribution. Lefties have more emotional and behavioural problems, have more learning disabilities such as dyslexia. Left-handed individuals complete less schooling, and work in less cognitively intensive occupations. Differences between left- and right-handed siblings show similar trends. Most strikingly, lefties have six percent lower annual earnings than righties, a gap that can largely be explained by these differences in cognitive skill, disabilities, schooling and occupational choice. Those likely be left-handed due to genetics show smaller or no deficits relative to righties, suggesting the importance of environmental shocks as the source of disadvantage.
 
To balance these ideas it is important to realise that there are a multitude of famous and very accomplished people in history who were left-handed. This particular very long list compiled at the University of Indiana is a case in point.
 
Thankfully we are more enlightened about left-handedness nowadays and we do not force left-handers to use their hand. Parents want what is best for their children, teachers strive to maximise all individuals’ potential to learn, employers strive to maximise their profit, and manufacturers want their products to sell. The hope is for parents, educators, employers, and manufacturers to understand that the best way to achieve their goals is by listening to left-handers and ambidextrals. By making the world a little more left-hand friendly, we are aiding everyone achieve their true potential whether they are right- or left-handed.

MOVIE MONDAY - THE DAY THE CLOWN CRIED

“Everything human is pathetic. The secret source of humor itself is not joy but sorrow. There is no humor in heaven.” - Mark Twain
 

Today I will review the film you will probably never see… It is the 1972 Jerry Lewis movie “The Day the Clown Cried” , starring Jerry Lewis, Peter Ahlm, Lars Amble. Let me make it perfectly clear that neither I have seen this movie. However, I became aware of it several years ago and the whole matter of its non-release fascinated me. Quite coincidentally I heard about it again a few days ago.

The plot is set at the time of WWII and concerns Helmut Doork who is a once great clown, but who is dismissed from the circus. Quite depressed, he goes to a local bar and he pokes fun at Hitler in front of some Gestapo officers, who arrest and send him to a political prisoner camp. Helmut angers his fellow prisoners by refusing to perform for them, wanting to preserve his legend. As times passes, Jews are brought into the camp, and they are sequestered away, not being allowed to interact with other prisoners. Helmut is forced by the other prisoners to perform or be beaten. His act is terrible and he leaves the building depressed, trying the routine out again alone in the prison yard. He hears laughter and sees a group of Jewish children watching him through a fence. Happy to be appreciated again, he makes a makeshift clown suit and begins to regularly perform to growing audiences of Jewish youngsters. The new prison Commandant orders Helmut to stop but he refuses, and continues to perform. He is beaten up and locked in solitary confinement. But the Nazis soon come up with a use for Helmut, which is a terribly vengeful one and demoralising for both his ego and his new-found sensitivities – He is forced to march the children into the gas chambers...
 

The movie is based on a story by Joan O’Brien and Charles Denton. Producer Nathan Wachsberger, offered Lewis the chance to star in and direct the film with complete financial backing from his production company and Europa Studios. In February 1972, Lewis toured the remains of Auschwitz and Dachau concentration camps and shot some exterior shots of buildings in Paris for the film; all the while reworking the script. He reportedly lost forty pounds for the concentration camp scenes. Principal photography began in Sweden on the film in April 1972, but the shoot was beset by numerous problems.
 

Wachsberger not only ran out of money before completing the film, but his option to produce the film expired before filming began. He had paid O’Brien the initial $5,000 fee, but failed to send her the additional $50,000 due to her prior to production. Lewis eventually ended up paying production costs with his own money to finish shooting the film, but the parties involved in its production were never able to come to terms, which would allow the film to be released. After shooting wrapped, Lewis announced to the press that Wachsberger had failed to make good on his financial obligations or even commit to producing. Wachsberger retaliated by threatening to file a lawsuit of breach of contract and stated that he had enough to finish and release the film without Lewis. Wanting to ensure the film would not be lost, Lewis took a rough cut of the film, while the studio retained the entire film negative.
 

On January 12, 2013, Lewis appeared at a Cinefamily Q&A event at the Los Angeles Silent Movie Theatre. He was asked by actor Bill Allen: “Are we going to ever gonna get to see ‘The Day the Clown Cried’?” Lewis replied in the negative, and explained the reason the movie would never be released was because: “...in terms of that film I was embarrassed. I was ashamed of the work, and I was grateful that I had the power to contain it all, and never let anyone see it. It was bad, bad, bad.” Later that year at Cannes while promoting Max Rose, Lewis was asked about ‘The Day the Clown Cried’ and said: “It was bad work. You’ll never see it and neither will anyone else.”
 

The film is dealing with a sensitive issue and despite Lewis’ talent, his brand of broad, slapstick comedy would not seem to be suited for such a film. Nevertheless, even in his most zany films he does have scenes full of pathos and poignancy that show his talent at making the viewers drop a tear in between the laughs. However, to deal with such a horrific topic at the time the film was made, while he was beset by all sorts of problems – psychological, financial, existential, was perhaps not wise… In later years, Roberto Benigni showed that a similar idea could work extremely well, although even Benigni’s 1997 “Life is Beautiful” has its critics.
 

The Holocaust is one of the darkest moments of human history. The tragedy and horror of the systematic extermination of millions people by a totalitarian regime has no humorous side. However, humans have always turned to humour as coping mechanism in even the direst circumstances, or perhaps these circumstances are the ones that need humour the most. The question of taste of course is a personal matter and whether the humour is appropriate or not is often debatable. Lewis’ efforts in dealing with this painful and very sensitive topic cannot be judged objectively in the absence of a final, complete, released version of the movie. It would be wise to refrain from making any judgment when one has not seen the movie. Perhaps today in capable hands, the film could be remade and its message – a humanistic one would be evident.
 

I have reviewed another film about the Holocaust and children. It is the excellent “The Boy in the Striped Pajamas” . We have to acknowledge even the most painful of topics, we have to remember even the most brutal of atrocities, and we have to have the strength to never allow them to be repeated. Jerry Lewis probably had the right intention when he set out to make “The Day the Clown Cried” – if the film turned out to be “…bad, bad, bad.” (by his own admission) is something that we may never be able to judge for ourselves.

ART SUNDAY - JULIEN DUPRÉ

“The earth is the earth as a peasant sees it, the world is the world as a duchess sees it, and anyway a duchess would be nothing if the earth was not there as the peasant sees it.” - Gertrude Stein
 

Julien Dupré (1851-1910) was a French realist painter in the academic tradition. He was born in Paris on March 18, 1851 to Jean Dupré (a jeweller) and Pauline Bouillié and began his adult life working in a lace shop in anticipation of entering his family's jewellery business. The war of 1870 and the siege of Paris forced the closure of the shop and Julien began taking evening courses at the École des Arts Décoratifs and it was through these classes that he gained admission to the École des Beaux-Arts.

At l' École he studied with Isidore Pils (1813-1875) and Henri Lehmann (1814-1882). In the mid-1870s he traveled to Picardy and became a student of the rural genre painter Désiré François Laugée (1823-1896), whose daughter Marie Eléonore Françoise he would marry in 1876; the year he exhibited his first painting at the Paris Salon. Throughout his career Dupré championed the life of the peasant and continued painting scenes in the areas of Normandy and Brittany until his death on April 16, 1910.
 

Till now, very little has been compiled about the life of this important Realist artist who was described in an article in the Magazine of Art (1891) as: “...one of the most rising artists of the French School.” Dupré exhibited works at every Salon exhibition from 1876 until his death in 1910 and earned critical acclaim for his depictions of peasant life. He was awarded medals at several Salon Exhibitions and received a Gold Medal at the Exposition Universelle in 1889 for his pictorial representations of the life of the farm worker.
 

Dupré was very successful during his lifetime both in Europe and the United States. Wealthy American patrons travelled to Paris to acquire his works, which became part of the great collections of the 19th century. Many of these collections, in turn, would become the cornerstones of great American museums. His painting 'Au pâturage' (exhibited at the Paris Salon in 1882) is now in the collection of the Washington University Gallery of Art, St. Louis, Mo. and 'Milking Time', a monumental work, is in the collection of The Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco. Other important works by the artist can be found in the collections of the St. Louis Art Museum; Worcester Art Museum; Joslyn Art Museum; Museum of Fine Arts, Boston; and The Reading Public Museum and Art Gallery to name a few.
 

Dupré's art is typical of the academic tradition, his realism well suited to the genre paintings he executed. His paintings exhibit excellent technique, well-controlled drawing with handling of colour and space, his composition always well-considered and pleasing to the eye. The realist technique and his depiction of the life of the French peasants is well suited to his style, especially given the rather glamourised treatment he gives his milkmaids and farmworkers. When one compares Dupré's peasants with those of Van Gogh, one can immediately see which of the two is more “real”. Nevertheless, Dupré's popularity was assured by his almost Arcadian bucolic visions and the beauty of his models, which idealised farm life and prettified it the way that rich patrons wanted it, so that they were suitable for hanging in their parlours. After all, Marie Antoinette's shenanigans in Versailles did involve dressing up as a milkmaid cavorting in fields with manicured lawns and frolicking with well bathed and coiffured cows!

VIOLA DA GAMBA

“Who hears music, feels his solitude peopled at once.” - Robert Browning
 

Georg Philipp Telemann (14 March 1681 – 25 June 1767) was a German Baroque composer and multi-instrumentalist. Almost completely self-taught in music, he became a composer against his family’s wishes. After studying in Magdeburg, Zellerfeld, and Hildesheim, Telemann entered the University of Leipzig to study law, but eventually settled on a career in music. He held important positions in Leipzig, Sorau, Eisenach, and Frankfurt before settling in Hamburg in 1721, where he became musical director of the city’s five main churches. While Telemann’s career prospered, his personal life was always troubled: His first wife died only a few months after their marriage, and his second wife had extramarital affairs and accumulated a large gambling debt before leaving Telemann.
 

He was a remarkably prolific, skillful, and forward-thinking, one of the foremost musicians of his day, who wrote a great many sacred and secular vocal works as well as orchestral, chamber, and keyboard music. A contemporary of Bach and Handel, Telemann shared many of their musical techniques and wrote for many of the same genres; and though his music is overshadowed by theirs, it has many charms, perhaps more evident in Telemann’s modest instrumental works (of which the Suite for Flute & Strings in A is a good choice) than in his 40 operas, 600 overtures, 44 liturgical passions, and other large works. Handel said Telemann could write an eight-part motet with the ease that someone else would write a letter.
 

Here is some of his wonderful music for viola da gamba, played by Hille Perl (viola da gamba) accompanied by the Freiburger Barockorchester and directed by Petra Müllejans. The viola da gamba is a bowed, stringed musical instrument used principally in chamber music of the 16th to the 18th century. The viol shares with the Renaissance lute the tuning of its six strings (two fourths, a major third, two fourths) and the gut frets on its neck. It was made in three sizes: Treble, tenor, and bass, with the bottom string tuned, respectively, to D, G (or A), and D. To these sizes was later added the violone, a double bass viol often tuned an octave below the bass.

FOOD FRIDAY - HERB BREAD

“A loaf of bread, a jug of wine, and thou.” - Omar Khayyam
 
It has been a cold, wet and dark Winter’s day today. Nothing to cheer one up like a warm, glowing home to come to with the smell of fresh bread baking in the oven! That and some olive oil and balsamic vinegar spread generously on thick slices and a nice glass of red wine…
 
Herb Bread
Ingredients
 
550 g flour (can use white, wholemeal or half-and-half)
2 teaspoons salt
1/2 teaspoon sugar
1 cup warm milk
1/3 cup warm water
3 tablespoons olive oil
1 packet instant yeast (7g)
Dried herbs, chopped (rosemary, thyme, dill, oregano, sage, etc to taste)
Spices, ground (dried mustard, cardamom, paprika, onion powder, etc to taste)
Poppy seeds and white sesame (optional)
 
Method
Turn the oven on and with oven rack in the lowest position and warm to 80˚C. Turn oven off after 10 minutes and keep door closed.
 
Mix 3_ cups of the flour, sugar and the salt in the bowl of a standing mixer fitted with the dough hook. Mix the milk, water, oil, herbs, spices, and yeast in a 4-cup liquid measuring cup. Turn the mixer to very low speed and slowly add the liquid. When the dough comes together, increase the speed to medium and mix until the dough is smooth and shiny, stopping the mixer two or three times to scrape dough from hook, if necessary, for about 10 minutes. (After 5 minutes of kneading, if the dough is still sticking to the sides of the bowl, add flour, 1 tablespoon at a time and up to _ cup total, until the dough is no longer sticky.) Turn the dough onto a lightly floured work surface; knead to form a smooth, round ball, for about 20 seconds.
 
Place the dough in a very lightly oiled large bowl, rubbing the dough around the bowl to coat lightly. Cover the bowl with plastic wrap and place in the warmed oven until the dough doubles in size, for 40 to 50 minutes. Take the dough out and punch down, kneading a little.
 
Roll the dough firmly into a cylinder, pressing with your fingers to make sure the dough sticks to itself. Place the dough in an oiled 25x10 cm loaf pan and press it gently so it touches all four sides of the pan. Paint the loaf top with milk and sprinkle some poppy seeds and white sesame on the top, if using. Cover with plastic wrap; set aside in a warm spot until the dough almost doubles in size, for 20 to 30 minutes.
 
Keep one oven rack at the lowest position and place the other at the middle position and heat the oven to 175˚C. Place an empty baking pan on the bottom rack. Bring 2 cups of water to a boil in a small saucepan. Pour the boiling water into the empty pan on the bottom rack at set the loaf onto the middle rack. Bake for about 40 to 50 minutes until golden brown. Remove the bread from the pan, transfer to a wire rack, and cool to room temperature. Slice and serve.
 
This post is part of the Food Friday meme,
and also part of the Food Trip Friday meme.

IDIOMS AND LANGUAGE

“It’s a strange world of language in which skating on thin ice can get you into hot water.” - Franklin P. Jones
 

A living language is a dynamic, vibrant system, which breathes the same air as its speakers do and undergoes similar transformations in its character as the people who speak it. Its changing face relies very much on shifts in word meaning and the generation of new words or phrases to convey new meanings as new situations or new discoveries require. Novelty thrives not only on demands of society for advances in technology and changes in lifestyle that require neologisms, but also the insatiable search of people for saying old things in a fresh way. Idioms are very much a part of this process, and together with age-old clichés, that can be demonstrated (in some languages, at least) to be thousands of years old, the new slang of today becoming the idiom or cliché of tomorrow, sometimes progressing to a well-entrenched part of formal language a few decades later.
 

The word idiom comes from the Greek “idivwma” and means “one’s own thing” or “peculiarity”. Idiom can also mean to a certain extent “dialect” as frequently in dialects, words in common with the parent language can acquire new meanings or be used in unconventional ways. More often than not, however, an idiom is an expression in a mainstream language, which, typically cannot be explained in a straightforward way – grammatically or semantically. It is in many cases distinctive to that particular language alone, and it cannot be translated word for word into another language. One could also say that an idiom is a “peculiarity of phrase approved by usage”; it is an unusual or even completely illogical way of saying something, which is accepted because by convention people use it very often and are familiar with its “hidden” meaning.
 

Idiomatic expressions are a lively part of almost all the world’s languages and underlying these phrases are historical, political, social or cultural events that have had a great deal to do with their creation. Myths and legends, folk stories, observations of nature and the endowment of animals with certain human traits will often create an idiomatic expression. Sometimes, a potent visual image underlies their origin, and metaphor, simile or hyperbole often underpins them. In a few instances the same image is conveyed across many languages, which demonstrates the universal need to colour ordinary speech with a powerful image whose common origin spans several cultures and linguistic groups. Idioms have sometimes been referred to as “miniature word poems” for these reasons.
 

One, however, should be wary of applying one’s own cultural yardsticks to another language and culture, since the same social situation, everyday object or common animal may be viewed differently in different cultures. A case in point is the fox, which in many Western cultures and languages is the archetypal illustration of cunning, craftiness and slyness. In other cultures, the fox may not be viewed in the same way! In Luke 13.32, Jesus uses the illustration of a “fox” to characterise the petty king, Herod Antipas. When the Greek term, Αλώπηξ, “fox”, was simply translated into English as “fox”, the intended meaning it had for Jesus’ hearers in the first century was missed, because the sociocultural connotations did not necessarily travel when this word was translated into another cultural setting.
 

Countless commentators have for years blithely assumed that “a fox, is a fox, is a fox” and that the idiomatic meaning underlying “fox” in all cultures is that of cunning and craftiness. The notion, “sly as a fox”, is assumed to be applied universally. However, many rabbinical illustrations reveal that in the ancient Judaean setting, and within the Hebraic sociolinguistic culture, the term “fox” (Hebrew shu’al) does not signify “sly” or “crafty” at all. Rather, it signifies “small fry,” “weak,” or “insignificant.” In Hebrew, the fox is the animal that is consistently used for contrast with “lion” (as an indication of someone strong or significant). In actuality therefore, Jesus was characterising Herod Antipas as an insignificant ruler rather than as a crafty or sly one.
 

The idioms that are unique to a certain language alone present a major stumbling block to foreign language learners when they encounter these offending phrases. To speak “idiomatically” is the aim of advanced foreign language learners. One’s competence in a language will often be judged, ultimately, on one’s command of the idioms of that language, as any solver of the English cryptic crossword will testify! Hence, familiarity with most of the commonly used idioms of a language is considered to be an essential feature of demonstrating competency in that language.

HIROSHIMA DAY 2013

“The atomic bomb made the prospect of future war unendurable. It has led us up those last few steps to the mountain pass; and beyond there is a different country.” - J. Robert Oppenheimer
 
On August 6, 1945, the United States of America used a massive, atomic weapon against Hiroshima, Japan. This was the first time an atomic bomb was used in warfare. The nuclear bomb, which packed the equivalent of 20,000 tons of TNT, flattened the city, killing tens of thousands of civilians. While Japan was still trying to comprehend this devastation three days later the United States struck again with another atomic bomb, this time dropping it on Nagasaki.
 
Japan marked the 68th anniversary of the atomic bombing of Hiroshima with a sombre ceremony to honour the dead, and once again pledged to seek the elimination of nuclear weapons from the world’s arsenals. Approximately 50,000 people stood for a minute of silence in Hiroshima's peace park near the epicentre of the early morning blast on Aug. 6, 1945, that killed up to 140,000 people. The bombing of Nagasaki three days later killed tens of thousands more people, prompting Japan’s surrender to the World War II Allies. Japan’s Prime Minister Shinzo Abe was one of the many dignitaries attending the event, and noted that as his was the only country in history to face a nuclear attack, it has the responsibility to seek to ban nuclear weapons.
 
The U.S.A and its allies have always maintained that the WWII bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki were necessary and helped save many more lives around the world by convincing Japan to surrender, bringing about an end to WWII. The sacrificing of tens of thousands of civilians as a means to an end, however noble this end seems to be, has always been a point of protest and argument against what has been characterised as an inhuman act, or as a war crime.
 
The sensitive anniversary of the Hiroshima bombing comes as Japan debates the role of nuclear energy, following the country’s 2011 earthquake and subsequent nuclear disaster, which is still now having widespread and dangerous after-effects. Presently, almost all of Japan’s nuclear power plants remain shut down following the meltdowns at Fukushima, which spread radiation over a large area and forced thousands to flee the area. Prime Minister Abe and his party want to restart the plants following safety inspections, but the plan has proved controversial for many in the energy-dependent nation. Since the accident, there have been repeated safety concerns at the Fukushima power plant, where operators are struggling to contain radiation-contaminated water, which is now making its way to the ocean and contaminating intervening land and subsoil.
 
Humans are blessed with the largest and most powerful brain power in the animal kingdom. We have the capacity to think and our intellect gives us the ability to create and use knowledge in ways that allow us to control our environment in amazing ways. We have developed the power to create marvels: Great works of architecture, art, music, literature, engineering, invention… But we have also excelled in the arts of war, with an almost endless repertoire of destruction and cruelty within our means. We have the potential to be angels, but how much easier to be devils. It takes great effort to be “good” rather than “evil” and that is where the real power of an individual is manifest – to be creative, good and kind rather than destructive, evil and cruel.

THE SCRIBE

“Life is the art of drawing without an eraser.” John W. Gardner
 
Maurits Cornelis Escher (17 June 1898 – 27 March 1972), usually referred to as M. C. Escher, was a Dutch graphic artist. He is known for his often mathematically inspired woodcuts, lithographs, and mezzotints. These feature impossible constructions, explorations of infinity, architecture, and tessellations.
 
He worked primarily in the media of lithographs and woodcuts, though the few mezzotints he made are considered to be masterpieces of the technique. In his graphic art, he portrayed mathematical relationships among shapes, figures and space. Additionally, he explored interlocking figures using black and white to enhance different dimensions. Integrated into his prints were mirror images of cones, spheres, cubes, rings and spirals. Escher was left-handed…

Magpie Tales has chosen M.C. Escher’s “Drawing Hands” of 1948 as a stimulus for the creativity of the followers of her meme. Here is my poem inspired by this Escher drawing.
 
The Scribe
 
I create with hands clasping pencil;
With pencil drawing lines
That define the hands that guide the pencil,
That is driven by my desperate soul.
 
I write with hands holding pen;
The pen that dips into the inkwell of my heart,
Giving my lifeblood a voice of its own,
And my vehement emotions an outlet to vent.
 
I limn with hands that guide brush;
A brush that takes breaths from my lips
And rebreathes them in colour on a page
That outlines my spent desires and vain hopes.
 
I sketch with hands blackened by charcoal;
The charcoal not black enough to compare
To the blackest thoughts of my mind’s vacuum,
The emptiness of the void that was there
Ever since you left.

MOVIE MONDAY - FREQUENCY

“Our heirs, whatever or whoever they may be, will explore space and time to degrees we cannot currently fathom. They will create new melodies in the music of time. There are infinite harmonies to be explored.” - Clifford Pickover
 

We had some cold and wet weather over the weekend and it was very pleasant to be able to sit at home in the warmth and watch a movie in the afternoon. It was a rather interesting film that we did watch, Gregory Hoblit’s 2000 movie “Frequency” starring Dennis Quaid, Jim Caviezel, Shawn Doyle and Elizabeth Mitchell. The film was a science fiction drama based on the premise that communication between the future and the past is possible under a set of certain electromagnetic conditions triggered by solar flares. Once you get over this conceit, you can immerse yourself in the possibilities suggested by the movie, including the famous paradoxes where the possibility of time travel in one form or another allows one to change the course of history.
 

For example, one paradox is the idea that if one were able to go back in time, the time traveller could change things in the past by interfering with his own family history. The grandfather paradox and the idea of autoinfanticide are typical of this: In this paradox, a time traveller goes back in time and kills his grandfather at a time before his grandfather met his grandmother. If he did so, then his mother or father never would have been born, and neither would the time traveller himself, in which case the time traveller never would have gone back in time to kill his grandfather… Autoinfanticide works the same way, where a traveller goes back and attempts to kill himself as an infant. If he were to do so, he never would have grown up to go back in time to kill himself as an infant.
 

The plot of the movie has as follows: A rare atmospheric phenomenon triggered by solar flares in the 1960s and the 1990s allows a New York City firefighter in the past, to communicate with his son 30 years in the future via short-wave radio. The son uses this opportunity to warn the father of his impending death in a warehouse fire, and manages to save his life. However, what he does not realise is that changing history has triggered a new set of tragic events, including the murder of his mother. The two men must now work together, 30 years apart, to find the murderer before he strikes so that they can change history again.
 

We enjoyed this film as a thriller/mystery more than as a science fiction movie. Time played a role, but the interweaving stories of past and present were what made the film interesting and involving. The characters were interesting and believable, the family relationships portrayed were authentic and believable and the situations that father and son find themselves in through the tenuous connection over time are often poignant, sometimes humorous and at other times filled with suspense and mystery. The acting is very good and both Quaid as the father and Caviezel as the son do a sterling job with the material that has been given to them.
 

Toby Emmerich, better known as a film producer, wrote the story of this movie and he has managed to combine a great many original features with some old standards of the “Time travel” theme. The strong serial killer plotline that runs through the movie adds so much to the story and as the film progresses becomes an integral part of the story. Michael Kamen has provided an intelligent film score that doesn’t intrude but invests the action with suitable suspense and mystery. Cinematography by Alar Kivilo and film editing by David Rosenbloom contribute to the polished feel and look of the film. Watch it!

ART SUNDAY - HENRY MOORE

“Now I really make the little idea from clay, and I hold it in my hand. I can turn it, look at it from underneath, see it from one view, hold it against the sky, imagine it any size I like, and really be in control, almost like God creating something.” - Henry Moore
 

Henry Spencer Moore OM CH FBA (30 July 1898 – 31 August 1986) was an English sculptor and artist. He is best known for his monumental bronze sculptures, which are located in various prominent public places. He became the most influential and famous sculptor of his generation. Henry Moore was born on 30 July, 1898, in Castleford, Yorkshire. He was the seventh child in a family of 8 children. His father worked in a colliery in Castleford but wanted his children to avoid working down the mines, so as much as possible given the family’s poverty, the children were educated at a local school.
 

It was in his teenage years that Henry developed an interest in art. His talent helped him to get a scholarship to Castleford Secondary school. Aged 18 he was called up to the army and in 1917 was injured during a gas attack at the Battle of Cambrai. After his injury, he spent the remainder of the war behind the lines training new recruits. Moore later said the war was for him not a traumatic experience - unlike that of many of his contemporaries.  After the war, he continued his education and in 1921 won a scholarship to study at the Royal College of Art.
 

Moore was a talented student, but already he was experimenting with new styles and this often created conflict with his teachers who were trying to teach the classic style of perfection in form and composition. Moore was attracted to a more spontaneous art form with imperfections evident in the sculpting. In 1924, he spent time travelling in Italy and later Paris. Here he could view the great Masters such as Michelangelo and Giovanni Pisano. But Moore was also influenced by his studies of primitive art, and at the Louvre he was particularly influenced by the Toltec-Maya sculptural form, the Chac Mool.
 

On his return to London, he took up a teaching post at the Royal College of art. This part time post enabled him to work on his own art, leading to his first commissions such as the “West Wind” (1928-29).  In the 1930s, Moore became an active member of the informal modern art movement, centred around the ideas and innovation of people like Pablo Picasso and Jean Arp. He also briefly flirted with the surrealist movement.
 

The Second World War led to more traditional commissions and Moore worked as a war artist producing memorable pictures such as images of civilians fleeing the Blitz in the London underground.  This helped Moore’s reputation and after the war led to numerous awards and opportunities in America. In 1948 he was awarded the International Sculpture Prize at the Venice Biennale. Significant commissions included: A reclining figure for UNESCO building in Paris 1956; A Nuclear energy sculpture at the University of Chicago. (to commemorate 25th anniversary of nuclear reaction); Knife Edge – Two Piece in 1962 for College Green, London around Houses of Parliament.
 

In 1972, Henry Moore established his Henry Moore Foundation - a charitable trust to promote art education and the support of young artists. He was a man of modest means. Despite his wealth and fame he lived frugally remembering his Yorkshire roots. He even turned down a knighthood in 1951 because he didn’t want to be seen as an establishment figure. Yet, during his lifetime he did become the dominant sculpture of his generation.
 

Moore’s organically shaped, abstract, bronze and stone figures constitute the major 20th-century manifestation of the humanist tradition in sculpture. Much of his work is monumental, and he was particularly well-known for a series of reclining nudes. The image above is characteristic of his work. It is the “Reclining Woman” of 1956. It is located at the Sainsbury Centre, University of East Anglia, Norwich, Norfolk, England (1962 cast, acquired by Sir Robert and Lady Sainsbury).

MUSIC SATURDAY - CHABRIER

“Music causes us to think eloquently.” - Ralph Waldo Emerson
 
For music Saturday, a little of the Music of Chabrier. Alexis Emmanuel Chabrier (January 18, 1841 – September 13, 1894) was a French Romantic composer and pianist. Although known primarily for two of his orchestral works, “España” and “Joyeuse marche”, he left an important corpus of operas (including the increasingly popular “L’ étoile”), songs, and piano music as well.
 
His works, though small in number, are of very high quality, and he was admired by composers as diverse as Debussy, Ravel, Richard Strauss, Satie, Schmitt, Stravinsky, and the group of composers known as Les six. Stravinsky alluded to “España” in his ballet “Petrushka”, Ravel wrote that the opening bars of “Le Roi Malgré Lui” changed the course of harmony in France, Poulenc wrote a biography of the composer, and Richard Strauss conducted the first staged performance of Chabrier’s incomplete opera “Briséïs”.
 
Chabrier was also associated with some of the leading writers and painters of his time. He was especially friendly with the painters Claude Monet and Édouard Manet, and collected Impressionist paintings before Impressionism became fashionable. A number of such paintings from his personal collection are now housed in some of the world’s leading art museums.
 
Here are the four orchestrated pieces of his “Suite Pastoral: I: Idylle; II: Danse villageoise and in the second video, III: Sous bois; IV: Scherzo-valse. These are pieces from the piano suite “Dix Pièces Pittoresques”, the Ulster Orchestra is conducted by Yan Pascal Tortelier.

FOOD FRIDAY - GREEK TZATZIKI

“I did not become a vegetarian for my health, I did it for the health of the chickens.” - Isaac Bashevis Singer
 

Tzatziki is the Greek variation of a very trendy dip that has many versions in the neighbouring European and Middle Eastern countries. Good quality yoghurt is available throughout Greece and that yields a dip with a rich creamy texture. A true tzatziki in Greece is made of sheep or goat’s milk yoghurt as that is most readily available. In many places around the world, Greek style yoghurt is now available. Tzatziki can be served with a variety of foods as an accompaniment or it can be served with pita bread and vegetable sticks as a dip.
 

Tzatziki (Jajiki) Dip
Ingredients
 

2 cups Greek-style, natural yogurt
1 large English cucumber, peeled and grated
3 cloves garlic, minced
2 tbsp fresh mint, finely chopped
Salt and pepper to taste
 

Method
Line a colander or a sieve with cheesecloth and place over a bowl.
Add yoghurt and allow to drain, covered in refrigerator for about 2 hours. Discard liquid.
Place grated cucumber in a sieve over a bowl and let drain as well, for about 1 hour and reserve. Discard liquid.
In a small bowl, combine yogurt and cucumber with remaining ingredients and stir well with wooden spoon.
Season to taste and refrigerate for about 2 hours before serving.
 

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

LAMMASTIDE & LUGHNASAD

“Man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that proceedeth out of the mouth of God.” – The New Testament, Matthew 4:4
 
August 1 is Lammastide (Lughnasad) and a Neopagan Sabbat. Lammastide, is named after Lammas, a contraction derived from “loaf mass”. It was on this day that the harvest beginning was celebrated.  The first cut sheaf of corn or the loaf of bread made from it, was offered in church to be blessed and ensure an abundant and untroubled harvest season. The Lammas Lands were the fields used for growing early crops or hay and these were opened on this day to allow common grazing until the next Spring.

           Till Lammas daie, called August’s wheel,
           When the long corn stinks of camamile.
 

In the Scottish Highlands, Lammastide became fused with Lugnasadh the festival of the Celtic god Lugh Lightborn.  This was celebrated with gatherings, bonfires, dancing, singing and sports.  It was one of the Quarter Days, when spirits walked the earth.  On this day, ladybird beetles caught should be released with the words:
           Lady, Lady Lanners
           Tak your cloak about your heid
           And fly away to Flanders.
           Fly ower moor and fly ower mead
           Fly ower living, fly ower dead;
           Fly ye East or fly ye west
           Fly to her (or him) that love me best.
 

The ladybird would then fly away and alight towards or on one’s beloved or their home.  At the Lammas Fair in Scotland it was also traditional to celebrate “handfast” marriages.  This consisted of unmarried persons of either sex to choose a companion according to their liking.  They were to live together until Lammas Day the next year.  If they were pleased with their match, they continued to live together for life; if not, they were free to choose another mate.
 

Harvesting of corn was a very important activity as it ensured the year’s supply of grain and flour.  The Harvest Lord or “King of the Mowers” was the most experienced and trusted man elected by the harvest workers to direct operations.  Reapers wore gloves to protect their hands from cuts and prickles while they cut the corn.
           Make sure of thy reapers, get harvest in hand
           The corn that is ripe, doth but shed as it stand.
           Grant Harvest Lord more, by a penny or two
           To call on his fellows better to do.
           Give gloves to thy reapers, a largess to cry
           And ever to loiterers have a good eye.

Five Hundred Good Points of Husbandry (1573); Thomas Tusser (ca 1520-1580)

ST IGNATIUS OF LOYOLA

“I would rather live my life as if there is a God and die to find out there isn't, than live my life as if there isn't and die to find out there is.” - Albert Camus
 
July 31 is the Feast Day of St. Ignatius of Loyola (1491-1556). He was born on this day, in 1491, one of 13 children of a family of minor nobility in northern Spain. As a young man Ignatius Loyola was inflamed by the ideals of courtly love and knighthood and dreamed of doing great deeds as a brave knight. These plans were dashed in 1521, as Ignatius was gravely wounded in a battle with the French, when a cannon ball shattered his leg. Because there were no books of romance on hand during his convalescence, Ignatius whiled away the time reading books on the life of Christ and the lives of the saints. His conscience was deeply touched, and a long, painful turning to Christ began. As Ignatius experienced his conversion he decided to devote his life to God and His work.
 
Having seen the Mother of God in a vision, he made a pilgrimage to her shrine at Montserrat, near Barcelona. He remained at nearby Manresa for almost a year, sometimes with the Dominicans, sometimes in a pauper’s hospice, often in a cave in the hills, praying. After a period of great peace of mind, he went through a phase of doubt and undertook many harrowing physical and spiritual trials. There was no comfort in anything and he braved the extremes of the weather, fasted, subjected himself to great discomforts and prayed. At length, his peace of mind returned.
 
It was during this year of conversion that Ignatius began to write down material that later became his greatest work, the “Spiritual Exercises” (a set of Christian meditations, prayers and mental exercises, divided into four thematic 'weeks' of variable length, designed to be carried out over a period of 28 to 30 days. They were composed with the intention of helping the retreatant to discern Jesus in his life, leading him or her to a personal commitment to follow him. Though the underlying spiritual outlook is Catholic, the exercises can also be undertaken by non-Catholics).
 
Ignatius had always wanted to visit the Holy Land since his conversion, and finally he achieved his purpose of going there, but could not remain, as he planned, because of the hostility of the Turks. He spent the next 11 years in various European universities, studying with great difficulty, beginning almost as a child. Like many others, his orthodoxy was questioned; Ignatius was twice jailed for brief periods.
 
In 1534, at the age of 43, he and six others (one of whom was St. Francis Xavier) vowed to live in poverty and chastity and to go to the Holy Land. If this became impossible, they vowed to offer themselves to the apostolic service of the Pope. The latter became the only choice. Four years later Ignatius made the association permanent. The new Society of Jesus was approved by Paul III, and Ignatius was elected to serve as the first general. When companions were sent on various missions by the Pope, Ignatius remained in Rome, consolidating the new venture, but still finding time to found homes for orphans, catechumens and penitents. He founded the Roman College, intended to be the model of all other colleges of the Society.
 
Ignatius was a true mystic. He centred his spiritual life on the essential foundations of Christianity—the Trinity, Christ, the Eucharist. His spirituality is expressed in the Jesuit motto, “Ad majorem Dei gloriam” (For the greater glory of God). In his concept, obedience was to be the prominent virtue, to assure the effectiveness and mobility of his men. All activity was to be guided by a true love of the Church and unconditional obedience to the Holy Father, for which reason all professed members took a fourth vow to go wherever the Pope should send them for the salvation of souls.

Ignatius died in July 1556, was beatified by Pope Paul V in 1609, canonised by Pope Gregory XV in 1622, and declared patron of all spiritual retreats by Pope Pius XI in 1922. Ignatius is a foremost patron saint of soldiers, the Society of Jesus, the Basque Country, and the provinces of Gipuzkoa and Biscay. Of the institutions dedicated to Saint Ignatius, one of the most famous is the Basilica of St Ignatius Loyola, built next to the house where he was born in Azpeitia, the Basque Country, Spain. The house itself, now a museum, is incorporated into the basilica complex. His legacy includes many Jesuit schools and educational institutions worldwide. In the United States alone there are 28 Jesuit colleges and universities and more than 50 secondary schools.

INTERNATIONAL FRIENDSHIP DAY

“Walking with a friend in the dark is better than walking alone in the light.” - Helen Keller
 
Today is International Friendship Day. This is a day devoted to promoting friendship and fellowship among all human beings, regardless of their race, color or religion. Such a day has been celebrated in South American countries (and especially in Paraguay) for a long time, where the idea for a World Friendship Day was proposed back in 1958. Friendship Day observations have been held on different dates in different countries, but in 2011 the United Nations declared that the 30th of July would be the official International Friendship Day. A few countries in Asia, nevertheless, still celebrate Friendship Day on the first Sunday of August every year.
 
In the USA, a Friendship Day was first proposed by the greeting card industry when Joyce Hall, the founder of Hallmark cards in 1930, chose August 2nd as the day when people should celebrate their friendships by sending each other cards. This initiative was welcomed and further championed by the National Greeting Card Association in the 1930s, but failed to catch on with the public because it was seen at the time as a thinly disguised commercial ploy to sell greeting cards. By the 1940s the support for Friendship Day in the USA had diminished to the extent that the observation of Friendship Day nearly died out.
 
Several countries in Asia that had adopted Friendship Day, kept it alive until the UN declaration in 2011 brought it to worldwide attention once again. Friendship Day gifts such flowers, cards and jewellery are commonly exchanged amongst friends in Asia and South America. “Friendship bands”, especially, have become a traditional gift exchanged in countries like India, Nepal and Paraguay.
 
Since the UN’s official recognition of International Friendship Day in 2011, all Member States have been invited to observe the commemorative day in accordance with the culture and customs of their local, national and regional communities, including through education and public awareness-raising activities. The promotion of friendship and fellowship among all human beings, regardless of their race, colour or religion is a noble thing and it has resonated widely throughout the world.
 
“A friend,” the Heinemann Australian Dictionary defines as: “Someone whom one knows and likes well”. True enough, but rather clinical for one of the most complex and worthy of human relationships. Also a “friend” is a term that has become rather loosely used over time to define all sorts of more or less shades of meaning in several types of positive human relationships. Someone who is not our enemy is our friend, people we went to school with were our friends, the people in our neighbourhood that we greet everyday are friends, the people we are acquainted with and feel agreeable towards are our friends. But also those with whom we forge a special bond and thrive on their company when we interact with them are also our friends.
 
Humans are social animals and forming attachments to other people is an inevitable feature of being human. However, varying degrees of intimacy, appreciation, interaction, affection, love and regard are involved in these different types of friendly relationships. The generic term “friend”, has replaced the more specific meaning which means a person with whom we have a close and intimate relationship, with whom we form a special bond, where both people involved value and understand each other as individuals and accept and appreciate each other as they are.
 
I am not the first to write about friendship, nor will be the last. Many before me have very eloquently written about the inestimable value of a true friend. Perhaps the essence of friendship has been distilled by Antoine St Exupéry in “The Little Prince”. He defines friendship as a process akin to taming a wild animal, a formation of bonds. This is a good definition, for in taming something we build bridges of trust, we learn about what we tame, we understand it, we appreciate it. Establishment of bonds is a two-way process and we each gain through that effort a person who becomes different from everyone else for us, a special person. A person whom we can turn to, a person who always has time for us: “I value the friend who for me finds time on his calendar, but I cherish the friend who for me does not consult his calendar.” Robert Brault remarks. At the same time, Exupéry says, forming bonds creates responsibilities. Being a friend carries with it a mental attitude and an important code of behaviour that should be adhered to.

Friendship involves co-operation. Ralph Waldo Emerson says: “The only way to have a friend is to be one.”  Each person must contribute to the creation of the bonds and in the process get to know the other person better. Each person’s virtues and talents are appreciated, their faults and weaknesses forgiven. “True Friendship can afford true knowledge. It does not depend on darkness and ignorance. A want of discernment cannot be an ingredient in it.” Henry David Thoreau, remarks. There is trust and interdependence in friendship, respect and loyalty. True friends share their lives, the happiness and the misfortune. Especially so the sharing of good fortune and happiness, which a friend can accept without envy or jealousy as, “Too few rejoice at a friend's good fortune.” Aeschylus says.  A friend listens, understands, offers advice but doesn’t try to influence your decisions, just accepts them. Love is blind; friendship closes its eyes...
 
How do we choose our friends? They are not commodities to be sold and bought, we have to discover them and win them over. We need patience and forbearance, tolerance and good humour. In our friends we mirror the best part of ourselves and forgive our worst part. What initially attracts us to someone may turn to disenchantment as we get to know the person better or as their actions belie their words. A person who on first impression we dislike may win our affection and confidence as we journey on together.
 
The development of a friendship is like the planting of a seedling. We select what seems to be the healthiest, strongest, greenest sprout, plant it in good soil and take pains to care for it, water it, guard it from extremes of weather. We watch with delight and as the plant grows we free it from caterpillars and aphids. It buds and rewards us with an exquisite bloom. “We cannot tell the precise moment when friendship is formed.” Says James Boswell, “As in filling a vessel drop by drop, there is at last a drop which makes it run over. So in a series of kindnesses there is, at last, one which makes the heart run over.”

I share many of my interests with my friends, but at the same time I value those things that interest my friends and I have no experience of or no regard for. I agree with many of my friends’ opinions but I have built friendships where the other person has an opinion that is diametrically opposed to mine. I accept, tolerate and respect that difference in opinion. There is a broadening of experience and enrichment of existence that comes with friendship, a new knowledge and a discovery of unknown things. Together we complement one another, we learn from one another, we depend on one another. Despite our differences we are united. Friends help you move – Real friends help you move dead bodies...
 
Truth and frankness are important in a friendship but being tactful and keeping one’s criticisms to oneself at certain critical times is also important. Mignon McLaughlin remarks on the matter: “It is important to our friends to believe that we are unreservedly frank with them, and important to friendship that we are not.” Nevertheless, a friend forgives, accepts, empathises: “Your friend is that man who knows all about you, and still likes you.” says Elbert Hubbard. We look at our friends’ actions and we comment on them, we judge, but do not condemn. Arnold Bennett encapsulates this well in his epigram: “It is well, when judging a friend, to remember that he is judging you with the same godlike and superior impartiality.”

The value of a true friendship is further appreciated when we discover for one reason or another that someone whom we considered as a true friend has betrayed us. This may happen because of a multitude of reasons, but as E.M. Forster says, “If I had to choose between betraying my country and betraying my friend, I hope I should have the guts to betray my country.” When one is betrayed by a friend, the feeling is one of disillusionment, bitterness, dismay and scorn. When we lose someone we considered a true friend, it is as if the person had died, or as if something within us died for as Aristotle says: “What is a friend? A single soul dwelling in two bodies.”

Happy Friendship Day, share a little of it with some of your friends!

MOVIE MONDAY - ROOSTER COGBURN

“Chemistry can be a good and bad thing. Chemistry is good when you make love with it. Chemistry is bad when you make crack with it.” - Adam Sandler
 
At the weekend we watched an old Western the likes of which aren't made any more. I would say that even for its time it was “old-fashioned”, and it was no surprise given it starred that legend of westerns, John Wayne, in his second last film role before he died. The film was Stuart Millar’s 1975 flick “Rooster Cogburn”, starring John Wayne, Katharine Hepburn and Anthony Zerbe. It had everything a western should have, good guys, bad guys, shootouts, gold robberies, horses, Indians, magnificent scenery and a plot that would satisfy all expectations of the westerns lover.
 
The film is a sequel, building on John Wayne’s character of Rooster Cogburn from his earlier film “True Grit” of 1969. This previous film was so popular that a sequel was a no-brainer, given Wayne’s health being relatively good and Katharine Hepburn looking for something she could co-star in with Wayne.  Hepburn was one of John Wayne's biggest boosters of his talent, even though their politics clashed.
 
Rooster Cogburn (Wayne) is on the trail of a gang that massacred an army patrol and stole a gatling gun and a load of nitroglycerine to use in a bullion robbery they are planning. The gang headed by Richard Jordan with Anthony Zerbe who used to scout for Wayne go to an Indian settlement with a missionary school headed by father preacher (Jon Lormer) and daughter teacher (Hepburn). The gang shoots up the place and kills the preacher.  When Cogburn arrives on the scene, he gets saddled with Hepburn and an Indian teenager (Richard Romancito) who has just been orphaned in the massacre. The unlikely pair accompany him on the trail of Jordan and his gang and get enough adventure to last a lifetime.
 
Hepburn playing teacher Eula Goodnight can be compared to Rose Sayer in “The African Queen”. Although there are many similarities, there are also fundamental differences and the increased years of Hepburn in the 1975 role are in harmony with the more experienced woman of the world that Eula is, compared to Rose Sayer – who incidentally is much more of an action woman. This film was written around the two stars and is a perfect vehicle for their talents. They settle comfortably in their roles and have good chemistry, one seeing that they liked each other quite a lot. Hepburn said at the time that she thought John Wayne projected the same sense of integrity that Spencer Tracy did on the screen – and that’s quite a compliment coming from her!
 
We enjoyed the sense of nostalgia that the film exuded, bringing back memories of a simpler time – and I don’t mean the frontier days, I mean my youth!  The music by Laurence Rosenthal was suitably expansive and rhapsodic at times complementing wonderfully the magnificent cinematography by Harry Stradling Jr. Charles Portis who wrote the screenplay based it on the the character of Rooster Cogburn from the novel “True Grit” and he has done his best to accommodate the stars of the film in a plot that is engaging albeit conventional. We recommend the film, if nothing else for the great chemistry between the two stars towards the end of their careers.

ART SUNDAY - THOMAS EAKINS

“Nudity is the costume of lovers and corpses.” - Mason Cooley
 

Thomas Cowperthwait Eakins was born on July 25, 1844, in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania and he was an American painter, fine arts instructor, sculptor, and photographer. Eakins was born to Benjamin Eakins and Caroline Cowperthwait - his father, a second-generation Irish-American, was a calligrapher and writing master who greatly supported Thomas and his passion for art. Thomas attended the Zane Street Grammar School and later went to the prestigious Central High School in Philadelphia. He graduated on July 11, 1861, and attended the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts where he studied art, and for a short time, he also studied anatomy at Jefferson Medical College.
 

He was able to avoid fighting in the Civil War, unlike some of his friends, because of the $25 bounty he paid.  From 1866 to 1870, Eakins travelled to Europe where he spent much time studying and apprenticing in France and Spain. He studied with Gérôme, A. A. Dumont, Bonnat, and he admired artists such as Velázquez. Around this time he tried painting his own works such as “A Street Scene in Seville” and “Carmelita Requeña”. In fact, later in life Gérôme was quoted as saying to Eakins “Your watercolour is entirely good and I am very pleased to have in the New World a pupil such as you who does me honour.”
 

Eakins returned home from Europe in 1870 and moved back to Philadelphia where he took up a teaching job at the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts in 1876. He also had some creative high points around this time as he created “Max Schmitt in a Single Scull” in 1871, and “The Gross Clinic” in 1875, which is perhaps his most famous work. It depicts a much-respected surgeon watching over other surgeons operating on a person’s thigh, which caused controversy at the time due to its graphic nature.  It was first shown during the Centennial Exhibition of 1876 and sold for $250. As Helen C. Cooper, curator of American paintings and sculpture at the Yale University Art Gallery says “This extraordinary work celebrates a different kind of human achievement - that of a great surgeon - but it too combines the best of head and hand. It owes much to the lesson of the rowers [in the painting of Max Schmitt].”
 

Eakins became director at the academy in 1882, where he was quite popular with the student body.  Eakins personal life around this time included change as well. He had been engaged to Kathrin Crowell in 1874, but she died in 1879 at age 30 from meningitis. He later married Susan Macdowell on January 19, 1884 in Philadelphia. It was also in 1887 that Eakins became friends with Walt Whitman until his death in 1892. Thomas Eakins teachings though at the academy became very controversial, especially among the administration as he used nude models in person, used dissection in class to learn about anatomy, watched athletes perform for motion lessons, and used oil paints. Due to these teaching techniques, he was forced under pressure to resign from his post in 1886.
 

This was a very unhappy time for Eakins and these events caused him severe depression and humiliation, so much so that it caused him to move to North Dakota for two years. However, a few years later Eakins broke through with creativity in his works. Some of his other famous works around this time include “The Swimming Hole” painted from 1884-45 which Eakins scholar Elizabeth Johns labels “…the most intense, the most thought-provoking picture,” “The Agnew Clinic” finished in 1889, “The Concert Singer” from 1890-1892, and “Miss Amelia C. Van Buren” completed in 1890.
 

It was not until the early 1900s though that Eakins gained public notoriety in his works. He mainly focused on portraits around this time and some of them include Portrait of Maud Cook from 1895, Archbishop William Henry Elder from 1903, and Monsignor James P. Turner completed in 1906. In addition to his paintings, Eakins also used the camera extensively, especially to help with the subjects in his paintings. In 1902, Eakins finally was accepted into the National Academy of Design.
 

Thomas Eakins has had a huge influence on the arts and humanities since his death. Though often over-looked when he was alive, today he is studied around the world. He is a major study in sexuality studies in art especially. Also, his realism in painting and his focus on portraits has left an impact on future artists such as Thomas Anshutz and Henry Tanner. Some critics though still say he was too traditional and relied too heavily on family and friends for his paintings. Critics and the people in his portraits at the time often were displeased by their melancholy appearance, perhaps influenced by Eakins’ own depression. Overall though, by examining Eakins galleries and paintings in today’s museums, as Nicolai Cikovsky, Jr, the National Gallery’s Curator of American and British Paintings from Yale University notes, it, “…allows you to burrow into the artist’s work … and see Eakins for the first time as a mature artistic personality.”
 

Thomas Eakins died on June 25, 1916, in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. He had been in declining health for years and many speculate it was due to lead poisoning because of the type of paints he employed in his work. He died from heart failure around one o’clock on the 25th, surrounded by his wife, friends, and some of his old students. He requested that he be cremated and that no flowers or funeral be given. His ashes now lay in a family plot near the Schuylkill River along with his wife Susan, who passed away in 1938.
 

“The Agnew Clinic” above, finished in 1889, is a companion work to his earlier “The Gross Clinic” of 1875, and in this later work, Eakins uses dramatic lighting of the foreground to draw attention to the surgery being performed in front of a class of surgery students. As a group portrait, this recalls “The Anatomy Lesson Dr. Nicolaes Tulp” painted in 1632 by Rembrandt. The intensity of the scene, the concentration of the aces and the rapt attention of the students in the dark background make this an arresting work, but still perhaps slightly shocking for the faint-hearted.