VEGETARIAN LASAGNE

“Once again, my life has been saved by the miracle of lasagna.” – ‘Garfield’ (Jim Davis)
 

Although we had a taste of Spring last week, the cold, wet and gray weather returned just in time of the weekend… So here’s a hearty vegetarian dish for the last few days of winter here in Melbourne. It is also a good one for election night, seeing how we are choosing the new government on Saturday September 7…
 

Eggplant Lasagne
Ingredients
 

1 tbs olive oil
1 onion, finely chopped
660ml tomato pasta sauce
125ml water
3 large eggplant, cut crossways into 3mm-thick slices
2 tsp salt
Olive oil spray
375g fresh lasagne sheets
2 eggs, lightly whisked
300g coarsely grated mozzarella
30g coarsely grated parmesan
Mixed salad leaves, to serve
 

Method
Sprinkle eggplant slices with salt. Set aside for 30 minutes. Rinse under cold water and drain well.
 

Heat oil in a medium saucepan over medium heat. Add the onion and cook, stirring occasionally, for 10 minutes or until soft. Add the pasta sauce and water. Reduce heat to low. Cook for 30 minutes or until the sauce thickens.
Preheat a sandwich toasting press. Dry eggplant slices with paper towel. Spray one-fifth of eggplant slices with olive oil spray. Cook in sandwich press for 7 minutes or until golden. Repeat, in 4 more batches, with olive oil spray and remaining eggplant.
 

Preheat oven to 180°C. Spread a little of the sauce over the base of a 2.5L capacity baking dish. Place one-quarter of the lasagne sheets, cutting to fit, on top. Top with one-quarter of the eggplant. Drizzle over a little egg. Top with one-quarter of the mozzarella, one-quarter of the remaining sauce and one-third of the parmesan. Continue layering with the remaining lasagne sheets, eggplant, egg, mozzarella, sauce and parmesan, finishing with sauce.
 

Cover the dish with foil. Bake for 35 minutes. Set aside for 10 minutes to cool. Serve with mixed salad leaves.
 
This post is part of the Food Friday meme,
and also part of the Food Trip Friday meme.

HAPPINESS

“Happiness depends upon ourselves.” - Aristotle
 

How do you define happiness? For me it is a mental and emotional state where I am experiencing positive feelings and I am content with my life. It is a state that allows me to flourish and enjoy life, where I am able to be positive towards others and do some good that will benefit other people. Happiness is not something that can be bought in a box in a store, it has to be made and the only way to make it is to concentrate on actions rather than things. Creating and building up, giving to other people, teaching others something that I know and which is useful, making people laugh, loving others is what make me happy. What I do influences how I feel, and therefore my actions will be the ones that will determine my happiness.
 

Think about the last time you experienced the greatest sadness, the greatest melancholy, the greatest depression and the greatest unhappiness. When you broke up with your partner, for example. What did you learn about yourself at that time? What did you learn about life? Did that experience make you change yourself or the way you interacted with other people? Surely, such painful experiences are a valuable lesson and by changing the way we act we can influence future similar circumstances and even prevent some of the unpleasant occurrences in our life.
 

Think about the last time you were angry over something. Really furious! Indignant, fuming, exasperated… Examine the reason why. Try and think of the deep parts of your feelings that underlay your anger. Was it because of something you feared? Because of something that involved your possessions? Because of the way that you view other people? Because of your expectations? Because of your, yours, you…? Anger is a draining emotion and it can engender so much misery and pain. Last time you were angry, did you flush it all out by talking about it with someone you cared about? It’s only when we dispel anger and fear that we can become happy and we can love freely.
 

When was the last time you gave something of yourself to someone who truly needed it? Not the money you doled out to a beggar on the street, nor the cheque you wrote out to your favourite charity. Not even the money you gave your kids who needed to buy things for school. I’m talking about time. Sitting close to someone and spending valuable time listening to them, laughing with them, being sympathetic, being empathetic, even crying with them. Being kind and compassionate takes time, often takes courage, sometimes takes audacity or even bravery. Your happiness at the end of that time spent will be almost as much as the person who has been given that gift.
 

Have you ever felt you were being a coward? Avoiding situations or people that make you uncomfortable? Not doing what your really want to, or many time not having the courage to do what you really must do, what is really right? Weakness breeds fear and fear breeds anger, which makes us unhappy. Make that extra effort to do what you must, what you need to – even if it is unpleasant, or confronting, or challenging, or troublesome. You will feel relief once that is done. You will be happier afterwards.
 

When you are feeling unhappy, what do you do? Especially so if you are alone, when your friends are not within easy reach… Surf the net? Chat online? Watch TV? Go out? Drink? Eat? Do drugs? Why not reach out for a book and read? Why not read a poem? Why not read several poems? Why not contact a relative? Especially someone whom you have not talked to for years? Perhaps one with whom you exchanged some bitter words in the past? Why not forgive and forget and hold out an olive branch? Their reaction may surprise you and you may feel a lot better afterwards.
 

Life is hard enough without us consciously making it harder than it already is. To be happy is everyone’s right as long as it doesn’t make others unhappy in the process. It is of such fundamental importance to the human condition that “life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness” were deemed to be unalienable rights by the United States Declaration of Independence. We all deserve to be happy and being happy is easier than it seems. Especially so if your primary physical needs are taken care of.  Look towards the future with hope, live today to your best ability, while remembering the past’s lessons. Concentrate on actions and feelings rather than possessions and things. Give freely of yourself to others and accept gratefully what they offer to you in return, then you will be happy.

CHARITY

“Gratitude unlocks the fullness of life. It turns what we have into enough, and more. It turns denial into acceptance, chaos to order, confusion to clarity. It can turn a meal into a feast, a house into a home, a stranger into a friend.” - Melody Beattie
 
I am fortunate that I live in a country where I can lead a comfortable life, have a good job and where rights of the individual are not only respected, but assured. Looking at the news items from all over the world that are reported on a daily basis, I can only be grateful for my lot. Although I have to work hard and spend long hours doing my job both at work and at home I take heart when I consider that in many places, the unemployment rate is above 20% and many people have been jobless for years.
 
Looking at a world where war is still raging, terrorist actions abound and where many millions are refugees, I am thankful that I have a home to go to every night and that my life is peaceful. When I hear people complaining about their life here, in Australia I get rather annoyed. What they usually grumble about is inconsequential little details that have nothing to do with survival, petty matters that cause trifling annoyances – rich people’s problems…
 
I am appreciative of my early morning walks, every day. Although I live in big city of nearly five million people, there are many parks and parklands where from 6:00 to 7:00 a.m. every day I can go for a walk and enjoy the serenity of a little time alone with my thoughts and have the bonus of the physical activity that I need so much, considering I spend the better part of my working day sitting at a desk.
 
There is always fresh, wholesome food on my table and a person to share it with that smiles and talks with me. I can turn on the tap and enjoy safe, clean drinking water and if it’s cold I can turn the heater on. A comfortable bed awaits me at night and the sheets are freshly laundered. How many people see all of these things as luxuries and even their daily bread and water is not assured them?
 
One does not have to go far to find misfortune. Even here in Australia, we have poverty and homelessness. There are people living on the street and they have to beg to eat and sleep out in the open. Fortunately, these are a minority. Nevertheless, they are needy and their circumstances in many cases are not self-inflicted. I have a lot of time for the charity organisations that do wonders in assisting these people. The Salvation Army, the Brotherhood of St Laurence, The Smith Family, Villa Maria, St John’s Youth Services are but a few of these organisations, which though donations and the hard work of volunteers do a lot to relieve the misery felt by many people in our community.
 
Further afield, Australian charity organisations do a lot for aid and development of third world countries and many Australians sponsor children through World Vision, UNICEF, Save the Children Fund, Compassion Australia and many more. If you are comfortably off, consider helping others. You can volunteer some of your time, you can provide know-how, resources or help that is always needed. You can donate some money and this web site is a good source and has contact details of most of the major charities.

LAUGHTER AND TEARS

“Death is not the greatest loss in life. The greatest loss is what dies inside us while we live.” - Norman Cousins
 
Magpie Tales has given us a Jeanie Tomanek painting this week to inspire us and stimulate some creativity for all those who take part in her challenge. Here is my offering.
 
Betwixt Laughter and Tears
 
How easily the pure white wedding dress changes to a shroud,
Mad laughter from sobbing tears cannot be distinguished.
The drunken revelry of feast only a step away from blackest desperation
And always, loneliness my most faithful companion…
 
Look at my eyes that pretend to laugh,
My lips that ostensibly stretch widely in a smile;
My hands gesticulating wildly,
Running after the jests that my mind imposes upon them.
 
If you could look into my heart, you’d understand:
You’d see the tears that fill it to the brim
Torrents that threaten to break all dams of pretended gaiety,
To spill over, drag down and drown feigned smiles.

Jeanie has this to say about herself and her art:
“Throughout my adult life I have always painted – sometimes only one painting a year.  Several years ago I escaped corporate life.  Since then I have concentrated on developing my style and voice in my work.
 
I paint to explore the significance of ideas, memories, events, feelings, dreams and images that seem to demand my closer attention.  Some of the themes I investigate come first in poems I write.  Literature, folktales and myths often inspire my exploration of the feminine archetype.  My figures often bear the scars and imperfections that, to me, characterize the struggle to become.
 
In my work I use oils, acrylic, pencil and thin glazes to create a multi-layered surface that may be scratched through, written on or painted over to reveal and excavate the images that feel right for the work. In reclaiming and reconstructing areas of the canvas, the process of painting becomes analogous to having a second chance at your life, this time a little closer to the heart’s desire.”

GLADIOLI FOR PHEIDIPPIDES

“When the mind is thinking it is talking to itself.” – Plato
 
Today is the anniversary of the birthday of:
Georg Böhm, German composer (1661);
John Howard, prison reformer (1726);
Liliuokalani, last queen of Hawaii (1838);
Henry George, economist (1839);
Wilhelm Ostwald, Nobel laureate (1909) chemist (1853);
Allan Drury, author (1918);
Jimmy Connors, tennis player (1952).
 
The gladiolus, Gladiolus spp, is the birthday flower for this day.  The name is derived from the Latin gladius, meaning “sword”, in reference to the sword-shaped leaves.  The gladiolus symbolises readiness for battle and in the language of flowers means: “You pierce my heart”.
 
On this day in 490 BC, Pheidippides ran the first Marathon to announce the victory of the Greeks over the Persians in Marathon, Attica, Greece.  He dropped dead from exhaustion promptly afterwards.  The tradition of running the Marathon in the Olympic Games is a commemoration of that historic victory and the original fatal run.
 
In 1666 on this day the Great Fire London started and lasted for 3 days.
 
Today is Vietnam’s Proclamation of Independence Day (since 1954). Vietnam was part of French Indochina and only gained its independence in 1954. Decades of internal discord, civil war mixed with external interference and tragic armed conflicts have hampered its development. The country has an area of 330,000 square km and a population of about 70 million people. It stretches along the South China Sea down a mountainous backbone and encompassing two river deltas: The Song Hong in the North and the Mekong to the South. Rice, coffee and rubber are the main crops with reserves of coal, anthracite, lignite, tin, iron ore and extensive rainforests beginning to be developed. The climate is monsoonal with moderate rainfall. The capital city is Hanoi with other major cities including Ho Chi Minh City, Da Nang, Hué, Rach Gia, Nha Trang and Haiphong.

TERPSICHORE

“Where words fail, music speaks.” - Hans Christian Andersen
 
For Music Saturday, dances from “Terpsichore” by Praetorius. The ancient Greeks believed that Terpsichore and her eight other sister muses were the tutelary deities of the arts and sciences. Terpsichore was the muse of the dance.

Michael Praetorius ([Schultze, in German] born probably February 15, 1571; died February 15, 1621) was a German composer, organist, and music theorist. He was one of the most versatile composers of his age, being particularly significant in the development of musical forms based on Protestant hymns, many of which reflect an effort to improve the relationship between Protestants and Catholics.
 
Praetorius was a prolific composer; his compositions show the influence of Italian composers and his younger contemporary Heinrich Schütz. His works include the nine volume “Musae Sioniae” (1605–10), a collection of more than twelve hundred (ca. 1244) chorale and song arrangements; many other works for the Lutheran church; and “Terpsichore” (1612), a compendium of more than 300 instrumental dances, which is both his most widely known work, and his sole surviving secular work.
 
Praetorius was the greatest musical academic of his day and the Germanic writer of music best known to other 17th-century musicians. Although his original theoretical contributions were relatively few, with nowhere near the long-range impact of other 17th-century German writers, like Johannes Lippius, Christoph Bernhard or Joachim Burmeister, he compiled an encyclopaedic record of contemporary musical practices.
 
While Praetorius made some refinements to figured-bass practice and to tuning practice, his importance to scholars of the 17th century derives from his discussions of the normal use of instruments and voices in ensembles, the standard pitch of the time, and the state of modal, metrical, and fugal theory. His meticulous documentation of 17th-century practice was of inestimable value to the early-music revival of the 20th century.
 
This recording of dances from “Terpsichore” are played by Ensemble La Fenice and the Ricercar Consort. It is a rather lush baroque orchestral version, using several old interesting instruments such as viols, theorbos, cornets and sackbuts together with the more recognisable flutes, bassoons, recorders, organ and harpsichord.

PURSLANE MEDITERRANEAN SALAD

“A healthy attitude is contagious but don't wait to catch it from others. Be a carrier.” - Tom Stoppard
 
This salad is a complete meal in itself, served with some crusty bread.
 
Mediterranean Salad
Ingredients
 
4 large ripe tomatoes, cut into wedges
2 Lebanese cucumbers, washed, not peeled, chopped
1 large capsicum, cut into fine slices
5-6 sprigs of fresh purslane, roughly chopped (see photo above)
1 onion cut into rings and then halved
1 tablespoon capers
Dried oregano
Salt to taste
1/3 cup olive oil
2 tsp white vinegar
1 tsp balsamic vinegar
 
Method
Prepare and combine all the ingredients together just before serving. This is a salad packed with nutritional goodness:
 
Purslane (Portulaca oleracea): Common garden “weed”, containing omega-3 fatty acids (α-linolenic acid); Vitamin A (high!);  Vitamins C, B group; iron, magnesium, calcium, potassium & manganese; reddish beta-cyanins & yellow beta-xanthins (antioxidants).
 
Tomatoes: Lycopene, a flavonoid antioxidant; vitamin A, and flavonoid anti-oxidants such as α and β-carotenes, xanthins and lutein; Vitamins C, B group; Potassium, iron, calcium, manganese.
 
Cucumber: Anti-oxidants β-carotene and α-carotene, vitamin-C, vitamin-A, zea-xanthin and lutein; Vitamins K; Potassium.
 
Onion: Allyl disulphide – allicin has antimutagenic and antidiabetic properties in diabetics; Vitamins C and B group; Chromium; Manganese.
 
This post is part of the Food Friday meme,
and also part of the Food Trip Friday meme.

THE HUMAN FAMILY

“Civil war? What does that mean? Is there any foreign war? Isn’t every war fought between men, between brothers?” - Victor Hugo
 

Remember the Arab Spring? Commentators are now bemoaning the fact that its positive activities and effects are rapidly withering into a cruel Arab Winter… As if the recent events in Egypt were not enough, the tragic situation in Syria has become a tinderbox set to explode any minute as the USA builds its presence in the Mediterranean. Other international players are becoming more or less involved, some threatening, some cautioning, and some keeping a respectful and neutral distance.
 

War is a horrible enough evil, but civil war is really the ultimate evil where former neighbours or even members of the same family suddenly find themselves on opposite sides of a dispute that demolishes every trace of humanity from the people engaged in the warfare. In these days of the 21st century, where we have ostensibly advanced to a highly civilised and technologically competent stage of development, it is disheartening to see that we still are plagued by wars of the type that is being played out in Syria currently.
 

Chemical weapons attacks are the latest offensive to deprive and destroy lives amongst the long-suffering civilian population in Syria. The collateral damage is immense in any war, but in a “dirty” war where chemical substances and terrorist tactics are used the huge number of civilian casualties becomes frightening. That we are still having to cope with issues of chemical warfare after the tragedies of the toxic gases used in World War I, is evidence enough that we are not advanced enough as a civilised species. That we have the spectre of nuclear warfare hovering over our heads after the atrocities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki in World War II, is shameful. That people are still prepared to kill others for simply having a different ideology, religion or ethnicity is completely repugnant and reprehensible.
 

How can we expect to survive as a species, as a civilisation as a planet if we develop better and more effective ways of destroying each other? How can we advance all of the ideals of humanity if we are divided by issues that ultimately are unimportant in terms of survival – both personal as well as on a planetary level? What can we do in our everyday life to further a spirit of goodness, peace, respect, tolerance and love for our neighbour? Perhaps this video has the answer…

TOO MUCH TO DO

“You are never too old to set another goal or to dream a new dream.” - C. S. Lewis
 

Inundated with things to do at work again means that I have very little time to devote to other pursuits, even after I get home. It seems that there are some periods during the year (and they are getting more frequent and seem to last longer!) when everything seems to be happening at the same time. Time management skills, effective delegation and prioritisation of tasks are all very well, however, when one has several major projects with deadlines looming over the horizon regularly, something has to give.
 

Hence the brevity of today’s entry, with a couple of interesting links that are work related!
 

Mayo Clinic - Time management: Tips to reduce stress and improve productivity
 

Sydney Morning Herald: Work-Life Balance
 

Making time for personal goals
 

Now I’ll have to sign off as I have to go and take a dose of my own medicine!

THIS, TOO, SHALL PASS

“Vanitas vanitatum, dixit Ecclesiastes; vanitas vanitatum, et omnia vanitas” – Ecclesiastes 1:2
 
“Passing Place” by photographer Steven Kelly is this week’s visual stimulus for Magpie Tales' followers who take the challenge to verbally create a suitable response. Here is my offering:
 
This, Too, Shall Pass…
 
This fleeting moment
Of our time in the sun,
This, too, shall pass –
Remember; for the happy man shall be made sad,
And the sad man made happy.
 
This mortal coil,
All of our suffering,
This, too, shall pass –
Remember; for the pain shall be made joy,
And the joyful made melancholy.
 
This grand love,
Our all-consuming passion,
This, too, shall pass –
Remember; for the flame shall be made ash,
And the dust made into fire.
 
This glorious fame,
The greatness, this prestige,
This, too, shall pass –
Remember; for the renowned shall be made unknown,
And the obscure will be celebrated.
 
All is fleeting, all is vain;
Life, youth, love, beauty,
Riches, luxury, your bed of roses;
These, too, shall all pass –
Remember; for the last will be first,
And the first will be last…

MOVIE MONDAY - THE RAVEN

“We aren’t in an information age, we are in an entertainment age.” - Tony Robbins
 

Last Sunday we watched the 2012 James McTeigue film “The Raven” starring John Cusack, Alice Eve, and Luke Evans. This is another of these films that have proliferated in the last few years, where fact and fiction are blended into an unrecognisable glop. It is the sticky mess of a parallel universe where President Lincoln becomes a vampire hunter and where Edgar Allan Poe becomes an assistant to a police inspector who tries to catch a mass murderer. The film is theoretically a murder-mystery story inspired by the writings and life of Edgar Allan Poe. The screenwriters Hannah Shakespeare and Ben Livingston really go to town with this simple premise and construct a whimsy of a tale that brings in bits and pieces (including a ripped out tongue – sorry, bad pun) of some tales of Poe.
 

The plot is set in the mid-1800s and centres on Edgar Allan Poe (Cusack). A serial killer is on the loose, murdering people using Poe’s descriptions from his published stories and poems. Poe teams up with Detective Fields, a Baltimore policeman (Evans), to try and catch the killer by using his knowledge of the stories – he wrote them after all. Even though the stories are fictional, they start to become reality and the killer is always a step ahead of them. The events take on a personal note as Poe’s lover (Eve) becomes a target of the murderer. The plot attempts to demonstrate how Poe met his unexplained death.
 

On October 3, 1849, Poe was found on the streets of Baltimore delirious, “in great distress, and... in need of immediate assistance”, according to the man who found him, Joseph W. Walker. He was taken to the Washington Medical College, where he died on Sunday, October 7, 1849, at 5:00 in the morning. Poe was never coherent long enough to explain how he came to be in his dire condition, and, oddly, was wearing clothes that were not his own. Poe is said to have repeatedly called out the name “Reynolds” on the night before his death, though it is unclear to whom he was referring. All medical records, including his death certificate, have been lost. Newspapers at the time reported Poe’s death as “congestion of the brain” or “cerebral inflammation”, common euphemisms for deaths from disreputable causes such as alcoholism. The actual cause of death remains a mystery. Speculation has included delirium tremens, heart disease, epilepsy, syphilis, meningeal inflammation, cholera and rabies. One theory, dating from 1872, indicates that cooping – in which unwilling citizens who were forced to vote for a particular candidate were occasionally killed – was the cause of Poe’s death.
 

The movie was average and trod on territory that was already much trodden on. It was quite uninspiring really, and the innovation was clumsily balanced on the Edgar Allan Poe connection. The Poe stories are used as a bit of pepper to season the unpalatable fare and it seems that the emphasis that the director wants to place on the genre of movie he is making is quite unclear. Is it a murder mystery? Is it a horror movie? Is it a comedy/horror one? The viewer is a little confused and the basic premise begins to grate by about 30 minutes into the movie.
 

There are some suitably atmospheric shots and passable cinematography overall. The film was shot in Novi Sad and Belgrade in Serbia, and in Budapest, Hungary. The well-preserved old buildings in these locations give the film an “authentic feel”, but one only has to listen to the dialogue and quite a lot of the modern-day expressions and slang the actors use, and the feeling is lost. The actors play passably, but somehow they don’t seem too engaged. It’s an average performance all round and Cusack did not convince me as the troubled, driven and passionate Poe. Alice Eve who played Poe’s girlfriend was a little bit of a cut-out and the role of romantic heroine did not fit in too well into the plot. Luke Evans as Detective Fields was a little to earnest and poker-faced, trying to act in a “heroic” way, but he fumbled and stumbled and was a little ineffectual.
 

This was a very strange movie all told. We had to concentrate quite a bit watching it, trying to keep ourselves involved, but we went off on tangential conversations 2-3 times during its course. For a Sunday matinee at home, “it’s OK” – watch it with a few others and tell a few jokes over the popcorn while watching it and then it may be an enjoyable experience…

ART SUNDAY - ILYA REPIN

“Painting is self-discovery. Every good artist paints what he is.” - Jackson Pollock
 
Ilya Efimovich Repin was born in 1844 in the small Ukrainian town of Tchuguev to the family of a military settler. As a boy he was trained as a traditional religious icon painter. At the age of 19 he entered the St. Petersburg Academy of Arts. His arrival in the capital coincided with an important event in artistic life of the 1860s, the so-called “Rebellion of the Fourteen”, when 14 young artists left the Academy after refusing to use mythological subjects for their diploma works. They insisted that art should be close to real life and formed the Society of the Peredvizhniki to promote their own aesthetic ideals. Later, Repin would be become a close friend and associate of some of them.
 
For his diploma work “Raising of Jairus’ Daughter” (1871) Repin was awarded the Major Gold Medal and received a scholarship for studies abroad. “Barge Haulers on the Volga” (1870-1873) was the first major work painted by Repin after graduation. It was well-accepted and immediately ensured the artist gained recognition. In 1873, Repin went abroad, travelling through Italy for some months, and then settling and working in Paris until 1876. It was in Paris that he attended the first exhibition of the Impressionists, but, judging by the works he painted during the period and by his letters home, he was not enthused by this new Paris school of painting, though he didn't share the opinion of some of his countrymen who saw a dangerous departure from “the truth of life” in Impressionism.
 
After returning to Russia, Repin settled in Moscow. He was a frequent visitor to Abramtsevo, the country estate of Savva Mamontov, one of the most famous Russian patrons of the arts of the late 19th Century. It was a very fruitful period in his creative career. Over the next 10-12 years Repin created the majority of his famous paintings. In 1877, he started to paint religious processions , for example his monumental “Krestny Khod (Religious Procession) in Kursk Gubernia” (1880-1883). The composition was based on the dramatic effect of the different social statuses and attitudes of the participants of the procession, all united by the miracle-working icon carried at the head. Repin painted two different versions of the same picture. The second one, completed in 1883, became the more popular.
 
A series of paintings devoted to revolutionary and social themes deserves special attention. The artist was no doubt interested in exploring social justice movements and how the individual confronted the machinery of the state. The range of social, spiritual and psychological problems that attracted Repin is revealed in his works “Unexpected Return” (1884), which depicts the father of a household returning from prison, and “Refusal of Confession” (1879-1885), which shows a dying man refusing a deacon’s offer of last rites.
 
Repin painted many portraits, which are an essential part of his artistic legacy. He never painted just faces, as many portraitists of the period tended to; he painted people fully, managing to show his models in their natural environment, revealing their personality and way of communicating with the world. “Portrait of the Composer Modest Musorgsky” (1881), “Portrait of the Surgeon Nikolay Pirogov” (1881), “Portrait of the Author Alexey Pisemsky” (1880), “Portrait of the Poet Afanasy Fet” (1882), “Portrait of the Art Critic Vladimir Stasov” (1883), and “Portrait of Leo Tolstoy” (1887) and many others are distinguished by their power as well as the economy and sharpness of execution.
 
Repin rarely painted historical paintings. The most popular in this genre is “Ivan the Terrible and his son Ivan” (1895). The expressive, intense composition and psychological insight in rendering the characters produced an unforgettable impression on the spectators. Another popular work of the genre is “The Reply of the Zaporozhian Cossacks to Sultan Mahmoud IV” (1880-1891). The faithfully rendered spirit of the Zaporozhian freemen, who, according to the artist, had a particularly strong sense of “liberty, equality and fraternity” undoubtedly gives the picture its power. The contemporaries saw it as a symbol of the Russian people throwing off their chains.
 
The last quarter of the 19th century is the most notable period in Repin’s work, though he continued to work well into the 20th century (the artist died in 1930). He did not paint any masterpieces in the latter years of his life. After the Bolshevik Revolution in 1917, he lived and worked in his estate Penates in Finland, where there is a Repin museum today.
 
The “Song of the Volga Boatmen” (known in Russian as Эй, ухнем! [Ey, ukhnem!, “Yo, heave-ho!"], after the refrain) is a well-known traditional Russian song collected by Mily Balakirev, and published in his book of folk songs in 1866. It is a genuine shanty sung by burlaks, or barge-haulers, on the Volga River. Balakirev published it with only one verse (the first). The other two verses were added at a later date (the song is below, sung by famed Russian bass singer Leonid Kharitinov and the Red Army Choir). Ilya Repin’s famous painting, above “Barge Haulers on the Volga”, depicts such burlaks in Tsarist Russia toiling along the Volga. It is an early painting which already shows the artist’s mastery of drawing and colour, perspective and composition, as well as the capturing the essence of light that characterizes many of Repin’s works. It also suggests the sense of social justice that the artist would champion in his paintings later in his career.

SONG OF INDIA

“Death is not extinguishing the light; it is only putting out the lamp because the dawn has come.” - Rabindranath Tagore

Music from Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov’s opera in seven scenes, “Sadko” (Russian: Садко, the name of the main character). The libretto was written by the composer, with assistance from Vladimir Belsky, Vladimir Stasov, and others. Rimsky-Korsakov was first inspired by the bylina of Sadko in 1867, when he completed a tone poem on the subject, his Op. 5. After finishing his second revision of this work in 1892, he decided to turn it into a dramatic work. The musically unrelated opera was completed in 1896.  The music is highly evocative, and Rimsky-Korsakov’s famed powers of orchestration are abundantly in evidence throughout the score. According to the Soviet critic Boris Asafyev, writing in 1922, Sadko constitutes the summit of Rimsky-Korsakov’s craft.
 
Although the opera is not performed often nowadays, one of the arias is often played as an instrumental arrangement. This is the famed “Song of India” – which is one of the three arias that fit into the plot as replies by foreign merchants to questions about what their respective countries are like. Song of the Indian Guest (Песня Индийского гостя). Tommy Dorsey's 1938 instrumental arrangement of it is a jazz classic. Here are the classic arrangement and the jazz arrangement.
 
The illustration above is a detail from the 1876 painting by Ilya Repin of “Sadko in the Underwater Kingdom”.

LEEK & MUSHROOM BAKE

“Fifty thousand dollars’ worth of cabinets isn't going to make you a better cook; cooking is going to make you a better cook. At the end of the day, you can slice a mushroom in about three inches of space, and you can carve a chicken in a foot and a half. So it doesn't matter how big the kitchen is.” - Tyler Florence
 

We had this delicious bake yesterday and as the weather was cold and wet, it was delightful just out of the oven with some red wine, crusty bread and a green salad!
 

Leek & Mushroom Bake
Ingredients
20g unsalted butter
1 tbs olive oil
1 thinly sliced leek (white part only)
1 garlic clove, crushed
400g mixed, thinly sliced mushrooms (button, Swiss brown and oyster)
2 tbs plain flour
6 eggs
150ml thickened cream
40g grated parmesan
40 g grated tasty cheese
Thyme leaves
 

Method
Preheat the oven to 180°C and lightly grease a 20cm cake pan.
Melt butter with oil in a large frying pan over medium-low heat. Add leek and cook for 5 minutes until soft but not browned. Add garlic, and then the mushrooms and stir until mushrooms are soft. Add the flour and stir thoroughly, mixing with mushrooms until flour is golden.
Whisk together eggs, cream and cheese in a jug. Season and add to the leek and mushrooms, stirring thoroughly. Fill the prepared pan with the mixture, sprinkle with thyme. Bake for 25-30 minutes until lightly browned and set. Cool slightly, then turn out onto a board. Cut into slices and serve with a green salad.

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

DAFFODIL DAY 2013

“Hope is the thing with feathers that perches in the soul - and sings the tunes without the words - and never stops at all.” - Emily Dickinson
 
Friday August 23 is Daffodil Day in Australia. This corresponds with the flowering time of these beautiful Spring bulbs in southern Australia, and just as they are a symbol of hope of the Spring to follow Winter, they have been adopted as a powerful symbol of hope for cancer patients. Daffodil Day is one of Australia’s best-known and most popular charity events devoted to fundraising for research into cancer.
 
Each day more than 100 Australians will die of cancer. Daffodil Day raises funds for the Cancer Council to continue its work in cancer research, providing patient support programs and cancer prevention programs available to all Australians. Daffodil Day helps grow hope for better treatments, hope for more survivors, hope for a cure for all cancers.
 
To the Cancer Council, the daffodil represents hope for a cancer-free future. Everyone can help in the fight against cancer by participating in Daffodil Day. Daffodil Day merchandise is on sale throughout August, and people can donate to Daffodil Day at any time.
 
In Federation Square in Melbourne, the Cancer Council has constructed a daffodil garden of hope. People can write their messages of hope for cancer sufferers, be they friends, family members or even themselves, while the blooming daffodils provide a ray of sunshine in even the dullest of gray Winter days. I hope that I see a day where cancer is no longer a death sentence for many people, where treatments are effective and relatively free of side-effects, where people can take an active role in effectively preventing cancer…

AUBREY, HERCULES & ST THADDEUS

“Man is the only animal that blushes. Or needs to.” - Mark Twain
 
On August 21 the Greek Orthodox faith celebrates the feast of St Thaddaeus the Apostle (St Jude). It is also the Independence Day of the three Baltic States, Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania whose history shows many common features.
 
This day is the anniversary of the birth of:

Philippe II Augustus, king of France (1165);
Francis de Sales, Geneva Bishop (1567);
Hubert Gautier, bridge builder (1660);
Tobias Furneaux, explorer (1735);
William IV, king of England (1765);
Hugh Victor McKay, Australian 'Sunshine Harvester' inventor (1865);
Aubrey Beardsley, English artist (1872);
Christopher Milne, son of A.A. Milne (1920);
Margaret, princess of England (1930);
Mart Crowley, playwright (1936);
Kenny Rogers, singer (1938);
Matthew Broderick, actor (1962);

The cuckoo flower, Cardamine pratensis, is today’s birthday flower.  The language of flower ascribes the meaning “ardour” to this bloom.  Astrologically the flower is under the moon's dominion.
 
Billowy white clouds that look tall and mountainous  in the morning, suggest afternoon rain according to this couplet:

            Mountains in the morning,

            Fountains in the evening.
Also sign of an approaching downpour is a heatwave:

            Heatwaves end in thunderstorms.
 
Rainbows do not always mean the end of rainy weather! Compare:

            Rainbow at morn, good weather has gone.
with:

            Rainbow after noon, good weather comes soon.
And also:

            Rainbow to windward, foul falls the day;

            Rainbow to leeward, rain runs away.
 
Whenever a rainbow is seen you should bow to it and remember that it is God's promise to mankind that He will never again cause a flood of the type that Noah survived.  To point to a rainbow is always unlucky.
 
In ancient Rome, today was XII Kalends September, on which was celebrated the Feast of Hercules. Hercules was the roman equivalent of the Greek mythic hero Herakles. The son of Zeus and the mortal Alkmene, Herakles had superhuman strength and had to perform immense tasks in order to appease Hera, Zeus's much betrayed wife. When he died he was deified and became the protector of ancient Roman businessmen. All year long, Roman businessmen set aside a tenth of their profits for the god's benefit. On this day a solemn sacrifice to the god was offered, followed by an enormous banquet and much carousing. So much food was prepared that often mountains of leftovers had to be thrown into the Tiber the next few days.
 
The Baltic states of Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania were incorporated into the USSR in 1940 and gained their independence in 1991. They are situated on the shores of the Baltic Sea across them to the West being Finland and Sweden. Their areas and populations are 45,000 square km and 2 million for Estonia; 64,000 square km and 3 million for Latvia and 65,000 square km and 4 million for Lithuania. Temperate climate supports farming and agriculture. However, limited resources and damaged environment with many economic problems mean that these countries will have to struggle in this new millenium in order to recover fully and become prosperous and financially secure.

MAD KATE

“Heaven is comfort, but it's still not living.” - Alice Sebold, ‘The Lovely Bones’
 
An Elena Kalis photograph has been provided by Magpie Tales to function as inspiration for all who will take up her creative writing challenge. Here is my offering:

Mad Kate
 
‘Mad Kate’, they called her
When she walked the fields alone,
Her hair undone and flowing,
Her dress windblown
And her hands full of the wild heather she had plucked.
 
Mad Kate, they said, was wayward,
A maid with a savage nature and a wild streak
Defiant of every rule and convention;
She lived alone, after all,
And did what she wanted – just to please herself…
 
Mad Kate, with windswept hair,
And freckled face, and sunny smile
Ready to turn to mirthful laughter;
With breath as sweet as the wild honey she ate,
And a bosom that smelt of lily and lavender.
 
Mad Kate, they said, would come to no good –
And even the village idiot was wise
Compared to her, so headstrong was she;
The woods more home to her
Than any confining village cottage that would cage her.
 
And when a village lad,
Resentful of her firm refusals, lay in wait,
And forced himself upon her in the green wood,
Mad Kate’s futile wails only echoed pointlessly,
As he ran away, his guilt assuaged easily enough, for she was mad.
 
Mad Kate, they said would come to no good –
And when her lifeless body was found in deep water,
They shook their heads, so satisfied they were proven right:
The girl was looking for trouble, she was daft,
And all her gallivanting did do her in at last.

MOVIE MONDAY - THE KILLING

“Murder is unique in that it abolishes the party it injures, so that society has to take the place of the victim and on his behalf demand atonement or grant forgiveness; it is the one crime in which society has a direct interest.” – W.H. Auden
 

We are currently watching a very good TV series on DVD, hence we haven’t watched any movies lately. We are in the midst of viewing the first season of the 2011 series “The Killing” starring Mireille Enos, Joel Kinnaman and Billy Campbell. This is an American remake of the original 2007–2012 Danish TV series “Forbrydelsen”, which received rave reviews and had a tremendous following around the world. If you have been reading my movie reviews on this blog, you know that I like subtitles so the reason we are watching the American version is because we were unable to get original Danish version. All that said, we are enjoying this version and it is this one that I shall briefly review here.
 

The events surrounding the brutal murder of Rosie Larsen, a teenager living in Seattle, are examined in great detail in this series, with each episode setting out to explore the discoveries, relationships and events that take place on a single day of the investigation. The first season comprises 16 episodes, 45 minutes each. Central to the investigation is Detective Sarah Linden who at the commencement is on what supposedly is her last day on the job. She and her son Jack are booked to leave that evening to join her fiancé in Sonoma, California Her replacement, Detective Stephen Holder, is ready to take over but they answer a call from a patrol car who have found a bloodied pullover in a field. When the missing girl, is found in the boot of a car at the bottom of a lake it turns out the car is registered to the campaign committee of councilman Darren Richmond, who is running for mayor. Linden delays her departure for what she hopes will be only a few days. This causes many complications, not only in her professional life, but also her personal life.
 

The series is extremely well made and the acting is very good. Although Mireille Enos and Joel Kinnaman playing the two detectives are the stars of the show, all other actors involved in larger or smaller roles play convincingly and contribute to the success of the series. Although this is a police drama, there are quite a few subplots and we get an intriguing insight into the lives of the people involved in the crime, with several guilty secrets being gradually revealed as the show progresses. It seems there are no “good” and “bad” guys, no white or black behaviours, only shades of grey. As more is revealed about each character, our suspicions shift and different motives for the murder are explored, suspects parade in front of us and are absolved of suspicion as we learn more about them…
 

The series has gone into a second and third season, so one presumes that there many more twists and turn in the plot and one wonders how the writers kept the viewing public engaged. However, if the first season is any indication, the following seasons’ episodes do keep the interest up and the viewers have stayed glued to the TV set. We are enjoying the show and the lives, motives, past actions and hidden lives of the characters is what is interesting and engaging. We are still hoping to get to see the Danish series and compare it to the American one. If you have watched both, I would appreciate your evaluation and comparison.
 

One has to mention in the same breath the 2011 American remake of the original 2009 Swedish film “The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo”, which I have reviewed here on this blog. The original film was so good that I am reluctant to watch the American version – at least not in the immediate future. Of course one has to make allowance for the tastes and inclinations of the general English-speaking viewing public who are loath to read subtitles in foreign language films, hence one can understand the remake. However, this reluctance to watch films with subtitles severely limits the viewing pleasure of the English speaker, as many excellent foreign language films do not get remade for English speakers. In any case, I often find that I switch on subtitles in even English speaking films as the accents, background noise, music soudtrack and sound recording are so bad or intrusive, that understanding everything that is said is very hard…

ART SUNDAY - CAILLEBOTTE

“Everybody is so talented nowadays that the only people I care to honor as deserving real distinction are those who remain in obscurity.” - Thomas Hardy
 
Gustave Caillebotte was born on August 19, 1848, Paris, France and died February 21, 1894, Gennevilliers. He was a French painter, art collector, and impresario who combined aspects of the academic and Impressionist styles in a unique synthesis. Born into a wealthy family, Caillebotte trained to be an engineer but became interested in painting and studied at the École des Beaux-Arts in Paris. He met Pierre-Auguste Renoir and Claude Monet in 1874, and showed his works at the Impressionist exhibition of 1876 and its successors. Caillebotte became the chief organiser, promoter, and financial backer of the Impressionist exhibitions for the next six years, and he used his wealth to purchase works by other Impressionists, notably Monet, Renoir, Camille Pissarro, Paul Cézanne, Edgar Degas, Alfred Sisley, and Berthe Morisot.
 
Caillebotte was an artist of remarkable abilities, but his posthumous reputation languished because most of his paintings remained in the hands of his family and were neither exhibited nor reproduced until the second half of the 20th century. His early paintings feature the broad new boulevards and modern apartment blocks created by Baron Haussmann for Paris in the 1850s and ‘60s. The iron bridge depicted in “Le Pont de l’ Europe” (1876) typifies this interest in the modern urban environment, while “The Parquet Floor Polishers” (1875) is a realistic scene of urban craftsmen busily at work. Caillebotte’s masterpiece, “Paris Street; Rainy Day” (1877 – shown here), uses bold perspective to create a monumental portrait of a Paris intersection on a rainy day.
 
Caillebotte also painted portraits and figure studies, boating scenes and rural landscapes, and decorative studies of flowers. He tended to use brighter colours and heavier brushwork in his later works.  Caillebotte’s originality lay in his attempt to combine the careful drawing and modelling and exact tonal values advocated by the Académie with the vivid colours, bold perspectives, keen sense of natural light, and modern subject matter of the Impressionists.
 
Caillebotte’s posthumous bequest of his art collection to the French government was accepted only reluctantly by the state. When the Caillebotte Room opened at the Luxembourg Palace in 1897, it was the first exhibition of Impressionist paintings ever to be displayed in a French museum.
 
The painting above, “Rising Road” of 1881 is a wonderful, impressionistic work, typical of Caillebotte’s later period. The brilliant colours and bold brushstrokes that the old régime abhorred are evident here and could not be any further from the careful drawing, precise modelling, subdued colours and smoothly worked surface of the academic works of the time. The artist’s mastery of perspective is clearly visible in this work and even though the painting looks fresh and spontaneous, it is also carefully balanced, well-drawn and executed. This artist’s works deserve to be more widely recognised and appreciated.

VIVALDI FOR SATURDAY

“The salvation of this human world lies nowhere else than in the human heart, in the human power to reflect, in human meekness and human responsibility.” - Václav Havel
 

For Music Saturday, a piece of music by Antonio Vivaldi, the motet “Longe Mala Umbrae Terrores” in G minor, RV629. The motet speaks of the terrors of the world and asks for the Lord to appear with his glory in order to save believers in Him. It is a wonderful showpiece for a soprano, with great varieties in mood and character of the music, to reflect the lyrics. This recording is with Teresa Berganza and the English Chamber Orchestra conducted by Antonio Ros-Marbá.
 

Antonio Lucio Vivaldi (4 March 1678 - 28 July 1741), nicknamed il Prete Rosso (“The Red Priest”) because of his red hair, was an Italian Baroque composer, Catholic priest, and virtuoso violinist, born in Venice. Recognised as one of the greatest Baroque composers, his influence during his lifetime was widespread over Europe. Vivaldi is known mainly for composing instrumental concertos, especially for the violin, as well as sacred choral works and over forty operas. His best-known work is a series of violin concertos known as “The Four Seasons”.
 

Many of his compositions were written for the female music ensemble of the Ospedale della Pietà, a home for abandoned children where Vivaldi had been employed from 1703 to 1715 and from 1723 to 1740. Vivaldi also had some success with stagings of his operas in Venice, Mantua and Vienna. After meeting the Emperor Charles VI, Vivaldi moved to Vienna, hoping for preferment. The Emperor died soon after Vivaldi's arrival.
 

Though Vivaldi's music was well received during his lifetime, it later declined in popularity until its vigorous revival in the first half of the 20th century. Today, Vivaldi ranks among the most popular and widely recorded of Baroque composers.

The illustration above is Samuel Colman's “The Rock of Salvation”