POETS UNITED - TIME

“Time stays long enough for anyone who will use it.” - Leonardo da Vinci

Poets United this week is looking at the topic of “Time” and Sumana is enjoining participants to think about time and its ambiguous nature. My ideas turned to language, words and grammar and how we perceive time’s vagaries grammatically. A rather academic viewpoint, but one that is required in order to express the subjective nature of time’s passage for even the most romantic and poetic amongst us. Here is my offering:

Grammar Lesson

Past, present, future:

Tense is the sea of time,

That little boat is me.

Past continuous, present perfect,

A storm brewing,

The boat is struggling.

Future and aorist, present continuous,

The battle unequal,

The boat sinks and the waters are calmed.

My world is lost,

Your world is changed,

My boat sunken,

Will never float again.

Past continuous, past perfect,

The wind abates,

The still waters rot.

And yet, if one parts

The glassy surface of the indicative,

If the imperative is to dive

Deep into the sandy bottom

Of subjunctive and conditional,

The boat is there and passively awaits

For one active voice that will command

And raise it from the depths…

VISUAL DNA

“Personality is to a man what perfume is to a flower.” - Charles M. Schwab

I recently came across a website called “VisualDNA”. According to the blurb on the site, this is why it exists: “VisualDNA was started in 2006 in order to change communication between people for the better. By combining the approaches of data scientists, psychologists, creatives and engineers we have crafted new ways of understanding the human personality, allowing people to understand themselves and businesses to serve their customers better. We want to enable a web where people have control of their own data, and where the organisations who they choose to share it with can use it as constructively as possible.”

VisualDNA profiles people using engaging visual personality quizzes, which drill into the deep-lying attitudes, values, actions and behaviours that make us unique human beings. Apparently, over 40 million people have completed these quizzes. They’re free to take and are not incentivised – so quizzes elicit honest responses from participants. VisualDNA’s feedback is built by teams of in-house psychologists and based on internationally recognised principals; including the ‘Big 5′ traits of personality. Furthermore, the quizzes are based on visual cues mainly, with a minimum of text.

There are two quizzes that you can take online and they require relatively little time to complete, without having to register or provide personal details, or even an email address. The results are available to you on screen immediately after the quiz is completed. There is a “Who am I?” quiz and a “Personality Quiz”. They are rather fun and even if not completely accurate, the results provide some food for thought, and you can retake the quizzes at your leisure once you know how they work.

I rather liked the personality quiz especially, as in the results reporting it gave several “books you will like reading” suggestions, based on responses given to quiz questions. The interesting thing was that I had read (and enjoyed) about 70% of these books. I’ve already jotted down a couple of titles I’d like to get and read next!

The quiz webpage (scroll right down) also has some free, downloadable pdf files, which offer practical advice about stressful situations. For example, there is a booklet titled “I Just Lost my Job, What Next”, and another, “I’ve Forgotten How to Have Fun”, and so on. These were quite interesting and offered some sensible advice on how to understand issues and how to set in place strategies and change behaviours in order to overcome problems.

Quite an interesting site with some good content to explore!

MOVIE MONDAY - RATATOUILLE

“I don’t like food that’s too carefully arranged; it makes me think that the chef is spending too much time arranging and not enough time cooking. If I wanted a picture I’d buy a painting.” - Andy Rooney

A DVD of the 2007 Pixar animated feature “Ratatouille” came into my hands the other day. I had heard positive things about this film but had not watched it until last weekend. It was directed by Brad Bird and Jan Pinkava, the latter having written the original story. Brad Garrett, Lou Romano, Patton Oswalt, Janeane Garofalo and Peter O’Toole provided voices for the animated characters.

Remy is a rat with a great nose and exquisitely sensitive taste buds. He finds that he also has a great talent for cooking and dreams of becoming a great French chef despite his family’s wishes and the obvious problem of being a rat in a decidedly rodent-phobic profession. When Remy is lost in the sewers of Paris, he finds himself fortuitously situated beneath the very same restaurant made famous by his culinary hero, head chef Auguste Gusteau. Remy enters the kitchen and meets young kitchen hand Linguini who has just started work there. Despite being an unlikely - and certainly unwanted - visitor in the kitchen of a fine French restaurant, Remy’s passion for cooking elevates Linguini to the status of a chef and sets in motion some amazing changes in the restaurant and the lives of all who work there.

The winning combination of Disney and Pixar has produced some amazing computer-generated animated films, including “A Bug’s Life”, “Toy Story”, “Monsters, Inc.”, “The Incredibles”, “Finding Nemo”. “Ratatouille” is quite stunning visually, surreal and realistic at the same time, and a joy to watch. The characters are poetic and engaging, and the rats are some of Disney-Pixar’s cutest. The film is definitely not a “children’s only” one, but one that would be enjoyed by the whole family with layers of jokes and meaning that differently aged viewers would each appreciate as appropriate. I would even venture to say that is primarily a film for adults that children can watch and enjoy also.

I have seen “A Bug’s Life”, “Toy Story” and “Finding Nemo” and consider “Ratatouille” to be superior to all of these. The animation is splendid, the story wonderful, the comedy well-paced, the voice characterisations apt and the message of the film well-stated. Not everyone can do anything, but if you have a special skill or talent, don’t be afraid to use it and stick with it, even in the most adverse of circumstances. There is also a wonderful sequence relating to the food critic Anton Ego (marvellously voiced by Peter O’Toole), full of poignancy and honesty. I enjoyed this film very much and recommend it most highly for a wonderful 111 minutes of good, wholesome, entertaining family viewing.

ART SUNDAY - GAINSBOROUGH

“Life is like a landscape. You live in the midst of it but can describe it only from the vantage point of distance.” - Charles Lindbergh

Thomas Gainsborough (c. 1727–1788) was one of nine children born to John Gainsborough, a weaver and woollen cloth merchant, in Sudbury, in Suffolk, England. He was born in the spring of 1727 and christened on May 14. Perhaps due to his mother’s penchant for painting flowers and encouraging her son’s talent with a pencil, Gainsborough assembled a rather impressive portfolio at a young age. By 10, he had drawn some local village landscapes, and added caricatures and other facial studies.

His father was sufficiently impressed with his work to allow him to go to London, England, where he studied at an academy in St. Martin’s Lane under the renowned William Hogarth and other masters known for etching, historical painting and portraiture. During this time Gainsborough fell in love with Margaret Burr, the illegitimate daughter of a nobleman, and her dowry allowed him to set up a studio in Ipswich by the time he was 20.

When his landscapes were not selling, Gainsborough turned to portraiture for money. He moved his wife and two daughters to Bath, where there was a more bustling influx of upscale clientele, and set to studying the painter Sir Anthony van Dyck for insight into technique. His reputation began to grow. Sending his portraits to the Society of Arts exhibitions in London (his Ipswich friend Joshua Kirby was president), especially those of his more prominent sitters, helped attract attention to his work. Gainsborough’s increasing prosperity allowed him to indulge his passion for music. He learned to play the viola da gamba (a fretted string instrument), the harp and the hautboy (oboe), among other instruments, and employed a houseful of international musicians.

Perhaps because of his lively nature, the tall, handsome and garrulous Gainsborough enjoyed spending time with theatre folk. He painted celebrated actors such as David Garrick and Sarah Siddons, and also lesser-known players, gifting his portraits to them, as well as sketches and landscapes. By 1774, he had become so successful, it was silly not to be in London. He was one of the founding members of the Royal Academy, and not long after moving his family to the capital, he was summoned to the palace and began portraits of King George III and other nobles. Although the king was obliged to name his rival, Joshua Reynolds, as the official court painter, Gainsborough remained the favourite of the royal family.

Thomas Gainsborough died of cancer on August 2, 1788, at the age of 61. He requested to be buried at St. Anne’s Church at Kew, which was the royal family’s primary residence and known for its lush and varied landscape. It was a fitting locale, since Gainsborough had returned to his love of landscape painting in his waning years and become known for his simple settings, elegant brushwork and extraordinary use of light. And yet, Gainsborough’s most recognisable painting today is probably a portrait of the son of a wealthy merchant, known simply as “The Blue Boy”.

Legend has it that Gainsborough tried to reconcile with Joshua Reynolds, his rival, at his deathbed. The two share a reputation as the most famous portraitists of the latter 18th century. Gainsborough is also known one of the originators of the 18th century British landscape school. A later painter with a similar reputation, John Constable, was a huge fan, saying of Gainsborough’s landscapes, “On looking at them, we find tears in our eyes and know not what brings them.”

Above is a seascape of his, exhibited in the National Gallery of Victoria in Melbourne. It is “A Seapiece, A Calm” painted around 1783. To render effectively the effects of light Gainsborough painted scenes on glass transparencies and viewed them by means of a “peep-show box”, which still survives (Victoria & Albert Museum, London). The artist’s experiments with such techniques demonstrate his attention to light and atmospheric effects, in preference to mere reproduction of detail. In the painting above (exhibited in London’s Royal Academy in 1783), Gainsborough achieves realistic effects by focusing on the qualities of light, atmosphere and water.

MUSIC SATURDAY - SWOONING...

“But when the wearied band swoons to a waltz, I take her hand, and there we sit in peaceful calm, quietly sweating palm to palm.” - Aldous Huxley

We are very lucky in Australia to have a national radio station devoted to playing classical music 24/7 without the interruptions of any commercial advertisements. This is the government-funded ABC Classic FM which is at 105.9 on the dial or alternatively available to listen to on the internet.

It has become an annual tradition on ABC Classic to organise a public poll of the “Classic 100” pieces nominated by and voted for by the public. Each year a different theme is chosen. For example, in 2014, the theme was “Baroque and Before”; in 2013 it was “Music in the Movies”; in 2012 it was “Music of France”; in 2011 it was “Music of the 20th Century”; and so on. This of course is quite a clever ploy as it engages listeners, boosts popularity of the station, and as the 100 most popular pieces are then marketed each year in boxed sets, it is a revenue source for the station. It is a win-win for both listeners and the radio station.

This year the theme for the “Classic 100” is “Swoon”! Twenty years ago a segment was born on ABC Classic FM’s “Classic Breakfast” program called “Swoon”. It was a momentary rest from the busy pace at the start of the day. Presenter Christopher Lawrence called it a “little parcel of rapture” and the popularity of the segment and subsequent CD sales saw it become the highest selling classical CD in Australia ever. It was therefore an easy choice for this year’s “Classic 100” theme.

I have been listening to the countdown, which began yesterday and I have been revelling in the music, most of which are favourites of mine. There are some exceptions, which I don't particularly like, but such is the case with any selection, which is nominated and voted for by a large number of people.

Inspired by this, I give you one of my all-time favourite “swoons”. It is Antonin Dvořák’s String Quartet No. 12 Op. 96 B. 179 in F, the so-called “American Quartet”, performed by the Emerson String Quartet. The second movement marked “Lento” is the especially “swoonworthy” part… Enjoy!

Movt 1 – Allegro ma non troppo: 0:00

Movt 2 – Lento: 9:03

Movt 3 – Molto Vivace: 16:50

Movt 4 – Vivace ma non troppo: 20:28

FOOD FRIDAY - NEPALI CURRY

“It’s the 21st century. It's healthier for us, better for the environment and certainly kinder to be a vegetarian.” - Ingrid Newkirk

News from Nepal several weeks after the deadly quake is not too good… For example, British donations for victims of the Nepal earthquakes are stuck at Catterick Garrison because of tax restrictions imposed by the country’s government. Ten tonnes of everyday items, from men’s shoes to sleeping bags and cooking utensils, is holed up at a church warehouse after Nepal put an income tax of up to 30 per cent on relief goods. Officials claim the tax is necessary so the government can co-ordinate relief efforts but critics say they are simply ‘cashing in’ on the crisis. One hopes that good sense will prevail and relief efforts will reach those most in need.

A delicious, vegetarian Nepalese recipe today:

Nepali Indian Curry

Ingredients

1 kg peeled and cubed potatoes (can substitute other cubed vegetables)

4 tablespoons vegetable oil

2 red onions, chopped

1 bay leaf

1/2  teaspoon black pepper

2 green chillies (removing the seeds will remove some of the heat, if desired)

6 cloves garlic, crushed

2 cm piece of ginger, finely chopped

2 teaspoon ground coriander

1 teaspoon ground cumin seeds

1/2  teaspoon turmeric powder

1 teaspoon salt

6 spring onions, chopped

2 cups peas

6 tomatoes, chopped

1 tablespoon chopped coriander leaves

1 cauliflower, broken into florets

1 can coconut milk (optional)

Method

Peel and dice potatoes into small cubes. Heat oil and fry the onions until golden. Add bay leaf, pepper, chillies, garlic, ginger, ground coriander, cumin seeds, turmeric and salt. Stir in the potatoes and fry until browned. Add spring onions, peas, tomatoes and a cup of hot water. Cook gently for 5-8 minutes. Add cauliflower and cook further until all the vegetables are tender. If using, add the coconut milk and heat through. Serve with rice.

Add your own favourite recipe below:

REX INGAMELLS

“One ought, everyday, to hear a song, read a fine poem, and, if possible, to speak a few reasonable words.” – Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

Reginald Charles (Rex) Ingamells (19 January 1913 – 30 December 1955) was an Australian poet, generally credited with being the leading light of the Jindyworobak Movement.

Ingamells was born at Orroroo, South Australia. He was educated at State schools and at Prince Alfred College and graduated in Arts at Adelaide University. For many years he was a schoolteacher in Adelaide, but in 1946 he moved to Melbourne as educational representative of a publishing firm. He travelled widely throughout Australia, worked for four seasons as a fruit-picker along the Murray river, and made a journey in a schooner trading along the South Australian coast. He died near Dimboola, Victoria in a car-crash in 1955.

Rex Ingamells was best known as the founder of the Jindyworobak Club, a literary movement established in 1938, which for some years gathered around it and gave impetus to a number of Australian poets. The movement was aggressively and self-consciously Australian, placing a special emphasis on aboriginal culture (with which, in fact, the white man's culture has little in common).

Ingamells’s earlier books of verse were brought together in “Selected Poems” (1944), and a long ‘epic’ poem dealing with Australia’s discovery and development, “The Great South Land”, was published in 1951. His work has suffered, possibly, from an over-emphasis arising from his intensity of belief.

Much of his writing is propaganda for the Australian landscape, which even after five generations of British settlement, tends to seem alien to minds nurtured on English and European literatures. Ingamells consciously tried to create a body of Australian writing that would enable growing Australians to feel imaginatively at one with the dry sunburnt beauty that surrounds them.

In 1941-42 critics derided Ingamells and the ‘Jindys’ partly for their political ideology and largely for the pedestrian ‘Australian’ and ‘Aboriginal’ verse that the movement was producing. A. D. Hope called the Jindyworobaks the ‘Boy Scout School of Poetry’. From this point, the effect of Ingamells and his followers declined and their role in initiating an important discussion tended to be forgotten, despite the fact that the anthology appeared annually until 1953 and Ingamells continued to write prolifically.

Garchooka, the Cockatoo

By Rex Ingamells

Though the waters, wind-stirred and red-glowing,

shadowed by the evening gloom of gums,

bend in their banks the way the day is going,

while a dusk-gold haze of insects comes

over the ripples in their coloured flowing,

Garchooka, beating from high branches, screeches

discord up and down the river-reaches.

The painting of a flying Cockatoo is by Australian artist, Arthur Boyd.

POETS UNITED - SUSTAINABILITY

“We generate our own environment. We get exactly what we deserve. How can we resent a life we’ve created ourselves? Who’s to blame, who’s to credit but us? Who can change it, anytime we wish, but us?” - Richard Bach

Poets United has set a midweek motif that centres on “sustainability”. Is there a poet out there in this world who is not sensitive to this topic? I know that personally, it concerns me greatly. Here is my poem:

The Extraterrestrial

I come to you in peace,

My star so far away,

A pinpoint of light

In your night sky.

I come to your distant world

And find myself in paradise.

I’ve travelled long and far,

Away from the dry deserts

Of my homeland –

An arid planet, red and barren

Where water’s most precious

And wars are fought over a single well.

Your blue-green world

Hanging in space

Like a gemstone, beckoned,

And I came, succumbing

To its gentle insistence

Like a lover’s gaze.

I come to you in peace,

And seek only repose,

The luxury of drinking my fill,

Eating the lush vegetation

With my wide open eyes,

Never sated by the verdant green.

Your oceans brimming with life

Remind me of our distant past –

As our history writes –

When we too inhabited such a world:

Blue-green, drenched, bedewed,

Immersed in crystal waters.

Your forests, drinking the rain

That falls so regularly,

Are priceless beyond compare.

The flowers costlier than jewels bright –

What use to us are our diamonds,

Common as pebbles on my world?

And yet I see vast deserts, here,

I see the rainforests cut, extinction,

Your oceans polluted, animals dying.

The signs are here that you too

Have set a course that will make

Your earth a world like mine.

I come to you in peace,

And seek only a brief respite.

I bring a message from Hell

To your blue-green Eden:

Time runs short, destruction’s close
Unless you become wise, soon…

ORPHEUS

“When music fails to agree to the ear, to soothe the ear and the heart and the senses, then it has missed the point.” - Maria Callas

Orpheus in Greek mythology was a legendary hero who had god-like musical skills. He was the son of a Muse (probably Calliope, the patron of epic poetry) and Oeagrus, a king of Thrace (or even the god Apollo). According to some legends, Apollo gave Orpheus his first lyre. Orpheus’ singing and playing were so beautiful that animals and even trees and rocks moved about him in dance.

Orpheus joined the expedition of Jason and the Argonauts, saving them from the music of the Sirens by playing his own, more powerful music. On his return, he married the nymph Eurydice, who soon after was killed by a snakebite. Overcome with grief, Orpheus went to the land of the dead to attempt to bring Eurydice back to life.

With his singing and playing he charmed the ferryman of the dead, Charon, and the three-headed watchdog of the underworld, Cerberus. Orpheus’ music and grief so moved Hades, king of the underworld, that Orpheus was allowed to take Eurydice with him back to the world of life and light. Hades set one condition, however: On leaving the land of death, both Orpheus and Eurydice were forbidden to look back. The couple climbed up toward the opening into the land of the living, and Orpheus, seeing the Sun again, turned back to share his delight with Eurydice. At that moment, she disappeared, lost to him forever.

Orpheus himself was later killed by the women of Thrace. Aeschylus, says that they were Maenads urged by Dionysus to tear him to pieces in a Bacchic orgy because he preferred the worship of the rival god Apollo. The dismembered limbs of Orpheus were gathered up and buried by the Muses. His lyre they had placed in the heavens as a constellation. The story of Orpheus was transformed and provided with a happy ending in the medieval English romance of Sir Orfeo. The character of Orpheus appears in Monteverdi's 'Orfeo' in the 16th century, Christoph Gluck’s opera 'Orfeo ed Euridice' in the 18th century,  in Jean Cocteau’s drama and film “Orphée” and the Brazilian film “Black Orpheus”  in the 20th century.

The painting above is Peter Paul Rubens’ “Orpheus and Eurydice”, painted between 1636 and 1638. It is a large work 194 × 245 cm, and is now housed in the Kunsthaus Zürich, Switzerland.

Here is the theme song from “Black Orpheus” sung by Astrud Gilberto. “Manhã de Carnaval” (“Morning of Carnival”), is the title to the most popular song by Brazilian composers, Luiz Bonfá and Antonio Maria. The song appeared in the 1959 Portuguese-language film Orfeu Negro (English titled: Black Orpheus), by French director Marcel Camus based on a play by Vinícius de Moraes. Specially in the USA, the song is considered to be one of the most important Brazilian Jazz/Bossa songs that helped establish the Bossa Nova movement in the late 1950s. Manhã de Carnaval has become a jazz standard in the USA, while it is still performed regularly by a wide variety of musicians around the world in its vocal version or just as an instrumental one.

MOVIE MONDAY - ZORRO!

“Unhappy the land that needs heroes.” – Bertold Brecht

As a child I always used to love adventure stories and read books with great heroic tales told in a wonderfully engaging way. I read not only the mythology of the past, but modern mythology too. I mean tales with heroes like “Tarzan”, “Robin Hood”, “Ivanhoe”, “Zorro”, and the like. I had the chance a couple of days ago to view the old classic of 1940, “The Mark of Zorro” directed by the great Reuben Mamoulian, one of the legendary directors of Hollywood. Tyrone Power cast as the swashbuckling hero was a great choice, as was Basil Rathbone having great fun playing the villainous captain Esteban Pasquale. Linda Darnell quite aptly was the romantic interest, Lolita, and the rest of the cast was well chosen and all played well.

The DVD I watched had a couple of versions on it. The original black white restored film, which was a pleasure to watch, but also a colourised version, which I had a brief skim through afterwards. This was interesting as the colours were muted and were quite well matched to the classic feel of the story. It reminded of early 20th century copies of National Geographic, with that “hand-coloured” look of the colour plates. I must admit that I am not a fan of these colourised versions – there is something phony about putting colour on what is in most cases a wonderfully composed and perfect looking black and white film. However, in this case the effect was rather quaint and not at all garish and grating. Nevertheless, I did watch the BW version!

The film is based on the story of Johnston McCulley “The Curse of Capistrano” (1919), which introduced the masked hero, Zorro. The plot is set in Southern California during the early 19th century and concerns Don Diego, the foppish son of a wealthy caballero who returns to California after a sojourn at school in Spain, only to be horrified at the way the common people are being mistreated by the tyrannical Governor Quintero. Don Diego disguises himself as Zorro (“the Fox”), who becomes a defender of the people. In the meanwhile, he romances the governor’s beautiful niece, Lolita, and fends off the adulterous advances of the governor’s wife while doing battle with the governor’s ablest henchman, the evil Captain Pasquale. Sounds an awful lot like Robin Hood, doesn’t it? The version I watched is a remake of the 1920 silent version, “The Mark of Zorro, which starred Douglas Fairbanks.

Numerous other versions of “Zorro” have been made in various countries around the world, as well as in Hollywood. Most lately, Hollywood has spawned several offshoots including the 1998 “Mask of Zorro” where an elderly Zorro comes out of retirement to train a new Zorro to fight a new threat to the community. In 2005 the story continues in a sequel “The Legend of Zorro”. I must admit that these later versions did not capture my imagination in the way that the 1940 original version did. I think I must be getting older…