FOOD FRIDAY - PUMPKIN BREAD

“I love the scents of winter! For me, it’s all about the feeling you get when you smell pumpkin spice, cinnamon, nutmeg, gingerbread and spruce.” - Taylor Swift

We are seeing more and more merchandising and brou-ha-ha about Halloween in the last few years in Australia. Twenty years ago, one hardly heard anything about it. Now, it is getting a great deal of air time and children especially are getting into it. The last couple of years we have had the great big orange pumpkins for carving sold by supermarket chains. Here is my contribution to Halloween, with this delicious recipe:

PUMPKIN BREAD
Ingredients
650g butternut pumpkin, peeled, deseeded
110g butter, softened
1 and 1/2 cups brown sugar
2 eggs
2 cups self-raising flour
1/2 teaspoon bicarbonate of soda
1 teaspoon ground cinnamon
1/2 teaspoon ground nutmeg
1/2 teaspoon ground ginger
1/4 teaspoon ground cloves
1/2 cup of chopped walnuts
1/2 cup of chopped dates

Method
Preheat oven to 180°C. Grease base and sides of a 6cm deep, 10.5cm x 20.5cm (base) loaf pan. Line with baking paper, allowing a 2cm overhang at both long ends.
Wash and cut pumpkin into 4cm pieces. With water clinging, place pumpkin in a single layer on a microwave-safe plate. Cover with plastic wrap. Microwave on high power (100%) for 3 to 4 minutes or until pumpkin is tender. Set aside to cool. Drain and place cooled pumpkin in a food processor. Process until smooth (you should have 1 cup).
Using an electric mixer, cream butter and sugar until pale and fluffy. Add eggs and beat until well combined. Stir in pumpkin.
Sift flour, bicarbonate of soda, cinnamon, nutmeg, ginger and cloves over pumpkin mixture. Add walnuts and dates, stirring gently to combine. Spoon into prepared pan. Smooth surface. Bake for 50 to 55 minutes or until a skewer inserted into the centre comes out clean. Stand in pan for 10 minutes. Lift onto a wire rack. Serve warm or cold.

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LOVE...

“A lover fears all that he believes.” - Ovid

One of the most fundamental and universal of human needs is that of finding a special person to share one’s life with. A soul mate, a life-partner, a person whom we can love and who loves us. That other half whom we seek in order to feel complete as individuals.

Plato in “The Symposium” says that according to Greek mythology, humans were originally created with four arms, four legs and a head with two faces. Fearing their power, Zeus split them into two separate parts, condemning them to spend their lives in search of their other halves. When one of the halves meets its other half, the actual half of himself, whether he be a lover of youth or a lover of another sort, the pair are lost in an amazement of love and friendship and intimacy and one will not be out of the other’s sight even for a moment...

Our need to love and feel loved in return often will dictate extraordinary behaviour and may cause us to go to astonishing lengths in order to attain our goal. Our interaction with people that come in and out of our life may go through different stages of intimacy until we meet “the one”. Quite often circumstance may conspire against us and the level of interaction with the object of our affection may be hampered by other people, distance, misunderstandings, misconceptions, inability to express our desires, failure of articulating our needs, or lack of courage to make ourselves vulnerable to another person.

To declare one’s love to another always is a difficult step and in order for it occur the time and place must be right. Sometimes it only takes an instant and two people fall into each other with the force of locomotives on a collision course. More often than not, the journey is slow and painful, full of wrong turns, dead ends and maze-like corridors with many branches and the encounter that occurs at long last is as gentle as a butterfly alighting on a flower.

But if the stars are aligned and if the two halves that meet are truly complementary, what joy! It is love, for what is love but the name for our pursuit of wholeness, for our desire to be complete!

POETS UNITED - ANIMATION

“Life is really simple, but we insist on making it complicated.” - Confucius

The theme for this week’s Poets United challenge is “animation”. My response to this is the poem below:

Animation

Deep in the wet and cold, black earth
A seed sleeps, profoundly, silently.
The sleep of a long, insensate death
A state of quiet, suspended animation.

The days, weeks, months and years pass,
As sun and moon revolve tireless, endlessly.
The seed sleeps, and yet as sure as greening grass
Will grow, the seed awaits life’s creation.

Some hidden internal clock marks time and ticks,
The seed stirs and juices start to flow secretly.
There is awakening: A myriad of chemicals mix
And the seed cracks open with the force of animation.

A common occurrence, a billion times replayed,
But always a wonder, as nature intends, instinctively.
A tiny seed, will live again and sprout forth in a glade
To form a flower, a bush, a tree, in glorious foliation.

What mystery in a tiny, sleeping seed enclosed,
What coexistence of death and life mixed intimately!
What joy to see the seed’s hidden, inner life exposed,
What evidence of a divine purpose and the power of animation!

PAGANINI DRINKING SLOE GIN

“Do not dwell in the past, do not dream of the future, concentrate the mind on the present moment.” – Gautama Buddha

The Catholic faith celebrates the feast day of St Frumentius today, while the Greek Orthodox church commemorates St Nestor the Martyr’s Feast Day. St Vincent and The Grenadines celebrate their Independence (National) Day (since 1979); while in Turkmenistan it is Independence Day and in Zaïre - Naming Day.

Today is the anniversary of the birth of:

 Niccoló Paganini, composer/violinist (1782);

 Isaac Merrit Singer, inventor of home sewing machine (1811);

 Klas Arnoldson, Nobel laureate (1908) pacifist (1844);

 Theodore Roosevelt, Nobel laureate (1906), 26th president (1901-09) of the USA, (1858);

 Emily Post, etiquette expert (1872);

 Dylan Thomas, writer (1914);

 Oliver Tambo, ANC leader (1917);

 Nanette Fabray, actress (1920);

 Sylvia Plath, writer (1932);

 John Cleese, English comedian (1939);

 Carrie Snodgrass, actress (1945);

 Fran Lebowitz, writer (1950);

 Jayne Kennedy, entertainer (1951).

The lemon scented gum, Eucalyptus citriodora, is the birthday plant for this day.  It is a tall graceful tree whose many elongated leaves exude a wonderful lemon scent when bruised.  The plant symbolises nostalgic memories. In the language of flowers it says: “I remember your charms”.

Sloes (Prunus spinosa) should be gathered at around this time in the Northern Hemisphere, as they are ripening.  If you intend to keep sloes, pick them not quite ripe and store them on the bough.  Sloes for wine, sloe gin or jelly should be gathered quite ripe after they have gone through a frost or two. Sloes can be used as a cure against lax bowels:

  “By th’ end of October, go gather up sloes

  Have thou in readiness plenty of those

  And keep them in bedstraw, or still on the bough

  To stay both the flux of thyself and thy cow.”

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

SLOE GIN

Ingredients

1 and 1/2 cups caster sugar

1 pound (≈ 454 g) sloes

3 cups of gin

Method

Remove the stalks from the sloes, wash and dry them thoroughly.  Prick the fruit with a large needle and put them into a large screw top jar, in alternating layers with the sugar.  Leave for three days, shaking the jar from time to time.  Add the gin on the fourth day and leave in a dark, cool place for three months, shaking occasionally.  Strain, bottle and cork and leave to mature for one year.  Filter and rebottle, drink in moderation and enjoy.

Niccolò Paganini (1782–1840) was an Italian violin virtuoso and composer. He extended the violin’s compass by employing harmonics, perfected the use of double and triple stops, and revived scordatura, diverse tuning of strings. He wrote for the violin predominantly, for example Concerto for Violin No 1 in D. His 24 caprices for violin solo were adapted for piano by Schumann and Liszt. Rachmaninov also was inspired by this composer and worth listening to is the Rhapsody on aTheme by Paganini, by Rachmaninov. 

MOVIE MONDAY - FROM HERE TO ETERNITY

“Older men declare war. But it is the youth that must fight and die.” - Herbert Hoover

We watched a film classic last weekend. It was the 1956 Fred Zinnemann movie, “From Here to Eternity” with a screenplay by Daniel Taradash, based on James Jones’ novel and starring Burt Lancaster, Montgomery Clift, Deborah Kerr, Frank Sinatra, Donna Reed and Ernest Borgnine. This was classic 1950s black and white Hollywood, with a star-studded cast and a plot that seemed to be made to please everyone.

The action takes place in Hawaii, in 1941. Robert E. Lee Prewitt (Clift) has requested Army transfer and has ended up at Schofield in Hawaii. His new captain, Dana Holmes (Philip Ober), has heard of his boxing prowess and is keen to get him to represent the company. However, 'Prew' is adamant that he doesn't box anymore, so Captain Holmes gets his subordinates to make his life a living hell. Meanwhile Sergeant Warden (Lancaster) starts seeing the captain’s wife (Kerr), who has a history of seeking external relief from a troubled marriage. Prew’s friend Maggio (Sinatra) has a few altercations with the sadistic stockade Sergeant ‘Fatso’ Judson (Borgnine), and Prew begins falling in love with social club employee Lorene (Reed). Amidst all of this, the Japanese bombing of Pearl Harbor will cause havoc and loosen in one way or another some of the plot knots.

The film is an ensemble piece for the cast with quite interesting parts for both leads and supporting actors. Many of the actors were cast against type, but it all works well and they are quite believable in their role. The film is essentially an army story, telling of the lives of soldiers in peacetime Hawaii before the bombing of Pearl Harbor. It is a fairly good description of army life then (and the film is of sociological and historical interest, if nothing else), and the relationships that it depicts are genuine and believable, even if the whole turns out to be a bit of a pot-boiler.

Most of all, the acting credits go to Montgomery Clift, in what possibly is the best role of his career. He plays the assertive, funny, tough, sensitive and charismatic soldier, the rebellious loner with the streak of nobility. James Dean idolised him after seeing his portrayal in this film.

This was “the” film of 1953, having won eight Oscars, including Best Picture, against a very strong field which also included “Roman Holiday”, “Julius Caesar” and “Shane”, as well as Best Director for Fred Zinnemann. Five of the cast were nominated and two of them, Donna Reed (Alma) and Frank Sinatra (Maggio) won. This was the film that made Sinatra a big star as an actor as well as a singer. It is interesting that Frank Sinatra took the Oscar, when I thought Clift clearly deserved one more than Sinatra did.

Overall, we enjoyed seeing this film, which despite its age engaged and interested us for its whole nearly two-hour duration. The two scenes that are memorable are legendary in moviemaking are quite diametrically different: Lancaster and Kerr rolling around and being passionate in the Hawaiian surf while a wave rushes over their bodies; and the other being the attack on Pearl Harbor by the Japanese, brief, and with multiple inserts of newsreel footage and shots from an earlier documentary by Gregg Toland, but exciting and well done. Well worth seeing this bit of Hollywood history…

ART SUNDAY - WILLIAM BLAMIRE YOUNG

“Colour is my day-long obsession, joy and torment.” - Claude Monet

William Blamire Young (1862-1935), artist, was born on 9 August 1862 at Londesborough, Yorkshire, England, son of Lieutenant-Colonel Thomas Young, land agent, and his wife Mary, née Bowser. William was educated at Forest School, Walthamstow, Essex, and Pembroke College, Cambridge (B.A., 1884; M.A., 1897). In 1885 he was appointed mathematics master at Katoomba College, New South Wales. “Enthusiastic, 191 cm tall, strong and healthy and very fond of cricket”, he was active in the local community and established a friendship with the cartoonist Phil May.

In 1893 Young went back to England. After a short period at Herkomer’s art school at Bushey, Hertfordshire, he became involved with the innovative poster work of the ‘Beggarstaffs’. On 1 July 1895 at St Peter’s parish church, Bushey, he married Mabel Ellen Sawyer, an accomplished woodcarver whose work contributed to their support. He returned to Australia and in 1895-98 was art advertising manager to the Austral Cycle Agency, Melbourne, whose advertisements appeared in Cycling News, Sportsman, the Bulletin and other popular magazines.

Briefly engaged in producing posters with Norman and Lionel Lindsay and Harry Weston, Young became prominent as a poster artist. He next began to paint large watercolour scenes of Melbourne’s pioneering days, among them the printing of the first newspaper, the first christening and Lady Jane Franklin’s reception at Fawkner’s hotel. Abandoning such work about 1906, he then attempted to communicate his reaction to the Australian landscape in an imaginative way, for he believed the gulf between the European artist and his Australian subject to be so great that to depict the landscape realistically was an empty exercise.

His first one-man show in Melbourne in 1909 was followed by others in Melbourne (1910), Adelaide and Melbourne (1911) and Sydney and Melbourne (1912). When he left for England in December 1912, Young was well known in the Australian art world: His watercolours hung in several State galleries and he had exhibited with the Victorian Artists’ Society, the Society of Artists, Sydney, the Royal Art Society of New South Wales and the Royal South Australian Society of Arts. A member of the T-Square Club, he had attended meetings of the Royal Victorian Institute of Architects and designed layouts for its Journal.

After eighteen months in Sussex preparing for an exhibition, which was cancelled by the outbreak of World War I, early in 1915 Young joined the British Army as an instructor in musketry; in 1917 he completed Landscape Target Practises for Miniature Rifle Shooting. He exhibited with the Royal Academy of Arts, Royal Society of British Artists, Royal Institute of Painters in Water Colours and other groups. In 1920 he held a large exhibition in London and was invited to provide miniatures for Queen Mary’s dolls house.

Having maintained contact through several exhibitions held in Melbourne in 1920-21, Young returned there in 1923. “The Art of Blamire Young” had been published as a special number of Art in Australia (1921), its text echoing his articles in “Drawing and Design” (London, 1919-20) and his unpublished “Autobiographical Sketch” written in 1920. Securely established, he was recognized everywhere as one of the leading artists in watercolour in Australia. He showed regularly in most capital cities and was in demand for lectures and after-dinner speeches; a connoisseur of wine, he was also a member of the National Rose Society of Victoria.

Young was a voluminous writer and an astute critic: He had contributed to the ‘Argus’ in 1904-12 and sent articles and drawings to journals such as the ‘Lone Hand’. One of his plays, “The Children’s Bread”, was performed in Melbourne in December 1911. He published “The Proverbs of Goya” in 1923 and produced “Adventures in Paint”, a hand-written book with twenty-seven original watercolours in 1924. As art critic for the Melbourne Herald in 1929-34, he wrote over 400 articles.

Young cannot be identified with either the modernist developments or the conservative academic establishment of the 1920s and 1930s in Melbourne. He was responsive to a range of art, he campaigned for what he considered ‘modern art’, but remained friendly with conservatives like Bob Croll, Harold Herbert, Hans Heysen and Lionel Lindsay. While reviewing traditional artists appreciatively, he remained critical of attempts to emulate the early works of Arthur Streeton and Tom Roberts, and deplored the effect on students of Bernard Hall and Max Meldrum. He welcomed the work of Margaret Preston, Arnold Shore, Rah Fizelle, Ola Cohn, Eric Thake, Ethel Spowers and J. K. Moore, yet warned against sacrificing conviction for fashion. Blamire Young died on 14 January 1935 at his Lilydale home and was buried in the local cemetery. His wife and two daughters survived him.

The watercolour above is his "The Argyle Cut" of 1890. It is characteristic of his early style, before he started to experiment with a looser, more transparent use of colour and freedom of form (for example, "Repairing the Viaduct" of 1922-24).

MUSIC SATURDAY - RAVEL

“And tears are heard within the harp I touch.” - Petrarch

Maurice Ravel was born Joseph-Maurice Ravel on March 7, 1875, in Ciboure, France, to a Basque mother and Swiss father. In 1889, at the age of 14, Ravel began taking courses at the Paris Conservatoire, a prestigious music and dance school located in the capital of France, studying under Gabriel Fauré.

Ravel continued to study at the Conservatoire until his early 20s, during which time he composed some of his most renowned works, including the “Pavane pour une infante défunte” (Pavane for a Dead Princess; 1899); the “Jeux d’eau” (1901), also known as “Fountains”, a piece that Ravel dedicated to Fauré; the “String Quartet” (1903) in F major; the “Sonatine” (circa 1904), for the solo piano; the “Miroirs” (1905); and the “Gaspard de la nuit” (1908).

Ravel's later works include the “Le Tombeau de Couperin”, a suite composed circa 1917 for the solo piano, and the orchestral pieces “Rapsodie espagnole” and “Boléro”. Possibly the most famous of his works, Ravel was commissioned by Sergey Diaghilev to create the ballet “Daphnis et Chloé”, which he completed in 1912. Eight years later, in 1920, he completed “La Valse”, a piece with varying credits as a ballet and concert work. Ravel died in Paris, France, on December 28, 1937. Today, he remains widely regarded as France's most popular composer. He is remembered for once stating: “The only love affair I have ever had was with music.”

“Introduction and Allegro for Harp, Flute, Clarinet and String Quartet” (French: ‘Introduction et allegro pour harpe, flûte, clarinette et quatuor’) was written by Maurice Ravel in 1905. It premiered on 22 February 1907 in Paris. It is written in the key of G-flat major and it is the first piece to explore and exploit the full resources of the chromatic harp. It is sometimes described as a miniature concerto, but it is more usually classified as a genuine chamber music work.

The Introduction and the Allegro are played without a break. The Introduction, Très lent, takes only 26 bars. The Allegro in a modified sonata form begins with the solo harp expanding the material presented before. The woodwinds expose a second theme, accompanied by pizzicato. After a fortississimo climax in the development, a harp cadenza leads to a straightforward recapitulation and a close without extensive fireworks or bombast of any kind. The work takes about 11 minutes to perform.

FOOD FRIDAY - SAVOURY ZUCCHINI MUFFINS

“Vegetables are a must on a diet. I suggest carrot cake, zucchini bread, and pumpkin pie.” - Jim Davis, ‘Garfield’

Do you often have some guests popping in unexpectedly? As soon as they have hung up the telephone telling you they are on their way, it’s quite easy to prepare some of the savoury muffins below, as the ingredients are usually in stock in the fridge and it’s a pretty easy recipe to make. Nothing better than having these fresh out of the oven, while the kitchen still smells wonderful from the baking.

Savoury Zucchini Muffins
Ingredients
220 g plain flour
1 and 1/2 teaspoons baking powder
1 teaspoon bicarb soda
1/2 teaspoon salt
70 g melted butter
1 egg, lightly whisked
250 ml milk
1 cup grated zucchini
1 clove garlic, minced
100 g grated tasty cheese
1 heaped tbsp grated Parmesan cheese
4 rashers bacon, cooked crisp and diced (optional)

Method
Preheat oven to 180˚C.
Spray 12 muffin cups with cooking oil spray.
Mix the flour, baking powder, bicarb soda and salt in a bowl.In another bowl stir together the butter, egg, milk, zucchini and garlic until well blended.
Mix the flour mixture into the butter mixture about 1/2 cup at a time, stirring between additions, until the flour mixture is incorporated. Fold in the cheddar cheese, Parmesan cheese and diced bacon then pour the batter into the prepared muffin cups.
Cook in the preheated oven until a toothpick inserted into the centre of a muffin comes out clean; about 30 to 35 minutes.
Allow muffins to cool slightly before removing from muffin cups; serve warm. Refrigerate leftovers.

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LITERARY QUIZ - ANSWERS

SET 1
Some authors are rather coy about using their first names on their works and we refer to them by their initials and their surname. Can you name the first names of these famous authors?
A. A. Milne (Alan Alexander)
C. S. Lewis (Clive Staples)
D. H. Lawrence (David Herbert)
G. K. Chesterton (Gilbert Keith)
H. G. Wells (Herbert George)
J. D. Salinger (Jerome David)
J. R. R. Tolkien (John Ronald Reuel)
P. D. James (Phyllis Dorothy)
P. G. Wodehouse (Pelham Grenville)
V. S. Naipaul (Vidiadhar Surajprassad!)

SET 2
Thomas Gray’s Elegy “Written in a Country Churchyard” contains these lines:
“*** **** *** ******* *****'s ignoble strife
Their sober wishes never learned to stray”
Thomas Hardy wrote a famous novel whose title is the asterisked quotation from Gray’s poem. What is the title that completes the poetic couplet?
“Far from the Madding Crowd”

“The Battle Hymn of the Republic” contains the following:
“Mine eyes have seen the glory of the coming of the Lord;
He is trampling out the vintage where *** ****** ** ***** are stored”
And the title of a famous John Steinbeck novel complete the quote. Which one is it?
“The Grapes of Wrath”

In Shakespeare’s “The Tempest”, the following lines appear:
“How beauteous mankind is! O ***** *** *****
That has such people in't”
The asterisks obscure the title of a famous Aldous Huxley novel.
“Brave New World”

SET 3
The following are first lines of famous novels, which ones?

“The past is a different country; they do things differently there.”
“The Go-Between” – L.P. Hartley

“There was no possibility of taking a walk that day.”
“Jane Eyre” by Charlotte Brontë

“Under certain circumstances there are few hours in life more agreeable than the hour dedicated to the ceremony known as afternoon tea. There are circumstances in which, whether you partake of the tea of not - some people of course never do, - the situation is in itself delightful.”
“The Portrait of a Lady” Henry James

“It is a truth universally acknowledged, that a single man in possession of a good fortune must be in want of a wife.”
“Pride and Prejudice” Jane Austen

SET 4
Who wrote these famous novels?
“Madame Bovary” (Gustave Flaubert)
“The Last Days of Pompeii” (Edward Bulwer-Lytton)
“Death in Venice” (Thomas Mann)
“Murder on the Orient Express” (Agatha Christie)
“The Life and Times of Alexis Zorbas” (Nikos Kazantzakis)
“Don Quixote” (Miguel de Cervantes)

And of course the illustration is Charles Dickens!

LITERARY QUIZ

“Books are but waste paper unless we spend in action the wisdom we get from thought.” - Edward Bulwer-Lytton

Just something different today, here are some trivia questions relating to authors and books (answers are here)

SET 1

Some authors are rather coy about using their first names on their works and we refer to them by their initials and their surname. Can you name the first names of these famous authors?

A. A. Milne

C. S. Lewis

D. H. Lawrence

G. K. Chesterton

H. G. Wells

J. D. Salinger

J. R. R. Tolkien

P. D. James

P. G. Wodehouse

V. S. Naipaul

SET 2

Thomas Gray’s Elegy “Written in a Country Churchyard” contains these lines:

“*** **** *** ******* *****'s ignoble strife

Their sober wishes never learned to stray”

Thomas Hardy wrote a famous novel whose title is the asterisked quotation from Gray’s poem. What is the title that completes the poetic couplet?

“The Battle Hymn of the Republic” contains the following:

“Mine eyes have seen the glory of the coming of the Lord;

He is trampling out the vintage where *** ****** ** ***** are stored”

And the title of a famous John Steinbeck novel complete the quote. Which one is it?

In Shakespeare’s “The Tempest”, the following lines appear:

“How beauteous mankind is! O ***** *** *****

That has such people in't”

The asterisks obscure the title of a famous Aldous Huxley novel.

SET 3

The following are first lines of famous novels, which ones?

“The past is a different country; they do things differently there.”

“There was no possibility of taking a walk that day.”

“Under certain circumstances there are few hours in life more agreeable than the hour dedicated to the ceremony known as afternoon tea. There are circumstances in which, whether you partake of the tea of not - some people of course never do, - the situation is in itself delightful.”

“It is a truth universally acknowledged, that a single man in possession of a good fortune must be in want of a wife.”

SET 4

Who wrote these famous novels?

“Madame Bovary”

“The Last Days of Pompeii” 

“Death in Venice”

“Murder on the Orient Express”

“The Life and Times of Alexis Zorbas”

“Don Quixote”

And who is the famous 19th century author in the illustration above?

POETS UNITED - GRAVITY

“The superior man thinks always of virtue; the common man thinks of comfort.” - Confucius

This week, Poets United is rather ponderous, with its mid-week motif being “gravity”. I went back to basics with this one, especially after being disappointed by the 2013 film “Gravity”… Here is my contribution:


Forgotten Meanings

Gravitas, pietas, dignitas and virtus:

The wise and good Roman held them in high esteem,

And lived his life informed by their good counsel,

Knowing that his house was ordered and his life was balanced.

Gravitas: Decorum and seriousness, where it was apt –

Respect of place and of other people, solemnity of occasion.

Gravity lacked by our bickering politicians, our judges and our lawmakers

Its meaning forgotten as they cachinnate and waste time

In pointless debate over trifles, while matters of import are adjourned…

Pietas: Devotion, respect to country, God and parents,

Deference to the holy, to sacred institutions and beliefs.

Piety lacked by our paedophile priests who make a mockery of their vows;

Defilement of country and heritage by the money grubbing traitors,

Children who turn parricides, repaying love with murder.

Dignitas: Nobility and authority, good reputation

And ability to command the high esteem of others.

Dignity lacked by lacklustre royalty whose scandals shock the world,

Corrupt business people whose lack of ethics harm people and planet,

Academics whose impartiality is sold to the highest bidder.

Virtus: Valour and strength, courage and manliness,

Excellence of character and high moral fibre.

Virtue lacked by the wife-basher and man who abuses women,

The drunk, the calumniator, the envious and the unworthy,

All who live life as dictated by Mammon.

Gravitas, pietas, dignitas and virtus:

Forgotten meanings in our modern world and wondrous civilisation;

Words that are quaint, passé, irrelevant and curiously obsolete…

   "Oh, wonder!
   How many goodly creatures are there here!
   How beauteous mankind is!
   O brave new world,
   That has such people in ’t!"

NEMESIS & NIOBE

“And though circuitous and obscure, The feet of Nemesis how sure!” - William Watson

The ancient Greeks believed that Nemesis, the daughter of Nyx (goddess of Night), represents that power which adjusts the balance of human affairs, by awarding to each individual the fate which his actions deserve. She rewards, humble, unacknowledged merit, punishes crime, deprives the worthless of undeserved good fortune, humiliates the proud and overbearing, and visits all evil on the wrong-doer; thus maintaining that proper balance of things, which the Greeks recognised as a necessary condition of all civilised life.

Although Nemesis, according to her original character attributes, was the distributor of rewards as well as punishments, the world was so full of sin, that she found but little occupation in her first capacity of rewarding good, that she became finally regarded as the avenging goddess exclusively.

A striking instance of the manner in which this divinity punishes the proud and arrogant is demonstrated in the case of Niobe. Niobe, daughter of Tantalus, and wife of Amphion, king of Thebes, was the proud mother of seven sons and seven daughters, and exulting in the number of her children, she, upon one occasion, ridiculed the worship of Leto, because she had but one son and daughter (the gods Apollo and Artemis), and desired the Thebans, for the future, to give to her the honours and sacrifices which they had hitherto offered to the mother of Apollo and Artemis.

The sacrilegious words had scarcely passed her lips before Apollo called upon his sister Artemis to assist him in avenging the insult offered to their mother, and soon their invisible arrows sped through the air. Apollo slew all the sons, and Artemis had already slain all the daughters save one, the youngest and best beloved, whom Niobe clasped in her arms, when the agonised mother implored the enraged deities to leave her, at least, one out of all her beautiful children; but, even as she prayed, the deadly arrow reached the heart of this child also. Meanwhile the unhappy father, unable to bear the loss of his children, had destroyed himself, and his dead body lay beside the lifeless corpse of his favourite son.

Widowed and childless, the heart-broken mother sat among her dead, and the gods, in pity for her unutterable woe, turned her into a stone, which they transferred to Siphylus, her native Phrygian mountain, where it still continues to shed tears. Apollo and Artemis were merely the instruments for avenging the insult offered to their mother; but it was Nemesis who prompted the deed, and presided over its execution.

Homer makes no mention of Nemesis; it is therefore evident that this goddess was a conception of later times, when higher views of morality had prevailed among the Greek nation. Nemesis is represented as a beautiful woman of thoughtful and benign aspect and regal bearing; a diadem crowns her majestic brow, and she bears in her hand a rudder, balance, and cubit; fitting emblems of the manner in which she guides, weighs, and measures all human events. She is also sometimes seen with a wheel, to symbolise the rapidity with which she executes justice. As the avenger of evil she appears winged, bearing in her hand either a scourge or a sword, and seated in a chariot drawn by griffins.

Nemesis is frequently called Adrastia, and also Rhamnusia, from Rhamnus in Attica, the chief seat of her worship, which contained a celebrated statue of the goddess. Nemesis was worshipped by the Romans, (who invoked her on the Capitol), as a divinity who possessed the power of averting the pernicious consequences of envy.

Nemesis in English is used to denote the inescapable agent of someone’s or something’s downfall: “Injury, consistently his nemesis, struck him down during the match.” The word nemesis is derived from the ancient Greek verb ‘nemein’, which means ‘give what is due’. Hence nemesis, means ‘retribution’.

MOVIE MONDAY - THE LAST DAYS ON MARS

“Science fiction is any idea that occurs in the head and doesn’t exist yet, but soon will, and will change everything for everybody, and nothing will ever be the same again. As soon as you have an idea that changes some small part of the world you are writing science fiction. It is always the art of the possible, never the impossible.” - Ray Bradbury

I like watching science fiction movies. No, let me qualify that. I like watching science fiction movies, provided they are intelligent, mind-challenging, do not contravene blatantly laws of nature and they are capable of making you think that what is impossible today may well be possible tomorrow (thank you, Mr Bradbury). “Fahrenheit 451” by Ray Bradbury is an excellent science fiction novel that was made into an excellent film. That is the sort of Science Fiction I like.

Unfortunately, the film we watched last weekend was a science fiction film that we did no particularly like. It was more of a horror film dressed in astronaut costumes. As such it pandered to the teen market and was not a satisfying movie for a thinking, critical viewer. It was Ruairi Robinson’s 2013 film “The Last Days on Mars” based on a short story by Sydney J. Bounds and a screenplay by Clive Dawson. It starred Liev Schreiber, Elias Koteas, Romola Garai and Olivia Williams.

The plot is set on Mars, where the first human Mars base has been established in the non so distant future. On the last day of that first manned mission to Mars, a crew member of Tantalus Base believes he has made an astounding discovery: Fossilised evidence of bacterial life discovered in a rock sample he has collected. Unwilling to let the relief crew claim all the glory, he disobeys orders to pack up and goes out on an unauthorised expedition to collect further samples. But a routine excavation turns to disaster when the porous ground collapses and he falls into a deep crevice and near certain death. His devastated colleagues attempt to recover his body. However, when another vanishes, they start to suspect that the life-form they have discovered is not without danger…

And so starts a misadventure, which in typical horror movie fashion pulls all the right strings for thrills and spills. Mars is a bit of a furphy, as the story could have as easily been set in deep underground cavern, or the South Pole, or the Jungle of the Amazon (hmmm, I think similar films have in fact been made in all of those locations!). The film is quite unoriginal and it’s a bit of a mystery as to how it got made, given that it trod such familiar ground.

The beginning of the film had some good potential. The acting was OK, the sets and costumes fine, the cinematography captivating, some good characters that began to develop well. However, it soon slips and slides downhill where the inconceivable becomes impossible and ludicrous. OK, I won’t spoil it for you if you want to watch it, except to say that it is more in the fantasy/horror genre rather than the science fiction genre. Watch at your peril. It’s B-grade matinée material…

ART SUNDAY - CAILLEBOTTE

“Pioneers may be picturesque figures, but they are often rather lonely ones.” - Nancy Astor

Gustave Caillebotte (1848-1894), whose personal works were forgotten until recently, was a respected artist and a generous patron of the Impressionist movement. He was born in 1848 in a very rich family, which made its fortune in the textiles industry and then in real estate as Baron Haussmann was rebuilding Paris.

Engineer by profession, but also former student of the Fine Arts School of Paris where he studied with Léon Bonnat, he met Edgar Degas, Claude Monet, and Pierre Auguste Renoir in 1874 and helped them organise their first group exhibition in Paris this same year. In 1873, he inherited the great fortune of his father and was financially independent for the rest of his life.

In 1875, as he wished to make his official debut as a painter, he submitted a work to the Official Salon which was refused, thus encouraging him to exhibit in 1876, with the aid of Renoir, at the second exhibition of the Impressionist group. His works, and in particular the “The floor scrapers”, were noticed and appreciated. He took part in the subsequent exhibitions of the Impressionist Group thereafter.

Caillebotte was rich and generous and throughout his lifetime aided financially his Impressionist friends by buying their works at high prices and by paying the expenses of their exhibitions. He was a co-organiser and co-financier of the third, fourth, fifth and seventh Impressionist exhibitions, in which he took part.

In 1881, he bought a house with a garden in Petit-Gennevilliers where he created a number of his works. He was a highly skilled horticulturist, and he corresponded with Monet at Giverny and cultivated orchids in his greenhouses.

A man with a complex character and multiple facets, Caillebotte also was a racing yachtsman who had a passion for speed and sought to improve the performance of his boats. As a naval architect, he designed and built his boats in a workshop located on SNECMA's present site. There he created truly innovative boats, with silk saiil, external ballast, aerodynamic hulls, with which he gained many international distinctions.

Caillebotte painted some 500 works in a style often more realistic than that of his Impressionist friends. The painter liked particularly views of Paris streets made from high balconies, painted many scenes of working life, landscapes of gardens and parks, and nautical scenes (on the Seine in Argenteuil and Yerres). His penchant for realistic painting, his vivid colour, and his treatment of light make him well a great Impressionist painter whose work is original and diverse.

Caillebotte donated his collection of paintings, in his will written in 1876, in these terms:

“I give to the French State the paintings which I have; nevertheless, since I want that this donation be accepted and in such a manner that the paintings go neither in an attic nor in a province museum, but well in the Luxembourg Museum and later in the Louvre Museum, it is necessary that a certain time passes before execution of this clause until the public, I do not say understand, but admit this new painting. This time may be twenty years at the maximum. Until then, my brother Martial, and at his defect another of my heirs, will preserve them. I request Renoir to be my executor...”

Caillebotte died in 1894 of an attack of apoplexy. The Academists, led by Gérôme, then tried to prevent the acceptance of Caillebotte’s legacy of Impressionist works in collection of the artistic inheritance of France, a stance supported by the Official Salon. A particular sticking point were works of Cézanne, which were seen to be worthless artistically. The Institute of France initially refused the Caillebotte legacy to the French National Museums.

In 1896, however, the French State authorised the National Museums to select some paintings of the embarrassing Caillebotte legacy, works which might be exhibited in the Musée du Luxembourg. They refused among these “drifts of an unhealthy art” 27 paintings out of the 67 of the collection and accepted: Seven pastels of Degas, eight Monets, six Renoirs, seven Pissarros, five Sisleys, two Cézannes and two Caillebottes (the last two added to the legacy by Martial Caillebotte, after the death of his brother).

These works were presented in an annex of the Musée du Luxembourg in 1897. The exhibition caused violent movements and a political scandal at the instigation of Gérôme and seventeen of his colleagues, members of the Institute. Thus the Senate became embroiled in this controversy. Nevertheless, it is Caillebotte’s legacy, which Renoir had the merit to impose to the French State after the death of the artist, that allowed France to have in its possession major works of Monet, Degas, Sisley and Renoir.

Most of the works of the legacy that were refused were repurchased by a certain Doctor Barnes whose collection of Impressionists is now envied by the French national museums (an exhibition of the Barnes Foundation took place at the Musée d’Orsay in 1993-94). The Caillebotte collection was integrated into the Louvre Museum only in 1928, and is today in the Musée d’Orsay.

“Les raboteurs de parquet” [The Floor Planers] above, is one of the first representations of urban proletariat. Whereas peasants (“Gleaners” by Millet) or country workers (“Stone Breakers” by Courbet) had often been shown, city workers had seldom been painted. Unlike Courbet or Millet, Caillebotte does not incorporate any social, moralising or a political message in his work. His thorough documentary study (gestures, tools, accessories) justifies his position among the most accomplished realists.

Caillebotte presented his painting at the 1875 Salon. The Jury, no doubt shocked by its crude realism, rejected it (some critics talked of “vulgar subject matter”). The young painter then decided to join the impressionists and presented his painting at the second exhibition of the group in 1876, where Degas exhibited his first “Ironers”. Critics were struck by this great modern tableau, Zola, in particular, although he condemned as a “painting that is so accurate that it makes it bourgeois”.