BACH FOR SATURDAY

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

It has been a rather difficult week. Now, as the first month of the year draws to a close, what better to smooth one’s frayed edges, calm the spirit and sweeten the temperament than the divine music of Johann Sebastian Bach. Here is his Siciliano from the Flute Sonata No 2 in E flat. Melancholy yet restful, sweet yet having a tangy aftertaste, calming but also tinged with a disquietude that fascinates…

Have a great weekend!

HEATWAVE FOOD

“Ah, summer, what power you have to make us suffer and like it.” - Russell Baker


Today, the thermometer showed 43.1˚C at 4:30 pm. Melbourne again endured a top temperature above 43 degrees on the third consecutive day, marking this occurrence as the first time since records began in 1855. Our public transport system did not cope well with the heat and despite the bribe of “free travel” on public transport today, the cancellations, reroutings, delays and trains not stopping at their designated stations (yes, I was a victim of this, last mentioned event) made us commuters a cranky lot.

Half a dozen homes were destroyed by bushfires at Boolarra North, east of Melbourne and firefighters were hampered by lack of water and a scorching wind. The Country Fire Authority and volunteer firefighters are doing a heroic job but the infernal conditions are beyond imagination. I feel rather petty now, when I think about this, and have become upset over the trifle of my train being late and missing my station. When I think of people losing their home and everything in it, I am thankful that I have a home to come to, even if I was delayed and heat-distressed.

Speaking of heat distress, both fire engines and ambulances were goin back and forth outside my window in the City today, almost no stop. Apparently, as the radio reported, ambulance staff in Victoria had to attend to 60 in a 16-hour period after suffering the effects of heat exposure. This no doubt flows on from the blackouts that we suffer from as a result of the extreme weather. Power was cut to 42,000 Melbourne homes on Friday alone. We had a power cut of about half an hour yesterday in our house. There are fears of further power cuts as a bushfire in Endeavour Hills threatens high-voltage lines that supply two-thirds of Melbourne's power.

It is not surprising of course that our water consumption soared as the temperatures rose. Melbourne Water showed water consumption at an average of 207 litres per day per person. This of course is well above the government’s target of 155 litres per person per day.

Dinner tonight was salad! Nothing else could be stomached. Long cooling drinks of water, and freshly cut salad kept us hydrated and nourished. The treat was some vanilla ice cream a few hours later as we watched TV. Fortunately, the air conditioner kept the temperature inside to a tolerable 28˚C while outside the mercury hovered in the high 30s well into the evening…

HOT DAY SALAD Ingredients

2 carrots very finely grated
1 beetroot very finely grated
3 tomatoes, peeled and chopped into segments
3 Lebanese (small, gherkin type) cucumbers, sliced
1 witlof (http://www.jetfresh.com.au/witlof.html) sliced finely
1 handful of baby spinach leaves, chopped
1 green capsicum, finely chopped
3 spring onions, shopped
2 sprigs of dill, chopped
2 sprigs of parsley, chopped
Salt, pepper to taste
1 teaspoonful dry mustard powder
Vinaigrette dressing

Method
Mix all ingredients together except for the condiments and dressing. Dissolve the salt, pepper and mustard powder in the vinegar and then make the vinaigrette. Pour the dressing over the salad, mix well and serve with fresh, crusty bread.

RUNNING AMOK

“What broke in a man when he could bring himself to kill another?” - Alan Paton

Horrific news from all over the world continues to filter through and contributes to the rest of the terrible stories that we have become used to. The tragic story of a family being wiped out by a homicide and suicide a couple of days put a human face to the vicissitudes of the economic woes. Ervin Lupoe in LA was deep in debt when he killed his wife, five children, and himself. Lupoe was at least a month behind on his mortgage, owed thousands of dollars on credit cards, and owed the IRS at least $15,000. The couple were fired recently from their medical technology jobs at the Kaiser Permanente hospital in West LA. They allegedly lied about their income to try to qualify for cheaper childcare.

The couple pulled their kids out of school last week and planned to move in with a relative in Kansas. Detectives found the Lupoe’s SUV packed with children’s clothing and snow chains. It’s not clear why that trip didn’t happen, and instead the Lupoe family chose to solve their problems in such a deplorable way. It is a terrible indictment on a society and a system that spends billions to “help” banks our of their financial woes and fails people like the Lupoes.

As I was coming home on the crowded train in this evening’s 44˚C heat, I read in the evening paper about an appalling crime committed today in Melbourne. A little girl, four-year-old Darcey Iris Freeman was thrown 58 metres down from the West Gate bridge in front of her two young brothers this morning just after 9:00 am. She managed to survive the fall into the Yarra River, but died of terrible injuries in the Royal Children’s Hospital several hours later. The culprit was her father, 35-year-old Arthur Freeman. The man was arrested outside the law courts in the City, apparently suicidal and leading his young sons by the hand. He has been arrested and will appear before the magistrate in May. The man is thought to have been involved in a protracted custody dispute with his wife. He was suffering from acute psychiatric distress and had to be treated.

What causes a family man, a father to go over the edge like this and murder his own child? What events could have pushed him to commit such a heinous act? I am trying desperately to understand and find ways to be compassionate, but I am afraid that it’s beyond me. Whatever dispute I had with my wife, whatever dire circumstances besieged me, whatever personal tragedies, disappointments and disasters, would I ever be driven to that terrible act? I cannot fathom any circumstances that would force me to say I would. The man was psychiatrically unstable, maybe that explains it… But still, one’s one child?

There’s a name in criminology circles for the apparent murder-suicide that claimed the lives of seven members of the Lupoe family in Wilmington in LA. Men like Lupoe in this case commit “despondent familicide”. We all know that “homicide” means killing another human being; “suicide” killing oneself; “fratricide” killing one’s sibling; “filicide” killing one’s children, “uxoricide, killing one’s wife, but now we are adding this new word to our vocabulary of despair: “Familicide”…

In the USA, a 2-year-old was burned to death by her father in Arizona after he tired of her requests to see her mother. A mother suffering from post-partum depression in Texas drowns her five children in the bathtub, while not long afterward, another mother in Connecticut beats and stabs her 15-month-old to death. And then, Randy Palm hangs his 5-year-old son Skylar, and then himself in the basement of his Hopewell home. In most of these cases, warped altruism is the most common cause, revenge the least common, as studies by experts cite.

The suicidal mother or father who thinks that she or he cannot abandon a child, or who kills to alleviate the child's suffering, either real or imagined is the one guilty of “despondent filicide”. If the spouse is killed also and the perpetrator commits suicide, the crime is one of “familicide”. In studies of familicide, there is often a history of domestic violence, but few warnings of any impending explosion, since the abuser may very often be despondent or withdrawn as opposed to threatening or overbearing.

We are becoming demented as a society. We have lost our equilibrium, we have misplaced our values, we have lost our shame and we are selfishly pursuing paths of least resistance, yearn for instant gratification, demand personal gain, have abandoned the common good for egotistical agendas. We see more of these offences, more dishonesty, more senseless crimes, more violence on all levels. The state of our economy is the end result of greed and the sacrifice of the general good of the community for obscene personal gain. Is this civilisation? Can such a sick society survive? Is it surprising that “familicide” is becoming more common?

-cide
combining form
1 denoting a person or substance that kills: Insecticide | regicide.
2 denoting an act of killing: Homicide | suicide.
ORIGIN via French; sense 1 from Latin -cida; sense 2 from Latin -cidium, both from caedere ‘kill.’

THE PARTY

“Happiness is nothing more than good health and a bad memory.” – Albert Schweitzer

Memories define who we are, can influence our actions, may shape the rest of lives. We often cling to sweet memories so that the bitterness of the present is tempered like coffee, sweetened with sugar. Painful memories are dulled by time so that their acrid essence is distilled into something more refined than the raw gut-wrenching agony we felt when we experienced the reality that birthed them. Some memories live on vivid and fresh, either to delight or torture. Strong emotional reactions engender long-lived memories. Here is a poem written about persistent memories.

The Party

I’ll throw a party and invite
Old wounds, my recent pain;
I’ll sing and laugh all night,
Forgive, forget, and feign
That all’s well, all’s bright.

My party’s doors are open wide
So that my memories may come,
To tell me that enough I’ve cried.
Past loves, that heart will numb,
File in, remembrances to chide.

The music sounds strong and loud,
Old bitternesses will dance and sway.
My soul will fly above the cloud,
Colours will cover all my gray,
Bright cloth replaces my shroud.

I’ll drink and sweet will be the wine,
My anguished mind will succumb
To blessed forgetfulness divine.
Cool logic will be struck dumb
And broken heart no longer pine.

Bright lights to burn until the morn,
Feet never to leave the dance floor.
But in my side there’ll be pain, a thorn:
Your absence, still an open sore;
And in my party I alone will mourn.

MOZART, NICOTIANA & CLIMATE CHANGE

“The prudence of the best heads is often defeated by the tenderness of the best hearts” – Henry Fielding

Today marks the anniversary of the birth of Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart (1756–1791) the Austrian composer whose works represent one of the greatest peaks of Western music. His works, written in every one of the possible forms, combine beauty of melody, harmony and orchestration with classical grace and technical perfection. Mozart learned to play the harpsichord, violin, and organ from his father, Leopold Mozart, (1719–1787), also a composer and violinist. A remarkable prodigy, the young Mozart was composing by the age of five and presenting concerts throughout Europe as a child.

His Idomeneo (1781) is one of the best examples of 18th century opera seria. The Abduction from the Seraglio (1782), a singspiel combining songs and German dialogue, brought some success to him. He turned to the Italian opera buffa, creating the comic masterpiece The Marriage of Figaro (1786). Don Giovanni, considered “difficult” in its day but now recognized as one of the most brilliant operas ever written, followed in 1787. Eine kleine Nachtmusik (1787) is an example of the elegant occasional music and begins with one of the most well known melodies in classical music.

In 1788 he wrote his last three symphonies, Numbers 39–41, which display his complete mastery of form and intense personal feeling. In Vienna he produced his last opera buffa, Cosi fan tutte (1790). In The Magic Flute (1791) he returned to the singspiel, bringing the form to a great height. He then worked feverishly on a Requiem commissioned by a nobleman; it proved to be Mozart's own, and the work was completed by his pupil Franz Süssmayr. The composer died at 35 in poverty and was buried in a pauper’s grave.

The birthday plant for today is the tobacco flower, Nicotiana alata. The genus (named after Jean Nicot, the 16th century French Consul to Portugal) also includes the tobacco plant. Many species contain in their leaves the deadly poison nicotine, which in small doses is addictive. The plants are native to the Americas and the Amerindians used to smoke the dried leaves of the plant before the arrival of the white conquerors. Sir Walter Raleigh introduced tobacco to Europe in the 16th century. The flower symbolises forbidden pleasures and deadly addictions for obvious reasons...

Today we had a temperature of 39˚C. The weather bureau predicts temperatures above 40˚C in the next four days with a cool change on Sunday bringing the expected maximum down to 31˚C. These temperatures on consecutive days have not been seen for decades in Melbourne. Our climate is definitely changing and we had better get used to extremes of temperature and the breaking of weather records from now on. These weather extremes are not unprecedented, they have been recorded by palaeometeorologists who have found evidence of several changes in our climate over the millions of years of earth’s existence. Several of these climate changes may have been responsible for extinctions of species and one of them nearly wiped out the human species.

This particular disaster happened 70,000 years ago and was caused by a massive volcanic eruption on the island of Sumatra, Indonesia. The volcano was Toba and where a tall mountain was in the past, now all that remains if a large lake. The eruption was a cataclysmic event which must have happened suddenly (so the geological records indicate). It spewed 2800 cubic kilometers of volcanic material into the atmosphere, making it the most violent eruption of the last two million years (The mount St Helen’s eruption, being the largest in living memory produced only one cubic kilometer of material in its 1980 eruption).

Scientists have traced Toba’s volcanic dust throughout the world, but worse over Southeast Asia, India, the Middle East, with some deposits of ash as high as 6 metres in some digs in India. The dust and ash in the atmosphere caused immediate effects on climate, with about six years of a volcanic winter. Plant life and animal life was wiped out by the billions as global temperatures fell by an average of about 12˚C. A few tropical areas in Africa with high rainfall were able to sustain life.

It has been suggested that total human population was reduced to about 10,000 individuals. This is supported by genetic data and explains why the genetic diversity of today’s human population is so narrow. For centuries, each new generation of humans could have easily been the last. We owe our survival to those few thousands of resourceful humans that managed to survive the geological disaster that nearly wiped out our species. Sobering, isn’t it? Trouble is, it’s happening all over again and this time we only have ourselves to blame…

Well to cheer you up here is some Mozart! First the virtual “Mozartkugel”, a delicious chocolate bonbon of Salzburg with a centre of pistachio marzipan, almond nougat and dark chocolate. Now made to the same recipe in several cities it is available around the world. Secondly, here is a delicious musical bonbon by the master himself, the Andante from his Piano Concerto No 21, “Elvira Madigan”.

"AUSTRALIA" FOR AUSTRALIA DAY

“Nationalism is both a vital medicine and a dangerous drug” - Geoffrey Blainey

Happy Australia Day, Australia! Happy Republic Day, India!

January 26th marks these national anniversaries and in both countries there are national holidays and general rejoicing as both countries celebrate their national identities.

Australia is a continent-country, in area the sixth largest country in the world, about 7.6 million square km in area. It gained its independence from UK in 1901 and its present population of 21,572,816 people has accrued through colonisation and large immigration programmes. The capital city is Canberra, but this is an artificial city, a created small administrative centre. The largest urban centres are Sydney, Melbourne, Brisbane, Perth, Adelaide and Darwin. The North is subtropical and the South-eastern coast has temperate, almost Mediterranean climate. The majority of the continent is arid desert and scrub, making Australia one of the driest, if not the driest place on earth. Vast mineral, oil, coal and natural gas resources exist and the fertile plains around the coast make this a bountiful land. Immense open spaces make Australia one of the least density populated nations with only 2 people per square km. A country of largely underdeveloped rich resources, great natural beauty and relative isolation ensure Australia’s growing importance as a local and world power in the future.

In tribute to our national day today, here is my Movie Monday review of Baz Luhrmann’s, 2008 film “Australia”. The movie is of epic proportions (almost three hours long) and with sweeping themes as big as the Australian landscape. It is set in northern Australia at the beginning of World War II, where an English aristocrat (Nicole Kidman) inherits an enormous cattle station. Amid suspicions of foul play, and rampant English cattle barons who plot to take her land, she joins forces with a rough and ready stock-man (Hugh Jackman) to drive 2,000 head of cattle across hundreds of miles of the country's most rough and cruel land. They arrive in Darwin to witness its bombing by the Japanese forces that had attacked Pearl Harbor only months earlier.

The film is difficult to categorise, hence my characterisation of “epic” before. There is romance, adventure, mystery, war, period piece and I guess some would say even “Western”. It is a hodge-podge, true, but the majesty of the locations and the scene-stealing outback raise it to the level of an epic. There is humour in it and pathos, but one may recognize touches of “Gone with Wind”, “Out of Africa”, “Rabbitproof Fence”, Wizard of Oz”… But to be truly original is getting harder and harder nowadays. Luhrmann was given a big budget and he pulled out all stops. Good old-fashioned melodrama is what he achieved, replete with the clichés, the corny dialogue and the rather stilted acting at times.

Yet the film is engaging and if one goes into it not determined to can it, one can enjoy it. It has flaws (including historical clangers – the Japanese never managed to land on Australian soil in WWII, as the film suggests), but also one may enjoy its multiple virtues. Young Brandon Walters as the endearing young aboriginal boy Nullah will impress most viewers and the appearance of some well-known Australian actors such as Jack Thompson and Bryan Brown will entertain and amuse.

The film is quite controversial and has polarized viewers and critics. Some scream “garbage”, while others heap praise on it. As for myself, I can say it’s no masterpiece, but it was entertaining and undemanding. Escapist and not overly involving of one’s higher mentative faculties. There has been too much hype about it, which I don’t think has helped the movie. See it, make up your own mind.

ART SUNDAY - THE PRADO

“Fine art is that in which the hand, the head, and the heart of man go together.” - John Ruskin

It’s been a stressful day today with some sickness in the family and a trip to the hospital. All has ended well, however, and it’s now back to normal. Never rains, it pours, they say…

For Art Sunday, I decided to take a virtual trip to one of the great museums in the world, the Prado in Madrid. I have fond memories of visiting this museum when I was in Madrid and it's fantastic to now have the ability through technology to revisit it and focus in on some of the exhibited masterpieces in this museum.

The way to do it is to use “Google Earth”, which can be downloaded for free at http://earth.google.com/ . Once you have downloaded it, type “Prado, Madrid” in the search box and you will be flown to the museum where you will enjoy ultra-high resolution images of some of the most famous paintings in the world.

The screen shot above is from my virtual trip and you can see a detail of the marvellous “Las Meniñas” of Diego Velázquez, painted in 1656. The work's complex and enigmatic composition raises questions about reality and illusion, and creates an uncertain relationship between the viewer and the figures depicted. Because of these complexities, “Las Meniñas” has been one of the most widely analysed works in Western painting.

Las Meniñas shows a large room in the Madrid palace of King Philip IV of Spain, and presents a snapshot of several figures from the Spanish court of the time. Some figures look out of the canvas towards the viewer, while others interact among themselves. The young Infant Margarita is surrounded by her entourage of maids of honour (= Las meniñas), chaperone, bodyguard, two dwarfs and a dog. Just behind them, Velázquez portrays himself working at a large canvas. Velázquez looks outwards, beyond the pictorial space to where a viewer of the painting would stand. A mirror hangs in the background and reflects the upper bodies of the king and queen. The royal couple appear to be placed outside the picture space in a position similar to that of the viewer, although some scholars have speculated that their image is a reflection from the painting Velázquez is shown working on.

The painting has been described as “Velázquez's supreme achievement, a highly self-conscious, calculated demonstration of what painting could achieve, and perhaps the most searching comment ever made on the possibilities of the easel painting”.
Go visit the Prado, this weekend!

A SONG, A DEATH

“Alas for those that never sing, But die with all their music in them!” - Oliver Wendell Holmes

For Song Saturday, a beautiful song by Lucio Dalla, “Caruso” sung by Lara Fabian, an Italian/Belgian singer who trained as a classical lyric soprano before becoming a pop idol.



Caruso
by Lucio Dalla

Here where the sea sparkles,
And where the wind blows forcefully,
On an old terrace above the gulf of Sorrento,
A man embraces a young woman
Who has just wept…
Then he clears his voice
And begins anew his song:

“I love you so very much,
So very, very much, you know;
It’s a chain by now
It’s a heat in the blood
Inside the veins, you know…”

He looks at the lights shimmering on the sea
And brings to mind the nights there in America.
They are only the fishing lamps
And the sparkling wake of the boat on the water.
He feels the pain of the music,
Stands up, away from the piano;
But as he sees the moon emerging from behind a cloud,
Even death seems sweet to him, then.
He looks at the girl’s eyes,
Those eyes, as green as the sea,
From which a tear falls
In which he believes that he might drown.

“I love you so very much,
So very, very much, you know;
It’s a chain by now
It’s a heat in the blood
Inside the veins, you know…”

What power there is in lyric opera,
Where every drama is false!
A little make-up is all it takes
And with a little acting,
You can become someone else.
So everything becomes so small,
Like the nights there in America…
You turn and you see your life disappear
Like the wake of the boat on the water…

“I love you so very much,
So very, very much, you know;
It’s a chain by now
It’s a heat in the blood
Inside the veins, you know…”

One of my aunts in Greece died this week. She was 88 years old and she had recently had a bad fall. They did not tell us of her death until after the funeral. Distance and time separate people, families are split, our lives become propelled by so much forceful acceleration that it becomes hard to stop, take stock of things and do something before it’s too late.

My aunt represented another time and place for me, so distant that even her death has made little difference to my idea of her as living history. The last time I had seen her was several years ago when I had visited Greece and I had been surprised at how much she had aged and had become smaller, more fragile than what she seemed when I was a child. She had looked at me then with pride and had laughed when I was telling her of our life here in Australia. We drove out into the countryside and visited a place that I remembered from infancy, one of the earliest memories of mine form the 60s. How the place had changed and yet the spirit of it was the same. Because she had been there, both times?

She was the last left of my father’s eight siblings left alive and now only my father lives.
Vale, auntie…

MOJITO

“Drunkenness is temporary suicide.” - Bertrand Russell

The Mojito is a Cuban cocktail that has rum as its base and is flavoured with mint and limes. It originated in the 16th century when Sir Francis Drake was in the Caribbean plundering the wealth of the New World, his piracy officially sanctioned by Elizabeth I. When he was visiting the West Indies, Francis Drake was to sack Havana and plunder its gold, but at the last minute he sailed away. Richard Drake, his subordinate was left behind and he invented a drink called the Draque based on aguardiente, the forerunner of rum.

In 1593, no doubt inspired by Elizabeth I’s monopoly patent on spirits, Richard Drake concocted the Draque. Aguardiente, sugar, lime and mint were combined to make a drink whose purpose was medicinal. Well that was Drake’s story and he stuck to it… In the 1800s, Don Facundo Bacardi Massó (the founder of the Bacardi company), substituted the aguardiente with rum and the mojito was born. The word mojito is a diminutive of “mojo” of African origin (Gullah: “moco”) meaning a magic charm, talisman, hoodoo or spell. An alternative derivation is from the Spanish verb “mojar” (to make wet), and “mojo” meaning wet. A popular Cuban sauce made of limes, sour oranges, garlic and olive oil is also known as “mojo”.

A mojito is traditionally made of five ingredients: white rum, sugar (or even better “guarapo” – sugar cane juice), lime, mint and soda water. It has a taste which is a combination of sweetness, refreshing citrus and mint flavours that mask the potent kick of the rum. The mojito is a popular summer drink.

To prepare a mojito, lime juice is added to sugar (or syrup) and mint leaves. The mixture is then gently mashed with a muddler. The mint leaves should only be bruised to release the essential oils and must not be shredded. Then rum is added and the mixture is briefly stirred to dissolve the sugar and to lift the mint sprigs up from the bottom for better presentation. Finally, the drink is topped with ice cubes and sparkling water, and mint leaves and lime wedges are used to garnish the glass. Variosu recipes exist and personal taste prevails as to the exact proportions. The Bacardi mojito web page has several. Here is a classic recipe:

MOJITO

Ingredients
1 part white rum
½ lime
Some mint leaves
Dessertspoonful icing sugar
Ice cubes
Enough soda water to fill the highball glass

Method
Place the lime in wedges, the sugar, the mint in a highball glass and muddle with pestle. Don’t crush the mint, just bruise it gently so that it releases its fragrant oils and the lime its juice. Add the rum and ice cubes and fill the glass with soda water. Stir and garnish with a mint sprig and a lime slice.

ST VINCENT vs ST ANASTASIUS

“Wine is sunlight, held together by water.” – Galileo Galilei

Mullein, Verbascum nigrum, is today’s birthday plant. It symbolises nature and in the language of flowers says: “Take courage”, its bright yellow flowers striking a confident note. Astrologically, it is a saturnine plant. In olden times the plant was stripped of its leaves, the stem dried and dipped in tallow grease to make candles. Hence the alternative name for the plant “candelwick”, “hedge taper” and “Jupiter’s staff”.

Those of the Catholic faith celebrate St Vincent of Saragossa’s Feast Day today. St. Vincent, the protomartyr of Spain, was a deacon of the 3rd century. Together with his Bishop, Valerius of Saragossa, he was apprehended during a persecution of Dacian the governor of Spain. Valerius was banished but Vincent was subjected to fierce tortures before ultimately dying from his wounds. According to details of his death (which seem to have been considerably embellished later on), his flesh was pierced with iron hooks, he was bound upon a red-hot gridiron and roasted, and he was cast into a prison and laid on a floor strewn with broken pottery. But through it all his constancy remained unmoved (leading to his jailer's conversion) and he survived until his friends were allowed to see him and prepare a bed for on which he died. The saint's fame spread rapidly throughout Gaul and Africa. He is the patron saint of winegrowers, winemakers, vinegar makers and schoolgirls!

If the weather is good (in the Northern hemisphere) on this day, a good wine harvest is said to be assured:
Remember on St Vincent’s Day
If that the sun his beams display
For ‘tis a token, bright and clear
Of prosperous weather all the year.

Fittingly, the word of the day is: “Oenophile”

oenophile |ˈēnəˌfīl| noun
A connoisseur of wines.
DERIVATIVES
Oenophilia /ˌɛnoʊˈfɪliə/; oenophilist |ēˈnäfəlist| nouns
ORIGIN
Oenophilia originally from Greek, is the love (philia) of wine (oinos). An oenophile is a lover of wine.

The Greek Orthodox faith celebrates St Anastasius I (ca 430-518 AD) who was a Roman emperor of the East (491-518), successor of Zeno, whose widow he married. He made peace with Persia, maintained friendly relations with Theodoric the Great and made Clovis I an ally. He protected Constantinople from attack by building a new city wall and he aided the poor in his kingdom by revising the tax system. He abolished gladiatorial contests, but his monophysite tendencies stirred religious unrest in the empire. St Anastasius is the patron saint of goldsmiths.

SOLUTIONS IN THE END

“Sometimes, when one person is missing, the whole world seems depopulated.” – Alphonse de Lamartine

A poem that was written quite a few years ago and seemed at the time to presage an imminent finality, which really only heralded a new beginning. As Jean Giraudoux wisely observes: “Sadness flies on the wings of the morning and out of the heart of darkness comes the light.” But how slowly that dawn is in coming, and how the night tarries… How hopelessly lost hope seems and how easy it is to think that the only solution is the end?

Solutions in the End

Early morning, wan light creeping in through half-shut window,
Remembrance of the full-moonlight last night; your indifference;
The phone that refused to ring, refused to ring, refused to ring…
And above all the smell of bitter almonds, cyanide.

Your smile, how I read into it so much, so many hidden meanings…
But it’s really silent, inarticulate, mute – I imagined it all,
While a false hope stops me solving everything neatly, quickly, finally.
And the bitter taste, that pungent acridity of strychnine.

My thoughts, the rain, the tyranny of your relentless presence;
Even when absent, you’re by my side, with me.
My fantasy, a secret mythology - how endless, inexhaustible my patience…
And there, now, I feel the keen caress of sharp razor on my wrist.

Pleasure so dear, of its precious draught I tasted only a single drop,
Like a drop of water on parched lips of desert traveller lost in the sands;
Your oasis a cruel mirage, a simple illusion by physics explained.
And next to my ear, the deafening sound of a discharging pistol.

The endless night, the dawn that comes, comes, comes,
And never arrives; while in futility, I wait and wait and wait…
You never arrive, never beside me, never with me.
Yet death comes in a thousand guises,
He hurries, running to keep our appointment
Bringing with him, the end, solutions and redemption…

OUT WITH THE OLD, IN WITH THE NEW

“Would I might rouse the Lincoln in you all.” – Vachel Lindsay

The inauguration of President Elect Barack Obama is making headlines around the world today and Washington is preparing for a massive influx of people from all over the US who want to be present at this historic event. The charismatic Obama succeeds the gauche Bush who has been described by many newspapers around the world as the “worst president the USA has had”. The Iraq war, a controversial re-election, the response to Katrina, the lying to Congress, the personal exemption of himself from the laws of the country he was president of, the unleashing of a “war on terrorism”, that if anything made things worse than better, and many more such acts have made outgoing President Bush a good contender for the title of “Worst President”. His presidency is ending with one of the worst economic crises to hit the world since the 1930s depression. His popularity is sinking to new lows not seen since the Nixon years (now, there’s another contender for the title of “Worst President”!).

Now that Obama-fever has swept the globe there is great hope that the incoming US president will lead the world into a new crisis-free era. The “Obama Effect” is being hailed as being enough to shorten the global recession. Analysts are more realistic and have warned that we should temper our expectations for his rule somewhat. Obama has already planned two trips to Europe in April for attending an international summit on the economic crisis and a NATO alliance meeting. European politicians are optimistic that more cooperation will be possible with the Obama administration than what has occurred with the Bush administration. This seems to be the general opinion in most countries around the world, with an average of 67% of people polled in various countries believing that Obama will strengthen America's relations abroad. Questioned about what the priorities of Obama should be, the answers were hardly surprising: The global financial crisis should be top priority, followed by pulling US troops out of Iraq, tackling climate change, brokering peace in the Middle East, improving social conditions at home, the health system, etc.

Russia's Prime Minister Vladimir Putin was one of the few world leaders to express skepticism of the “Obama Effect”. Putin stated with Slavic pragmatism that: “I am deeply convinced that the biggest disappointments are born out of big expectations”. I would certainly agree, and once the celebrations are over, once the early days of the “honeymoon” are over, once Obama begins to tackle the immense problems that he finds on his desk (and no doubt finds a few skeletons in the White House cupboards, also), the immensity of the task ahead of him will become manifest. Although I have confidence in Obama’s ability, the situation worldwide is not one that will be repaired with a few signatures here and there, a couple of state visits in a few countries and the passing of a few bills through Congress.

Barack Obama has a momentous task ahead of him. This is possibly the worst time that a President Elect has been in the position of assuming power in the most powerful political office in the world. Decisive action, immense diplomacy, boldness coupled with sensitivity, tact and moderate views, tolerance and goodwill are some of the many traits and qualities that Obama need resort to in order to deal with the many political, economic and social wildfires that are raging around the world. I only wish that the “Obama Effect” will help. My experience and logic say that things will get a lot worse before they get better – my innate optimism and hopeful nature want to believe that things can only get better, and they will begin to do so soon…

MOVIE MONDAY - BREAKING & ENTERING

“Chains do not hold a marriage together. It is threads, hundreds of tiny threads which sew people together through the years.” - Simone Signoret

The joys of marriage have been extolled through the ages by all the great authors and its woes have been bemoaned by countless ordinary folk who have to live through its misfortunes (here of course I define marriage in its broadest sense, de facto couples and all forms of other partnerships included). Marriage can be heaven or it can be hell, depending on whether you marry an angel or a devil. Marriage can be the highest estate or the basest torture. However, most marriages seem to amble along through the years reaching neither the heights of ideal union, nor do they plunge into the depths of Gehenna. Most marriages last for years and the two partners drift apart and come back together again in paths that criss-cross with affections that waver, feelings that twinkle sometimes dim and sometimes bright.

The movie I’ll review for Movie Monday examines a relationship that has reached a crisis point. A partnership that is forced to re-examine itself through an external agency. Most marriages of course will be affected by external stressors and it is usually an factor from the outside that will prove to be the undoing of the marriage. The film we watched last weekend is Anthony Minghella’s 2006 “Breaking and Entering”, which was also written by him. It stars Jude Law, Juliette Binoche, Robin Wright-Penn, Martin Freeman and Rafi Gavron. It is a quirky film, well directed and acted, with sufficient interest to maintain interest despite the rather slow pace and the 120 minute length.

The plot unfolds in Kings Cross, London, where the British architect Will lives with his Swedish mate Liv. Theirs is a tired relationship, where passion has died and where Liv’s sole occupation is to devote herself to the needs of Bea, her autistic daughter. Will and his partner Sandy move into a warehouse in Kings Cross in quite an unsavoury neighbourhood. Their grand plan is an architectural urban renewal project of magnificent proportions which will transform the seedy neighbourhood into prime residential and retail paradise. Miro is an orphan and a refugee from Serbia, and he lives close by with his mother Amira, who is a seamstress.

Miro is influenced by his crooked uncle and cousin who are thieves. Miro is a traceur - practitioner of “parkour”, an activity with the aim of moving from one point to another as efficiently and quickly as possible, using principally the abilities of the human body. It is meant to help one overcome obstacles, which can be anything in the surrounding environment, from branches and rocks to rails and concrete walls. He uses his considerable abilities to break into Will and Sandy’s company to burgle computers. This happens twice in a row, and after the police give Will and Sandy little hope of catching the burglars, Will decides to stake-out during the nights to find the culprit, and he witnesses Miro trying to break-into the firm again. Will runs after Miro and finds out where he lives.

Will does not call the police, and the next day visits Amira on the pretext of having a coat of his repaired. Will is attracted to Amira, visiting her everyday, while becoming more estranged from Liv. Amira finds out that Miro has been involved in the burglary of Will’s company and as Will is attracted to her, she has sex with him in order to obtain compromising photographs with which to blackmail him and assure that her son doesn’t end up in gaol…

The film is quite atmospheric in parts, very earthy and seedy in others. A couple of sub-plots prove to be rather distracting instead of enriching the main story line. However, the plot itself is strong enough to shine through and one enjoys seeing the movie, despite its minor weaknesses. Juliette Binoche is a wonderful Amira and the young Rafi Gavron plays the confused, displaced and hurt Miro marvellously. Jude Law is more decorative than accomplished as Will and Robin Wright-Penn plays the fragile Liv very well.

The theme of the movie is love and the type of love that can survive shocks and external stressors versus the “love” that is based on sexual attraction, lust, passion. Affection and love are contrasted as are different types of love, such as the love between mother and child and the love between son and (absent or lost) father. The fading relationship of Liv and Will is beautifully presented and in a conversation,Will says to Liv:
“I feel as if I'm tapping on a window. You're somewhere behind the glass but you can't hear me. Even when you're angry, like now, it's like someone a long long way away is angry with me.”

Amira who initially sees in Will a romantic love, and finds in her broken heart some sparks of love being reignited. She suffers when she suspects that Will is using her to put her son and brother in law behind bars. In defence of her son’s crimes she screams at Will:
“You steal someone's heart, that's really a crime.”

See the movie, I think it’s worth your while to hunt it out at your local video shop and rent it out, rather than wait for our TV to show it. In the meantime, tell what do you think of marriage? What are your experiences of it? Has it been Heaven or Hell for you? Or is it something that you wear, like a comfortable pair of jeans that gets more and more faded and threadbare with time?

VENUS AND MARS

“A woman can say more in a sigh than a man can say in a sermon.” T. Arnold Haultain

“Women are from Venus and Men are from Mars” by John Gray was published in 1992 and created quite a stir, although there was nothing much in it that was new. Gray was considering the age-old question, “Are men and women different and in what way?” The author uses the metaphor of women being Venusians and men being Martians as a way of illustrating the fundamental differences between the two sexes, that are so vast, they may as well be from different planets. Contrary to most psychologists Gray stresses these differences more than the similarities and uses examples to highlight them, especially in the way the two sexes react to stress and the way they resolve problems.

Venus and Mars were the Roman equivalents to the Greek Aphrodite and Ares, the gods of love and war respectively. That these two gods personified the archetypal female and male is not chance as they each as characteristics essential female and male traits. Numerous pieces of art in ancient Greece and Rome glorified these two gods, especially so Aphrodite/Venus. In the renaissance the ancient ideals were revivified and the ancient gods were resurrected.

Today a painting from 1483 by Sandro Botticelli (1445-1510) that depicts Venus and Mars after an adulterous assignation (Venus was married to the lame god Vulcan). Mars, exhausted, slumbers while Venus keeps vigil, her face calm yet alert, serene yet hiding much internal turmoil. Around them young fauns cavort and play with Mars’ armour, but not even the clash of iron nor the conch’s sound will wake the god of War. The clothed Venus, a picture of modesty, conceals an adulteress. Mars’ undress underlines the unruly young god’s insouciance and his only concern the sowing of wild oats…
Enjoy the week ahead…

SILVANA

“We do not remember days; we remember moments.” – Cesare Pavese

Nostalgia again today for Song Saturday. Silvana Mangano was one of the great actresses of post-WWII Italy and she made several classic films. One of these was the 1951 weepie, “Anna”.

Anna is the story of a woman with a past that catches up with her. A young girl, Anna, falls in love with a soldier during the war and their acquaintance develops into a love affair. The soldier is reassigned, Anna becomes depressed and takes a wrong turn, becoming a cabaret singer and dancer. She receives news that her lover has been killed and decides to leave her life of sin and atone for it by becoming a nun. The past, however, will not leave her in peace especially as she is brought face to face with a man from her past…

Several catchy songs were in this movie, which became world-wide hits in the 50s. Here is “El Negro Zumbon”, with Silvana doing her thing in the night club.



The other song which is remembered more as sung by Nat King Cole is “Non Dimenticar…”: Don’t forget that I’ve loved you deeply… What if fate separated us, what if you are so far away from me, I always feel I’m next to you…

However, this is the original version!



Ahhhh, they don’t write songs like that any more!

FOOD ALLERGIES AND INTOLERANCE

“In nothing do men more nearly approach the gods than in giving health to men.” - Cicero

I was speaking to a family friend the other day and she was talking about her food intolerance and how adversely it affects her life. She constantly has to be on her guard because if she consumes any of the foods that cause her distress, it can lead to an extremely unpleasant set of consequences that make her life miserable. One the things that she always had to do is read very carefully the ingredients list on all packaged avoiding those that contain the offending foodstuffs. Other acquaintances suffer from food allergies, with rather dramatic and even more dangerous consequences than those of a simpler intolerance. Contrary to popular belief, food allergies are rare. Most reactions to food are an intolerance. The symptoms of allergies and intolerances usually affect three main sites of the body, the skin, the respiratory and the digestive systems.
Allergies are an over-reaction of the body’s immune system to a specific component, usually a protein. These proteins may be from foods, pollens, house dust, animal hair or moulds and these substances are known as allergens. The word ‘allergy’ means that the immune system has responded to a harmless substance as if it were toxic. Allergic reactions occur in genetically predisposed people, which explain why “one man’s meat is another man’s poison”…

Food intolerance is a specific adverse reaction that some people have after eating or drinking; it is not an immune response. Food intolerance has been associated with asthma, Chronic Fatigue Syndrome and Irritable Bowel Syndrome. Food intolerance is much more common than food allergy. Food intolerances also have a genetic component and in some cases are associated with abnormal metabolic reactions occurring because some metabolic pathway in the body is somehow compromised. The symptoms of food allergies are often difficult to distinguish from those of intolerance. As these symptoms can also be caused by other conditions, medical diagnosis is always needed.

Symptoms of food intolerance may be immediate or delayed and are often triggered only after a threshold level of exposure is reached. They can include the following: Nervousness, tremor; sweating, palpitations, rapid breathing, headache, migraine, diarrhoea, burning sensations on the skin, tightness across the face and chest, allergy-like reactions due to histamine and other amines in some foods, asthma from food containing benzoates, salicylates, MSG and sulphite derivatives.

Symptoms of food allergy tend to be more immediate and can be life-threatening. Common symptoms include: Itching, burning and swelling around the mouth, runny nose, skin rash and hives, eczema, urticaria (skin becomes red and raised), diarrhoea, abdominal cramps breathing difficulties, including wheezing and asthma, vomiting, nausea, life-threatening anaphylaxis.

Allergies are on the increase worldwide and in recent times, food allergies have become more prevalent, particularly peanut allergy in preschool children. In June 2002, 6.2% of preschool children in NSW had a food allergy, with the reported prevalence of peanut and nut allergy at less than 2 per cent. About 60 per cent of allergies appear during the first year of life, with cow’s milk allergy being one of the most common in early childhood. Most children grow out of it before they start school. Less than one per cent of adults have food allergy. About 90% of allergies are caused by nuts, eggs, milk or soy. Peanut allergy is one of the most common allergies in older children. Other foods that cause allergies include (in order from the most common):
* Egg
* Peanut
* Milk
* Other nuts
* Sesame
* Fish
* Grains such as rye, wheat, oats
* Soy
* Molluscs, such as oysters, mussels, clam, squid and octopus
* Crustaceans, such as lobster, prawn, crab, shrimp
* Fruit, berries, tomato, cucumber, white potato or mustard.

The foods that tend to cause intolerance reactions in sensitive people include:
* Dairy products, including milk, cheese and yoghurt
* Chocolate
* Egg, particularly egg white
* Flavour enhancers such as MSG (monosodium glutamate)
* Food additives
* Strawberries, citrus fruits and tomatoes
* Wine, particularly red wine.

Reactions may not always occur, as they are usually related to the amount of food consumed. A small amount may not cause any reaction. In most cases, symptoms appear within a few minutes of eating the particular food, which makes pinpointing the allergen an easy task. However, if the cause is unknown, diagnostic tests may be needed such as:
* Keeping a food and symptoms diary to check for patterns.
* Cutting out all suspect foods for two weeks, then reintroducing them one at a time to test for reactions (except in cases of anaphylaxis).
* Skin prick tests using food extracts.
* Blood tests.

The easiest way to treat a food allergy or intolerance is to eliminate it from the diet. Sometimes, the body can tolerate the food if it is avoided for a time, then reintroduced in small doses. Before you eliminate foods from your diet, seek advice from a doctor or dietitian. In Australia, the December 2002 Food Standards Code requires food labelling to declare certain substances in foods and certain foods including:
* Cereals containing gluten and their products
* Crustacea and their products
* Egg and egg products
* Fish and fish products
* Milk and milk products
* Nuts and sesame seeds and their products
* Peanuts and soybeans, and their products
* Added sulphites in concentrations of 10mg/kg or more
* Royal Jelly presented as food or present in food, bee pollen and propolis.

These foods must be declared whenever they are used as an ingredient or part of a compound ingredient (even if they are carry-over ingredients); a food additive or compound of a food additive; a processing aid or component of a processing aid.

All foods produced after December 2002 must bear labels that comply with new labelling laws. To avoid allergic foods, learn the terms used to describe these foods on foods labels, for example:
* Milk protein - milk, non-fat milk solids, cheese, yoghurt, caseinates, whey, lactose.
* Lactose - milk, lactose.
* Egg - eggs, egg albumen, egg yolk, egg lecithin
* Gluten - wheat, barley, rye, triticale, wheat bran, malt, oats, cornflour, oatbran.
* Soy -soybeans, hydrolysed vegetable protein, soy protein isolate, soy lecithin.
* Salicylates - strawberries and tomatoes.

Your doctor and a dietician may be able to help you live a more or less normal life even if you have a serious allergy, but it vey definitely a case where your health and well-being lies squarely in your own hands and you have to take responsibility personally.

MOLIÈRE'S TARTUFFE

“One should examine oneself for a very long time before thinking of condemning others.” - Molière

Today is the anniversary of the birth of Jean Baptiste Poquelin Molière, French playwright born in 1622. Molière is rated by most critics as the greatest comic dramatist of all times and considered worthy to stand beside Aristophanes and Shakespeare. He wrote:

“’Tis a mighty stroke at any vice to make it the laughing stock of everybody; for men will easily suffer reproof; but they can by no means endure mockery. They will consent to be wicked but not ridiculous.”

These lines were written in defense of his play “Tartuffe” ranked as his most outstanding and most representative of plays. In the 17th century powerful cliques attempted to censor every play that did not happen to coincide with their own views or selfish interests. We can realise the bitterness of the campaign against Tartuffe from the fact that it was not finally licensed for public performance until more than three years after its first performance before Louis XIV. “Tartuffe” is about a religious hypocrite and the public outcry that followed the play was initiated by a group of ‘Dévots’ (ostensibly devout people, very influential in the French court at the time, but also very opportunistic and hypocritical).

“Molière” was in reality only the stage name assumed when as a young man the playwright joined a group of strolling players. So famous did he make it, that few of us today recognise the surname “Poquelin”. Molière’s father was a prosperous tradesman, upholsterer to the King by appointment. Since this was a hereditary honour, the son shrewdly made use of it to establish and strengthen himself in the King’s favour, when, after twelve years in the provinces, he returned to Paris.

These twelve years of trouping and training not only made Molière a comedian of unsurpassed ability, but they also gave him that insight into life and character that were to make his later comedies outstanding. He was 36 years old when he returned to establish himself in Paris. At 40, successful in his profession and in prosperous circumstances, he married the twenty-year-old sister of Madeleine Bejart, his leading lady. Owing probably to the disparity in their ages and to his own jealousy, the marriage was not wholly a success. This with the death of a favorite son, and the constantly increasing attacks of the various groups who had found themselves and their pretensions the butt of Molière's biting satire, made his later years unhappy. He still wrote and acted his own plays, however, and it was in the midst of a stage performance that he burst a blood vessel in a fit of coughing and died shortly thereafter.

Fit to be ranked with his masterpiece, “Tartuffe”, are other of his such as “Don Juan”, “The Misanthrope”, “The Learned Ladies”, “The Bourgeois Gentleman”, “The Imaginary Invalid” and a host of lesser comedies all of which are still read and revived to this day.
The word of the day is fittingly:

Tartuffe |tärˈtoōf| noun poetic/literary or humorous
A religious hypocrite, or a hypocritical pretender to excellence of any kind.

ORIGIN: from the name of the principal character (a religious hypocrite) in Molière's Tartuffe (1664).

DERIVATIVES
Tartufferie |-ˈtoōfərē| (also Tartuffery) noun

The 2007 French film of Laurent Tirard, “Moliére”, is an enjoyable and semi-fictionalised account of a “lost period” in Moliére’s life and is reminiscent of the play “The Bourgeois Gentleman”. Quite a treat if you can lay your hands on it.

A SIGN OF THE TIMES

“Wherever a man turns he can find someone who needs him.” - Albert Schweitzer

Each day I commute to work on the train. In the City around the railway station one sees all sorts of people: Many of the regular fellow-commuters, the newspaper sellers, the waiters and café owners who are up early opening their businesses, some early morning tourists walking around with map in hand, delivery men parking their trucks and unloading their consignments, workmen fixing some faults on the road and of course all of the morning hustle and bustle of a city waking up to a new day and preparing for a day’s work. Today there was someone unusual, someone I hadn’t seen before. A woman sitting on the steps of the train station begging. We don’t have many beggars in Melbourne, so it is rather a strange thing to see one in the City. There are many buskers, but beggars, no.

Is it a sign of the times? A sign of the worsening economic crisis and the difficult months ahead? Is it a sign of the increasing problems we have with gambling? Is it a sign of the increasing numbers of street people we have to deal with? I looked at the woman and there was at first a negative reaction towards her, which I am glad to say was only momentary and passed as quickly as it had made its presence felt. I looked at her and in a few seconds I had taken stock of her clothes, her physical condition, her bearing, and decided that this human being was to be pitied and one should feel compassion towards her rather than aversion and distaste. A few coins that one can part with and not think further about may make a big difference to her survival.

What forces people to beg, to lose their dignity and rely on the kindness of strangers in order to survive? How many tragic stories of human frailty and how many examples of human failings are hidden in each of these people living in the streets? Vices may cause the offenders to end up in gaol, foibles are generally regarded as mere eccentricities, but serious faults that fail to be corrected, human errors that go unchecked, repeated failures that may cause someone to become so demoralised and hopeless as to end up in the street begging are to be regretted and one cannot help but feel sadness and be moved to compassion for a person’s reduction to this state…

Forgotten

She sits alone, forgotten on the steps
Her head bowed low as she recollects:
She too lived once, so long ago,
Amidst bright lights all aglow…

She sits, now grey-haired, past her prime
Her clothes all torn, her shoes in grime;
Once she was garbed in furs and satin
A queen, the toast of all Manhattan.

Her mind is numb as she tries stopping thought,
She knows regret and bitterness will lead to nought.
Her cold and bony body now demurs
To admit that fame and glory once were hers.

A coin clinks in the can, thrown at her feet
Her huddled form forlorn, black in the icy street.
Once, suitors kissed her jewelled shoes,
She found it so amusing all to refuse.

Now gloom and darkness, hopelessness, despair
Even her lips deny to chant a simple prayer.
When all is lost, how harsh the world
Into the dark abyss of Lethe she is hurled.

She sits alone, forgotten on the steps
In nothing does she hope, none she expects.
She too lived once, so long ago,
Where once was sun, now only snow;
Death comes and she wishes him to be quick
The candle sputters, dies, it’s burnt its wick…

GURDJIEFF

“A ‘sin’ is something which is not necessary.” George Gurdjieff

It is the anniversary of the birth of George Ivanovitch Gurdjieff today. Gurdjieff was an Armenian-Greek, born this day in Alexandropolis, Armenia, in 1877 (although some claim it was in 1866). His father, a Pontian Greek, had inherited a rich ancient culture mainly through the oral tradition and it was thanks to him that Gurdjieff’s childhood was filled with stories and poems of the distant past. He grew up in the southern Caucasus where many different races, nationalities, traditions, religions and customs meet. Although he was brought up in the Eastern Catholic faith, Gurdjieff was interested throughout his life in many other faiths and cultures. As he grew up, he became convinced through his contacts that true knowledge of man and nature had existed in the past, but modern man had lost it. He made it the object of his life to rediscover these ancient mysteries and it was this conviction that shaped his whole life.

He formed the group “Seekers of the Truth” comprising archaeologists, doctors, linguists, artists, musicians, etc and he was thus able to connect with many strata of the communities in the Middle East and Central Asia where he travelled in order to discover a rich storehouse of traditions and obscure knowledge. He disappeared for 20 years and practiced an existence devoted to self-examination, a honing of his personal philosophy and a refinement and distillation of the numerous ideas he was exposed to. In 1912, he went to Russia, living in Moscow and St Petersburg, dedicating his life to transmitting his knowledge and philosophy.

In 1922 he moved to France and settled near Fontainebleau, beginning in 1924 to write many of his famous works: “Meetings with Remarkable Men”, “Beelzebub’s Tales to his Grandson” and “Life is real Only When ‘I Am’”. Gurdjieff claimed that people do not perceive reality, as they are not conscious of themselves, but live in a state of hypnotic “waking sleep.” He said: “Man lives his life in sleep, and in sleep he dies.” Gurdjieff taught that each person perceived things from a completely subjective perspective and essentially, each one of us manufactures his own reality. Gurdjieff stated that maleficent events such as wars and so on could not possibly take place if people were more awake. He asserted that people in their typical state were unconscious automatons, but that it was possible for a man to wake up and experience life more fully.

Something which has become associated with Gurdjieff is the enneagram and the system of personality analysis it has engendered. Although Gurdjieff never explained the significance of the enneagram in detail in this context, he did allude to it as a means of self exploration, Gurdjieff maintains that the enneagram figure is a symbol that represents the “law of seven” and the “law of three” (the two fundamental universal laws) and, therefore, the figure can be used to describe any natural whole phenomenon, cosmos, process in life or any other piece of knowledge. It is a nine-sided figure inscribed in a circle and vertices can be associated with musical notes and can be used allegorically to represent passages from one state to another.

Gurdjieff shared his ideas in a multitude of ways, including meetings and lectures, music, sacred dance, writings, and group work. He was not consistent in his use of these methods through his lifetime, with his six years in Paris being devoted primarily to writing, while composition of music and movement centered around a few distinct periods. In Russia he was described as keeping his teaching confined to a small circle of “disciples”, while in Paris and North America he gave numerous public lectures and demonstrations. Gurdjieff’s music has great inner simplicity, purity and clarity. It is beautiful and has an indefinable, special character that seems to touch our soul. It is definitely music that one may listen to and explore one’s inner world with introspectiveness and reflection. Gurdjieff collaborated in writing some of his music with Ukrainian composer Thomas de Hartmann, one of his pupils.

Gurdjieff died in Paris on the 29th of October, 1949. Since his death, his ideas have spread widely and have found a resonance with many people all over the world, particularly the USA. As a mystic and a philosopher Gurdjieff with his life’s work has the ability even nowadays to galvanise people into increasing and focussing their attention and energy in various ways, and to minimise daydreaming and absentmindedness. According to his teaching, this inner development of oneself is the beginning of a possible further process of change, whose aim is to transform a man into what Gurdjieff believed he ought to be and has the capability of being.

THE BUCKET LIST

“The fear of death follows from the fear of life. A man who lives fully is prepared to die at any time.” - Mark Twain

If you had a choice, would you like to know exactly when you were going to die? Just think, you could schedule it in your diary: “6:15 pm Wednesday evening, October 6th 2010 – Dying”. You could plan ahead, ensure that everything was in order, and prepare yourself for the appointment with the Grim Reaper. Does this appeal to you? Many people have cogitated over this and the majority concur that no, this is not something human beings take a shine to. Most people (96% of them) prefer NOT to know when they will die…

This topic came up in a film we watched last weekend. It was an excellent movie with two very good actors in it, – Jack Nicholson and Morgan Freeman – but also well directed and with a good plot. The movie is Rob Reiner’s 2007 “The Bucket List” . The plot revolves around a car mechanic, Carter Chambers (Morgan Freeman), who is a man with a good life education and culture and the embittered billionaire, Edward Cole (Jack Nicholson) who owns many hospitals. Carter has been married for 45 years to Virginia and has a happy family, Edward has many divorces on his record and one daughter with whom he has not spoken for years. What is common to both of these men is that they each have a terminal illness and they meet in one of Edward’s hospitals, where (according to general policy), they have to share a room. As they get to know one another, they develop a friendship and when Edward finds a discarded list (the “ Kicking the Bucket List” of title) written by Carter where he has started to write all the things he would like to do before he dies, Edward decides to make the list a reality. Edward includes his own items and invites Carter on a journey of friendship, personal growth and redemption.

The film is strangely uplifting, given its topic, but also very moving and although it could descend into bathos and moralising, it doesn’t. There are some great one-liners in it, delivered with appropriate aplomb by both of the leads, some very sad moments, some laugh out aloud moments, but one is apt to wipe a tear from one’s eye at the end. A fun film, a serious film, a road film, a coming of age film – all the more interesting as both characters who come of age are well past middle age…

Now, going back to my question, “would you like to know when you are going to die?” My answer is that I would rather be in the 4% of the population. Death is part of life. We all die and as much as we may want to postpone death, it remains an inescapable inevitability. We live our life better if we resign ourselves to the fact that we are mortal and that we could die at any moment. If we prepare ourselves for death, then the when doesn’t matter one whit. As Marcel Proust says:

“
We say that the hour of death cannot be forecast, but when we say this we imagine that hour as placed in an obscure and distant future. It never occurs to us that it has any connection with the day already begun or that death could arrive this same afternoon, this afternoon which is so certain and which has every hour filled in advance.”

We live a better life if we prepare for our death as if it were to arrive this very day, this afternoon. To try and preserve our life as long as possible is certainly commendable, but the quality of life is as important as its quantity. And always of course we should aim to die as young as possible, although we may want to survive for as many years as possible…
What about you? What do you think about death? If it were possible would you like to know the time you were to die?