ARETHUSA

“There's a long, long trail a-winding into the land of my dreams.” - Stoddard King, Jr.

For Song Saturday, a beautiful Greek song, sung by Manolis Lidakis. He sings the verses of Alkinoos Ioannidis, set to music by Giannis Spathas.

ARETHUSA

I have searched for you
In the land of angels,
There where dreams live.
From never to the future,
In the everlasting moment.

At the secret crossroads of the world,
There where dreams live.
Come give me a kiss,
A single kiss, only one.

Oh, we poor people
Live within nothingness,
But when we lose ourselves,
We grow wings
And we are reborn again.

Ah, I saw you in a dream
Arethusa, with the red hair
I’ll climb onto your balcony
Secretly…

At the moon’s ancient well,
There where dreams live
You had given me a caress,
You had granted me a wish.
I’ll search for you till the end of time
At the start of the sky.
With a song for the road,
I’ll search for you everywhere.

Oh, we poor people
Live within nothingness,
But when we lose ourselves,
We grow wings
And we are reborn again.

Ah, I saw you in a dream
Arethusa, with the red hair
I’ll climb onto your balcony
Secretly…

I have searched for you
In the land of angels,
There where dreams live.
From never to the future,
In the everlasting moment.



Illustration above is by Maria Pace-Wynters

BROWN RICE

“One should eat to live, not live to eat.” - Cicero

Brown rice is something that is gaining in popularity and it is now a standard option in many restaurants, sushi bars and of course on supermarket shelves. Brown rice is more nutritious than white rice, more healthful and has a nutty flavor and chewier texture than white rice. Brown rice (sometimes called “unpolished rice”) is like normal white rice with the coating of high-fibre bran still over the grans. It is this coating of bran on it that makes brown rice a much more healthful version of normal rice, and it also contains generous amounts of vitamins and fibre in it. However, knowing how to cook brown rice is important as there differences from the normal method of cooking white rice. This is because the extra coating of bran on brown rice makes the cooking time of brown rice much more than that of normal rice.

To cook brown rice on the stove top, rinse it well in a strainer under cold running water for a 20-30 seconds. Swirl the rice around to allow the contaminants to flow away. Now bring the water to boil in a large pan or a pot. Once the water has started boiling, add the brown rice and stir it once. Add salt to taste at this stage. Now for thirty minutes, turn the heat to medium and let the rice simmer along. Stir it occasionally. Once the rice is cooked (try a few grains), pour the rice into the strainer over the sink. Let the excess water drain off for around ten seconds. Return the rice to the pot and heat very gently while covering the pot with a tight fitting lid. Allow the rice to steam up for around ten minutes, occasionally taking the pot off the fire and shaking a little. Uncover it and season it with some butter or a little olive oil.

Brown rice has a number of health benefits like reducing the chance of developing arterial diseases, helping avoid abrupt spikes in blood sugar levels, aiding in digestion while reducing constipation. It is also known to help reduce the overall incidence of heart disease.

Diet Fried Brown Rice
Ingredients

2 cups of cooked brown rice
2 eggs, slightly beaten
2 tsp olive oil
2 carrots, chopped
1 celery stalk, chopped
3 spring onions, chopped
1/2 cup frozen peas
1/2 cup frozen corn
Soy sauce to taste
Water as needed
(you may add or substitute any other vegetables in addition to those listed above)

Method
Over a wok heated to medium-high heat, add 1 tsp oil and when hot, cook the egg into an omelette. Remove the omelet, add the remaining oil and cook the carrot, celery and onion. Stir fry over high heat adding a little water until the vegetables are tender-crisp. Add the peas and corn, stirring to heat thoroughly. Add the chopped omelette and stir. Finally, add the rice and soy sauce and stir to mix well. Serve immediately.

BIBLIOPHILY

“A good book is never exhausted. It goes on whispering to you from the wall. Books perfume and give weight to a room. A bookcase is as good as a view, as the sight of a city or a river. There are dawns and sunsets in books – storms, fogs, zephyrs.  I read about a family whose apartment consists of a series of spaces so strictly planned that they are obliged to give away their books as soon as they’ve read them. I think they have misunderstood the way books work.
Reading a book is only the first step in the relationship. After you’ve finished it, the book enters on its real career. It stands there as a badge, a blackmailer, a monument, a scar. It’s both a flaw in the room, like a crack in the plaster, and a decoration. The contents of someone’s bookcase are part of his history, like an ancestral portrait.” - Anatole Broyard

I love bookshops. The big multinational ones like Borders, the little corner shop ones in local shopping centres, the medium-sized ones, like Angus & Robertson, in the plazas, the specialist ones, like the Foreign language Bookshop, the new ones and the old ones, the market stalls selling books, the carts at the public library selling cast-offs, even! One of my favourite kinds of bookshop is the second-hand dealers where one gets lost in room after room of books and one can find all sorts of treasures. I can happily spend several hours in such shops and pore over the volumes, climb the ladders to get to the shelves (and if it’s the right kind of shop) sit on a comfortable armchair and leaf through the more intriguing tomes. Here is a good website with lots of Victoria Bookshops.

Needless to say, I seldom resist the temptation to buy a book or two (or three, or four, or five…) and it is such a difficult thing to go past a bookshop and not go in. You may ask, why buy the books if you can go to the public library and borrow any kind of book that you desire, at no cost? It’s hard to explain. I want to have my own books at home, I want them in all of my spaces, at work (and even in my car there are books)… It is such a wonderful feeling to go into my bedroom and have favourite books in the two bookcases there. To sit in my study and surround myself with my bookcases that line the three walls and have books in them from floor to ceiling! To go into the music room and be greeted by more books in more bookcases that line another three walls. The living room, the lounge, the upstairs landing, the kitchen, even they, have bookshelves, and yes, the littlest room in the house has books in it too! To be able to turn around and take out of the shelf a favourite book to leaf through at will…

What books do I have? A huge variety of fiction and non-fiction, in English, Greek, French, Italian, Latin. Old and new, antique and first editions, hard and soft cover. Picture books and textbooks. I can randomly list some titles that I can see as I look at the bookcase beside me now, to give you an idea:

•    “Turkish Linguistics” by Slobin and Zimmer
•    “The Lore of the Land” by Westwood and Simpson
•    “Fairy Tales” by the Brothers Grimm
•    “Greek-English Lexicon” by Lidell and Scott
•    “The Farm Book” by Rien Poortvliet
•    “Grammar of Modern Greek” by Triandafyllides
•    “Handbook of Chemistry” by Lande
•    “The Complete Encyclopedia of Illustration” by Heck
•    “Le Général et son Train” by Georges Coulonges
•    “Quintetto Italiano” by Totaro and Zanardi
•    “The Neohellenic Koiné Language” by Babiniotis
•    “The Spanish Gardener” by Cronin
•    “The Golden Treasury” by Palgrave
•    “Sense and Sensibility” by Austen
•    “Aesop’s Fables” by Aesop
•    “Mathematics in the Making” by Hogben
•    “The Story of Writing” by Robinson
•    “Clinical Examination” by Talley and O’Connor
•    “Bacteriological Atlas” by Muir
•    “Synthetic Food” by Pyke
•    “History of Atlantis” by Spence
•    “The Minoans” by Hood
•    “The Drawings of Edgar Degas” by Pecirka
•    “Books of Hours” by Harthan
•    “Culinaria – France” by Konemann
•    “The Explorers” by Flannery
•    “Historia Naturalis” by Pliny the Elder

And so on and so on, you get the idea. There are novels and biographies, short stories and novellas, children’s books and adults’ books, fiction and non-fiction, scientific and artistic books. Books on medicine, science, biology, architecture, geography, history, culinary arts, folklore, linguistics, mythology, gardening, cookbooks, herbalism, alchemy, travel, literature, literary criticism, film, photography, poetry, philosophy, psychology, science fiction, fantasy, thrillers, crime, romance, ethnology, ethics, anthropology… A suitable array of topics and genres for a biliophile!

bibliophile |ˈbiblēəˌfīl| noun
A person who collects or has a great love of books.
DERIVATIVES
bibliophilic |ˌbiblēəˈfilik| adjective
bibliophily |ˌbiblēˈäfəlē| noun
ORIGIN early 19th century: From French, from Greek biblion ‘book’ + philos ‘loving.’

SPRING, ST GILES & INDICTUS

“If we had no winter, the spring would not be so pleasant; if we did not sometimes taste of adversity, prosperity would not be so welcome.” - Anne Bradstreet

It is the first day of Spring in the Southern Hemisphere today and we have had a gray, cool and rainy day today. Not that I have had much of a chance to go out, but perhaps it was just as well. It has been a very busy day with much to do and a couple of deadlines to adhere to. Fortunately, all went well and the documents were al ready to go at the appropriate time by close of business…

It is St Giles' day today, and he was a 7th century hermit living in Provence.  He loved wild animals and on one occasion he saved a hind, which was pursued by hunters by causing thick bushes to spring around it and conceal it. His protecting hands around he hind save it from a huneter’s arrow, but the saint’s hand was pierced instead. The hind is his symbol and he is the patron saint of cripples, beggars and hermits.

Many fairs were held on this day in England.  St Giles’s fair in Oxford is one of the oldest surviving British fairs.  Eccles Wake in Lancashire is another one, celebrated around the Parish church dating from 1111 AD, although most of the modern building is from the 15th century.  This is where Eccles Cakes were first made about 300 years ago.  Eccles Cakes may be bought in many bakeries and pastrycooks’ shops in Britain but the original recipe is a prized secret of Messrs Bradburn & Co, a family firm in Lancashire’s Eccles Borough.

Eccles cakes are made from a rich butter puff pastry and are round, about 3 inches (≈ 7.5 cm) in diameter.  They are filled with currants, butter and sugar that are wrapped in the pastry.  The cake is rolled twice, dusted with sugar and three light diagonal cuts are made over its surface.  The cakes are baked, sugar-side up, in a very hot oven for 15 minutes.  They are served cold.  Closely related to Eccles Cakes are Coventry Godshead, Chorley and Hawkshead Cakes.

It is the first day of Autumn in the Northern Hemisphere and the first day of the church calendar in the Greek Orthodox faith, known as Indictus, from the Latin “indictio” (a fiscal period of fifteen years used as a means of dating events and transactions in the Roman Empire and in the papal and some royal courts. The system was instituted by the Emperor Constantine in AD 313 and was used until the 16th century in some places).

For today, a Spring poem:

    Daisy’s Song
   
    The sun, with his great eye,
    Sees not so much as I;
    And the moon, all silver, proud,
    Might as well be in a cloud.
   
    And O the spring – the spring!
    I lead the life of a king!
    Couched in the teeming grass,
    I spy each pretty lass.
   
    I look where no one dares,
    And I stare where no one stares;
    And when the night is nigh,
    Lambs bleat my lullaby.
            John Keats (1795-1821)

BRAIN ATTACK

“Man is fond of counting his troubles, but he does not count his joys. If he counted them up as he ought to, he would see that every lot has enough happiness provided for it.” - Fyodor Dostoevsky

Every morning I take the train to work and I usually sit at about the same place in the same carriage, as must do a lot of my fellow travellers, seeing I meet them commuting with me almost every morning. There is one young man who has headphones on and is listening to rather loud music on his iPod (I try and avoid sitting near him), but who also has a mobile phone and constantly plays games on it or sends SMS messages on it. Occassionally he switches to reading a newspaper too. “Ah! Great,” you may say “A multi-tasker! Top marks!”… Well, not quite!

I read an article today (and I wasn’t not listening to my iPod at the time!) that is based on several studies done at Universities in the USA and which maintained that overuse of portable digital devices (phones, ipods, ipads, etc) contributes to brain fatigue and compromises the brain’s ability to remember, think creatively, process information and learn. The main tenet of this study is that if we keep on stimulating our brain non-stop, we lose the precious “down-time” that it needs and in which it processes information, filters out “junk” and creates important interconnections between neurones, which are the basis of long-term memory, creativity and imagination.

University of California San Francisco researcher Loren Frank, researches the brain’s ability to use experience to guide behaviour (i.e. learning). This is one of the most remarkable abilities of the brain. His research has as its goal to understand how activity and plasticity in neural circuits underlie both learning and the ability to use learned information to make decisions. His laboratory focuses on the circuitry of the hippocampus and anatomically related regions of the brain, by recording neurological activity in awake, behaving animals. For example, when rats have a new experience, like exploring an unfamiliar area, their brains show new patterns of activity. But only when the rats take a break from their exploration do they process those patterns in a way that seems to create a persistent memory of the experience. This also applies to human brains.

The ability to multi-task may be good and we may increase our efficiency, however, we should also be rather careful to preserve the precious “down-time” that our brain needs to rest, recover, review, repair and regain its readiness to accept new inputs. I may add quickly, that one may also go to the other extreme, which is also very bad: Under-stimulating the brain is a situation that creates its own set of problems that are equally destructive to the brain;s core functions.

On a related note, those amongst us who take the time to be more aware and appreciate small moments of happiness, laughter and joy each day tend to be happier people overall. Such people are more likely to be resilient against adversity and be more successful in jobs, relationships and also be healthier. Yes, to take time out and smell the roses, appreciating the moment and luxuriating in the present is good for you. The more we dwell on the past, the more we agonise over the future, the unhappier we become and the more we lose our ability to live the moment and take pleasure from the present.

Many people would see both of these conclusions of research studies as common sense and may begrudge the researchers their funds for carrying out research on such “obvious” points. However, the scientist is a curious creature that needs to build foil-proof constructions around simple conjectures and thus verify the soundness of these “obvious” conclusions.

As I mentioned the future before and its connection to happiness (or unhappiness), I should mention something else that I read. It seems that “Vision Boards” are becoming a popular motivational tool that can be used personally or even organisationally. In their simplest form, these are large pieces of cardboard on which one can stick pictures they have cut out of magazines or papers, and which feature desired outcomes, objects of desire or reifications of goals. Motivational coaches use the technique to make people harness the power of the constant stimulation of their object of desire, to help them achieve their goals.

John Assaraf is such a motivational coach who uses such techniques and claims that when he cut out a picture of his dream mansion from a lifestyle magazine and stuck it on his Vision Board, five years later he realised his dream by acquiring the home and living in it. Such coaches invoke the “Law of Attraction”, which in its simplest form says that your feelings and thoughts can attract events that contribute to realisation of your vision and can act in a way that persuades the cosmos to act in your favour… Moonshine? Maybe, but there is evidence that positive thought can influence not only your own actions but also those of people around you.

Some motivational coaches purport that your Vision Board should be as specific as possible, visualizing precisely your goal – for example, the exact model, colour and make of the sports car you want to drive. Other coaches say that simple assembling on your Vision Board any image that has a positive influence and is somehow associated in your mind with your goal is good enough. Both agree that being confronted by the images on Vision Board regularly and for prolonged periods will focus your mind’s energy on achieving the outcome illustrated. Over to you to try…

VERTICAL LIMIT BATHOS

“A raised weight can produce work, but in doing so it must necessarily sink from its height, and, when it has fallen as deep as it can fall, its gravity remains as before, but it can no longer do work.” - Hermann von Helmholtz

We watched a standard Hollywood action movie at the weekend, which although full of action, average performances and a passable story missed the mark on multiple levels. It was the Martin Campbell 2000 film, “Vertical Limit”. The scenario by Robert King was adapted by him from his own novel. Initially, in a seniors’ moment I got him confused with Stephen King, however, I soon realised my mistake. Robert King is more of a TV and screenwriter rather than a novel writer. The film is an action, adventure, thriller with typical spills and thrills à la Hollywood, rather typecast characters, and dialogue that’s mainly limited to “watch out!”, “oh, no hold on!”, “I’LL SAVE YOU, DON’T LET GO!”.

The plot centres on an American climbing/mountaineering-crazy family, the Garretts. The brother and sister have a bad experience rock climbing with their father, resulting in the sister persevering with the climbing and becoming an expert mountaineer, while the brother abandons high places altogether and becoming a successful National Geographic photographer. Several years later they meet up in Pakistan where the sister is preparing to climb K2 (the second tallest mountain peak in the world after Everest), accompanying a billionaire who wants to climb the mountain partly because he’s daredevil mountaineer, but mainly because he wants to use the climb as a publicity stunt for his new airline. Add a few other characters with their own issues and agendas and prepare yourself for lots of rocks and snow, falls and explosions (did I mention that there are canisters of nitroglycerine that need to be carried to the mountain?). It’s like a bit of a cross between the 1998 movie “Cliffhanger” (with Sylvester Stallone, remember that one?) and the classic 1953 “Wages of Fear” (although I am taking Henri-Georges Clouzot’s name in vain here…).

The cast is a bunch of mainly attractive people looking young, healthy and suitably silly for the most part and one thing we immediately remarked upon was: “Aren’t you glad we are no longer young and silly to even think about going and doing stupid things like that?” A comment which had to be somehow recanted when we saw an old codger (played by Scott Glenn) gallivanting about the mountain tops and being the “old expert” who saves the day. Chris O’Donnell and Izabella Scorupco look highly decorative (and yes, they do pair up in the end) but their acting is average, however, good enough for this potboiler. Now that I’ve mentioned potboiler, it’s worth noting that this film opened at #2 at the North American box office, making $15.5 million USD in its opening weekend behind “How the Grinch Stole Christmas”. So, as far as movies go, it was a fairly popular one.

The scenery is quite breath-taking, especially if you watch the movie in bluray as we did. There are some stunning views of Monument Valley, USA, in the opening sequence followed by majestic snow capped mountains as we change location to Pakistan and K2. Some of the filming was done in New Zealand, no surprise, given Campbell is a New Zealander and there is no shortage of snow-capped mountains in his native land.

The verdict? Escapist nonsense, which unfortunately did not have any poignancy or emotional involvement for the viewer. It was formulaic and predictable and one gets tired after a while of people falling off cliffs and explosions. Also some of the feats performed (except being extremely stupid, hazardous, “don’t-try-this-at-home-boys-and-girls” type) are highly unlikely and they demand of the viewer a high level of credulousness and naiveté. Every ten minutes someone is hanging from a cliff as their climbing partner struggles to pull them back up and this is the case in every action sequence in the film. Good enough to watch on a lazy Sunday afternoon, after spending most of the morning in the garden, and just wanting to sit and relax and rest up a little. Catching a nap or two while watching it won’t challenge your brain as it all is very predictable anyway…

WORLD INTERNET DAY & GEORGE GRIE

“The single biggest problem in communication is the illusion that it has taken place.” – George Bernard Shaw

According to some sources, today is World Internet Day. We depend on the web for communication, entertainment, ease and efficiency of data transfer, for research, recreation and task convenience. Our daily speech has been peppered with numerous neologisms that relate to web-based activities and services it offers. Nowadays, doing business without the internet is inconceivable. Like any other good invention, the net can be used for criminal activities and there are numerous cases relating to internet crime, stealing of personal data and identity, phishing, scamming, illegal activities of all kinds, racism, exploitation, pornography, etc. Use of the internet has made life easier and more pleasant, but also it has created many monsters that threaten us.

As today is also Art Sunday, I shall introduce to those of my readers who do not know of his work, George Grie (1962- ), an internet artist extraordinaire whose digital, neo-surrealist images can be widely accessed on the net. Grie is a Russian-Canadian artist whose classical art training stood him in good stead when he started his career as a professional fine art painter and graphic artist. His work is influenced by the well-known surrealists Dali, Magritte and neosurrealists Zdzisław Beksiński and Wojciech Siudmak.

Has art has strong visual impact and uses confronting images that engage the viewers, making them try to rationalise and question what they see. There is an underlying unstated philosophisation, inner reflection and sense of wonder in the oxymoronic images he produces. Some of his works are a social commentary on contemporary mores, others are playful imaginings, or even clever illustrations based on word play or extension of symbolic meanings into territory not explored. His palette is limited and the images are often rendered in grisaille with only occasional touches of colour. This suits the fantastical and dream-like visions he produces and contributes to the graphical quality of his work.

The image above is Grie's “The Langoliers or Inevitable Entropy”.  The Artist states the following about this work of his:
“ ‘The ultimate purpose of life is to facilitate entropy. We are the langoliers of the present reality.’ - Kurt Vonnegut

Stephen King's “The Langoliers” Book summary:
When a plane passes through a mysterious time warp, several people find themselves utterly alone when the rest of the passengers and all of the crew vanish. The survivors manage to land, where as they discover that time seems to stand still and that they seem to be the only people left on the planet. To complicate matters, mysterious creatures called Langoliers are chasing them. The Langoliers’ work is to erase moments in time that have already passed into history.

Entropy
The concept of entropy has entered the domain of sociology, generally as a metaphor for chaos, disorder or dissipation of energy, rather than as a direct measure of thermodynamic or information entropy. In the nineteenth century, a well-liked scientific notion suggested that entropy was gradually increasing, and therefore the universe was running down and eventually all motion would cease. When people realized that this would not happen for billions of years, if it happened at all, concern about this notion generally disappeared.

Entropy, historically, has often been associated with the amount of order, disorder, and or chaos in a thermodynamic system. The traditional definition of entropy is that it refers to changes in the status quo of the system and is a measure of "molecular disorder" and the amount of wasted energy in a dynamical energy transformation from one state or form to another.”
George Grie, August 2007

SADNESS

“One's suffering disappears when one lets oneself go, when one yields - even to sadness.” - Antoine de Saint-Exupéry

I am feeling rather flat tonight and so very tired. All I need is a soothing piece of music to drink in and be refreshed by.
One cannot go past Dvorak’s “American” String Quartet No 12 in F Major, the second movement of which is a gorgeously plaintive and evocative piece of music. Sad but not depressing; melancholy but not maudlin; poignant but not sentimental…

A CONFERENCE DINNER

“I am of the opinion that my life belongs to the whole community and as long as I live, it is my privilege to do for it whatever I can.  I want to be thoroughly used up when I die, for the harder I work the more I live.” - George Bernard Shaw

It was the last day of my conference today and this evening we had the closing ceremony and the conference dinner. The conference and the dinner were held at the Crown Promenade Hotel at its Conference Centre in Southbank, very close to the City centre. It has been a relatively good conference with plenty of opportunity to network, some good speakers and workshops and a very good conference dinner!

This evening we were greeted in the foyer of the venue with drinks, both soft and alcoholic, and allowed plenty of time for opportunities to network. We then entered the main conference venue that had been set up for the dinner. Round tables of about a dozen people were set out within the main hall and a jazz band provided live music. The lighting was low but adequate and once again as we moved to our tables there was more opportunity to get to know other attendees and renew acquaintances.

The food was very good to excellent and the menu had as follows:

Entrée
Seafood tower with quick seared tuna, crab salad, prawns, tomato salsa and avocado with smoked salmon and saffron dressing.
Bread rolls with butter.

Main Course
Herb baked lamb and red wine braised lamb shoulder on coriander risotto with red wine jus. Seasonal vegetables including baby carrots, broccolini, beans and mangetout peas.

Dessert
Warm apple tarte Tatin with cinnamon ice cream and calvados crème anglaise.

There was a selection of alcoholic drinks including Crown Reserve Sparkling, Reserve Chardonnay and Reserve Shiraz. Heineken, Hahn Premium light and a selection of soft drinks completed the offerings.

I thoroughly enjoyed the meal and barring the relatively slow service, we were looked after very well by the service staff. It was a very good evening and a fitting ending to a very good conference.

MORIBUND

“Death never takes the wise man by surprise; He is always ready to go.” - Jean de La Fontaine

A friend has been admitted to hospital with severe back-pain and suspected secondary cancer. This has caused a great deal of distress not only for his family, but also for his friends and acquaintances as he is a wonderful person, loyal, kind and considerate. Seeing him lying in the hospital bed, helpless, rather distressed and anxious instead of being his normal cheerful and happy self was very upsetting. In such situations, one always tries to put on an optimistic look on one’s face, say hope-filled things, tries to put a positive spin on everything, however, while one may evince a smile in the face of the sufferers, the dark look stays deep in their eyes.

Once we face the prospect of death as something that will happen to us – not to the person next door; once we are confronted with the concept of our own mortality in the immediate future – not next year, not next decade; once we think of the short time we have left; the world changes dramatically. We change drastically. Think about it: What would you do if you were certain that Monday fortnight you would be dead? Certain, mind you! Different people will react differently, surely, but one thing is for sure, the majority of people would react and would change the way they deal with situations, interact with people, carry out the routine tasks associated with their every day existence. The importance of what one does would be questioned, values would be reprioritised.

When we are young we think we are immortal, as we grow older we start to think of death as a possibility, however remote it may be. One is encouraged in Western societies to push the thought of death as far as possible from one’s mind. The consumer society of the forever young and beautiful with lots of disposable income has no room for death. One cannot sell many consumer goods to the moribund or to people who contemplate death as the inevitable end. We have sanitised death and have made it secret to the point of it being considered obscene. We no longer go to “funerals” we got to a “celebration of the dear departed’s life”. We do not speak of people “dying” we speak of them “passing over”. We do not view the dead body, do not have wakes any more, but rather ring for the ambulance and relinquish the earthly remains to the care of the undertaker who will make the dead body magically vanish into a shiny casket, carefully and safely sealed away.

In many cases, the job of the mortician has also expanded to incorporate the role normally played by the clergy. As more and more people lean towards agnosticism or atheism, the last rites, the requiem mass or burial service are replaced by social gatherings where the life of the person is remembered or celebrated. It is as though even in the face of death, we are even then refusing to acknowledge it and look backward to life.

Death is the ultimate adventure, the inevitable ending, that which gives meaning to life. Acknowledgement of death is an integral part of being human. Abolishing the fear of death liberates us to live life fully and more meaningfully. Seeing death as part of life makes us value life more and have more respect for it. Grieving openly, mourning, wailing, crying, beating one’s chest when a loved has died is part of the natural process of coping with death as a concept and makes us ready for our own death. Death in our life has to be an accessible, visceral and immediate process that we must immerse ourselves in. Coping with death around us in an emotional and direct way robs it of its terror. And for goodness’ sake, call a spade a spade. When I surrender to death I die, I do not pass away or over or cross the great divide, or slip away, I die!

moribund |ˈmôrəˌbənd; ˈmär-| adjective
• (Of a person): At the point of death.
• (Of a thing): In terminal decline; lacking vitality or vigour: The moribund commercial property market.
DERIVATIVES
moribundity |ˌmôrəˈbəndətē; ˌmär-| noun
ORIGIN early 18th century: From Latin moribundus, from mori ‘to die.’

LEAVE-TAKING

“There is no substitute for the comfort supplied by the utterly taken-for granted relationship.” - Iris Murdoch

I am attending a national conference here in Melbourne for three days and so far, it’s been very good. Today’s session has been a workshop on effective leadership through changes in organisational culture. “Culture” is an interesting term especially when it applies to an organisation, however, more and more people are realising that this intangible concept is colouring people’s perception of the business and may influence positively or negatively the whole way in which the organisation operates. It was good to validate many of the things that I am doing as a leader in our organisation and mainly through a common sense approach, it turns out that I am trying to influence our culture in a positive way.

I had some bad news from an old colleague of mine today. He and his wife are breaking up, agreed to a mutual separation, then a quick divorce. “Irreconcilable differences” was the reason he gave, but there were deeper and perennial issues… Odd, as to me they always seemed the perfect couple, ostensibly in love, well-suited to each other, he handsome, she beautiful. But I was only a casual observer, an outsider.

Leave-Taking

Once the decision’s made,
You should leave.
No dilly-dallying,
No second chances,
No qualms,
No discussions.

It’s hard, I know, to pack;
A suitcase full of loneliness
Is a heavy burden to lift.
A note of goodbye,
Best left unwritten
Bitter words best left unspoken.

The memories, both good and bad,
Will hound you anyway;
So don’t bother to burn letters,
Tear up photographs,
Erase phone numbers,
Or give up on common friends.

When you leave,
The air will still bear traces
Of your perfume long after your departure.
On the mattress an indelible trace
Of your body shape will remain;
The dog will keep on expecting you home from work.

Once you’re gone,
The space you leave behind
Suddenly more substantial
Than your physical presence of years,
Your absence, suddenly, a stronger reminder
Of your existence.

And in the empty house,
I’ll mourn your leave-taking,
Inviting to the wake, your lack.

POMPEII

“Noble souls, through dust and heat, rise from disaster and defeat the stronger.” - Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

On this day in 79 AD, Vesuvius erupted and buried the twin towns of Herculaneum and Pompeii, near the Bay of Naples. The luxury-loving Romans of these two towns were accustomed to the periodic earthquakes, rumblings and plumes of smoke from the top of the great Vesuvius volcano. There are records before 79 AD that describe minor eruptions and earthquake damage. Unlike past occasions, on August 24th 79 AD, Vesuvius erupted with dramatic intensity and amazing ferocity, belching forth smoke, lava and ash. The ash storm destroyed the two cities completely, killing thousands who failed to escape in time, killing thousands and burying the two cities beneath mounds of ash and pumice. This colossal volcanic explosion was 100,000 times more powerful than the atomic bomb dropped on Hiroshima.

The Roman writer, Pliny the Younger, was in the region when Vesuvius erupted and fortunately he survived, leaving a full account of that terrible day. Pliny recorded that the ash storm lasted some 18 hours. He writes that Mount Vesuvius shook with a huge earthquake, the mountain’s top split open and a monstrous cloud raced upward, looking like an immense pine tree. The inhabitants of Pompeii were showered with ash, stones, and pumice. A river of hot mud would bury the city of Herculaneum. Reading the letter where Pliny describes the eruption of the volcano, the destruction of the cities and the death of his uncle, Pliny the Elder, makes fascinating but also very poignant reading. It can be accessed here.

Pompeii was buried 3 metres deep, while Herculaneum was buried under 23 metres of ash and mud. The ash preserved and protected these vibrant cities against the elements and plunder, until future archaeologists unearthed this snapshot in time. Only small fractions of the two cities have been excavated, Herculaneum especially being almost all still underground, this being because of the modern city that has been built on top of it. One of the highlights of a trip to Italy is a visit to Pompeii and Herculaneum and the museum of Naples. Until one sees the sites with one’s own eyes and looks at the artifacts recovered is not aware of the amazing finds and the extremely good state of preservation of the buildings and objects of everyday life.

One of the most chilling exhibits is the plaster casts of the bodies of the people that died in the eruption. As the ash covered them and it hardened over the centuries, a cast of their body was left behind. When wet plaster was introduced into the cavity, the shape of the body was captured, revealing its death throes. The outer casing was subsequently removed and one can look at the grim shapes of death centuries old. Both humans and animals have been preserved in this way in various attitudes that suggest an unpleasant death.

Intermittent eruptions since 79 AD were followed by a period of frequent long-term explosive and effusive eruptions beginning in 1631 and lasting until 1944. The 1631 eruption was the largest since 79 AD and produced devastating pyroclastic flows that reached as far as the coast and caused great destruction. Many towns are located on the volcano’s flanks, and today two million people live in the immediate vicinity of Mount Vesuvius, in an area all potentially affected by any future eruption of Vesuvius.

Two excellent novels that are set at the time of the eruption of Vesuvius in 79 AD are the classic “The Last Days of Pompeii” by Baron Edward Bulwer-Lytton in 1834. This was a very popular novel in its time and once very widely read. It is now neglected, probably because of its “old-fashioned” flavour. I read it first when quite young and then re-read it with pleasure a few years ago, after I had visited Pompeii. The second is the more recent (2003) “Pompeii”, by Robert Harris, which is a retelling of the fateful Mt. Vesuvius eruption from the perspective of an ancient aqueduct engineer. It is a well-researched modern thriller set in August A.D. 79 in Campania, where Pompeii is located. Robert Harris tells the story of corruption, politics, love, Roman superstition, slavery, and engineering, all set against the power of Mt. Vesuvius, mixing fictional with historical characters.

The painting above is "The Last Day of Pompeii" (1833) by Russian Karl Bryullov (1799-1852).

MOVIE MONDAY - THE ISLAND

“God never made his work for man to mend.” - John Dryden

Sometimes you start watching a movie and believe it will be exactly like what the sleeve notes make it out to be, but once you keep on watching you can be surprised - pleasantly or unpleasantly. We watched a film at the weekend and it was a pleasant surprise we had, as we expected it to be a typical action thriller, but this one had a little bit of a twist to it and it tackled some interesting ethical issues also. The film was the 2005 Michael Bay dystopian fantasy “The Island”.

Lincoln Six-Echo (Ewan McGregor) and Jordan Two Delta (Scarlett Johansseon) are residents of a dystopian, contained and carefully controlled facility (the “dome”) in the year 2019. They are imprisoned in a sterile and crowded, totalitarian society, protected from a massive contamination that has rendered the rest of the planet uninhabitable. All but a paradisiacal island where some lucky chosen few dome residents are drawn by lot to be relocated to. Like all his peers, Lincoln hopes to win the lottery and go to the “The Island”. Lincoln begins to investigate his environment and through his friendship with one of the technical support people of the “dome” he discovers that all is not as it seems. Jordan wins the lottery but Lincoln convinces her that the island is a hell not a paradise and together Lincoln and Jordan make a daring escape. They are relentlessly pursued by the security forces of the “dome” that once housed them and the two escapees take part in a race for their lives to literally meet their makers.

Although the film is a an action thriller and a science fiction fantasy, its basic theme is familiar enough and disturbingly realistic in the present time where advances in biotechnology underline the possibility of the chilling plot of the film. The film raises enough issues to be a good choice for much discussion in a bioethics class. What makes us human? How much do we value life? What does it mean to be an individual? How far can we go with biotechnology? Is human embryo research justified? To what length are we prepared to go to save the life of a loved one? To save our own life? What is the ‘God Complex’?

There are multiple underlying philosophical, moral and ethical questions posed by the film, but it still can be enjoyed as a mindless action thrills-and-spills dick-flick. Let me rephrase that: The film can be enjoyed at various levels and different viewers will relate to the film at different depths. We started watching it and believed it would be a fantasy/science fiction action movie, but after we finished watching it we launched into a heated debate about the ethical questions I mentioned above. Others may not.

The two leads are likeable enough and do a good job with their characters and the way that these develop through the film. The sets and special effects are well done and the action sequences well orchestrated. Sure enough there some little holes in the script and there is an element of the “unexplained” in some parts of the film, however, overall it was an enjoyable film and one which could make one think and question and debate. I’ve tried to not give away much of the plot just in case you wish to view it yourself.

ART SUNDAY - MYTHOLOGY AND PAINTING

“It is because Humanity has never known where it was going that it has been able to find its way.” – Oscar Wilde

Mythological painting re-entered Western art with the revival of ancient Greek and Roman myths that took place in the Renaissance. Artists suddenly found themselves amongst a treasure trove of new subjects, which kept them busy from the 15th to the 19th centuries. The illustrations of these mythological subjects provided an opportunity for depicting archetypes and situations that could be adapted to particular requirements and satisfy art patrons in a variety of ways. At the same time, the themes demanded a certain adventurous style and an experimentation that led to the great revolutions of artistic expression seen through art history.

The intellectual and social conditions that enabled classical mythology to become such a vital force in European art for about 300 years drastically changed in the early 19th century with widespread industrialism and urbanisation and the rise of the middle classes. Today, the world of classical Greek and Roman deities, heroes and historical personages is one which the person in the street has only a vague familiarity with. The illustration of allegories and complex symbolic principles, imaginative personifications of forces of nature and forgotten myths seems to be even more alien to modern sensibilities than it was in the 19th century. I can hardly imagine Paris Hilton contemplating Boticelli’s “Calumny of Apelles” and immediately being aware of the allegoric significance of the figures illustrated. Most people would view Rubens’ “Judgment of Paris” and all they would register would be three corpulent women baring all in front of a young man.

Western painting developed under the sponsorship of the Church, its purpose to illustrate the stories of the New Testament. But by the midpoint of the Italian Renaissance (about 1482) artists began to turn to painting the things which Christianity had kept secret, above all the legends and stories of the pagan world. Botticelli’s “Primavera” was the first great anti-Christian painting in Western art.

The stories of the Olympian gods, their loves and adventures were invented by the ancient Greeks. The Greeks also invented philosophy and science, so why did such a logical and sensible people cling to their improbable myths? Maybe it was because the myths explained better than science what it meant to be a human being… Homer, Hesiod, and later the Romans Virgil and Ovid (who appropriated the Greek gods), told the mythical stories in marvellous poems which still move readers. A myth is a story that serves a purpose: To explain the origins of something, to justify something, or to serve as a warning or an example or a symbol. Such a story is usually easy to understand, involving strong and simple emotions and clear and basic relationships. But myths illustrate special stories, not just any story. The great myths illustrate and explain to each generation something about the order of the world and the relationships between gods and humans. They also serve as the examples of human excellence.

As Christianity established itself as the state religion of Rome (both in West and East) in the 4th century AD, belief in the existence of the Greek gods was lost. Christian and Barbarian forces destroyed most of the visible great art depicting these gods. For almost a thousand years the stories of the pagan gods were banished from the public mind. It was during the Renaissance that patrons like the Medici and their circle of humanist scholars began to rediscover the legacy of Greece and Rome.

Many ancient writings about the gods survived, especially the books of Homer, Hesiod, Virgil and Ovid, almost no original Greek sculpture or any Greek painting (with the exception of vase painting) was there to be seen, hence no readily available visual evidence of these gods. Venus’s portrait waited for a thousand years for Botticelli to paint again.  The “Birth of Venus” shows Venus’s nude body in all its tantalizing innocence. Nevertheless forbidden territory for a painter at the time. Venus was reborn in Italy and sent shockwaves throughout aristocratic Europe.

Mythology thus became a justification for Renaissance and Post-Renaissance artists to paint with a new freedom and boldness denied them by Christianity. The explicit moral commandments of Christianity, above all, humility meant that important human emotions and attitudes could hardly be glorified in properly Christian terms. Since Europe had by no means renounced the values of pagan nobility - honour, pride, vengeance, self-assertion, magnanimity - these values found a haven in the representation of classical antiquity. Humanism celebrated human values and concerns. The ancient gods with all of their human attributes and failings stressed the potential value and goodness of human beings, emphasising common human needs, and allowed humans to seek solely rational ways of solving human problems. This revival of Greek and Roman learning was seen as complementing rather than conflicting with religion and it was allowed to flourish by the Roman popes, as they themselves were products of the aristocracy and nobility that engendered the humanist Renaissance.

The painting above is Titian’s “Danaë” hanging in Museo di Capodimonte of Naples. This work, was begun in Venice in 1544 and completed in Rome in 1545-46 for Cardinal Alessandro Farnese. It enjoyed great success, even if Michelangelo lamented the fact that the composition was based on color rather than line (disegno) when he saw it; he admired the manner and color and acknowledged Titian's skill for copying life (controffare il vivo). The legend illustrates one of Zeus’s illicit love affairs with Danaë. She was the daughter of Acrisius, king of Argos. An oracle foretold that she would bear a son who would kill her father. Attempting to evade this, Acrisius imprisoned her, but Zeus visited her in the form of a shower of gold and she conceived Perseus, who killed Acrisius by accident.

Titian provided his patron, Cardinal Farnese with a legitimate excuse for contemplating a female nude form. It was an illustration of the inevitability of fate and the submission to divine will, while at the same time allowing the exposure of the beauties of a nubile young woman for the enjoyment of the Cardinal…

ELECTION DAY BLUES

“In order to become the master, the politician poses as the servant.” - Charles de Gaulle

It’s our Federal Election day here in Australia today and we got our voting over and done with early in the morning. Just as well, as later in the day it was very busy in all of the polling places and the traffic in the city was particularly heavy. The main contenders of course are extremely nervous as this poll is on a knife edge, with the possibility of a hung parliament. The Greens are becoming a growing force in our politics and perhaps this may be a good thing as the two major parties have become mirror images of one another.

I need something soothing and gentle tonight: Erik Satie’s Gymnopédie No 1 for piano, which in this version is orchestrated and strikes the right chord…

ON A DIET FOR FOOD FRIDAY!

“Sin is sweet in the mouth and bitter in digestion. It lies hard on the stomach.” – Henry Ward Beecher

I am on a diet. Well not really a diet, I am just a little bit more careful about what I am eating, or rather even more importantly, how much I am eating. Since our return from Vietnam I have lost 2.5 kilos. It’s been simple really, cutting back on some things that are not necessary, reducing the intake of fats, not drinking alcohol (not that I drank all that much before, but between having none and having a glass with a meal is a reduction!). No chocolate, but still having a lolly or two every now and then. Not having ice cream or cream, but enjoying real milk in my coffee. Having chicken, but boiled; not fried, nor roasted. Enjoying lots of fresh salads, home made bread – one slice or two, not buttered. No margarine, rather olive oil and only a little of it. Fruit for lunch, but only one or two pieces and only fresh, seasonal fruit.

It is important to watch the quantity of what we eat first, and then the type of food and how it’s cooked. My grandfather used to say, “Eat whatever you like, but only a little of it. Whenever you have a meal, eat enough to satisfy your hunger, but leave your stomach unloaded. If it were imperative that you eat again immediately after having completed a meal, you should be able to do so without discomfort…” Wise words which he abided by. He lived a healthy, happy life and was fit until he died in his early nineties.

A “diet” can be a good culinary experience and one may still enjoy one’s meals. Once the appropriate weight has been reached, one can start including some of the more “sinful” foods one avoided, but in greatly reduced quantities. This helps to maintain the desired weight and also of course one is not a “spoil-sport” at dinner parties or restaurants. One may then eat anything and everything, but only in small portions. My mother has been doing this all her life and she has always been slim, trim and healthy.

Exercise, of course, is the other side of good nutrition when trying to lose weight. Once again moderate exercise: Walking not running; swimming not jogging; light weight lifting till one is fatigued rather than increasing the weights lifted more and more; sensible warm-ups and stretching rather than launching into a gym workout immediately; dancing and even having sex rather than doing pushups! Exercise like that becomes an enjoyable routine that alters metabolism and is gentle on the body, while having its beneficial effects.

Unfortunately, the older one gets, the harder it is to lose weight if one has put it on and the harder it is to maintain good form. It’s easier to opt for quick meal solutions and to become addicted to nutritiously harmful routine meals. Many older people can also try to do good by taking vitamins, minerals and other nutritious supplements, but these instead of helping can sometimes even do great harm. Nutritional supplements can interact adversely with medications, some older people can overdose on vitamins with dire effects, and such people can be misled into thinking that if they take supplements they needn’t look after their diet properly. Malnutrition can still happen if one is taking lots of vitamins and minerals but not eating right!

THE SCARLET PIMPERNEL

“For myself I hold no preferences among flowers, so long as they are wild, free, spontaneous. Bricks to all greenhouses!  Black thumb and cutworm to the potted plant!” - Edward Abbey

The scarlet pimpernel, Anagallis arvensis, is the birthday flower for today.  The generic name is derived from the Greek anagelas, “mirth”. Pliny describes taking this plant internally in order to dispel gloom.  It is often described as the “cheerful pimpernel”, but this may relate also to its use as a weather oracle: The blooms close up when bad weather is nigh. The flower symbolises faithfulness, childhood, change and an assignation.  Astrologically, it is a solar plant. The blue variant of the plant, the blue pimpernel Anagallis arvensis (ssp caerulea) has striking blue flowers and symbolises nostalgia.

Most people are familiar with (if they have not read) the classic novel “The Scarlet Pimpernel” (1905) by the Baroness Emmuska Orczy, who then proceeded to write ten sequels [“I Will Repay” (1906), “Elusive Pimpernel” (1908), “Eldorado” (1913), “Lord Tony’s Wife” (1917), “League of the Scarlet Pimpernel” (1919), “Triumph of the Scarlet Pimpernel” (1922), “Sir Percy Hits Back” (1927), “Adventures of the Scarlet Pimpernel” (1929), “Way of the Scarlet Pimpernel” (1933), “Sir Percy Leads the Band” (1936) and “Mam’zelle Guillotine” (1940)]. A full online text (and summary) of the novel can be found here.

The original novel was based on a play by Orczy, and it was inevitable that the novel then engendered several movies, a Broadway musical and a TV series, as well as several parodies! The Mecca for Pimpernel fans is Blakeney Manor, the fanciful original home of the English noble whose alias the Pimpernel was.

The first movie of the novel was the silent film “The Scarlet Pimpernel” (1917) directed by Richard Stanton and starring Dustin Farnum. Harold Young’s 1934 classic “The Scarlet Pimpernel” is good fun, with a spirited performance by Leslie Howard. The UK 1999 TV series starring Richard E. Grant  was highly praised and was popular with the public.

As far as the plot is concerned, it takes place at the time of the height French Revolution. The name of one man was a curse on the lips of the new regime and a prayer on the lips of the aristocrats who had fallen from grace: The Scarlet Pimpernel, so-called from the flower with which he signed his messages. A master of disguise, unsurpassed swordsman, and superlatively quick-witted strategist, he masterminded the rescuing of countless condemned prisoners before they could lose their heads to the guillotine, ably assisted by the League of the Pimpernel, a band of devoted followers (many of whom were young English noblemen). Though the French, personified by their sadistic agent Chauvelin, sought to unmask and capture the Pimpernel, he continued to evade their best efforts.

The Scarlet Pimpernel was the alias of Sir Percy Blakeney, one of the richest men in England, seen by his peers as a fool, a brainless fop married in a loveless relationship to Marguerite. This was of course just what Percy wanted people to think, as he and his loving wife, herself one of the “most clever women in Europe” continued to run rings round their opponents. The novel is thinly veiled propaganda for monarchy as a political system, however, it is just made entertaining and adventuresome, a perfect vehicle for advancing the cause of royalists.

royalist |ˈroiəlist| noun
A person who supports the principle of monarchy or a particular monarchy.
• A supporter of the king against Parliament in the English Civil War.
• A supporter of the British during the American Revolution; a Tory.
adjective
Giving support to the monarchy : the paper claims to be royalist.
• (in the English Civil War) supporting the king against Parliament : the royalist army.
DERIVATIVES
Royalism |-ˌizəm| noun
ORIGIN late Middle English: From Old French roial, from Latin regalis ‘regal.’

WHEN THE RAINS CAME

“I beg you take courage; the brave soul can mend even disaster.” - Catherine II

I cannot but continue to think of the Pakistani drama still being enacted in the flooded wastes that the once fertile fields have become. I ruminate upon the disaster and the new calamities still ahead for millions of people and cannot but be moved to help in any way I can. Even the writing of a poem can touch a reader and perhaps generate sympathy in a person who is fatigued by the continuous reports of disaster and woe the world over…

When the Rains Came

When the rains came, they blessed the fields;
The thirsty earth drank deeply, gratefully,
And the dormant seeds swelled in their coats
Like content, fat children awaiting puberty
To turn their puppy fat into elegant tallness.

The rains came and stayed.
The dry land was flooded.
Wheat fields turned into rice paddies
And all fat seeds were drowned; rotting in the sodden soil.

The rains fell and the spate was unleashed;
Gentle rivulets became torrents,
Rushing forth uprooting violently all in their path.

The rains came and came and came,
Their blessing converted to a curse.
The water of life in its surfeit carrying death:

Dead bodies of people wrapped in liquid winding sheets;
Uprooted trees now like floating seaweed in the deluge;
Animal carcases bobbing in the swollen rivers;
Countless flotsam, silent testimony to millions of ruined lives.

Mother, you suffer, weeping for your lost children!
Father, your livelihood is bleak destruction, ruination!
Brother, your sister is missing: Drowned? Saved? Hungry? Cold?
Sister, your tears another flood; another wretchedness
That adds to the watery devastation of your once beautiful homeland…

PAKISTAN

“He who gives when he is asked has waited too long.” - Sunshine Magazine

The news that keeps coming out of Pakistan is mind-numbing. The extent of the humanitarian and environmental disaster there is of amazingly tragic proportions. Even while away I was keeping up with the news on BBC World on TV and since getting back I have been following the relief effort with concern. Last week the World Bank estimated that the floods destroyed crops worth around $1 billion. Pakistani estimates place this figure to at least double that. About 17 million acres of agricultural land have been submerged, and more than 100,000 animals have perished. This is a severe economic burden for the country, where about a quarter of the economy and nearly a half of its workforce depend on agriculture.

The floods, the worst in Pakistan’s history, have affected at least 14 million people with over 1,600 fatalities. No doubt the death toll is bound to rise in the wake of even more downpours, further flooding and the terrible wave of concomitant infectious disease epidemics. Cholera, dysentery, typhoid, paratyphoid, hepatitis and other diseases will cause much distress and even more tragedy in a country that has already suffered enormous losses. The pictures that accompany the news reports are heart-rending and even the most hardened amongst us, used to daily reports of fatalities, tragedies, terrorism and natural disasters, cannot but be moved.

Anger amongst the survivors is mounting with reports of inadequate aid provision, hunger, lack of clean water and shelter. Unfortunately, the appeals for help from Pakistan although loud and clear are unheeded by many. Various agencies that are usually involved in international appeals and aid are struggling to attract funds for the millions of Pakistani flood victims. The international aid effort has been meagre because the country suffers from an “image deficit”. I find this the most distasteful and inhuman characterisation of a woeful response. To have approximately 20 million people affected directly and indirectly, the great majority of them poor and innocent, with aid being withheld because of fears it will go to the hands of the Taliban is quite monstrous.

The victims are farmers, mothers, children. Poor agricultural workers that struggle to survive in the best of circumstances and often, they themselves are victims of the Taliban. The media so often paints Pakistan in dark colours, that public opinion links it immediately to terrorism and corruption. By extension, through some weird logic the victims are not as innocent as others. The UN is struggling to obtain $A515 million to provide emergency aid to six million victims of the country ravaged by heavy flooding. According to the latest update of funding pledges, the international community has transferred $A166 million (32%) of the total needed by the UN since the appeal was launched last week. Yesterday, the World Bank agreed to provide a $A1.01 billion loan to Pakistan following a request from Islamabad. No doubt a hefty interest will be charged…

What a marvellous civilisation we have evolved into! This is the 21st century informed by centuries of history, enriched by experience, wealthy beyond the dreams of most empires of the past, more informed, more educated, more able to be compassionate and just and charitable and humane… And yet we turn off our noble sentiments and withhold our sympathy, deny our aid to a stricken groups simply because the country they live in has a “bad image”. It’s like denying giving the starving elderly beggar a dollar because he might spend it unwisely, or lose it. We have become so civilised, so refined, so sensitive and so politically correct that we have lost our humanity…

Please donate to the Pakistan appeal in any of these sites here:

http://www.unrefugees.org.au/emergencies/?gclid=CJ_Duu-TwKMCFQXObgodhg2AzQ

http://www.worldvision.com.au/Issues/Emergencies/Current_Emergencies/Pakistan_Floods.aspx

http://www.msf.org.au/

http://www.actionaid.org.au/emergencies-and-conflict/pakistan-floods.html

https://www.oxfam.org.uk/donate/pakistan-swat/index.php

http://www.worldvision.org/

http://www.mercycorps.org/

THE STONE FLOWER

“Every creator painfully experiences the chasm between his inner vision and its ultimate expression.” - Isaac Bashevis Singer

For this Movie Monday I will tell you about a film I have not seen… Rather odd I know to review a film that I have not seen, but there you go. I’ll tell you about it and once I watch it I’ll tell you again about what my impressions were.

I was speaking to my parents at the weekend and as we were talking we spoke about some good films that we had seen. They told me about a film that they had seen when young and which they had never forgotten. I had heard about this wonderful film before and they always spoke very highly of it. The conversation ended with the observation: “Well, no use talking about it now, it’s highly unlikely that it can be found to watch now – how will you get hold of a Soviet film of the forties, which everyone has forgotten about?”

Well, that comment got me searching the web and knowing only its title (in translation) I was finally able to not only find which film it was, but all sorts of other interesting history about it. The trip through the cyberalleys ended up with me finding a DVD of it for sale on Amazon. Of course I ordered it, and I shall give the DVD to my parents as a gift (after I watch it of course!).

The film is Alexandr Ptushko’s 1946 fantasy film “The Stone Flower” (Каменный цветок, Kamennyy tsvetok). It was the Soviet Union’s first colour film shot on AgfaColor negative film seized in Germany by Russian troops, and was entered into the 1946 Cannes Film Festival. Apparently the colours of this film were beautifully pastel, the cinematography exceptional and the subject matter based on an old Russian fairy tale.

I looked for the film on IMDB and found it there with several reviews that speak of memories of this film that cannot be forgotten. It seems that whoever saw this film was very impressed by it and was struck by its beauty. All of this of course has made me extremely curious to see it and can hardly wait until the DVD arrives in the post so I can watch it and make up my mind!

The whole story of “The Stone Flower” can be found here as retold by Kathleen Jenks. I wonder if any of my readers has seen this film and what they thought of it?