“I never teach my pupils; I only attempt to provide the conditions in which they can learn.” - Albert Einstein
I was in Adelaide for the day attending a very interesting conference on eLearning in education. It made for a very long day, waking up at 4:00 a.m., commuting to Adelaide on the Airbus, working all day and then commuting back home to get here at 10:00 p.m. Still, I am now home and will sleep in my own bed, rather than staying in a hotel overnight – which is not good and I avoid as much as possible! The conference went well and there some engaging presentations, many knowledgeable people attending, good opportunities for networking as well as much to do regarding catching up with all the latest technology and the way it is being used in education.
At lunchtime we had a fantastic spread of food, which had the added benefit of it being quite healthful and nutritious. There were rolls, focaccia and bread, as well a variety of fillings for people to assemble their own sandwiches. There were salads, a large variety of fruits, cheeses, delicatessen goodies like ham, roast beef, salami slices, and many sandwich filings like mashed avocado, bean sprouts, tomatoes, lettuce, cucumber slices, capsicum, shredded cabbage, beetroot, etc, etc. The food was fresh and looked fantastic. Besides which everyone could please themselves and make their own sandwiches just as they liked them. It was a delicious lunch and very much appreciated by the conference attendees.
A sandwich can be very good nutritionally and be as healthful as we wish to make it. As long as we don’t keep piling on the butter, mayonnaise and other sauces, and we ensure there are lots of fresh vegetables in it, then it works well as a power food. Especially so if the bread used is high in fibre and contains multiple grains.
The weather in Adelaide today was extremely hot, the mercury rising to the high 30s. Fortunately, we were in an air-conditioned venue, which made it very pleasant. In Melbourne it was also hot, but the temperature was not as high. However, in the evening there was a storm again in Melbourne. Fortunately, it was all over by the time I got back and bar a few bumps and jumps in the plane as we were coming back, we had good flying.
“Dictatorship naturally arises out of democracy, and the most aggravated form of tyranny and slavery out of the most extreme liberty.” - Plato
November 17th is a sombre anniversary for Greeks, but one which is also filled with positive emotions and one that makes every Greek remember that Greece was the cradle of democracy and political freedom. The day marks the Athens Polytechnic uprising of 1973, which was a massive public demonstration of rejection of the Greek military junta of 1967-1974 by the people of Athens. The uprising began on November 14, 1973, escalated to an open anti-junta, anti-US and anti-imperialist revolt and ended in bloodshed in the early morning of November 17 after a series of events starting with a tank crashing through the gates of the Athens Polytechnic. This was an unthinkable and barbaric act performed by an oppressive military junta struggling to maintain power.
Since April 21st, 1967 Greece was under the dictatorial rule of the military, a regime which abolished civil rights, dissolved political parties and exiled, imprisoned and tortured politicians and citizens based on their political beliefs. At the time my family and I were living in Athens and even though I was a child I remember the events of April 21st, 1967 clearly as they were branded in my mind. They were events after all events that forced my family to leave our homeland and relatives and to seek political refuge in Australia. But that’s another long story and not of relevance to this.
In 1973 George Papadopoulos, the junta leader, in his magnanimity had allowed a “liberalisation” process of his hateful regime, which included the release of political prisoners and the partial lifting of censorship, as well as promises of a new constitution and new elections for a return to civilian rule. This allowed some previously outlawed groups and opposition elements. including Socialists, the opportunity to undertake political action against the junta.
In its attempt to control every aspect of politics, the junta had interfered with student syndication since 1967, by banning student elections in universities, forcibly drafting students and imposing non-elected student union leaders in the national students’ union. These actions eventually created strong anti-junta sentiments among students. This is exemplified by many protests, such as that of Geology student Kostas Georgakis who committed suicide in 1970 in Genoa, Italy as an ultimate act of protest against the junta.
The first massive public action against the junta came from students on February 21st, 1973, when law students went on strike and barricaded themselves inside the buildings of the Faculty of Law in the university of Athens in the centre of Athens, demanding the repealling of the law that imposed forceful drafting of “subversive youths”, a fate that had been suffered by 88 of their peers who had been forcefully drafted. The police were ordered to intervene and many students were subjected to police brutality. The events at the Law School are often cited as the prelude to the Polytechnic uprising. The student uprising of November 17th was also inspired by the youth movements of the sixties, notably the events of May 1968 in France.
On November 14, 1973 students at the Athens Polytechnic (Πολυτεχνείον) went on strike and started protesting against the junta or “Regime of the Colonels” as it was also known. As the authorities stood by, the students, calling themselves the “Free Besieged” (Ελεύθεροι Πολιορκημένοι, an overt reference to the poem by Greek national poet Dionysios Solomos inspired by the Ottoman siege of Missolonghi), barricaded themselves in the Polytechnic. They set up a radio station using laboratory equipment that repeatedly broadcast messages of revolt and freedom across Athens: “Here is Polytechneion! People of Greece, the Polytechneion is the flag bearer of our struggle and your struggle, our common struggle against the dictatorship and for democracy!”
Maria Damanaki (later an elected member of the democratic parliament), was one of the major broadcasters. Within hours, thousands of ordinary people, workers and youths joined the students, protesting inside and outside of the Polytechnic. In the early hours of November 17, 1973, the transitional government led by Spyros Markezinis who was collaborating with Papadopoulos panicked, ordering a tank to crash through the gates of the Athens Polytechnic in order to quell what had been until then a peaceful demonstration. Soon after that, Spyros Markezinis himself had the humiliating task to request Papadopoulos to re-impose martial law.
Prior to the attack, the city electricity had been interrupted, and the Polytechnic area was only lit by the campus lights, powered by the university generators. An AMX 30 Tank crashed the rail gate of the Athens Polytechnic at around 03:00am. In unclear footage clandestinely filmed by a Dutch journalist, the tank is shown bringing down the main steel entrance to the campus to which people were clinging. Documentary evidence also survives, in recordings of the Polytechnic radio transmissions from the occupied premises.
In these recording a young man’s desperate voice is heard asking the soldiers, whom he calls “brothers in arms”, to disobey the military orders and not to fight their unarmed “brothers” whose only crime was to protest against the junta. The voice carries on to an emotional outbreak, where the Greek National Anthem is recited, until the tank enters the Polytechnic, at which time transmission ceases. These are hair-raising documentaries that break one’s heart as they are watched and listened to.
The records of the trials held following the collapse of the Junta document the circumstances of the deaths of scores of civilians during the uprising, and although the number of dead has not been contested by historical research, it remains a subject of political controversy. In addition, hundreds of civilians were left injured or maimed during the events. On November 25, 1973, Brigadier General Dimitrios Ioannides used the events as a pretext to stage a countercoup that overthrew Papadopoulos, and put a dramatic end to Papadopoulos and Markezinis’ attempt for a transition to democratic rule. Ioannidis arrested Markezinis, cancelled the elections, and fully reinstated martial law. His regime in turn crumbled in July 1974, after the coup against Makarios III, instigated by Cypriot Nikos Sampson in contact with the Greek junta of Ioannidis, led to the Turkish invasion of Cyprus.
Ioannides' involvement in inciting unit commanders of the security forces to commit criminal acts during the Athens Polytechnic uprising was noted in the indictment presented to the court by the prosecutor during the Greek junta trials and in his subsequent conviction in the Polytechneion trial where he was found to have been morally responsible for the events.
The events of July 1974 in Cyprus caused the military regime to crumble and ushered in the era of “Metapolitefsi”. Constantine Karamanlis was invited back to Greece from France where he was self-exiled, was appointed Prime Minister of Greece alongside President Phaedon Gizikis. Parliamentary democracy was thus restored, and the Greek legislative elections of 1974 were the first free elections held in a decade.
November 17 is currently observed as a holiday in Greece for all educational establishments; commemorative services are held and students attend school only for these, while some schools and all universities stay closed during the day. The central location for the commemoration is the campus of the Polytechnic. The campus is closed on the 15th (the day the students first occupied the campus on 1973). Students and politicians lay wreaths on a monument within the Polytechnic.
The student uprising is hailed by many as a brave act of resistance against the military dictatorship, and therefore as a symbol of popular resistance to tyranny. It show that Greeks respond valiantly to extreme events in times of crisis and can sacrifice themselves in order to defend the ideas of freedom and democracy, to demand basic human rights and to reclaim dignity and a better life for themselves. In these times of crisis that Greece is experiencing now, the Polytechnic Uprising anniversary has a special significance as an idea and an ideal.
junta |ˈho͝ontə, ˈjəntə| noun
1 A military or political group that rules a country after taking power by force: The country's ruling military junta.
2 historical A deliberative or administrative council in Spain or Portugal. ORIGIN early 17th cent. ( sense 2): from Spanish and Portuguese, from Latin juncta, feminine past participle of jungere ‘to join.’
“I have learned silence from the talkative, tolerance from the intolerant, and kindness from the unkind; yet strangely, I am ungrateful to these teachers” - Kahlil Gibran
Today we celebrate the International Day for Tolerance, which was created by Resolution 51/95, where the UN General Assembly invited Member States to observe the Day on November 16th each year. Activities are planned, which are directed towards educational institutions and the broader public. The day was created to provide an opportunity for everyone within the global community to rededicate their commitment to and responsibility in encouraging tolerance, respect, and cooperation among different cultures and people.
Tolerance is to deliberately allow to occur something of which one disapproves, such as social, ethnic, sexual, or religious practices. It means that we may not agree or like what we are allowing to happen, but we are willing to accept the differences between ourselves and others who are different from us. This attitude is especially important on the social level, allowing us to live our life free from racial and ethnic prejudice, embracing the willingness to live and let live non-judgmentally. Tolerance of course, does not refer to condoning illegal activities or allowing acts to occur that will physically harm individuals or psychologically damage them.
Tolerance is something that many people find hard to practise and even the most liberal and tolerant amongst us may occasionally catch ourselves lapsing into an attitude that reeks of some deep-seated prejudice that we may have long-battled to eradicate from within ourselves. Such is the nature of humans, the “us and them” mentality. This harks back to our caveman roots and the battle of survival where one had to stick together within one’s clan and protect the interests of the tribe, as this equated with survival. We have since become civilised but the caveman within still manages to overcome our refined, polished and über-socialised selves.
Religious intolerance is one of the prime causes of worldwide hostility. It is unfortunate that religious feeling, which deals with the higher spiritual matters is responsible for the blood-letting and the destruction that still occurs on a massive scale around the planet. Racism is another cause of widespread hatred and the pages of history are full of the blood stains of the various types of racial and ethnic cleansing that intolerance begets. And of course there are many other causes for intolerance, sexual, gender-based, social, political, intellectual and more…
On days like today we can reflect on how we can best create a society where there is a fair, objective, and permissive attitude toward opinions and practices that differ from our own. Our differences make us stronger and more adaptable, better able to embroider fully and colourfully our social fabric. It is important for each of us to think about how we can use our differences as invitations rather than barriers. As the Day of Tolerance comes to a close, we should be able to think back and be satisfied that we have done something to open a channel of communication with someone from a culture or background other than our own. If we didn’t do anything today, what can we do tomorrow?
Tolerance is the foundation for mutual respect among people and communities, and is vital for building a single global society around shared values. It is a virtue and a quality, it is a way of life, it is a virtuous path, but above all, tolerance is an act – the act of reaching out to others and seeing differences not as barriers, but as invitations for dialogue and understanding.
“Youth is easily deceived, because it is quick to hope.” - Aristotle
I was in the train yesterday, coming home after a full day at work. A group of teenagers in school uniform came in and stood next to me, I seated and reading the paper. They were full of exuberance and verve, laughing and exchanging pleasantries, mock insults, telling jokes. I looked at them and half-smiled into the newsprint, remembering my own school years a little nostalgically. But nostalgia is a poor judge of circumstance as it often looks at the past through rose-tinted lenses and the unpleasant memories magically disappear…
I observed the group of students and became aware that their manner was a little forced, there was a tension in their interaction. Their eyes were full of insecurity, their body language showing unease, their voices mirthful yet all too anxious, and their stance betraying their nervousness. A young man with a face full of pimples who constantly brought his hand to his face, as if to shield his spots self-consciously. A girl with braces was afraid to smile lest the dental equipment showed too much and a rather plump boy did not dare say anything, lest he draw attention to himself. A handsome young man was too much aware of his prodigious height and his back was humped as he tried to bring himself down to the level of his interlocutors. A flat-chested girl crossing her arms in front of her breasts, hoping to hide their non-existence.
Youth: How often we yearn for it and when older we forget the ferocity of adolescence, the anguish of early adulthood, the insecurity of that transient period when we shift from youth to adulthood. What to do with our life, what path to choose, how to establish ourselves in this strange new world of adults that we so yearned to enter. And when with the wonderful key of our coming-of-age we open the door that leads into this marvellous new universe, how terrifying it all is!
Today’s Magpie Tales reminded me of this experience. The woman surrounded by chairs finds herself in a plenitude of parallel universes, with a superabundance of seemingly identical choices, but if the wrong choice is made the life ahead will be bitter, the right choice assuring a better outcome. Once again pardon my whim of tampering with Magpie’s image, but I had to belabour my point and drive home the meaning behind my rather sibylline pome today.
Unseated
There is a gravid moment,
An expectation
Full of prospects,
An endless row of possibilities.
There is a hope,
A skein of wishes
Plaited into the loose pigtails
Of youth yearning to grow up.
There is excitement,
A wild elation
But also apprehension,
As the road ahead is hidden, treacherous.
There is insistence,
A compulsion to choose
But also diffidence –
For a wrong choice will be regretted…
There is much offered,
A plethora of promises;
Each choice must be weighed
And compared with its companions.
A seat selected tends to bind,
The wood sprouting viscid tentacles,
Imprisoning unwary limbs:
Once seated, one may soar – or stay put, unseated.
“I regard the theatre as the greatest of all art forms, the most immediate way in which a human being can share with another the sense of what it is to be a human being.” - Oscar Wilde
We watched an interesting and enjoyable film at the weekend, Richard Eyre’s 2004 “Stage Beauty”. This is an English costume drama based on Jeffrey Hatcher’s play “Compleat Female Stage Beauty”. The playwright wrote the screenplay and must have enjoyed transposing his play to the medium of film as the script was most cinematic and did not lose its bite, as plays often do when transported to the silver screen. The film starred several unknown actors (to us at least), the only exception being Ben Chaplin, whom we had seen before in a couple of movies. Nevertheless, they did a very good job, especially the leads, Billy Crudup and Claire Danes playing the restoration actors Kynaston and Maria-alias-Margaret Hughes.
The plot centres on the theatre in England during the reign of Charles II (reigned 1660 to 1685). At that time, by law, all female roles of all plays were to be portrayed by male actors. Acting then was an elaborate and highly artificial art where actors relied on gestures and affectations that would be laughable today in a serious drama, and only at home in the hammed up world of pantomime. The leading figure of that theatrical world was Ned Kynaston who was the most famous Desdemona of his time. In the film, this actor is the darling of all London, but is idolised by his dressing assistant, Maria. Maria is a woman who desires to be an actress but she is not allowed to be as it was illegal. Such is her desire to act that she goes to a second rate company that puts on plays in a pub and emerges as Margaret Hughes, an illicit actress in her own right who will challenge Kynaston’s Desdemona and makes that character, her signature role as well.
The fascination of the film is that it is based on fact, both Kynaston and Hughes were real people who lived in that tumultuous era. Charles II and Nell Gwynn, his mistress, (played with gusto by Rupert Everett and Zoe Tapper respectively) do exemplify the licentious abandon of the Restoration and one can imagine them becoming personally involved in the brou-ha-ha surrounding the Kynaston vs Hughes battle. Samuel Pepys, the diarist, makes an appearance and is played with suitable mousiness by Hugh Bonneville. What makes the film enjoyable is the artistic license taken by the playwright, who weaves his threads of fiction through the threads of fact to create “fact-ion”. There are numerous anachronisms throughout the movie, but one can be forgiving, given the fact that it is such a good story.
The film, despite its levity (it is an amusing “romantic comedy” of sorts), tackles several important topics: Female equality, the concept of sex and gender, sexuality and transvestism, professionalism versus amateurism in art. It also asks the question what it means to be an actor and to what extent one is willing to go in order to achieve one’s dream. Even though many of these questions that the film poses remain as subplots, the matters are raised and the intelligent viewer will look beyond the often farcical triviality of the plot in order to ruminate upon the answers to these questions.
Eyre’s direction is tight and professional and he manages to balance his movie on the razor’s edge between farce and pathos. The cinematography is quite sumptuous and one is transported convincingly to 17th century London. The costumes, settings and even the CGI of some of the aerial shots of Old London are quite spectacular. Overall, this is a fine period piece, which deserved to do much better at the box office than it did. IMDB informs me that the gross takings in the USA were a very modest $776,691 between 10th October 2004 and 28th November 2004!
This is a very worthwhile film to watch and we recommend it most highly. It is amusing and light-hearted, but it does have a bite too, quite a sting in its tail – the last scene in which Desdemona and Othello are acted out by the rivals Hughes and Kynaston is quite remarkable – although not in keeping with the times portrayed!
“Sometimes our fate resembles a fruit tree in winter. Who would think that those branches would turn green again and blossom, but we hope it, we know it.” - Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
This afternoon we went to the National Gallery of Victoria, which is one of the most amazing art galleries to visit, easily the best in Australia and certainly one the best in the Southern Hemisphere. We are very lucky to have this gallery with its profusion of significant art works housed in such a magnificent building in our city.
Above is a painting in the gallery by Frenchman Pierre Puvis de Chavannes (1824 – 1898), who is one of the greatest French decorative painters. His international influence was even greater than that of Gustave Moreau (1826 – 1898). He had to abandon his studies at the Polytechnique because of illness and travelled in Italy during his convalescence, where he discovered the frescoes of the Quattrocento and decided to become a painter. Ary Scheffer, Couture, Delacroix (for 4 days) and above all Théodore Chassériau were his teachers at the École des Beaux-Arts.
In 1850, exhibited a Pietà at the Salon. In 1861 his career as a painter of murals for public buildings began with the Musée d’Amiens. He decorated many buildings, including the Panthéon, the Hôtels de Ville of Paris and Poitiers, the Sorbonne, various French museums, and the Boston Public Library. He was a very French mind (to the extent that his work attracted that other very French painter, Matisse) who brought to his art a sense of grandeur and an organisational logic that were precisely the gifts required for vast mural decorations.
His decorative compositions attempt to reach monumentality not through depth but through superficiality, linearity of construction, the “majesty” of the organisation and also by a certain philosophical pretention. The mobility of the man is clear; the influence of his work quite outstripped its intrinsic qualities, but he was, whether we like it or not, one of the masters of the Symbolist age, an age which made of Beauty and the Pure Idea a veritable religion.
In 1884 de Chavannes was asked to paint a decorative cycle of two friezes representing Summer and Winter for the new Hôtel de Ville of Paris, recently built to replace the building burnt down by Paris communards in 1871. Twelve years later de Chavannes painted this smaller version of Winter for a private collector, Prince Alexander de Wagram. The artist has radically simplified his forms and has rendered his subject matter to a flat, decorative style. This has resulted in some critics calling this painter a “proto-abstractionist”, while others maintain that he is more akin to the symbolists.
This is a wonderful painting to behold. The muted colours, the shades of grey, the figures carefully placed in the two-dimensional space and the symbols of the season combine to form not only a highly decorative painting, but also one that gives rise to contemplation and introspection. The cloaked and heavily garbed figures of the elderly contrast with the unseasonal group of bare torsos of the woodcutters in the middle distance of the right, while the silhouettes of the riders in the distance holds a fascination that is only made more acute by the bare trees.
“Every heart sings a song, incomplete, until another heart whispers back. Those who wish to sing always find a song. At the touch of a lover, everyone becomes a poet.” – Plato
It was another full day today, but it was an enjoyable one too. The weather was beautiful – fine and warm but not overly hot. We did our shopping and went to the library in the morning and that was rather fun as we went to Lalor Shopping Centre. This is always vibrant and lively with lots of people, fresh fruit and vegetables, little shops that stock all sorts of delicacies form all parts of the world and with a widely multicultural population that is wonderful to look at and listen to. There is always some street entertainment, and once again today it was a singer and a piano accordion player. We then came back home, had some lunch, did some chores and then watched a movie. In the evening we went out to dinner – nothing fancy, but nice!
For Song Saturday today let’s go to Spain. Several centuries back for the origin of the song, but a very contemporary interpretation of it. The song is from the Cancionero de Palacio (Madrid, Biblioteca Real, MS II - 1335), also known as Cancionero de Barbieri, which is a Spanish manuscript of Renaissance music. The works in it were compiled during a time span of around 40 years, from the mid-1470s until the beginning of the 16th century, approximately coinciding with the reign of the Catholic Monarchs. The song has been re-interpreted by Antonio Cortés is a very folksy Spanish style.
It is “Tres Morillas m’ enamoran en Jaen” (Three Moorish girls made me fall in love in Jaen), by an anonymous composer.
If you wish to hear a version more sympathetic to the original here is Jordi Savall’s interpretation:
Three Moorish Girls
Three Moorish girls have made me fall in love in Jaén,
Three Moorish girls so lovely,
Went to pick olives
And found them already picked in Jaén,
Axa, Fátima and Marién.
I asked them, “Who are you ladies,
Who have robbed me of my life?”
“We are Christians, who were once Moors in Jaén,
Axa, Fátima and Marién.”
I swear to you by the Koran,
In which you ladies believe,
That each of you and all three
Have thrown me into great anguish.
Wherever I cast my eyes they will see:
Axa, Fátima and Marién.
“We would love to be boring. Plain vanilla is fine.” - Peggy Fowler
It’s been a very full week and I am glad it’s Friday. I came home today and had to do some repairs to the little studio we have in the back garden, as the storm the other day caused some damage. One of the good things about daylight saving is that one can come back home and be able to work in the garden well into the evening. Fortunately, the damage was nothing that few nails and a hammer could not fix, so the repair was all done within half an hour. It was lucky that we did not get any serious damage and no leaks of water into the building. However, I did keep thinking of the poor people that had to cope with storm damage to their house or even whole roofs coming off…
The weekend promises to be busy also, Saturday full of chores and perhaps a night out, while Sunday will be devoted to work as we have an Open Day and also I have to work on a submission that is due on Monday. It seems that I’ll blink and the weekend will be over, so any leisure that can be had should be enjoyed to the full.
For Food Friday today, a recipe for cupcakes, which seem to be very popular at the moment, with even whole shops devoted to their retail sale!
Method
1. For the cupcakes, preheat the oven to180˚C. Line a muffin tin with cupcake cases.
2. Melt the butter over a low heat in a small pan, pour it into a bowl with the sugar, oil, arrowroot and vanilla. Beat well until smooth, then whisk in the eggs followed by the milk and cream.
3. Sift and beat the flour and baking powder into the butter mixture in batches until smooth.
4. Spoon the mixture into the paper cases until about two-thirds full, then bake for 20-25 minute or until the top is springy to the touch. Remove the cupcakes from the oven and set aside to cool.
5. Meanwhile, for the buttercream, mix the icing sugar, glucose, condensed milk, flavouring and butter with an electric mixer in a bowl until smooth and light, then beat in the baking margarine until smooth.
6. In a jug, stir the icing sugar into the cream until dissolved. Beat this gradually into the butter mixture until light and fluffy. (This buttercream keeps very well covered at room temperature for 2-3 days and can be warmed slightly and re-beaten if the texture is too firm.)
7. To decorate the cupcakes, fill a disposable piping bag with the icing and snip off the end or fill a piping bag fitted with a large star nozzle.
8. To pipe on the icing, start at the outside edge piping round the edge of the cupcake in a spiral towards the centre. When you reach the top, pull up quickly to finish the swirl.
“In war, there are no unwounded soldiers.” - José Narosky
Tomorrow is Remembrance Day here in Australia. This is because the eleventh hour of the eleventh day of the eleventh month marks the signing of the Armistice, on 11th November 1918, which signalled the end of World War One. At 11 a.m. on 11th November 1918, the guns of the Western Front fell silent after more than four years of continuous warfare. Initially, when WWI ended, the day was known as Armistice Day but was renamed Remembrance Day after WWII. In the USA the day is known as Veterans’ Day.
Each year Australians observe one minute’s silence at 11 a.m. on 11th November, in memory of all those men and women who have died or suffered in all wars, conflicts and peace operations. This is a simple yet very effective way of remembering the massive loss of life and immense suffering that humankind has been subjected to in all of the various armed conflicts that have blotted recorded history.
In Australia, Remembrance Day ceremonies are held in almost every city and town across Australia. All major cities have a Shrine of Remembrance and every town has a monument honouring the fallen Anzacs. Melbourne’s Shrine of Remembrance and the Australian War Memorial in Canberra hold formal ceremonies that are very well organised and well-attended. This year, ceremonies will be very significant for the families of Australian soldiers recently killed in Afghanistan.
The National Remembrance Day Ceremony includes a formal wreathlaying and will be attended by many high level dignitaries and diplomats. Australian’s Federation Guard and the Band of the Royal Military College will be on parade. Members of the public are of course also invited to join the National Remembrance Day Ceremony at the Australian War Memorial.
Here is a poem by Wilfred Owen, one of the soldier-poets of WWI, who unfortunately was killed a few days before Armistice…
Parable of the Old Men and the Young
So Abram rose, and clave the wood, and went,
And took the fire with him, and a knife.
And as they sojourned both of them together,
Isaac the first-born spake and said, My Father,
Behold the preparations, fire and iron,
But where the lamb for this burnt-offering?
Then Abram bound the youth with belts and straps,
And builded parapets and trenches there,
And stretchéd forth the knife to slay his son.
When lo! an angel called him out of heaven,
Saying, Lay not thy hand upon the lad,
Neither do anything to him. Behold,
A ram caught in a thicket by its horns;
Offer the Ram of Pride instead of him.
But the old man would not so, but slew his son…
armistice |ˈärməstis| noun
An agreement made by opposing sides in a war to stop fighting for a certain time; a truce. ORIGIN early 18th century: From French, or from modern Latin armistitium, from arma ‘arms’ (see arm2) + -stitium ‘stoppage.’
“Weather is a literary specialty, and no untrained hand can turn out a good article on it” - Mark Twain
Today we experienced one of those abrupt weather changes that is very characteristic of Melbourne. The day was quite changeable to begin with and there were some showers in the morning, however, by lunchtime the weather had settled into a hot and steamy, almost subtropical day. I was at a workshop all day today and as I finished in the early afternoon I went for a walk around the campus of the hosting University, which was quite pleasant, humidity notwithstanding. By the time I got home in the evening, large cloud masses had started to move in from the West and at about 7:30 pm the thunderstorm broke.
What we experienced in the inner suburb where we live was only one of a series of wild storms that swept across Victoria, damaging homes, toppling trees and causing flash flooding in many parts of the metropolitan area. These storms passed through the state and in several hours there were big downpours near Port Fairy, Wodonga and Ballarat. Central Melbourne was largely spared, though flash flooding and damage to homes was reported in Eastern and South-eastern suburbs. The intensity of the downpour over Werribee led to the storm being classified as “dangerous”.
The State Emergency Service received more than 1000 calls for help and they were preparing for more calls for assistance as the rain continues overnight, although not be as severe. In North-eastern Victoria the storm apparently formed a “mini cyclone” when it passed through. There were 150 reports of fallen trees, including in Castlemaine, Woodend and Maryborough. The Frankston area was hardest hit with 215 calls for help made in the area and 30mm of rain falling in Frankston in 30 minutes. The bureau also had reports of a waterspout off Black Rock.
East Bentleigh had 23mm of rain in just six minutes, with large hail, and Oakleigh South received 14mm in 10 minutes. Golf ball-sized hail hit south of Ballarat in the afternoon, and 100km/h plus winds hit Port Fairy and Cape Otway. The roof of a house near Wodonga was torn off and another 12 were damaged. No doubt the total damage bill across our state will add up to many millions of dollars by the time the effects of the storm are all tallied up.
One is tempted to invoke climate change as an explanation of extreme weather phenomena like this and the environmentalist forum will no doubt make much of this latest occurrence to highlight the opportune and appropriate passing of legislation relating to the Carbon Tax. In fact the champion of our Carbon Tax legislation, PM Julia Gillard, has been quoted as saying that “…from today Australia would address the problems of climate change including ‘extreme weather'’ such as big floods and storms.”.
However, extreme weather events in Australia and more specifically in Melbourne, are not something new. If one takes the trouble to examine meteorological records and historical data, one will see that there have been quite severe manifestations of extreme weather since records began in the 19th century. Our planet has a very active atmosphere and a cyclical weather pattern that will often cause spectacular weather with disastrous consequences in many parts of the earth over the centuries. More extreme, worldwide shifts in planet weather occurring over a period of millennia give us periodic ice ages that alternate with warmer eras.
How much humans and their activities influence world-wide weather is a moot point and there are many scientific papers that can be quoted that will either support or refute climate change as a result of human activity. Whatever the case may be, it makes sense to respect our environment and ensure that we do not pollute our earth, do not use our natural resources unwisely and live a life that is compatible with sustainability and good utilisation of our expendable natural raw materials and increasingly diminishing forests and wilderness.
Here is a good time-lapse video of the storm in Melbourne made by a friend I follow on Twitter:
“After your death you will be what you were before your birth.” - Arthur Schopenhauer
The image from Magpie Tales is a rather lugubrious one today, perhaps in keeping with the Northern Hemisphere season, and also attuned to All Souls’ Day (November 2nd). Death is an inevitability that we must all face up to sooner or later. The advantages of doing this sooner are immense, as we can spend our lives doing useful, wonderful things that are more productive than sitting around worrying about dying. Perhaps most people have no issue with the idea of death itself, but are more concerned about the process of dying. The two concepts are quite different and should be distinguished.
Many people are concerned that they will be in pain when they are dying. Whenever we hear of someone who died, our first question seems to be: “Did s/he suffer? Was s/he in pain?” I acknowledge that concern about the process of dying need include consideration of the physical effects and manifestations of the disease or other cause of death, but most people seem to have serious concerns about the emotional, spiritual and metaphysical aspects of the cessation of life. Add to that the feelings of those who are left behind and our concern for them and how they will cope with our departure and one immediately begins to understand why death causes such disquiet for many of us.
Well, in the Southern Hemisphere we are in our last month of Spring, Southern November being the equivalent of Northern May. The weather is very changeable, with many showers and Spring rains that are making the gardens look green and are filling them with flowers. The ancient Greeks and Romans considered May a mournful and unlucky month, dedicated it to the dead, thus no weddings were celebrated in this month. I have altered the image to reflect our season, with apologies to Magpie Tales…
Spring Rains
The equinox balances day and night
And sun aligns itself most carefully.
Spring showers turn to rain
And iron weeps rust.
The air is warmer, birds soar into flight
But moon wanes most mournfully.
The deep ache turns to pain
And dreams to dust.
Spring is a most melancholy season
Despite the wild burgeoning of green.
Flowers suit more the grave,
And bitter thought.
I try to find in all a rhyme, a reason,
But deep down lurks my vengeful spleen;
How easier if all I forgave,
No longer fought…
“Revenge is an act of passion; vengeance of justice. Injuries are revenged; crimes are avenged.” - Samuel Johnson
We watched the third and final part of the Millennium Trilogy, comprising three movies based on the Stieg Larsson novels. This was the 2009 Daniel Alfredson film, “The Girl who Kicked the Hornet’s Nest”. This was a long film, running at just under 150 minutes and having relatively less action and less nail-biting sequences than the previous two (see my reviews: “The Girl who Played with Fire” and “The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo”). This film was taken at more relaxed pace and there was a lot more explaining and tying up of loose ends that had been left dangling from the previous two movies.
The same cast makes its return and the level of acting and production were good, although I must say that I was a little disappointed with the quality of the image in several scenes here and there (we were watching a BluRay disc). The film is a worthy conclusion to this trilogy, however, and to get the full effect one must watch the three movies in rapid succession, possibly over three nights. I don’t think I could bear to watch all of them on the same day! They are tough going, quite violent and confronting films. However, they are all closely tied to one another and one must watch them in close sequence to truly understand what is going on.
The plot picks up where the previous film left off: Lisbeth has been shot in the head and while being treated in hospital, she is under close supervision. As she recovers, She is set to face trial for attempted murder. With the help of journalist Mikael Blomkvist and his researchers at Millennium magazine, Lisbeth must prove her innocence and sanity. Powerful political enemies, conspirators on a governmental level, spies as well as Lisbeth’s ghosts from her own tormented past, surface and threaten not only Lisbeth’s life but also that of her friends.
One needs to concentrate when watching this film as the explanations of what motivated Libeth’s adversaries are convoluted and not always stated obviously (so could be missed!). The critics disliked this movie and they compared it unfavourably with what they considered was the best of the three films, the first one. However, I found this movie a worthy conclusion to the trilogy and once we started watching it, we were hooked. The courtroom drama that takes place in the latter half of the movie is extremely well done and one cannot help but become involved with Lisbeth who has been very much the victim of such a huge conspiracy, as well as suffering abuse from a number of perverted individuals.
Watching this series of films one cannot but be overawed by the brutality of one human against another, especially the crimes committed by the powerful on the powerless. The catastrophic consequences of such monstrous actions on the lives of those affected by such treatments are explored by Larsson and through his clinical exposé of society’s indifference to many such crimes and criminals, he rings alarm bells wishing to rouse us from our apathy. By superimposing one terrible act upon another, a violent image after another, one atrocity followed by a worse one, he challenges our detachment as observers and encourages our basic humanity, urging us to react and become personally involved. These terrible acts must be prevented from occurring by active intervention, just of the kind that Lisbeth’s champion Mikael engages in.
Noomi Rapace as Lisbeth was perfect casting for the role and by far the best actress in all three films. She brought the character of a damaged woman to life and we could feel her pain as we came to understand how deeply the scars of the damage had disrupted her whole consciousness. Although she looked fearsome and feral –someone you wouldn’t want to run into in a dark alley, she was also vulnerable and her suffering was palpable in many scenes. This diamond hard exterior hiding a gooey soft internal world was amazingly well-portrayed. A fine actress indeed! The remainder of the cast does an excellent job also, but these are Noomi’s films.
The whole trilogy is gritty, horrific, violent, realistic (unfortunately!) and extremely challenging. These are not films to watch and be entertained by, to pass the time with, but rather they are there to make us think and to challenge the status quo of our politics, our social and cultural norms, our values and personal responsibilities. Well worth investing the time in watching all three of these!
“Sculpture is the best comment that a painter can make on painting.” - Pablo Picasso
We have an interstate guest visiting so we decided to go to the Yarra Valley to have a look around some of the wineries, have lunch there and look at some of the art on exhibition as part of the Yarra Valley Arts initiative. The Yarra Valley is less than hour’s driving to the northeast of the Melbourne CBD and is the place where Victorian winegrowing started in the mid-19th century. As one drives through the outer suburbs of Melbourne, one encounters rolling hills densely planted with vines, beautiful verdant valleys and distant blue mountain range backdrops. There are lush pastures, beautiful forests and rivers with villages surrounded by bushland like Marysville, Healesville, Yarra Glen and Warburton.
There is a wealth of vineyards to visit, ranging from the small family concerns that produce boutique wine ranges in small quantities, to the larger concerns that have many hectares of vines and produce wine by the megalitre each season. There are hundred-year-old vineyards and wineries as well as the new arrivals that have just planted out their vines. One may sample the wines, tour some of the winemaking facilities, and there is no dearth of places to linger over a meal as one discovers the regional fresh produce, well-prepared food that is matched to the local wines in the vineyard restaurants. One may also choose to stay a night or two in a chic boutique B&B, a self-contained cottage, a winery retreat or even a five-star luxury hotel/resort.
Many local and international artists have chosen the Yarra Valley to live in and work in. There are many galleries in which they exhibit their work and one may visit many small artist studios dotted around the region and see where the art is created and talk to the artists themselves, and hopefully buy one of their art works.
We visited three wineries: St Huberts founded 1862, Domaine Chandon founded in 1986, and the oldest of the three wineries, Yering Station, which was established in 1838. We tasted the wines, had a lovely lunch at Domaine Chandon and wandered through the sculpture exhibition at Yering Station. Much of the sculpture on exhibition is quite challenging and radical and new, with some it begging the question “yes, but is it art?”. However, we saw some pieces that were interesting and thought-provoking, while others left us completely cold.
There were some “installation” pieces also, dotted around the extensive parkland and gardens of the Yering Station. It was quite amusing to see some of the prices. An installation of magnolia twigs by Wona Bae that looked like some sort of animal burrow had a price tag of $14,500! I doubt that there would be a queue of people lining up to buy that one! There were a few other audacious pieces that challenged the credibility of the creators as artists, but there were also some thoughtful, well-crafted pieces that were interesting as well as more appealing on an intellectual level.
The Yarra Valley Arts and Yering Station Sculpture Exhibition and Awards is a collaborative event between Yarra Valley Arts and Yering Station, which a premier winery in the Yarra Valley. The exhibition was started in October 2001, has grown incrementally since then and is now an iconic event on the Victorian Arts calendar attracting strong interest. Yarra Valley Arts is a not for profit organisation dedicated to enhancing the cultural lives of those who live, work and visit in the Yarra Valley.
The sculpture exhibition showcases a cross-section of contemporary Australian sculptural practice from established and emerging artists. The sculpture exhibition is staged in the beautiful landscaped gardens designed by Michael McCoy and offers ample opportunities for placement of outdoor sculpture, while the long indoor corridors and breezeway of the winery’s function centre and restaurant offers indoor and sheltered space in which more delicate art work can be displayed.
Definitely worth visiting, even if modern sculpture is not your cup of tea, you can still enjoy the gardens, the wine, the good food and the sweeping vistas of the breath-taking landscape. Here are some of my photos from Domaine Chandon.
“One of the penalties of refusing to participate in politics is that you end up being governed by your inferiors.” – Plato
I’ve had an exhausting day today. Not only did I have to do the usual Saturday morning shopping, house and chores, but I had to work on an urgent submission that is due on Monday. I still haven’t finished it and will need to spend a couple more hours on it tomorrow. The change in weather did not help either. We’ve had temperatures in the low thirties today, which is certainly a change from the high teens and low twenties of last week and helped to make the day uncomfortable.
We have been following the financial woes of Greece closely on satellite Greek TV and it was a relief to see today that for the moment at least a modicum of stability has been achieved with PM Papandreou receiving the vote of confidence in Parliament and abandoning his idea of a referendum. We have high hopes of a cooperative multi-party government being formed where committed, conscientious politicians will form a united front and have a single item agenda – to save the country from utter ruin. Perhaps this is a high hope – are there still in our days “committed, conscientious politicians” with a genuine love for their country and no regard for personal gain from their office, like Kapodistrias, the first governor of modern Greece was?
For Song Saturday, a particularly apt (and perennially relevant, it seems) song. The lyrics are by Yannis Ritsos, one of the foremost modern Greek poets, music by Mikis Theodorakis, the Greek composer of the people par excellence, and sung by Yorgos Dalaras, a singer who so ably and obviously represents the Greek psyche in all of its guises.
Τη ρωμιοσύνη μην την κλαις
Τη ρωμιοσύνη μην την κλαις
εκεί που πάει να σκύψει,
με το σουγιά στο κόκκαλο
με το λουρί στο σβέρκο.
Νάτη πετιέται απο ξαρχής
κι αντριεύει και θεριεύει
και καμακώνει το θεριό
με το καμάκι του ήλιου.
Don’t mourn for Greece
Don’t mourn for Greece and Greeks,
Even if they are bowed down,
With the knife on the bone
And the leather thong on their neck.
They will rise up again,
They will become strong and brave,
And will impale the beast
With the sun’s harpoon!
“Debt is the fatal disease of republics, the first thing and the mightiest to undermine governments and corrupt the people” - Wendell Phillips
The political and financial situation in Greece has reached crisis point. While there is no doubt that the state of affairs in Greece is serious, this is unfortunately not new, nor is it directly correlated to the current worldwide financial crisis (although it has been made more acute by the state of the world economy). Greece’s woes are rather the culmination of the tension and additive effects of incompetent political and financial management that goes back through several cycles of changing past governments.
Over the last 30 years or so, the politics of Greece have been characterised by instability, scandals, poor leadership and a reliance on external “saviours” such as the EU. The “deus ex machina” (or to give the term in its original Greek rather than the Latin translation used in English: ἀπὸ μηχανῆς θεός) has failed. Greeks have forgotten the more reliable: “God helps those who help themselves” (and seeing it was said first in Greek, here it is: Σὺν Ἀθηνᾷ καὶ χεῖρα κίνει…) and hence their downfall. Now the Greek tragedy is turning into an Aristophanic farce as the political parties brawl, rushing to close the stable door after the horse has bolted…
The abominable handling of the nation’s finances, the mismanagement of funds, the gross scandals, the duplicity and dishonesty of the politicians (or even the inexperience of the well-meaning ones) are all factors that have contributed to the present situation. Add to that massive tax fraud and evasion, a para-economy that is diddling the nation of millions upon millions of what should rightfully be public money, as well as funds from the EU that are being mismanaged and frittered away on pet projects or given to nepotistic companies owned by beneficiaries of the political party in power.
As if that weren’t enough, Greeks have been living beyond their means for too long. When Greeks joined the EU in 1981, this was greeted with jubilation as it was thought to be the country’s salvation. It was a shock in May 1998 when Greece sought to join the single currency Eurozone when the first 11 members were chosen, but it was refused because it did not qualify. Greece joined the Eurozone on January 1st, 2001. This was universally accepted as a major “win” for the country as it signified the long-desired substantive union with Europe on financial, economic and political levels. Since then, Greeks went wild, spending money with the abandon of an irresponsible youth who has been given his first credit card.
I remember when I visited Greece in 2006 I was laughed at because I did not wear “big brand” clothes (I hate being a walking advertising billboard for companies and if I do buy big brand clothes that I like, I have been known to remove the labels and insignia from them before wearing). However, more often than not I opt for clothes that are comfortable, reasonably priced and of good quality. I was horrified to see people wearing casual outfits that added up to hundreds of dollars. Spending big on entertainment, travel, consumer goods of the “highest quality” as “this was what Europeans did” was the norm…
This was all paid for by Greece joining the Eurozone, that suddenly allowed it to enjoy substantially lower interest rates, because it was able to borrow in euros. Whereas during the 1990s, Greece had frequently had to pay out 10 per cent or more (18 per cent in 1994) to borrow money, its rate fell dramatically to 3 per cent or 2 per cent, post-2001. Greece went on a spending spree, allowing public sector workers’ wages to nearly double over the last decade, while it continued to fund one of the most generous pension systems in the world (workers when they come to retire usually receive a pension equating to 92 per cent of their pre-retirement salary!). Greece has one of the fastest ageing populations in Europe and the bill to fund these pensions kept on mounting.
Tax evasion, so “in” among Greece’s wealthy middle classes, meant that the Government’s tax revenues were not coming in fast enough to fund its outgoings. Add to that hosting the Olympics in 2004, which cost double the original estimate of €4.5 billion. This only made matters worse. Greece’s national debt has consequently grown at a prodigious rate (this web page is frightening), with each citizen owing about €30,000 – compare this to Australia, where national debt amounts to only $6,900 AUD per citizen (the USA’s national debt amounts to about $50,000 USD per citizen).
While all of this was happening, middle class Greeks were enjoying European holidays, shopping trips to Harrods, Parisian fashions, luxury goods, fast sports cars, big brand everything, a life rich in leisure and according to “European standards”. Greece was the child let loose in the European lolly-shop, on credit! As is the case in these situations, the result is that the child becomes quite ill and is sick. Oh, and did I mention someone has to pay the ferryman now? and yes, I know I am mixing my metaphors!
“Earth provides enough to satisfy every man’s need, but not every man’s greed” - Mahatma Gandhi
I was in Sydney for the day for work today, but spent the whole day indoors, and what’s more in a windowless lecture room. Perhaps it was just as well as it was raining cats and dogs when I got there in the morning. So much so in fact that I bought a rain poncho in order to walk from the train terminus to the University, which fortunately was not very far off. Nevertheless, the poncho kept me dry and I was still presentable when I got there. Using public transport is quite convenient, especially if it’s an airport train that is located when the airport terminal as this is the case in Sydney airport. Having to deal with rain is less annoying than having to deal with traffic at peak hour!
I was attending a special national Higher Education Governance workshop, which turned out to be mammoth meeting that went on for most of the day. It was extremely interesting and as it was the inaugural one, there was much discussion and teasing out of many topics, with a great deal of debate, which was done in the best collegiate style. Even though it was an arduous day, it was also interesting, engaging and challenging. I thoroughly enjoyed it. So much so in fact that I volunteered to be in the working group to organise the next such meeting in March next year (I’ll probably regret this later as I am too busy already, but never mind!).
It was fortunate that the Qantas Airlines brouhaha was well and truly over today and both of my flights ran on time without any disruptions. I was getting rather nervous at the weekend when the whole of the Qantas fleet was grounded. This was the culmination of a long running dispute over a series of points of contention between the employees of our national air carrier and the management of the company. Pilots, engineers and ground staff are fighting over pay, conditions, job security and outsourcing. Demands include that Jetstar pilots be paid the same as Qantas pilots and that hangars be built for planes not yet in service.
Qantas CEO Alan Joyce has stated that the unions are making “impossible demands” and that they are trying to dictate how management runs the business. The recent $2 million bonus that Qantas gave its CEO was heartily reviled nationally and the outcry was against Mr Joyce himself as he used his position of using his $10 million worth of shareholding to vote in favour of his own 71 per cent pay rise, while the unions continue to fight for better conditions for their workers. It is amazing to think that Mr Joyce, previously on a $3 million a year salary walked into the Qantas boardroom and said: My salary is not enough. I can’t live off $3 million, I need a $2 million pay rise, to take me to $5 million a year…” All of this in times of great global financial crisis and when jobs are being cut within Qantas.
The situation got very ugly and at last the Federal Government intervened ordering the stoppage to be stopped! Negotiations are still continuing and no doubt resolution is still not too close. Perhaps at the end of it a fairer deal will be worked out and Mr Joyce will get another $1 million raise for his troubles…
greed |grēd| noun
Intense and selfish desire for something, especially wealth, power, or food. ORIGIN late 16th century: Back-formation from greedy: Old English grǣdig, of Germanic origin.
“Ordinary riches can be stolen, real riches cannot. In your soul are infinitely precious things that cannot be taken from you.” - Oscar Wilde
Halloween has been commercialised beyond recognition nowadays, far removed from its original religious significance. It was rather disconcerting in Melbourne this year to see the number of cheap Halloween merchandise on offer everywhere, and even many adults “dressing up” for Halloween. Our supermarket even had imported real pumpkins from the USA for pumpkin carving (remember pumpkins are autumnal vegetables, so not really compatible with our Spring Halloween). While I am not a complete wet blanket and I do enjoy the Halloween fun (within reason), the gross commercialisation (and secularisation) of this Feast Day (as is that of Christmas) is quite repugnant.
The Feast Day of the Roman Catholic and Anglican Churches commemorating all known and unknown Saints, is called All Saints' Day and is celebrated on November 1st. All Catholics are obliged to attend mass on this day, it being one of the major feasts of the Roman Catholic faith. The Feast Day is principally to honour martyrs of the church who died in groups and whose names are not known. In 609, the Pope Boniface IV dedicated the Pantheon in Rome, as a church in the name of Our Lady and All Martyrs. In England the festival was known as All Hallows, hence the name of the preceding day, Halloween.
The Christian feast has melded with the Celtic feast of Samhain, the pagan of New Year festival when crops were blessed, stored fruits and grains were hallowed and the dead were remembered. Samhain is considered by most Wiccans to be the most important of the four “greater Sabbats”. It is generally observed on October 31 in the Northern Hemisphere, starting at sundown. Samhain is considered by some as a time to celebrate the lives of those who have passed on, and it often involves paying respect to ancestors, family members, elders of the faith, friends, pets and other loved ones who have died. In some rituals the spirits of the departed are invited to attend the festivities. It is seen as a festival of darkness, which is balanced at the opposite point of the wheel by the spring festival of Beltane, which is celebrated as a festival of light and fertility.
As November 2nd is All Souls’ Day, “soul cakes” were made on the night of All Hallows for distribution to the poor. The recipients of these cakes prayed for the souls of the departed, interceding on their behalf. The returning, visiting souls of the dead on this day were thought to somehow be able to partake of these “soul cakes”.
All Souls’ Day (Soulmass) is a Feast Day of the Roman Catholic Church, which commemorates the souls of the departed that are still suffering in Purgatory. The mass celebrated in church is a Requiem Mass and general intercessions for the dead are recited. On All Souls’ Eve, relatives may visit cemeteries and light candles or burn incense at the graves of dead relatives. On this day soul caking begun yesterday continues. All visitors to the house should be offered a soul cake in order to pray for the rest of the dear departed’s souls.
The illustration is Giovanni Bellini’s (ca 1430 - 1516) “Allegory of Purgatory”. The picture is said to illustrate a fourteenth century French religious poem, in which the poet travels like Dante to Purgatory. Every figure is made to express a religious idea: The Madonna praying for the souls, who are shown as children playing; the tree of the Song of Songs, and the leafless Tree of Knowledge; a bunch of grapes, symbolic of Christ, over the Madonna’s head; two saints (Job and Sebastian) interceding on behalf of the souls; a Centaur in the distance, standing for man’s lower, animal-like nature; a man in oriental dress, signifying heathens; a hermit in a cave, showing the austere life which shortens one’s stay in Purgatory, and so on throughout the picture.
“Parting is all we know of heaven and all we need to know of hell.” - Emily Dickinson
A page of white writing paper is an invitation – or a threat – depending on one’s inclination, mental state, pressures acting on one at the time, and whether or not one suffers from the dreaded “writer’s block”. Staring at that blank page can chill one’s heart, especially if there is deadline to be met and words just simply fail to come out.
The image above is sourced from the “Three Hundred Pages” blog and this entry gives advice to writers suffering form “writer’s block”. It is an image that illustrates the topic well. Here is my take on the image, part of the Magpie Tales weekly writing community challenge.
Handwritten
Your goodbye typed –
A few sparse words
On white legal paper.
Crows on snowy landscape,
Mournful harbingers of winter.
The “e” is filled-in
And the “g” jams on that typewriter –
Easy to do forensics on this note.
So business-like, your memo, despite the faults of type,
Looks like an invoice for “services rendered”.
I follow the folds with my finger,
Caressing the valleys and the crests –
As my fingers chill and my heart freezes.
The paper cuts, the ink poisons:
This note adds injury to insult.
The typewriter, a running joke between us,
Sat on the guest room desk,
“A talisman,” you said, “against writer’s block…”
Our notes were all handwritten in the past,
Technology reserved only for work purposes.
I observe the ink stain on the wall
And look at the smashed ink-bottle on the floor;
I smooth out the crumpled page.
“My love…” I read the handwriting,
And see the nib stab marks on it and the ink spatters.
Our love, assassinated,
Killed with a pen –
It’s mightier than the sword, after all.
The crumpled page a pallid corpse;
“My love…” you wrote – and executed the words,
Finding it easier to type the living dead:
“Goodbye, don’t look for me. Ever!”
We watched the excellent 2010 film by Tom Hooper “The King’s Speech” at the weekend. This is a critically acclaimed film, which also won several awards including four Oscars, one for best motion picture 2011, one for best direction, one for best male lead and one for best screenplay. Colin Firth, Geoffrey Rush and Helena Bonham-Carter star in the film but there are also excellent support performances by a slew of other actors and actresses. It is an excellent British production, rich in authentic detail and with a wealth of period touches that immerse the viewer into the time of pre-WWII London.
The award-winning scenario by David Seidler was obviously a labour of love and he was writing about something very close to his heart as he suffered from a stammer as a child. He had heard George VI’s wartime speech as a child, and later in his adult life had written to the Queen Mother asking for permission to use the King’s story to create a film. The Queen Mother asked him not to during her lifetime, citing that the memories were too painful. Seidler respected her request, but when she passed away, this film was the result.
The film is a biographical incident in the life of the royal House of Windsor. It follows the royals as King George V is about to die and the throne is assumed by his heir Edward VII. As the war with Germany looms ahead, King Edward VII, embroiled in his scandalous affair with Mrs Wallis Simpson chooses abdication so he can marry her. The crown comes to George VI (Firth), the father of Queen Elizabeth II. He is terrified of this turn of affairs as he has been battling with a speech impediment since his fifth year of age. Widely considered by all unfit to be king, George is reluctantly thrust into the spotlight to compete with powerful orators like Adolph Hitler and Benito Mussolini. The film follows the King as he is helped by a little-known Australian speech therapist named Lionel Logue (Rush), whom his wife, Queen Elizabeth (Bonham-Carter) has found. The story revolves around the King’s attempt to find his voice and courageously lead his people into the worst war humanity has ever faced.
Although I am no royalist, the film transcends the monarchy and functions on a human level, and therein its success. This is widely different from the other “royal movie” released in the last few years, “The Queen” (see my review), which was thinly disguised propaganda for the House of Windsor and had no guts or glory associated with it as “The King’s Speech” does. Colin Firth does a sterling job of living the role of the reluctant, stuttering king and Geoffrey Rush shines as Logue, the speech therapist. Bonham-Carter is excellent as Queen Elizabeth (the late Queen Mother) and the supporting actors all play faultlessly.
The music is discreet and appropriate, the cinematography wonderful, costumes and settings impeccable and as I mentioned previously the script award-winning. This is a movie that must be watched and as we enjoyed it immensely we recommend it most highly.
I have been blogging daily on this platform for several years now. It is surprising that I have persisted as the world is changing and "microblogging" is now the norm. I blog to amuse myself, make comment on current affairs, externalise some of my creativity, keep notes on things that interest me, learn something new and to surprise myself with things that I discover about this wonderful, and sometimes crazy, world we live in.
I sometimes get the impression that I am on a soapbox delivering a monologue, so your comments are welcome.
