POETS UNITED - EQUINOX

“Life stands before me like an eternal spring with new and brilliant clothes.” - Carl Friedrich Gauss

For this midweek challenge, Poets United has as its theme “Equinox”. Here is my contribution:

Equinox

With equanimity, Spring knocks

The door of vernal equinox,

And stops to listen and consider,

Lest hoary Winter entry forbid her.

The skies are still a sullen gray

But burgeoning buds are led astray,

Blooming in cold and rainy weather

Hoping sun ill winds will tether.

The sun relentless follows his course

And closer, warmer and with force

Drives Winter into banishment,

Snow, frost, no more a punishment.

The air is redolent with perfume,

As hyacinth and jonquil bloom;

The iris blue, the freesia yellow,

Embittered hearts to softly mellow.

September cries, September smiles,

Spring comes with all her wiles –

Drive out all coldness and despair

Wounds heal, damage repair.

With firm resolve, Spring knocks

The door of vernal equinox;

She enters boldly and she brings

Light, hope and colour on her angel wings.

MUSIC SATURDAY - GEORGES BIZET

“What we have done for ourselves alone dies with us; what we have done for others and the world remains and is immortal.” -  AlbertPike

Georges Bizet (1838 - 1875) is best known for his operatic masterpiece, “Carmen”. Not so well known is the fact that he died from a heart attack only a few months after its first performance at the age of 36. Death at such a young age immediately reminds us of Mozart, Mendelssohn and Schubert. His life parallels these composers also in the sense that he was yet another musical prodigy whose ability, encouraged by his musical parents, was exceptional. Despite being against the rules, he was admitted into the Paris Conservatory at the phenomenal age of nine years.

He was born in Paris and originally registered under the name Alexandre César Léopold Bizet, but then baptised as Georges by which name he was always to be known. With the exception of a few years in Rome, he stayed in or near Paris for most of his life. At the Conservatory he studied under many great musicians including professor Jacques Halévy. The Halévy family were to have quite an impact on Bizet’s life, not least the fact that he was later to marry the professor’s daughter Geneviéve and father a son Jaques, perhaps named after his grandfather.

Continuing his precocious youth, he composed his first Symphony (in C major) at age 17 (modelled closely on Gounod’s Symphony No. 1 in D). Then in 1857 having previously won several prizes at the Conservatoire, he won the prestigious Prix de Rome. The contemporary French composers of the day who influenced Bizet to varying degrees included Charles Gounod, Léo Delibes, Camille Saint-Saëns, Jules Massenet and the German-born Jacques Offenbach. All of these were opera composers to some extent though often light or comic opera. In comparison, Bizet’s operas and particularly Carmen tended to stand out as highly dramatic and dealing in deeper emotions. Though not straying too far from French traditions, he perhaps adopted some of the styles of Italian and German opera from Verdi and Wagner respectively.

While he did make use of the newly invented saxophone, he wasn’t particularly known as a trendsetter. He seemed to change direction several times, dropping ideas that he had started, and seemingly insecure and sensitive to criticism. Although perhaps expected of artists, the public probably thought of him as something of a Bohemian outsider. Musically, he seemed to have a natural gift for melody and a certain artistic confidence seems to flow from his music.

When the Franco-Prussian war broke out in 1870, although exempt from national service as a Prix de Rome winner, Bizet nevertheless enlisted in the National Guard. Although many of his countrymen and fellow musicians were highly nationalistic in their approach to the war, Bizet was far more down-to-earth in his understanding of the real horrors of war. Again we see a realism in his outlook on life which also manifested itself in his operatic story-telling.

Above all Bizet aspired to be a composer of opera, though his numerous (about 30 in total) works for that medium weren’t universally successful. He also wrote various orchestral works, keyboard pieces and songs. The following are his best known or most respected compositions:

Opera - The Pearl Fishers, set in exotic Ceylon (now Sri Lanka), with a famous duet for male voices

Opera - The Fair Maid of Perth

Opera – Djamileh

Opera - Carmen, in 4 acts, the most famous. Highly popular orchestral suites from this opera are performed as stand-alone works in the concert hall.

Symphony in C - composed at age 17, this was not performed until 1935

Rome Suite - orchestral suite intended as a Symphony

L’ Arlésienne - (the girl from Arles, in Provence) this was originally composed for a limited group of instruments as incidental music to a play by Daudet, but later fashioned into 2 orchestral suites, the first suite by Bizet himself and the second after his death by a friend Ernest Guiraud

Chromatic Variations - for piano

Jeux d’ Enfants (Children’s Games) - for piano duet, but also sometimes heard in orchestral arrangements. This is a delightful set of 12 pieces, each based on a different game (many still familiar today.

Here are Bizet’s Symphony in C major WD33 and also L’ Arlesienne Suites nos. 1 & 2, WD40 interpreted by Sir Thomas Beecham.

1. Symphony in C Major, WD. 33: I. Allegro vivo 00:00

2. Symphony in C Major, WD. 33: II. Adagio 7:54

3. Symphony in C Major, WD. 33: III. Allegro vivace and Trio 16:55

4. Symphony in C Major, WD. 33: IV. Allegro vivace 21:45

5. Suite No. 1, WD. 40 - L'Arlesienne: I. Prelude 28:30

6. Suite No. 1, WD. 40 - L'Arlesienne: II. Menuet 35:35

7. Suite No. 1, WD. 40 - L'Arlesienne: III. Adagietto 39:08

8. Suite No. 1, WD. 40 - L'Arlesienne: IV. Carillon 42:54

9. Suite No. 2 - L'Arlesienne: I. Pastorale 47:39

10. Suite No. 2 - L'Arlesienne: II. Intermezzo 53:04

11. Suite No. 2 - L'Arlesienne: III. Menuet 57:06

12. Suite No. 2 - L'Arlesienne: IV. Farandole 1:01:03

WHAT AILS US?

“Two roads diverged in a wood, and I... I took the one less traveled by, and that has made all the difference.” Robert Frost

I saw some young beggars on the City streets these last few days and the image has stayed with me, as I am trying to come to terms with what I can only describe as a great waste. The faces of the young beggars sitting on the sidewalk while the laughing crowd went by them oblivious to their misery is a haunting image and the big question mark of “why?” remains with me. A society such as ours is not one that should allow such an existence. We have a tax system that is designed to support people who are unemployed, down and out and dependent on the welfare of the state. If nothing else good can be said about our Government’s unemployment benefit payments is that they help to preserve some human dignity and allow the unemployed to survive until they find another job. Numerous welfare payment ensure that youth, homeless, single mothers, wards of the state and numerous other down-and-outers are supported and do have to rely on begging for their existence.

I have travelled widely and in some countries begging is way of life. Numerous people have begging as their full time job and this is forced upon them as the state cannot and will not support citizens who are living on the brink, so to speak. The horrific images of mutilated children begging, full well knowing that their own parents have maimed them in order for them to be able to beg, brings a sickening realisation that all is not well with the world as our politicians in this and other Western countries want us to believe.

But in Australia of the 21st century, to see so many beggars on the City streets I cannot comprehend. What ails our society so that able-bodied, intelligent, young people are reduced to this pitiful existence? What a terrible waste! How can we cure a cancer like this so that we can achieve all that we are capable of? Is it such a big thing to ask that we become aware of our potential as thinking, rational, logical people? Can this realisation of our potential cure the apathy with which we look at and not see these latent possibilities thrown away?

Why should so many children, for this is what they are, run away from home? Why so many homeless? Why so many people succumbing to drugs and alcohol, a life of misery and crime? Why so much violence and so much selfishness that destroys their respect for their fellow human beings? Why so much pursuit of animal pleasures and satisfaction of the base instincts, without any thought of things of a higher sphere? I see it constantly in my students. So many of them come to few classes, and even to those unwillingly. They ask what will be in the examination so they can “study” for it. Knowledge for its own sake has become an onerous burden. Even if one tries to teach them what is vitally important, they may turn up their nose at it and say it is too much, it is irrelevant or it is too hard.

What rots the mind of our children and eats into their brains converting them into empty pretty shells that luxuriate only in the gratification of their pretty flesh? Why so much emphasis on the body beautiful, the image, the casing, such that we are now making everyone a nicely wrapped package that contains nothing of value? So much superficiality and emptiness… Is it all about money? Is that what we have made our lives equate to?

Civil unrest in Southeast Asia. Nuclear concerns in Iran. More bombings and rebel warfare in Iraq. A gathering storm in African countries. Whenever we turn on the radio or the TV, log onto the internet a new crisis or tragedy is reported. Is it so surprising that people here seem to have become inured to it all? Reports of thousands of deaths are listened to dispassionately, and so long as they are a safe distance away from us, they do not matter.

Meanwhile, the world keeps turning for us, the music stations keep broadcasting our favourite songs, the “reality” TV shows embroil us in their vicarious existence: Petty arguments, thinly veiled pornography and trivial outbursts of the manufactured authenticity of their situations acted out by the plastic people that are selected to be made into the mirrors of our society. We go out and entertain ourselves – to the theatre, the restaurants, the football games, the discos and the bars. As long as there is enough money to get us by… And some more money to buy our designer clothes… Some more for our latest technological gadgetry, and some more for the next installment of our new model car? How beautiful our little insulated existence! Can a civilisation such as this survive?

POETRY JAM - TRAIN JOURNEY

“The past is a foreign country: They do things differently there.” – L.P. Hartley
 
Poetry Jam this week is celebrating trains and train journeys and has invited participants to write about something including trains. I opted for the figurative rather than the literal journey in this instance. Here is my offering:
 
Pages from the Past
 
A notebook by pure chance discovered,
Brings back old pages from the past;
As my experiences lie bare, uncovered
My feelings backwards are cast.
 
The even script, my younger self belies
My thoughts of yore, there manifest.
Old tears, laughter, truths and even lies
Appear on pages, like flowers pressed.
 
My heart’s first stirrings faithfully recorded
The bitter disappointments, and the sheer joy;
I read, and on the train of the past boarded,
Travel to foreign parts of me, as then, a boy.
 
My inner being revels and I resonate
With my younger self, my innocence engaged;
I look at my wrinkled face, surprised that fate
Has willed a youth, in body so much aged.
 
My pages from the past, the yellowed paper,
The mind’s awakening and my soul’s flight,
Captured forever and their evanescent vapour
Wafts in, a sweet aroma, a bright light…

A BEASTLY MOVIE

“You can only be young once. But you can always be immature.” - Dave Barry

We watched a terrible film at the weekend, made all the more cringe-worthy as it was recommended to us by an acquaintance who said it was “ace film”. Now this acquaintance is in her early twenties and the daughter of a friend, who fortunately has better taste and knowledge than the daughter. However, it did make me think whether this was generation gap thing and made me ask myself: “Am I getting old and crusty?”

The film was based on “Beastly”, a 2007 novel by Alex Flinn (see a review here). It is a retelling of the fairytale “Beauty and the Beast”, set in modern-day New York City told from the point of view of the beast. Flinn researched many versions of the Beauty and the Beast story to write her book. Many of these are playfully alluded to in portions of the book, particularly the chat room transcripts in which the character of Kyle talks to other teens who have been transformed into creatures. Let me admit that I have not read the novel (nor do I wish to, after seeing the film), which is directed towards a young adult readership.

The 2011 film, also called “Beastly” was directed by Daniel Barnz who also wrote the screenplay. It stars Alex Pettyfer, Vanessa Hudgens and Mary-Kate Olsen, all of whom I had not heard of before nor seen in other movies. The plot revolves around Kyle (Pettyfer) a narcissistic high school student who is obsessed by his good looks and thinks that he can get away with anything because he is popular and good looking. He abhors homely people and mocks those who are ugly or unconventional. Kendra (Olsen), a fellow student who is a goth and has rather a rather individualistic dress sense and delights in garish make-up is picked upon by Kyle as an object of a prank where he humiliates at a school dance in front of their classmates. Kendra is a witch and curses Kyle, transforming him into a “beast”, which reflects his “inner beastliness”. Well, he is sort of a scarred, bald, tattooed fellow but not too beastly. If he manages within a year to get a girl to say “I love you” to him sincerely, his curse will be lifted and he will become handsome again. The redeeming girl is Lindy (Hudgens), a fellow student with whom he has had some previous contre-temps.

The script is childish but without the elegance of a fairy tale, the transfer to modern times rather lame, the plot completely unoriginal and without any surprises, and the acting, directing and cinematography all pedestrian. There is some pop music throughout to further appeal to the teen audience. It was obvious that this novel and film are a spin off of the popular teenage vampire novels, movies and series that have inundated us of late (“New Moon” and “Twilight” and “Eclipse” and “Buffy the Vampire Slayer” and so on - I won't go there in terms of reviewing any of those).

The movie was puerile and extremely shallow. Even the moral was delivered heavy-handedly, the characterisation was at kindergarten level and the world depicted in it, although pure fantasy, was disturbingly and disappointingly realistic in terms of attitudes and morals of the present time.  Thinking a little more about the movie I found myself reflecting on what the youth of today find interesting, amusing and engaging. If this bathos represents the general taste of our youth, then God preserve us! What is the intellectual capacity of the average teenager nowadays if this bilge is what is consumed avidly by them? I know that having an intelligent conversation with many of them is quite impossible, but to what level have they sunk to? And I am talking about the “average” teenager here – I also know some highly intelligent, well-read, highly motivated and extremely mature young people who are amazing to talk to…

Perhaps, I am getting old! I do sound like an old fuddy-duddy who is mouthing the same old conservative truisms that old fuddy-duddies have been preaching forever for time immemorial! The trouble about older people is that as they age (and provided they do not become demented!), they may become wise. However, wisdom brings with it conservative attitudes, lack of spontaneity, increased caution, reticence and a general inertia. At the same time, wisdom is not always something that accompanies old age and in other cases cynicism and bitterness is seen instead. Perhaps I should watch this movie again? Well, no, perhaps I won’t!

POETRY TUESDAY - UNSEATED

“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.

MEMORY OF OLD

“The leaves of memory seemed to make
A mournful rustling in the dark.” - Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

A beautiful warm summer day in Melbourne today. In the morning, the usual routine, chores, shopping, gardening, fixing a few things around the house, going to the library. Then, we watched a film and in the afternoon/evening visited friends. Conversation turned to movies and songs and this group of the 90s was mentioned. One of my favourite groups from the UK, “Mike and the Mechanics”. Here is an excellent song of theirs that brings back many memories for me – happy and unhappy…



“You don’t need me you don’t need anyone at all, you lit the fire and watched the rise and fall 
– Mea Culpa…
You never know what’s in your heart until you look, take a look, just a take a look…
You can’t forgive me, you won’t forget me!
– Mea Culpa…”

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…