POSTCARD FROM SYDNEY

“Worthless people live only to eat and drink; people of worth eat and drink only to live.” – Socrates

I am in Sydney for two days for work. It has been a very intensive first day with a high-powered Executive Team meeting where we’ve had a pow-wow on our new campus in the centre of Sydney. It has been an interesting and highly-charged day with talks, presentations, team-building exercises and a general bonding session. Although we’ve spent all day locked up in a room, the hours just rushed by and there wasn’t much of a chance to feel bored or distracted. The day was a great success and we now all feel more comfortable with one another and there’s a very positive team feeling.

We’ve had a great dinner out and then four of us went out to a bar for a night cap. This was another chance for building a good relationship amongst us and having a relaxed time where we could discuss a few things off the record and in a “safe” environment without any holds barred. We drank, we talked, we laughed, we had a good time.  A couple of strangers approached us and sat with us, exchanged pleasantries, socialised. Alcohol, the great social leveller ensured that conversation flowed freely and uninhibitedly, jokes were shared and no expectations were put on the table. We all got up and went back to our hotel with some rest and relaxation scheduled before tomorrow’s session.

In the morning we are starting off the day with a working breakfast, only to proceed to another full of formal proceedings with more presentation, discussion and tossing around of new ideas. This will conclude our get-together and then a return home in the evening.

ART SUNDAY - FREDERICK McCUBBIN

“Life is painting a picture, not doing a sum.” - Oliver Wendell Holmes

Frederick McCubbin is one of Australia’s most famous and significant painters. He was born in Melbourne, 25 February 1855 and died in Melbourne, 20 December 1917. McCubbin was a baker’s son, who soon joined the family business and drove a baker’s cart before being apprenticed to a coach-painter. He started his training in art and design from 1869 at the local Artisans’ School of Design in Carlton, and by 1872 entered the School of Design, National Gallery of Victoria, Melbourne. It was not until the Munich-trained George Folingsby (1828–91) was appointed master of the Gallery Art School in 1882 that McCubbin received a thorough academic training in figure painting.

Folingsby evoked McCubbin’s interest in large-scale history pieces with a pronounced national flavour. From the colonial artist and Swiss émigré Abram-Louis Buvelot, McCubbin absorbed a more intimate, Barbizon-style vision of the Australian landscape. Julian Ashton directed his attention to subjects from contemporary life and introduced him to plein-air painting. In the mid-1880s McCubbin’s growing adherence to plein-air Realism was strengthened by the influence of Portuguese-born Arthur Loureiro (1853–1912) and, more dramatically, by the impact of Tom Roberts, recently returned from Europe in 1885.

With Roberts and Arthur Streeton he founded the painting camp at Box Hill, in the suburbs of Melbourne, that became known as the Heidelberg School. The Realists’ concern with the integrity and significance of the subject shaped McCubbin’s fundamental attitudes to art. Unlike Roberts and Charles Conder (a fellow Heidelberg painter), McCubbin was only marginally influenced by the Aesthetic Movement, and he exhibited a token five works at the famous 9 by 5 Impression Exhibition in Melbourne in 1889.

As one of the founders of the Heidelberg school, McCubbin was a significant figure in the development of the Australian school of landscape and subject painting that emerged at the close of the nineteenth century. His work was directly influenced by the earlier traditions of Australian colonial art, late-Victorian subject pictures of a high moral tone. In later years McCubbin turned increasingly to landscape painting, portraying the lyrical and intimate beauty of the bush. The early influence of Corot gave way to that of J. M. W. Turner, as he turned from the quiet poetry of the shaded bush to the brilliant impressionistic effects of light and colour of his final manner.

McCubbin was a warm and gregarious personality and a gentle and intuitive teacher, who contributed greatly to the art world in Melbourne by his activities in various societies, through the conviviality of the McCubbin house which was always a focus for artists and students, and as a teacher of several generations of artists. He was a member of the Savage Club.

His 1887 painting “The Morning Train” above is a good example of McCubbin’s Heidelberg “Impressionistic” style. There is a painterly quality to the painting, with its layers of colour, scumbling of paint, light and dark, impasto and wash. The light and dark contrasts and the harsh morning light point out the difference between nature and machine, the bucolic and the metropolitan. McCubbin paints the train as it emerges between the cows and the farm sheds, its smoke blending with the clouds in the sky above, technology and progress overtaking and vanquishing nature. The colours are Australian and the landscape although recognisably that of a Downunder farm, still owes much to the French impressionists that the Heidelberg School was so influenced by.

A FEW RAINDROPS

“Into each life some rain must fall.” - Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

A full day again, although dull, cold, gray and wet. Did quite a few chores, but also managed to watch a movie in the afternoon and went out to dinner as well.

In keeping with the return of the Winter weather and the rain, here is Valentina Igoshina playing beautifully Frédéric Chopin’s ‘Raindrop’ Prelude in D Flat Major, Op. 28, No. 15.

This piece is replete with Chopin’s inner conflict and contemplation of his inner self. The composition was borne of the mind of Chopin in 1858 during his stay at the Valldemossa monastery. Amantine Dupin commented: “It casts the soul into a terrible dejection. Maurice and I had left [Chopin] in good health one morning to go shopping in Palma for things we needed at our ‘encampment’. The rain came in overflowing torrents. We made three leagues in six hours, only to return in the middle of a flood. We got back in absolute dark, shoeless, having been abandoned by our driver to cross unheard of perils. We hurried, knowing how our sick friend would worry. Indeed he had, but now was as though congealed in a kind of quiet desperation, and, weeping, he was playing his wonderful prelude. Seeing us come in, he got up with a cry, then said with a bewildered air and a strange tone, ‘Ah, I was sure that you were dead.’

When he recovered his spirits and saw the state we were in, he was ill, picturing the dangers we had been through, but he confessed to me that while waiting for us he had seen it all in a dream, and no longer distinguishing the dream from reality, he became calm and drowsy. While playing the piano, persuaded that he was dead himself, he saw himself drown in a lake. Heavy drops of icy water fell in a regular rhythm on his breast, and when I made him listen to the sound of the drops of water indeed falling in rhythm on the roof, he denied having heard it. He was even angry that I should interpret this in terms of imitative sounds. He protested with all his might—and he was right to—against the childishness of such aural imitations. His genius was filled with the mysterious sounds of nature, but transformed into sublime equivalents in musical thought, and not through slavish imitation of the actual external sounds. His composition of that night was surely filled with raindrops, resounding clearly on the tiles of the Charterhouse, but it had been transformed in his imagination and in his song into tears falling upon his heart from the sky.”

HAPPY EATING

“The reason fat people are happy is that their nerves are well protected.” - Luciano Pavarotti

Well, that was the end of our unseasonal Spring weather! This evening after a spectacular sunset through curtains of rain and shifting clouds we welcomed back Winter, which is here to give us a cold and wet weekend. All the more timely then is some research that seems to point out that comfort food seems to improve our mood. Apparently, we get an emotional high when we consume fatty foods…

Belgian researchers in the University of Leuven, led by Dr. Lukas Van Oudenhove have recently shown that fatty foods help eaters to cope with unpleasant and depressing events in their lives by decreasing the degree of sadness that the consumers of these foods felt. The results of this study were published online in The Journal of Clinical Investigation.  In this series of experiments, the researchers recruited 12 healthy non-obese people and performed functional magnetic resonance imaging of the brain, before and during the infusion of a fat preparation or alternatively a weakly salty solution into their stomachs (without telling the subjects which solution they were receiving). In addition, the participants were asked to listen to sad or neutral music or view pictures of sad or neutral faces.

Hearing sad music or looking at people with glum faces lowers the mood across the board. Before and during the imaging of the brain, the participants were asked to rate their hunger and mood. The researchers found that the participants that had received the fat were less than half as sad as the participants that received the saline infusion. The authors stated:

“We demonstrated, for what we believe to be the first time in humans, that a purely interoceptive, subliminal appetitive stimulus (intragastric fatty acid infusion in the fasted state) interacts with an exteroceptively generated negative emotional state, at both the behavioral and neural level. More specifically, fatty acid infusion attenuated both the behavioral and neural responses to sad emotion induction”.

That is, eating fat seems to make us less vulnerable to sad emotions, even if we don’t know that we are eating fatty foods. This is quite amazing, because it is not the actual pleasant taste and texture of the fatty food that seems to have this beneficial effect on our brain and emotions, but rather the chemical effect of the fat molecules themselves when they enter the stomach (and then via the blood, into the brain). The gut “talks” to the brain, or so it seems!

The exact mechanism of these results is not known but they do suggest that there is a normal, physiological response that regulates food intake, hunger, and our emotional state.  Future studies are planned, which will focus on working out the exact mechanism and may help in the treatment of obesity, eating disorders and even depression.

Now, some other research conducted at the Albert Einstein College of Medicine at Yeshiva University in New York has been looking at the brains of dieters. Apparently, if you starve yourself the brain cells are forced to atrophy away and be cannibalised by surviving brain cells. This is a last ditch effort to survive and use body parts as a source of energy to ward off the effects of starvation.

Results published in the journal “Cell Metabolism”, show that the body responds to starvation by producing fatty acids, which, in turn, ramp up the hunger response in the brain increasing our impulse to eat. Experiments conducted on mice found that by blocking this mechanism of autophagy or self-cannibalisation, it was possible to prevent the feelings of hunger. Dr Rajat Singh, the lead researcher, said that:

“A pathway that is really important for every cell to turn over components in a kind of housekeeping process is also required to regulate appetite. Treatments aimed at the pathway might make you less hungry and burn more fat, a good way to maintain energy balance in a world where calories are cheap and plentiful.”

The moral of the story is eat what you enjoy and eat a balanced diet, but do not overeat. There is a place for fat in our diet, as there is a place for sugar and dairy, for fruits, vegetables, pulses, and cereals, for seafood and meat. However, quantity is the key to success. As my grandfather used to say:

“When you are sitting down at table to eat your meal, you should feel hungry. Then, eat only as much as will only just satisfy your hunger, no more. If you left the table and you were invited to eat again, there should be space enough in your stomach to eat again, but of course you should not do that, because you’re no longer hungry!”

(photo courtesy of @drummeler)

AN EYE FOR AN EYE MAKES THE WHOLE WORLD BLIND

“And thine eye shall not pity; but life shall go for life, eye for eye, tooth for tooth, hand for hand, foot for foot.” – King James Bible, Deuteronomy 19:21

In the news earlier this week was the case of Ameneh Bahrami, an Iranian woman who was blinded in both eyes and disfigured after having acid hurled in her face by Majid Movahedi, a university classmate after she repeatedly spurned his offer of marriage. The event occurred in 2004 and a protracted court case began as an Iranian court considered the evidence and deliberated on the punishment according to the Sharia (Islamic Law) system of Qisas (“eye for an eye” retribution). Iran’s judiciary had finally given the green light to the meting out of retributive punishment for Mohavedi through the pouring of acid into his eyes last Sunday. This would have been the first blinding of a convict in the country, but human rights groups across the world called on Bahrami, who had asked for “eye for an eye” justice in court, to pardon him.

Majid Movahedi, now 30 years old, had been taken to Tehran’s judiciary hospital to be blinded with acid after being rendered unconscious, but his victim spared him at the last minute. The 34-year-old Bahrami decided to pardon him as Sharia law not only allows for qisas, it also advises for clemency to be considered, especially before and during the holy month of Ramadan, which started on Monday in Iran. The woman was quoted as saying that she felt good about showing the perpetrator mercy, but asked for financial compensation instead of blinding Movahedi, an option she had previously refused to consider.

Bahrami conceded that the international focus on the case was a factor she considered in pardoning her attacker. This ensued after the highly publicised case decision in November 2008, when a criminal court in Tehran ordered retribution on Movahedi after he admitted throwing acid at Bahrami, and entitled her to blind him with acid. In the final chapter of this horrific story, Bahrami has said: “It is best to pardon when you are in a position of power.” The perpetrator sobbed when he heard the news of his pardon and said Bahrami was “very generous”.

In reaction to the news, Amnesty International, which had urged Bahrami to pardon Movahedi, called on Iran to review its penal code. Amnesty representatives said: “…Deliberate blinding inflicted by a medical expert is a cruel punishment which amounts to torture, which is prohibited under international law. The Iranian authorities should review the penal code as a matter of urgency to ensure those who cause intentional serious physical harm, like acid attacks, receive an appropriate punishment – but that must never be a penalty which in itself constitutes torture.”

Bahrami has an electronics degree and worked in a medical engineering company before the attack. She moved to Spain with the help of the Iranian government where she has undergone a series of unsuccessful operations. She briefly recovered half the vision in her right eye in 2007 but an infection blinded her again. Bahrami has recently published a book in Germany, “Eye for an Eye”, based on her personal life and her suffering since she was blinded.

Tehran Prosecutor Abbas Jafari Dowlatabadi said Mohavedi would remain in gaol until a court decided on the alternative punishment or settle on compensation. The unfortunate thing is that there have been several other acid attacks on women in Iran. Last week in a copy-cat attack, a young woman died after a man poured acid on her face for rejecting his marriage proposal. The attacker remains free.

retribution |ˌretrəˈbyo͞oSHən| noun
Punishment that is considered to be morally right and fully deserved: Settlers drove the Navajo out of Arizona in retribution for their raids.
DERIVATIVES
retributive |riˈtribyətiv|adjective,
retributory |riˈtribyəˌtôrē|adjective
ORIGIN: Late Middle English (also in the sense ‘recompense for merit or a service’): From late Latin retributio(n-), from retribut- ‘assigned again,’ from the verb retribuere, from re- ‘back’ + tribuere ‘assign.’

POETRY WEDNESDAY - THE IRON SUNFLOWER

“Water, thou hast no taste, no color, no odor; canst not be defined, art relished while ever mysterious. Not necessary to life, but rather life itself, thou fillest us with a gratification that exceeds the delight of the senses.” - Antoine de Saint-Exupéry

I have recently become aware of a creative writing group hosted by Magpie Tales. I read a couple of poems that blogfriends have written and which have been inspired by a striking photograph by Skip Hunt. The photograph is of an old mill, which has fallen down from its lofty mount and decommissioned. I have tampered with the photograph somewhat (apologies to Skip!) and was inspired to write this:

The Iron Sunflower

The sun bakes the red earth
And sky above is blue as blue bottles can be
With light streaming through them.

Drought, and the only noise of midsummer noon,
Is the hum of the machine and the smell of diesel
As water is pumped from deep secret caverns, below.

The bluebottle fly buzzes lazily, imitating the pump,
Sated on her feast of rotten thirsty carcass,
With her eggs safely secreted therein.

The listless children drone in the schoolhouse,
Overcome by heat, repeating by rote the lesson in chorus
Reminiscent of a dirge of Greek tragedy.

The precious water, hard-won by efforts of man and machine
Is stored, as treasured things are, safely locked up,
In corrugated iron tank, not to be wasted on useless things – like flowers.

The head of one of past seasons’ large sunflowers
With a few black, shiny seeds hangs up deep in the dark recesses of the shed,
Strung up high, safe from rodents and birds, a sad souvenir of old times.

The sun bakes the earth and cracks it, breaks its spirit:
No touch of green, no sunflowers this year,
And the wind blows, only to lift great clouds of red dust.

Fallen by the wayside an old mill-head rusts away mirroring the dusty soil.
Its sails are petals of an iron sunflower – the only flower this year.
As the monotony of the pump numbs the ear,
And the stench of petrol deadens the nose,
The rusting iron flower is a reminder of gentler times,
When machines were driven by wind, and their creaks were musical
And the air carried only the faint smell of fresh sunflowers –
Water could be spared then for useless things…

SOCRATES ON BEING EDUCATED

“As for me, all I know is that I know nothing.” - Socrates

To be well educated is a goal that many people aspire to, but especially so if they are parents and they wish to provide what is best for their children. It is quite interesting that most people when asked what a good education is, generally respond with answers that can be summed up as “the collection of a great number of facts in one’s head”… Learning seems to be equated with memorisation of bits and pieces of information. A “smart” person is one that people see as rattling off hundreds of facts (often trivial) and “factoids”. Which needless to say is rather sad!

Others may equate “education” with some lofty activity confined in an ivory tower and engaged in by gowned academics who invariably are balding and wear glasses (amazing also how many people equate wearing glasses with being “brainy”, but that’s another matter…). These university types are far removed from the real world and engage in research and teaching, commonly are absent-minded and disengaged from everyday cares and concerns. They are a fount of knowledge and ostensibly “well-educated”.

My dictionary defines the word “educate” as:
educate |ˈejəˌkāt| verb [ with obj. ]
Give intellectual, moral, and social instruction to (someone, especially a child), typically at a school or university: She was educated at a boarding school.
• Provide or pay for instruction for (one’s child), especially at a school.
• Give (someone) training in or information on a particular field: The need to educate people to conserve water | A plan to educate the young on the dangers of drug-taking.
ORIGIN: Late Middle English: From Latin educat- ‘led out,’ from the verb educare, related to educere ‘lead out’.

Many of us that work in education reflect frequently on the above definition and try to understand our role in the system whereby we provide the context within our students can learn. As an educator I have tried to limit my teaching role and rather provide an environment in which students can learn in a manner that is best suited for them personally. Frequently I find that I am learning as much as they are, while facilitating their learning. Education is an exercise in clear thinking and an enabling of the learners to do the right thing. Good teaching is a facilitation of learning and the best learning comes from self-discovery of one’s own ignorance, the more one learns.

I have often thought of education, teaching and learning through the analogy of a banquet. I as the educator am the cook and host. I provide on the banquet table a selection of healthful, fresh, nutritious and attractive dishes. I ensure that they are served at their best so as to tempt my guests. It is up to them to come in, look at the feast and fill their plate with a balanced, nutritious and well-serving meal…

It may be worthy to consider what Socrates answered when he was asked what a good education was. His response didn’t mention at all the accumulation of facts, but rather it hinged on behaviour. He regarded “well-educated people” as those who:
•    Actively control difficult situations rather than being controlled by them
•    Deal with and face all events with logic and courage
•    Are honest and fair in all of their dealings with other people
•    Face difficult situations, and interact with unpleasant people, in a well-intentioned and pleasant manner
•    Keep a check on their personal desires and control their self-indulgences
•    Are not overcome by their defeats and ill-luck; and finally (and perhaps most importantly),
•    Have not been spoilt by their successes and fame.

Greek philosopher Socrates was tried, convicted, and executed in Athens, Greece, in 399 B.C. In the case of Socrates, the legal proceedings began when Meletus, a poet, delivered an oral summons to Socrates in the presence of witnesses. The summons required Socrates to appear before the legal magistrate, King Archon to answer charges of impiety and corrupting the youth

The preliminary hearing before the magistrate at the Royal Stoa began with the reading of the written charge by Meletus. Socrates answered the charge. The magistrate questioned both Meletus and Socrates, then gave both the accuser and defendant an opportunity to question each other. Having found merit in the accusation against Socrates, the magistrate drew up formal charges.

The document containing the charges against Socrates survived until at least the second century C.E. Diogenes Laertius reports the charges as recorded in the now-lost document: “This indictment and affidavit is sworn by Meletus, the son of Meletus of Pitthos, against Socrates, the son of Sophroniscus of Alopece: Socrates is guilty of refusing to recognise the gods recognized by the state, and of introducing new divinities. He is also guilty of corrupting the youth. The penalty demanded is death.”

Socrates spent his final hours in a cell in the Athens gaol. The ruins of the gaol remain today.  The hemlock that ended his life did not do so quickly or painlessly, but rather by producing a gradual paralysis of the central nervous system. The trial of Socrates, produced the first martyr for free speech. As I. F. Stone observed, just as Jesus Christ needed the cross to fulfil his mission, Socrates needed his hemlock to fulfil his (image above is “The Death of Socrates” by Jacques-Louis David - 1787).

I have blogged about this today as I had an interesting discussion yesterday with a fellow academic and his views differed from my own, and from Socrates’. He did have a bit of a swollen head and his self-importance prevented him from acknowledging something that was obvious to some observers of the conversation. What do you think? Do you agree with Socrates’ views of a well-educated person?

MOVIE MONDAY - SALT

“For me, the filmmaking has to be about the dramaturgy.” - Neil Jordan

Yesterday we enjoyed our Sunday very much as it was a beautiful day, fine and sunny, spring-like in its freshness and gentle warmth. We got lots done in the garden, went to the market and in the afternoon walked to the Parklands where it was a pleasure to see the wattles in bloom, enjoy the flowering plum-trees, the masses of violets and the blossoming natives. We got home three hours later, not having realised how quickly time passed. At home we washed up and then went out to an early dinner at our local pub. Then, back at home, we watched a movie on DVD. Unfortunately, this put a dampener on the day as it was quite a dud!

The movie was Phillip Noyce’s 2010 potboiler “Salt”, starring Angelina Jolie. There was such brouhaha when the movie first came out that we ignored it quite completely (as it turns out, wisely). However, once again we succumbed to the specials bin at our DVD store and decided to see what all the fuss was about. The plot was standard spy thriller guff and the scriptwriter followed just about every convention in order to make an “exciting” movie. Typical dick-flick with Angelina pouting away in order to drive home this point.

In short, the story revolves around Evelyn Salt who is a successful CIA agent respected by all, especially her boss, Ted Winter. She is married to a German arachnologist, the two being much in love. One day a Russian spy comes into the cover offices of the CIA and says he is a defector. He asks for Evelyn Salt and tells all that the President of Russia will be assassinated during his forthcoming visit to New York City to attend the funeral of the recently deceased USA Vice President. He further reveals that the name of the assassin is Evelyn Salt. Salt tries to contact her husband, but as she cannot do so, decides to go on the run and doesn’t stay to defend herself against the accusations. Her boss does not accept that she is a mole or a double agent, however, her subsequent actions shake his faith in her innocence. What follows is a conventional spy movie with lots of violence, attempts at twists and turns in the plot and some spectacular special effects.

Unfortunately, the movie is illogical, much too stereotypical and completely unbelievable. Jolie in the title role is fine enough, but somehow she does not convince the viewer. Admittedly she has a tough job making her character believable as it is too much of a cardboard cutout. There is scene after scene of action and murder, violence and car chases, thrills and spills. I kept thinking that the film was like a computer game. The plots and twists were annoying and unsatisfying and one could easily get lost in what we were meant to believe in terms of whose side Salt was on. Being neither Russian nor American we could almost not care, as neither side appeared to be worth belonging to…

Even the ending of the film was unsatisfying as it was too much of a set-up for a sequel. The whole thing was too formulaic and predictable, but at the same time annoying as it tried to pretend to be something else. Nothing worse than a potboiler trying to convince you it’s high art. We could see after watching the movie why it was so controversial. Those who watched it purely for its thrills and spills, the mindless violence and the stereotypical “us and them” cold war primary school mentality plot would enjoy it. The rest of us who want some depth, some motivation, some characterisation, some clever plot development, think this is a terrible film. Watch at your own risk.

ART SUNDAY - MARGARET OLLEY

“Every artist dips his brush in his own soul, and paints his own nature into his pictures.” - Henry Ward Beecher

The Australian painter Margaret Olley died last Tuesday, 26th July 2011. She is noted for her colourful still life paintings and intimate interiors.  She was a traditional painter, oblivious to changing fashions and movements of the art world. Olley chose to paint her surroundings, immersing herself in everyday subjects that reflected her interest in the personal and the intimate. Her love for painting is explicitly shown in every one of her works and her own personality and inner beauty is exemplified by her choice of subject and the way she depicted it.

Margaret Hannah Olley was born on 24th June 1923 in Lismore, New South Wales. After spending some of her childhood in remote Upper Tully, south of Cairns, Queensland, her family moved to Lower Tully where her sister Elaine and brother Ken were subsequently born. Living in a small country town, gave her rich experiences, like riding a pony to school. This helped o give her a sense of adventure and independence, which the young artist was able to use in the future. It was not until she attended Somerville House, a Brisbane girl’s boarding school, in 1935, that her talent for painting and drawing started receiving encouragement.  Olley’s art teacher at Somerville House persuaded Olley’s parents to send Margaret to art school.

In 1941, she started at Brisbane Central Technical College. The next year Olley moved to Sydney and enrolled at East Sydney Technical College, where her boarding school friend and fellow artist Margaret Cilento also attended. Olley graduated in 1945 with A-class honours. After graduating, Olley quickly became involved in the post-war Sydney art scene. In the late 1940s, she and Donald Friend became some of the first artists to spend time painting in the Hill End area of New South Wales.

William Dobell painted an Archibald Prize-winning portrait of Olley in 1948. This was also the year Olley had her first solo exhibition at Macquarie Galleries.  In 1949, Olley took her first international trip. She stayed in France and travelled extensively to parts of Spain, Brittany, Venice, Lisbon and London. When her father died in 1953, Olley returned to Brisbane where she designed sets for the Twelfth Night Theatre. 

Olley travelled through north Queensland with Donald Friend in the early 1950s, and following this trip she went to Papua New Guinea. She held an exhibition of her paintings of this period in the Macquarie Galleries in 1955 to mixed critical acclaim.  After the 1955 exhibition, Olley returned her focus to drawing. In 1959 she gave up alcohol, which marked the beginning of a decade of success with collectors. The colour in her work became more confident, and underpinned by stronger compositional design, although over the years a concern for the flat picture plane would become progressively supplanted by one for the form and weight of objects set within three-dimensional space.

Olley is also known for her friendships with important Australian artists including William Dobell, Russell Drysdale, Donald Friend and Jeffrey Smart. Olley is regarded as a generous benefactor having donated many works to the Art Gallery of New South Wales. Olley’s generosity to the gallery was celebrated in its “Great Gifts, Great Patrons” exhibition in 1994. She donated works of Donald Friend, Arthur Boyd, Walter Sickert, Edgar Degas, Duncan Grant and Matthew Smith for this exhibition.

Margaret Olley held honorary doctorates from Macquarie, Sydney, Queensland and Newcastle universities. In 1991, Olley was made a Member of the Order of Australia for service as an artist and for the promotion of art. In 2006, she was awarded Australia’s highest civilian honour, the Companion of the Order, for service as one of Australia’s most distinguished artists, for philanthropy to the arts and for encouragement of young and emerging artists.

The painting above is titled “Pears and Clivias” and exemplifies Olley’s style admirably. Joyous colour, naturalistic style, a detailed canvas laden as though it were a Victorian drawing room. Exuberant colour and shapes fill the eyes with richness and above all it is a satisfying, highly decorative painting that refreshes and calms the viewer. Olley, who preferred to be known as a painter rather than an artist, saw beauty in humble items, reflecting this in her still life works such as this, of fruit bowls and flowers. NSW Art Gallery director Edmund Capon said of Olley: “We often talked about colour and what was her favourite colour. Her answer was swift and straightforward: ‘Green’, she would say ‘it’s the colour of rebirth’.”

Vale, Margaret Olley!

EN ARANJUEZ CON TU AMOR

“The longer I live, the more I realize the impact of attitude on life. Attitude, to me, is more important than facts. It is more important than the past, the education, the money, than circumstances, than failure, than successes, than what other people think or say or do. It is more important than appearance, giftedness or skill. It will make or break a company... a church... a home. The remarkable thing is we have a choice everyday regarding the attitude we will embrace for that day. We cannot change our past... we cannot change the fact that people will act in a certain way. We cannot change the inevitable. The only thing we can do is play on the one string we have, and that is our attitude. I am convinced that life is 10% what happens to me and 90% of how I react to it. And so it is with you... we are in charge of our Attitudes.” - Charles R. Swindol
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chuck_Swindoll

The Concierto de Aranjuez is a composition for classical guitar and orchestra by the Spanish composer Joaquín Rodrigo (1901-1999). The piece was written in 1939, and it is probably Rodrigo’s best-known work. Its success established the composer’s reputation as one of the most significant Spanish composers of the twentieth century.

The concerto is in three movements, fast, quick, slow, with the guitar taking pride of place and never having to counter the full orchestral forces. The second movement is a sublime recollection of melancholy and supreme heartbreak. Rodrigo and his wife Victoria stayed silent for many years about the inspiration for the second movement. In her autobiography, however, Victoria eventually declared that it was both an evocation of the happy days of their honeymoon and a response to Rodrigo’s devastation at the miscarriage of their first pregnancy. It was composed in 1939 in Paris.

Whenever I hear this piece of music I cannot get out of my mind that Rodrigo its composer was blind since the age of three. For me there is a palpable sense of loss in the music. Loss of the sense of sight is one interpretation. Loss of a child is another. Loss of a lover, yet another. Whatever the inspiration for its composer, the listener will interpret it in their own way biased by their own life experiences.

There have been many arrangements of this second movement, many of them vocal. Here is one sung by the countertenor Fernando Lima.

THE VALUE VS THE PRICE OF BREAKFAST

“Each murder is one too many.” - Jürgen Habermas

I’ve blogged before about the importance of breakfast as a meal in terms of good metabolism and maintenance of health. We all know this and there are numerous options for healthy breakfasts around. One would think that this message is now well-entrenched in the community, but then again perhaps not. Survey results that were recently published about the dietary habits of Australians proved the latter point.

Apparently one third of Australians skip breakfast altogether, and more than half eat their breakfast on the go. Retail workers and students were the worst offenders for missing the most important meal of the day. On the other hand, bankers, lawyers, financiers, accountants and media workers were more likely to say that they couldn’t last the day without a good breakfast. Women were more likely to skip breakfast, often substituting a healthy breakfast for just a cup of coffee. Also, it appears that the younger survey responders were more likely to miss breakfast, with less than half of those aged 18-24 regularly eating a good breakfast. On the other hand, 60% of those between 25-44 years ate breakfast.

Something that I can certainly attest to, is the huge number of people that have breakfast on the go. About 60% of Australians eat breakfast on the train, in the car, while getting ready for work or at their desks at work. The number of people eating breakfast on the train each morning is increasing, I think. This is not bad, at least it is not as bad as skipping breakfast. Having something substantial first thing in the day kick-starts the metabolism and provides a source of energy preventing us from getting very hungry later in the day. This way, people that eat good breakfasts are less likely to become overweight as the appetite is controlled through the day.

It is disappointing that younger people do not eat good breakfasts, especially these days when we are seeing an epidemic of childhood obesity. Younger people often stay up late, sleep in the next morning and consequently end up being in a rush, sacrificing breakfast. It is also unlikely that these same young people will pack a good, healthful and nutritious lunch from home, opting for take away food, fat-rich snacks throughout the day and junk food.

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On the subject of breakfast, a youth in England went to extremes in order to have a good breakfast. Apparently, after a bet with his friends, 16-year-old Joshua Davies was promised a full cooked breakfast if he carried out his threat to murder 15-year-old Rebecca Aylward. Unfortunately, this is an abominable story and Davies has already been found guilty and is facing a life sentence for murdering the girl.

The two adolescents had been seeing one another but then broke up. Davies bet his friends that he would kill Aylward for a cooked breakfast. He planned the murder, considering deadly foxgloves to poison her, drowning her in a river and throwing her off a cliff. What actually happened was even more brutal. He lured Aylward to a rendezvous in the woods. She accepted, believing he was trying to re-establish their relationship. Tragically, the girl was killed by Davies, her head battered with a rock until she was dead…

This is a deplorable murder and hair-raising considering its context. The reason for it being largely a dare, a bet. The girl’s life was wasted in a brutal and coldly premeditated manner. The breakfast issue is proof of the trivialisation of the murderous act and the callous way in which the young murderer carried out the killing in order to “win the bet” and prove himself… The image of the young girl’s body found in the woods, face down in the rain, after the day of the murder is a horrific one. I cannot place myself in the shoes of the family who have to cope with this terrible end of their young daughter and who can only imagine the terror of her last moments, as she received blow after blow, six all together, from the young murderer’s hands. What is the world coming to?

WORLD HEPATITIS DAY 2011

“Is life worth living? It all depends on the liver.” - William James

Today is World Hepatitis Day, which is an annual event providing an international focus for patient groups and people living with hepatitis B and C. On this day especially, interested groups can raise awareness and influence real change in disease prevention and access to testing and treatment for these killer diseases. The World Hepatitis Alliance first launched World Hepatitis Day in 2008. From that time, many events have taken place around the world, raising public awareness and media coverage.

Following the World Health Assembly in May 2010, it was agreed that World Hepatitis Day would be recognised annually on the 28th of July, honouring Nobel Laureate Professor Baruch Blumberg, discoverer of the hepatitis B virus, who celebrates his birthday on that date. This year marks the first official world-wide commemoration of this important day, and is supported by the WHO.

There are about 500 million people worldwide that have either hepatitis B or hepatitis C. This represents 1 in 12 people, and was the basis for the 2008 World Hepatitis Day “Am I Number 12?” campaign. The diseases are caused by two different types of viruses, which however, target the liver in a similar way and can cause extensive liver damage. If left untreated and unmanaged, hepatitis B or C can lead to liver cirrhosis (extensive scarring) and other complications, including liver failure or even liver cancer. Every year 1.5 million people die from either hepatitis B or C.

Hepatitis B and C are spread by virus-contaminated blood and body fluids of a sufferer, which are introduced into the body of another person. This can happen when unscreened blood is transfused, during unhygienic tattooing and body piercing, intravenous drug use, unprotected intercourse, during childbirth (from infected mother to baby) and other procedures involving exchange of body fluids. Effective vaccines are available for Hepatitis B, but not for Hepatitis C. In all cases prevention of the infection by diminishing risk of contracting the virus is advisable.

People with Hepatitis B and C can develop lifelong infections and become carriers of the disease. This is quite dangerous, not only because their livers may become very damaged over time, but because the infected carriers can spread the virus to other people. It is generally these people with long-term infections and liver damage that require extensive treatment, good management and support.

Several treatments are available for people infected with Hepatitis virus B and they include drugs such as lamivudine, adefovir, tenofovir, telbivudine, entecavir and interferon. For Hepatitis C infection, treatments include various standard drugs (interferon and ribavirin) and newly approved drugs (boceprevir and telaprevir). In both cases, patients benefit from good diets, no alcohol intake and also avoidance of drugs that are broken down by the liver.

Complementary therapies are used by some people with hepatitis, in conjunction with their conventional medical treatments. Complementary therapists can provide useful advice regarding diet and lifestyle, relaxation and meditation techniques. Some herbal treatments are also given, such as milk thistle (containing silymarin, a liver protective substance). Laboratory studies suggest that silymarin may benefit the liver by protecting and promoting the growth of liver cells, fighting oxidation (a chemical process that can damage cells), and inhibiting inflammation. Ginseng is also said to beneficial, as are liquorice extract, schizandra and sophora root extract. TJ-108, a mixture of herbs used in Japanese traditional medicine is also being used with anecdotal success. However, No complementary treatment has been scientifically proven yet to successfully treat hepatitis C. A panel of medical and scientific experts concluded from evidence gathered, however, that “alternative and nontraditional medicines” should be researched more rigorously.

If you have Hepatitis B or C, follow the directions of your doctors and discuss with them openly any other treatments you are considering in conjunction with the conventional ones. This is especially important with some herbal remedies as it is well-known that some herbs can actually considerably damage an already compromised liver (e.g. kava and comfrey).

THE GRAVE

“A couch of thorns, or an embroidered bed, are matters of indifference to the dead.” - Theognis of Megara

Another busy day today. The frosty morning gave way to a beautiful sunny day. Promises of Spring everywhere as buds swell and bare branches start to show hints of green. Spring bulbs are blooming and the days are noticeably longer. Still a strange melancholy seems to be hanging in the air, justifying perhaps the ancient Roman belief that Spring was a gloomy season…

The Grave

Spring starts to stir around me once again,
And tendril tentacles of green extend,
In tentative efforts to ensnare me.
Oblivious to the awakening, I, in my dark hole,
Dig my grave below, ever-deeper.

Faint sounds of laughter, cries of joy
The noise of running steps, of dancing
Of maying games and contagious play resound.
Alone I dig, in my subterranean vault,
Wishing to reach the depths of Tartarus.

Youth dressed in purple garb leads the revelry,
All-powerful queen she orders, commands,
And all bow deeply in obeisance.
I know not of her rule, not ever being young;
So in ignorance I close myself up in my sepulchre.

My heart is pressed hard by the clammy clay,
Cold, heavy earth falls covering me
And marble slab with finality seals the tomb shut.
All I can see around me is blackest darkness
And in Erebus I am doomed to roam, one of the living dead.

Time passes, years merging with centuries,
As round the grave crops of poppies bloom and rebloom.
The marble slab of the tomb still sparkles
And invites two young lovers to sit and rest.
The text eroded on the marble,
Resembles ancient patterns graved,
And unknowing of the hidden catacomb,
The two lovers, laugh and kiss, mindless
Of the restless sleep and shifting sighs of the undead below.

CAREER ADVICE

“When people go to work, they shouldn’t have to leave their hearts at home.” - Betty Bender

I have been attending Career Adviser Seminars for the better part of today and will do so for most of tomorrow. It’s been quite an interesting experience talking directly to career advisers from high schools and giving them a good background in what courses are available for students at our College. There are career advisers from a very broad range of secondary school represented and there are also a very large number of exhibitors from various colleges, government organisations and universities. The main purpose of events such as these is to inform and update the counsellors in secondary schools who must have a good broad knowledge of the careers available to students and the courses that exist and are able to get the students into jobs that interest them and inspire them.

It is extremely important for everyone to choose a job that interests them. We spend so much of our life working that unless we work at something that is interesting, fulfilling, engaging and satisfying, we can quickly become miserable. It is usually the people who hate their job that produce the worst quality work and have the highest rates of absenteeism and sick leave. It is also these people that will tend to move around from job to job with great frequency, or even end up as chronically unemployed and unemployable.

I have always enjoyed my work and I believe someone gives their best performance at work if they are genuinely interested in what they are doing. This leads to engagement and a natural tendency for one to strive and excel in what they do day after day. I have certainly looked forward to getting to work every morning and no matter how full or how busy my workday is, at its end I can honestly say that I have enjoyed it, even though I may be tired. Sure enough there may be one or two unpleasant instances and incidents here and there, every now and then, but that is part and parcel of life, not just work.

Students that are beginning their studies at tertiary level nowadays are widely different to students when I was at University. We are finding more and more that we need to educate in a way that we produce graduates who are flexible, adaptable and able to keep up with the changing times. Graduates need to respond to the evolving demands of the workplace; people who can respond in the changing world quickly. Special, specialised and flexible workers who can bring a sense of curiosity, understanding, knowledge, experience, compassion and joyfulness to the work that they do. This is only possible when someone does what they love and they love what they do.

This is extremely important in a world which is becoming smaller and where globalisation is breaking down barriers, allowing people to not only move around and work on one continent today, another continent tomorrow; but also allows people to work remotely. Outsourcing and employing people that work on the other side of the world is something that is commonplace now and it appears that no industry is immune from this. We are able to automate more work with computers and software and to transmit that work anywhere in the world so that it can be done more efficiently or cheaply thanks to the technology. The smaller the world gets, the more essential it is for people to do what they love, because more and more jobs are going to be automated or outsourced in this brave new world.

One of the skills that I want our graduating students to have mastered is having learned how to learn. That will be really important if they want to be effective in the workplace as jobs will change faster and faster in the globalised world. The best way to learn how to learn is to love learning. Students remember their favourite teachers at University although they may not remember much anymore of what they taught. They remember the teachers because they certainly remember enjoying learning from them. Students appreciate how these special teachers taught, because what they did was to equip students with the ability to be a life-long learner who are enabled to adapt and stay special or specialised in a changing world.

There is great responsibility in being an educator. Teachers have the ability to reshape, influence, impact and control their students. They can guide, inspire, transform and shape the lives of their charges. On the negative side, educators can also brainwash, intimidate, prejudice and pressure students. As a teacher, one must remain objective, fair, transparent and helpful, while allowing the student to grow and explore and learn under their own personal conditions and desiderata. Learning to learn and loving what they learn is the best way to achieve a good education, and consequently, a satisfying career.

MOVIE MONDAY - VALE, MICHAEL CACOYANNIS

“If death meant just leaving the stage long enough to change costume and come back as a new character...Would you slow down? Or speed up?” - Chuck Palahniuk

Monday was just a complete write-off with so many things happening at work but also after work at home with a meeting I had organised, phone calls from overseas as well as a drop-in visitor. It seemed that we had two days packed into one, and Tuesday looks as though it will be the same also! I’d like to do a commemorative post for Movie Monday as one of the legendary Greek Directors has died very recently.

Michael Cacoyannis the Greek-Cypriot filmmaker whose art-house films and adaptations of Euripides for stage and screen were critically acclaimed, died at the age of 89 years early today in Athens. He was perhaps best known as the director of the 1964 Hollywood hit “Zorba the Greek”. His death was announced by the Michael Cacoyannis Foundation, an institution for the performing arts he founded in 2003. Cacoyannis was the first Greek film-maker to achieve international renown, then diversifying and becoming a respected theatrical and operatic producer in Paris, Frankfurt, Athens and New York.

His most popular film “Zorba the Greek” (1964), was based on the novel of the same name by Nikos Kazantzakis. This film, nominated for seven Oscars won two. Its cast of box-office stars such as Anthony Quinn and Alan Bates may have helped to sky-rocket it to international renown and success at the Academy Awards. However, the film does have a good plot, captures the essence of the modern Greek psyche and delivers quite a magnificent punch. That it is packaged attractively helps tremendously also!

I have great respect for Cacoyannis’ earier films, such as “Stella” (1955) and “The Girl in Black” (1956). As his style matured he produced excellent cinematic adaptations of a Euripidean trilogy of ancient drama: “Electra” (1961), “Trojan Women” (1971) and “Iphigenia” (1977). All of these films drew fine performances from his lead actresses, with world-class performers being involved: Melina Mercouri, Irene Pappas, Katharine Hepburn, Geneviève Bujold and Vanessa Redgrave.

Cacoyannis, the director, was elegant with a strong pictorial sense and a good eye for striking images. He edited his own films and he used a dynamic, well-punctuated style similar perhaps to some early Russian silent cinema. In his early films he depicted Greek life and customs, but in a fresh and lively manner, which may explain their appeal. As he matured, he became more conventional and concerned excessively with impact and presentation rather than content. The Euripidean films were stunning visually with ancient Greek tragedy turned into effective modern drama. However, Cacoyannis perhaps lacked a signature style that characterises films of say, Ingmar Bergman or Luis Buñuel.

“Electra” (1962) is a striking filmic version of the Euripides tragedy that has been made accessible for modern audiences. It is a film in which the young Irene Papas (unknown outside Greece at that time, but at the height of her acting career and beauty) gives a fantastic performance in the title role. When Electra and her brother Orestes meet and recognise one another, are a magic movie moment, whose emotional power and poignancy is underpinned by Mikis Theodorakis’s emotional score.

“Zorba the Greek” (1964) was the most commercially successful film of Cacoyannis. The most memorable scene is that in which Anthony Quinn, as Zorba, the larger-than-life “eternal peasant”, dances on the beach. Mikis Theodorakis, the composer of the famous “Zorba’s Dance” music later admitted that the music was a bagatelle concocted to pass among the non-cognoscenti as typically Greek. It is often the case, what a composer considers his best works are not widely successful, but a “bagatelle” like Zorba’s Dance achieves wide popularity and acclaim.

Cacoyannis later in his career moved out of cinema and into theatrical and operatic directing, with a considerable amount of translation work of Greek drama into English, and Shakespeare plays into Greek. This is understandable given that he was well-educated (having left his native Cyprus, he was educated as a lawyer in England) and from his youth interested in the arts and literature of both countries.

His last film was the 1999 “The Cherry Orchard”, which starred Charlotte Rampling as an aristocrat who struggles to comes to grips with her family’s financial collapse.

Vale, Michael! – Καλό ταξίδι, Μιχάλη...

ART SUNDAY - BOSCH

“The world is a dangerous place to live; not because of the people who are evil, but because of the people who don't do anything about it.” - Albert Einstein

We may bemoan the horrors of life in this present day and age, but anyone well-read in history will be quick to observe that we humans are not a particularly attractive species. Every age seems to have had its fair share of wars and battles, great social upheavals, public disturbances, an excess of dictators and madmen. History is replete with crimes against humanity, crazed murderers and enormous calamities where humans shed the blood of other humans in abandon. Art comments on this aspect of human nature with perhaps more graphic immediacy than the pen of the historian. For Art Sunday today, a painter that was obsessed with this propensity of the human to succumb to temptation and engage in behaviour that highlights the dark side of the human soul.

Hiëronymus Bosch, (pseudonym of Jeroen Anthoniszoon Van Aeken, born c. 1450, ‘s Hertogenbosch, Brabant [now in The Netherlands] died Aug. 9, 1516, s Hertogenbosch) is a brilliant and original northern European painter of the late Middle Ages whose work reveals an unusual, complex and individual style. Although firstly recognised as a highly imaginative “creator of devils” and a powerful inventor of seeming nonsense full of satirical meaning, Bosch demonstrated insight into the depths of the mind and an ability to depict symbols of life and creation.

Bosch was a pessimistic and stern moralist who had no illusions about the rationality of human nature or confidence in the kindness of a world that had been corrupted by man’s presence in it. His paintings are sermons, addressed often to initiates and consequently difficult to translate. Unable to unlock the mystery of the artist’s works, critics at first believed that he must have been affiliated with secret sects. Although the themes of his work were religious, his choice of symbols to represent the temptation and eventual ensnarement of man in earthly evils caused many critics to view Bosch as an occultist. It is now conceded that Bosch was a talented artist who possessed deep insight into human character and as one of the first artists to represent abstract concepts in his work.

Approximately 35 to 40 paintings are attributed to him, but only 7 are signed and none are dated. There exists little information on the early life of the artist, other than the fact that he was the son and grandson of accomplished painters. His name does appear on the register of the Brotherhood of Our Lady, located in the city of his birth, and there is mention of him in official records from 1486 until the year of his death, when he was acclaimed an Insignis pictor (“distinguished painter”). In addition to painting he undertook decorative works and altarpieces and executed designs for stained glass.

Works attributed to his youthful period show an awkwardness in drawing and composition and brushwork somewhat limited in its scope. In the early paintings Bosch had begun to depict humanity’s vulnerability to the temptation of evil, the deceptive allure of sin, and the obsessive attraction of lust, heresy, and obscenity. The presence of certain motifs, expanded in the more sophisticated works of the artist’s middle period, and a limited technique, unsure yet bold, provide a beginning from which to view Bosch’s artistic origins.

To Bosch’s fruitful middle period belong the great panoramic triptychs, often constructed to be used as altarpieces in church. His figures are graceful and his colours subtle and sure, and all is in motion in these ambitious and extremely complex works. These paintings are marked by an eruption of fantasy, expressed in monstrous, apocalyptic scenes of chaos and nightmare that are contrasted and juxtaposed with idyllic portrayals of mankind in the age of innocence. During this period Bosch elaborated on his early ideas, and the few paintings that survive establish the evolution of his thought. Bosch’s disconcerting mixture of fantasy and reality is further developed in this period and the artist takes every opportunity to highlight the consequences of sin and immorality.

Bosch’s maturity illustrates the peak of his iconographic style and the artist’s powers are used to great effect to produce masterworks. The “Garden of Earthly Delights,” is representative of Bosch at his mature best, showing the earthly paradise with the creation of woman, the first temptation, and the fall. The painting's beautiful and unsettling images of sensuality and of the dreams that afflict the people who live in a pleasure-seeking world express Bosch’s iconographic originality with tremendous force. The chief characteristic of this work is perhaps its dreamlike quality; multitudes of nude human figures, giant birds, and horses cavort and frolic in a delightfully implausible, otherworldly landscape, and all the elements come together to produce a perfect, harmonious whole.

The artist’s late works are fundamentally different. Instead of meadows or hellish landscapes inhabited by hundreds of tiny beings, he painted densely compacted groups of half-length figures pressed tight against the picture plane. In these dramatic close-ups, of which “The Crowning with Thorns” and the “Carrying of the Cross” are representative, the spectator is so near the event portrayed that he seems to participate in it physically as well as psychologically. The most peaceful and untroubled of Bosch’s mature works depict various saints in contemplation or repose. Among these works are “St. John the Evangelist in Patmos” and “St. Jerome in Prayer.”

The painting above, “The Temptation of St. Anthony” (1505-06 Oil on panel, 131.5 x 119 cm -central, 131,5 x 53 cm - each wing. Museu Nacional de Arte Antiga, Lisbon) displays his ascent to stylistic maturity. The brushstrokes are sharper and terser, with much more command than before. The composition is more fluid, and space is regulated by the incidents and creatures that the viewer’s attention is focused on. His mastery of fine brush-point calligraphy, permitting subtle nuances of contour and movement, is fully evident. Bosch portrays man’s struggle against temptation, as well as the omnipresence of the Devil. This painting is one of the best keys to the artist’s personal iconography. The hermit saint in this work is cast as the heroic symbol of man. In the central panel St. Anthony is beset by an array of grotesque demons, their horrible bodies being brilliantly visualised amalgamations of human, animal, vegetable, and inanimate parts. In the background is a hellish, fantastically bizarre landscape painted with the most exquisite detail. Bosch's development of the theme of the charlatan deceiving man and taking away his salvation receives its fullest exposition in the “St. Anthony,” with its condemnation of heresy and the seductions of false doctrines.

Bosch’s preoccupation in much of his work with the evils of the world did not preclude his vision of a world full of beauty. His adeptness at handling colour harmonies and at creating deeply felt works of the imagination is readily apparent. Though a spate of imitators tried to appropriate his visual style, its uniqueness prevented his having any real followers.

Bosch depicts the duality of human nature. His illustrations of man the angel, and man the devil, underscore the frailty of humanity, ever ready to lapse into beastliness and succumb to temptation. However, at the same time Bosch allows humans to be redeemed by beauty, altruism, bravery, honour and goodness. Each of us battles constantly internally on a daily basis to subdue our dark side and allow our inner light to shine through. It is unfortunate that so many of us do little to suppress the evil and commit acts little or great that exemplify our vice and malevolence.

BACH MAKES IT BETTER

“Violence is the last refuge of the incompetent.” - Isaac Asimov

The bombing and shootings in Oslo was the news that we heard first thing this morning. It definitely puts a dampener on one’s good humour and one has to question what it is that makes people bottle up so much hate that they have to kill, maim, demolish and destroy. The gunman who killed at least 80 people at an island youth camp northwest of Oslo disguised himself as a policeman to lure in his victims, then shot them twice to make sure they were dead. Seven people were also killed in an explosion that ripped through the government buildings in the heart of Oslo. Surely these are not the actions of sane persons? That is the only explanation that I can think of…

It seems that this insanity was motivated by political reasons. All the more reprehensible and crazy. To want to kill someone because they think differently to you is one of the most unreasonable and inhuman of acts. The 32-year-old suspected of massacring at least 80 young people at a summer camp and setting off a bomb in downtown Oslo that killed at least seven is a mystery to investigators: A right-winger with anti-Muslim views but no known links to hardcore extremists. This is the golden-haired, blue-eyed, dark angel of death that dragged a whole country into mourning and the world into new depths of despair.

When the world becomes a dark and terrible place, when despair threatens to overcome me, when the burden carried get heavier and heavier, what else is there to do but turn to music? Music will speak to us when words have failed; will ease the mind when it needs rest; music will soothe the heart and heal it when it is broken; music flows from heaven into our soul.

Here is a piece from J.S. Bach, from his Cello Suite No.2 – VI: Gigue (BWV 1008), played by Mischa Maisky. If anything can soothe a troubled mind it is music like this.

ON EATING TO LIVE

“The art of living well and the art of dying well are one.” - Epicurus

There seems to be some world-wide preoccupation with food presently. I wish I were talking about the starving millions who are desperately trying to get some nutrition, but unfortunately it is quite the opposite. It is a morbid desire of the well-fed to gorge themselves even more, and the sick single-mindedness of those with a jaded palate to try and find new taste sensations to tempt their tired tastebuds. The success of programs such as Master Chef on the television, the plethora of cookbooks published and sold every day, the infinitude of food and recipe “lifestyle” magazines available, and the cooking and recipe obsession in our media attests to this conclusion.

Do not get me wrong, I enjoy my food as much as the next person. I like sitting down to have a well-cooked meal, I relish sampling new tastes and I am willing to try my hand at realising some recipes in the kitchen. However, to religiously watch program after program of people cooking or competing for some prize by cooking, buying cookbook after cookbook, or reading recipe after recipe in magazines and papers, is not for me. We eat to live, not live to eat. This simple dictum is something that many people seem to have forgotten, obsessing endlessly with food, cooking, recipes, new tastes and obscure ingredients that will contribute to some novel recipe that they are striving to try.

Despite the overabundance of dietary research and the excess of recommendations of the conclusions of such studies to the general public, it is rather sad to see most people blissfully ignoring the obvious. Dietary excesses, consumption of imprudent amounts of the wrong foods, a blind dependence on foods that are universally acknowledged as bad for our health and wellbeing, all of these are still major problems that beset western nations.

The epidemic of diet-related diseases in western countries is another indicator of the magnitude of the problem of our fixation on food. Junk food is still something that is being consumed in enormous quantities and its pernicious effects on our health can be seen in doctors’ surgeries, our hospitals, clinics and the early deaths of people who have succumbed to diseases that are caused by what we eat. We are what we eat is another well-worn saw, but unfortunately it is true: Eat junk and you become junk…

Something that I personally find extremely offensive is the so-called “molecular cuisine”. This is the creation of “gastronomic delicacies” by utilising processes and equipment that would be more at home in a chemistry or physics laboratory. Complex processes are used to often make the ingredients completely unrecognisable and what ends up on the plate are congealed messes of striking colours, insubstantial foams, globules of sweet/savoury glug, intensely flavoured colloids, aromatic gases trapped into all sorts of edible containers, edible papers printed with designs in food dye and fruit inks, etc. Liquid nitrogen, for flash freezing and shattering can be used, carbon dioxide gas, for adding bubbles and making foams, enzymes, lecithin, maltodextrin, transglutaminase, hydrocolloids and other horrors can be used to make food that surprises (mainly unpleasantly) rather than providing nourishment and a balanced diet. This is novelty food in its worst form.

How difficult it is to cook a simple dish of few ingredients well! It is often these dishes that even the best restaurants are judged by. I have found the humble Caesar salad a good test dish with which to investigate how well a chef can deal with a simple order such as this. And I am talking about the classic, simple Caesar salad, no added chicken or salmon or olives or other extraneous ingredients. One of the best Caesar salads I have had was at Florentino’s Restaurant here in Melbourne, some time ago. Alas, this is no longer on the menu, having ceded its place to some more fashionable entrées, such as beetroot salad with goat’s curd and orange…

Give me small quantities of simple, fresh, well-prepared food eaten in convivial surroundings with compatible company and that is all I require for pleasant and nutritious fare. One enjoys many more meals that way and one’s good health as a consequence, contributes to a long life.

REBORNING SIMULACRA

“Playing a robot is possibly the most difficult role you can have as an actor, because you have to take all your innate emotional responses and completely suppress them. Even the way you walk is affected.” - Kristanna Loken

Photographs are very special to us as they preserve our memories. They help us to conquer time somewhat through their maintenance of the past in a very real and immediately accessible way. Looking through our albums we travel back in time and revisit events, see again faces of family, friends, lovers, or even enemies… One way that is even better for preserving memories, many people would say, is video recordings. To hit the play button and see a piece of one’s personal history displayed in lurid technicolour can definitely transport one back to earlier times, sunlit memories which are vividly played out in front of our ageing eyes once again.

It seems now that we have some more ways of preserving and remembering the past. The process of “reborning” (what an awful word!). A “reborn” baby is a term that originated in the early 1990s and it describes the craft of painting, hairing and weighting store-bought or specialised “'reborning” baby doll kits, to resemble a real human baby. This began as a craft to evolve doll-making into a new area of verisimilitude with the “Reborn babies” bearing an uncanny similarity to real babies. Once you have seen these dolls you can understand a little perhaps the term “reborn”.

The technique has gone a step further now, with the “reborn” dolls being modelled on real babies and children so that a simulacrum is created and preserved for posterity. Parents can now order such a “reborn” copy of their child at any time they choose and capture forever a startlingly real, three-dimensional representation of their child. Seeing the two side by side as in the photograph above can be quite an unsettling experience. The Charles McQuillan photograph (that won a prize in the Press Photographers’ Year Awards, 2011) shows Sara, from Dowhill, Northern Ireland, together with her “reborn” self. This has been created a permanent memento for her parents who thus have a preserved 3D copy of their little girl as she was at that age.

Reborn doll kits, created especially for “reborners”, come in a disassembled blank kit form and are made from a soft silicon vinyl. Kits are available in regular and limited edition runs, for hobbyists and collectors. Each “reborn” doll can easily take 200 or more hours to create. Each layer of heat-set oil paint is baked onto the doll using a household oven at low temperature. By using thin successive layers of paint, the delicate effect of a baby’s skin tone can be created, complete with fine details, like capillaries and veins, milk pimples and newborn pressure marks.

When the painting process is completed, the baby has hand-rooted hair that is applied one hair at a time with a special needle. These details, with different choices of hair and eye colouration, allow for subtle differences that make each baby an original, with no two babies ever being the same. During assembly the babies are weighted with glass beads throughout their head, limbs and body to replicate the weight and feel of a new baby. They are then ready to be dressed. Obviously, if the “reborn” doll is a replica of a real person, specialised casting of the face has to occur so that the resemblance to the original is captured.

Somehow, I find this a little creepy. It is the same type of feeling that one has when one visits a wax museum. This unsettling experience has been investigated by researchers, especially where our reactions to androids and robots are concerned. Being confronted by something that looks human but is not, sparks conflict in our brain. Especially so where motion of the android is concerned. Faced with a gap between how we expect the simulacrum to move and how it actually moves causes the brain to become confused.

University of California in San Diego researchers showed 20 people video of the very lifelike Japanese Repliee Q2 android. This is one of the most life-like in the world and it was shown performing tasks like drinking water, picking up paper from the floor and waving and nodding. They were also show video of a human performing the same actions and then finally a video of the android without its “skin” on doing the same things, but looking obviously like a robot. The researchers found by studying the brain activity of the observers that the parietal cortex of all subjects showed increased activity. This is the part of the brain that connects the region processing body movements with the region that interprets and correlates these movements. The brain was trying to correlate the irreconcilable movements with the appearance of the person or “thing” making them. Its expectations for appaearance and motion to be congruent weren’t met.

It looks as though in the very near future we shall have to get used to more of this as androids and robots are to make an appearance in our everyday life as very visible players. Our brian will just have to get used to it. Still creepy, though…

simulacrum |ˌsimyəˈlākrəm, -ˈlak-| noun ( pl. simulacra |-ˈlākrə, -ˈlakrə| or simulacrums )
An image or representation of someone or something: A small-scale simulacrum of a skyscraper.
• An unsatisfactory imitation or substitute: A bland simulacrum of American soul music.
ORIGIN late 16th century: From Latin, from simulare from similis ‘like.’

POETRY WEDNESDAY - DISTANCE

“Absence sharpens love, presence strengthens it.” - Benjamin Franklin

When the people closest to us are absent our lives suddenly become quite different. We become aware not only of the glaring lack of their presence, but also of the countless ways that these people contribute to our everyday existence and make our lives special. The longer the absence the more miserable we become, yearning for the return of the objects of our affections. When a lover is absent and at a great distance the heart languishes and the acuteness of the lack of one’s partner resembles a physical illness. We miss our other half as if it were torn asunder and the edge of us is raw and wounded.

Here is a poem I wrote while in this very situation. Absence of the beloved increases our sensitivities and our feelings are so much more attuned to pain than joy. In the nearness of our beloved our hearts have wings and they fly high to heaven, while in our beloved’s absence, the heart limps and needs the crutch of poetry and sad song.

At a Distance

While you are away, the distance between us
Amplifies the remembrance of your recent vicinity,
And makes me yearn for your presence
In increasing quanta of desire.

Your news still reaches me and your voice
May sound in my mind, in honeyed tones,
But your touch is what I most need;
The proximity of skin to skin.

The image of your smiling face is ever fresh
As I look at your sunlit photograph,
But what I most long for is the sparkle of your eyes
As you look at me within a breath’s distance.

Your clothes, empty shells, hang limply
In the deserted wardrobe and play with my longing.
I smell, but all I detect is freshly laundered odours,
When I would delight in the perfume of your warm flesh.

My heart beats and marks time while you are away,
It beats no stronger or more quickly, until you are near;
What I wish for is that soon it will beat in synchrony
With yours, as we lie together breast to breast.

Your absence fills my world with emptiness,
The distance between us an infinity unbridged;
On your return my empty soul will be charged,
And your nearness, the panacea for my every illness.