A MUSICAL JOKE

“The goal of all good music is to affect the soul.” - Claudio Monteverdi
 
For Music Saturday today one of the Scherzi Musicali (“musical jokes”) of Claudio Monteverdi (15 May 1567– 29 November 1643). It is his “Damigella Tuttal Bella” or “Fairest Damsel”. It has quite a catchy tune and an infectious rhythm, perfect for Spring!

ASPARAGUS RISOTTO

“Asparagus inspires gentle thoughts.” - Charles Lamb
 
Asparagus is in season now and as we love this wonderful Spring vegetable, we often have it. Here is a simple yet delicious recipe using asparagus, which we had for dinner tonight. The flavour of asparagus complements that of the parmesan and wine beautifully!
 
Asparagus Risotto
Ingredients
 
500 g asparagus, thick ends removed, spears chopped
1/3 cup unsalted butter
2 spring onions, finely chopped
1/3 cup arborio rice
1 cup dry white wine
1/3 cup grated Parmesan cheese
Salt and black pepper, to taste
 
Directions
Bring a large pot of water to a boil. Add asparagus and cook until slightly softened, 3 to 4 minutes. Reserve 2 cups cooking water and set aside. Drain asparagus and rinse under cold water. Set aside.
Melt butter in a medium saucepan over medium heat. Add spring onion and cook until softened but not browned, 3 to 5 minutes, stirring. Add rice and cook 3 minutes, stirring.
Add wine, bring to a boil over high, then reduce to a simmer. Cook until liquid is almost evaporated, stirring to prevent burning, 6 to 8 minutes.
Add reserved cooking water 1/4 cup at a time to saucepan, allowing each batch of liquid to be cooked out before adding the next 1/4 cup. Continue until the total 2 cups of cooking liquid has been used, stirring almost constantly. The process should take 15 to 20 minutes.
Add reserved asparagus and cheese to saucepan; stir to incorporate and warm through. Season with salt and pepper and serve immediately.

This post is part of  the Food Friday meme,
and also of the Food Trip Friday meme.

ST FRANCIS OF ASSISI

“Be praised, my Lord, through our Sister Bodily Death, from whose embrace no living person can escape.” – Canticle of the Sun, St Francis of Assisi

October 4th is the feast day of Saint Francis of Assisi (born Giovanni Francesco di Bernardone; 1181 – died: October 3, 1226). He was born to Bernardone, who was a wealthy cloth merchant of Assisi, a prosperous town of Umbria in Italy. He brought up his son in luxury intending him to follow his footsteps in the family business. Francis was a good-looking boy and he had for companions all the noblemen’s sons. It’s not surprising that he spent a considerable portion of his wealth in extravagant pleasures.
 

One day Francis when was merrymaking with his friends, a beggar came along crying for alms. Francis, who was soft-hearted, gave whatever he had in his pocket to the beggar. His companions mocked at him for his charitable act. However, this chance encounter caused him to think about the poverty and misery all around him, which until now he had ignored. He started to make amends and began to give much money to the poor. His father was alarmed by his son’s change of heart and felt the family’s fortune was being squandered, causing him to rebuke Francis.
 

Shortly after this, Francis became bedridden for many months on account of a serious disease, even his life being at risk at one stage. He managed to recover but his entire nature had changed and he decided to devote his life to God. Francis prayed to for light and guidance as to his future. He had a vision of Jesus who bade him go out and devote his life to the poor and miserable. He thus decided to renounce his old ways and spend the rest of his life dedicated to the service of humanity.

Francis’ parents were at first gravely disappointed and tried to dissuade him. When he stood firm by his decision, they became angry with him. Francis, however, was steadfast and began his new life by distributing his extravagant clothes, rich personal goods and much money to the poor. Francis’ father was incensed and said to his son: “Is this the gratitude you show to me ? I laboured hard and amassed wealth. You are lavishly wasting it on these miserable wretches.” Francis’ friends mocked at him when his father finally turned him out of the house and without anybody to turn to he started to live like a beggar. His old friends even pelted him with stones and mud. He bore everything with patience.

Francis went and lived in a cave in the mountains near Assisi and spent his time in prayer and meditation for two years. Sometimes kind peasants gave him food, but often he had to starve. Francis called his body “brother ass”, recognising it is the body and its needs and desires that resembles most the brute animals. He kept this “brother ass” under perfect discipline often fasting and braving the bitter cold.
 

He loved all God’s creatures, the birds and beasts, the poor and lowly, the depressed and the outcasts. He treated birds, beasts and all beings as his brothers and sisters. Francis went from village to village preaching the word of God which he summarised with one word: “Love”. He invited people to join him in his life of service if they were willing. Bernard, a rich man of Assisi, was very much attracted by the saintliness of Francis. He joined Francis and became his first follower. He donated all his wealth to the needy. Eleven others also joined Francis and Bernard, they too distributing all their wealth to the poor.
 

Francis and his followers went all over Italy preaching, teaching, healing and blessing wherever they went. The gospel of kindness and love of Francis soon spread all over Europe and earned for him the name of St. Francis. People called him the “little poor man of Assisi”. St. Francis collected many followers and founded the Order of Mendicant Friars or Franciscans. The members of this Order have to take a vow of poverty, chastity, love and obedience. St. Francis gave up his mortal coil in 1228. The followers of St. Francis built a beautiful church round him on the hill of Assisi, the hill he so dearly loved.
 

St Francis is the patron saint of animals, merchants and stowaways! In a famous anecdote from his life, Francis is said to have preached to hundreds of birds, his sermon being about how the birds should be thankful to God for their wonderful clothes, for their independence, and for God’s care of their every need. The story tells us the birds stood still as he walked amongst them, only flying off when he said they could leave. Another story involves a wolf that had been devouring people. Francis intervened when the town wanted to kill the wolf and talked the wolf into never killing again. The wolf became a pet of the townspeople who made sure that he always had plenty to eat…
 

On June 18, 1939, Pope Pius XII named Francis a joint Patron Saint of Italy along with Saint Catherine of Siena with the apostolic letter “Licet Commissa”, AAS XXXI (1939), 256-257. Pope Pius mentioned the two saints in the laudative discourse he pronounced on May 5, 1949, in the Church of Santa Maria sopra Minerva. St. Francis is honoured in the Church of England, the Anglican Church of Canada, the Episcopal Church USA, the Old Catholic Churches, the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America, and other churches and religious communities on October 4. The Evangelical Church in Germany, however, commemorates St. Francis’ feast day on his death day, October 3.

ON EDUCATION

“Only the educated are free.” - Epictetus
 
I am in Adelaide for work and so far it has been a very enjoyable experience. I love the part of my job where I interact with other academics from other institutions and where I discuss matters of common interest that relate to higher education and way this can be made relevant to all levels of society. These meetings that I am attending are about collaborations between different providers of tertiary education and how these common programs that are developed by them can be used to offer the chance of a university education to everyone, even the “non-traditional” university students.
 
It is quite important, I think, to be able to offer accessible tertiary education to people who have not had another member of their family study at university before, to people with disabilities, women who are raising or have raised a family, and people who have been in the workforce for many years and have never had a chance to educate themselves. In the latter case it is also interesting to see the increasing numbers of retired people who come to universities to study. In these cases it is sometimes surprising to see that these students are very passionate, committed and highly motivated, often achieving brilliant results.
 
An educated society is one that is highly civilised, tolerant and flexible, adaptive to change and capable of achieving great things on social, cultural, artistic, political and developmental levels. While a university education is not the be all and end all of “education” it can give people the chance to expand their minds and be exposed to the world of exciting and daring ideas. I have known some people who although have not been to university are more “educated” than many university graduates. I am also aware of such cases who have gone to university after retirement and it is then that one sees an amazing growth and wonderful flowering of the intellect, all stimulated by the university milieu, which is conducive to the development of the mind.
 
On reflection, I have also had personal experience of the converse: Very narrow-minded people who have come to university and have failed to become “educated” although they pass their examinations and they get a degree or two. It is often these people that show the very worse side of human nature, their lack of “education” aided and abetted by their selfishness, their arrogance and cupidity. Unfortunately they often succeed to climb high in the social ladder and their malign influence may be seen in many professions, the political arena and unfortunately even the academic world…
 
Education to me represents an opportunity: A ladder by which one may reach the fruit of the tree of knowledge. Making that ladder available to as many people as possible is the responsibility of an enlightened society. That some may taste that fruit after it falls from the tree or should they steal it instead of gathering it themselves represents the side of human nature that is not particularly attractive. However, such rotting or stolen fruit of the tree of knowledge will almost certainly cause indigestion and will not be assimilated by the person consuming it.

THE FOOD OF LOVE

“And where two waging fires meet together They do consume the thing that feeds their fury.” – William Shakespeare
 

“It Must Be Time For Lunch Now”, 1979, by Francesca Woodman is what Magpie Tales has chosen to trigger a response from those who join her creative writing meme. Here is my contribution.
 

All-Consuming Love
 

The forks of Spring are whetted
With tines sparkling sharp,
Like the ravenous spikes of my appetite,
For love…
 
As nights grow short, like my patience,
The days growl with increasing strength,
With accelerating insistence, their every minute elongated,
For love…
 
My body cries out to be devoured
By all-consuming, flagrant passions,
Burnt to a cinder by raging conflagrations,
For love…
 
As Spring ripens, like a cherry reddening,
And buds give way to flowers and seed,
My cells swell and pullulate, dividing,
For love…
 
My heart cries out to be crushed
Like a ripe pomegranate whose ruby seeds,
Yearn to be sucked dry of their ichor
For love…
 
For all-consuming love eats and is itself eaten –
Like acid quickly dissolving all it touches and is itself neutralised,
Yet retaining all elemental constituents,
Becoming enriched by that dissolved.
And upon sublimation the thing devoured is reconstituted
By strange alchemies of erosion, purification and crystallisation,
For what else is love?

MOVIE MONDAY - SHANGHAI

“One should rather die than be betrayed. There is no deceit in death. It delivers precisely what it has promised. Betrayal, though ... betrayal is the willful slaughter of hope.” - Steven Deitz
 
The Film Noir is a genre of movie that is characterised cynical heroes, stark lighting effects, frequent use of flashbacks, intricate plots, and an underlying existentialist philosophy. The genre was prevalent mostly in American crime dramas of the post-World War II era. Early examples of the noir style included dark, stylised detective films such as John Huston’s “The Maltese Falcon” (1941), Frank Tuttle’s “This Gun for Hire” (1942), Otto Preminger’s “Laura” (1944), and Edward Dmytryk’s “Murder, My Sweet” (1944).
 
Banned in occupied countries during the war, these films became available throughout Europe beginning in 1946. French cinephiles admired them for their cold, cynical characters and dark, brooding style, and they afforded the films effusive praise in French journals such as “Cahiers du Cinéma”. French critics coined the term “film noir” in reference to the low-keyed lighting used to enhance these dramas stylistically, although the term would not become commonplace in international critical circles until the publication of the book “Panorama du Film Noir Americain” (1955) by Raymond Borde and Étienne Chaumeton.
 
The style began to go out of fashion in the mid-50s and it was not until the 70s and 80s that occasional homages and references to film noir started to be more common. Perhaps the best contemporary examples of the genre are Curtis Hanson’s “L.A. Confidential” (1997), a bleak story of corrupt cops, and Joel and Ethan Coen’s “The Man Who Wasn’t There” (2001), a similarly dark story inspired by the crime novels of James M. Cain. Both films are presented in classic film noir style, the latter in black-and-white.
 
We watched Mikael Håfström’s 1940s period piece made in the film noir tradition, “Shanghai” of 2010 (http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1092634/) starring John Cusack, Li Gong and Yun-Fat Chow. This film was a somewhat troubled project, with its making being blocked just weeks before production was scheduled to begin. The crew and actors were relocated to Thailand and London, followed by delays on its release date.  The film is an acceptable neo-noir spy story set in 1941 in Shanghai. The story unfolds in a more or less natural and realistic way while conceding to the elements of film noir. It’s hard not to make comparisons with films like “Casablanca” and “The Third Man” because the screenwriter and director were obviously inspired by such films.
 
The film is a “spy versus spy” story, set against Shanghai in 1941, where the city has yet to fall to the Japanese, and thus becoming a hotbed of intrigue, espionage, wild entertainment and home to a burgeoning resistance movement. The many foreign residents still in the city have set up their own protective enclaves and trouble brews when one nationality ventures into another’s sector. John Cusack plays the lead character, Paul Soames, a naval intelligence agent sent to Shanghai to investigate the death of his good friend Connor (Jeffrey Dean Morgan). A series of intriguing events unfold, dealing with crossed loyalties and opportunistic alliances. Going under the cover of a journalist with pro-Nazi sentiments, he works his way to the upper echelons of German society in the city, and from there, linking himself up with the Germans’ new ally, Japan. Paul is on the verge of discovering something big, but human relationships and unrequited love get in the way of the real business of war.
 
Local triad leader Anthony Lan-Ting (Chow Yun-Fat) and his wife Anna (Gong Li) become associated with Paul. Tanaka, a Japanese intelligence officer (Ken Watanabe) becomes suspicious and wants to find out the truth behind Anna’s flirtatiousness and Paul’s seeming infatuation with her. Meanwhile on the world stage, bigger things are afoot...
 
We enjoyed the film, although it was not as meaty as we would have liked it to be. It is a good B-grade film noir and has extremely talented actors acting well in costumes and settings that are believable, in a homage to the film noir genre. It is entertaining but lacks real depth and poignancy.

ART SUNDAY - KLIMT

“Mother is the home we come from. She is nature, soil, ocean.” - Erich Fromm
 
Gustav Klimt (1862-1918) was one of the most innovative and controversial artists of the early twentieth century. He was the son of a gold and silver engraver and was born in a suburb of Vienna, Austria. He studied at the State School of Applied Arts in Vienna.
 
In 1882, Klimt opened a studio of his own with his brother Ernst, and Franz Matsch, a fellow student. They specialised on executing mural paintings. They were quite successful from the beginning and received commissions from theaters, museums and other public and semi-public institutions. In the 1890s he produced murals for public buildings, including Vienna’s Burgtheater and new Kunsthistorisches Museum (Art History Museum), in the prevailing classical-realist style.
 
Klimt’s style grew increasingly experimental, however, and his murals for Vienna University, commissioned by the State in 1894, were roundly attacked by critics for their fantastical imagery and their bold, highly decorative style. Partly in response to this reaction, in 1897 Klimt helped form the Secession, a group of artists dedicated to challenging the conservative Academy of Fine Arts. Influenced by European avant-garde movements represented in the annual Secession exhibitions, Klimt’s mature style combined richly decorative surface patterning with complex symbolism and allegory, often with overtly erotic content.
 
After 1900 he concentrated on portraits and landscapes, although he also produced two of his greatest murals during this period, “The Beethoven Frieze”, exhibited at the Secession in 1902, and decorations for the Palais Stoclet in Brussels (1904-1911). Klimt spent most of his summers on the Attersee, near Salzburg, where he drew inspiration for many of his landscapes, and where he painted some of his best-known works, including “The Kiss” of 1907-8.
 
Klimt’s works were highly controversial during his lifetime because of the open display of nudity and the subtle sexuality and eroticism they contained. The artist created few paintings on the traditional canvas support. He saw himself more as a mural painter and decorative artist. He designed posters and worked as an illustrator for magazines - best known “Ver Sacrum” (The Rite of Spring). Ver Sacrum was published from 1898 to 1903.
 
From 1900 to 1903 Gustav Klimt worked on commissions by the Vienna University for a series of ceiling murals. For his mural works Klimt used a wide variety of media – including metal, glass and ceramics. The Austrian Emperor Franz Joseph II disliked Klimt’s art work intensely and abhorred the Secessionists deeply. His drivers had orders not to pass any buildings showing Secessionist art!
 
Here is a tenderly maternal detail from Klimt’s “The Three Ages of Woman”. This is rich in his trademark ornamentation and swirls of golden objects, floral motifs and bold colours. The portraits while striking in their positioning and boldness of composition are nevertheless reminiscent of a Madonna and child and convey the concept of maternal love beautifully.

A RESTFUL SATURDAY

“Rest: the sweet sauce of labour” - Plutarch
 
A restful day today, spent indoors as the weather was not for outings. A beautiful baroque song for Song Saturday today. Whether it is by Bach (as it has been attributed for many years) or whether it is by Stölzel (as recent research shows), it is a lovely aria. Here it is sung by Plácido Domingo and Sissel Kyrkjebø.

Bist du bei mir, geh ich mit Freuden
Zum Sterben und zu meiner Ruh.
Ach, wie vergnügt wär so mein Ende,
Es drückten deine schönen Hände
Mir die getreuen Augen zu.
 

When thou art near, I go with joy
To death and to my rest.
O how pleasant would my end be,
If your fair hands
Would close my faithful eyes.
 
“Bist du bei mir” (BWV 508) is an aria in the Notebook for Anna Magdalena Bach. It was therefore attributed to Johann Sebastian Bach, but the melody is part of the Gottfried Heinrich Stölzel opera “Diomedes, oder die triumphierende Unschuld” that was performed in Bayreuth on November 16, 1718. The opera score is lost. The aria had been part of the Berlin Singakademie music library and was considered lost in the Second World War, until it was rediscovered in 2000 in the Kiev Conservatory. The continuo part of BWV 508 is more agitated and continuous in its voice leading than the Stölzel aria; it is uncertain who provided it, as the entry in the Notebook is by Anna Magdalena Bach herself. In an essay in the Bach-Jahrbuch 2002, Andreas Glöckner speculates that either she obtained the song from the inventory of the Leipzig Opera that had gone bankrupt in 1720, or that it simply was a favourite known to nearly everybody in Leipzig that was particularly suitable for Hausmusik.

FOOD FRIDAY - PINEAPPLE CAKE

“Climate is what we expect, weather is what we get.” - Mark Twain
 
Spring has definitely sprung in Melbourne, with the temperature climbing to 27˚C yesterday, which was a bit of a shock to everyone’s system as the weather has been long and cold. This is the first really warm day we have had for months and the sun was quite hot in the open. However, true to the changeable nature of the weather in Melbourne, the clouds billowed in and there's a bit of a stormy start to the day today with the weather going back to its usual 15˚C-16˚C maxima over the next few days.
 
For Food Friday today, here is a definite favourite of ours, which while being an everyday simple cake it can also look quite good at a formal afternoon tea party or even as a dessert at a dinner party.
 
Pineapple Upside-Down Cake
 
Ingredients
440g can pineapple slices in juice
2 tsp orange essence
1 tbsp orange liqueur
Glacé cherries
1/3 cup firmly packed brown sugar
100g butter, softened
1/2 cup caster sugar

2 eggs, lightly beaten
1 and 1/4 cups self-raising flour, sifted
1/2 tsp vanilla essence
Double cream to serve (optional)
 
Method
Mix the orange essence and orange liqueur with the juice of the pineapple while it is still in the can and let is stand for about an hour.
Preheat fan-forced oven to 180°C. Grease a 6cm-deep, 20cm (base) round ring pan. Line base with baking paper.
Drain pineapple, reserving 2 tablespoons juice. Cut each pineapple piece in quarters.
Sprinkle brown sugar over base of baking upside-down prepared pan. Arrange the pineapple pieces, just touching, over sugar and place glacé cherries at strategic points.
Using an electric mixer, beat butter and caster sugar for 3 minutes or until light and fluffy.
Add eggs, 1 at a time, beating after each addition. Add vanilla essence.
Add flour and reserved pineapple juice. Stir to combine. Spread mixture over pineapple.
Bake for 35 to 40 minutes or until a skewer inserted in cake comes out clean. Stand in pan for 5 minutes. Turn out onto a wire rack to cool.
Serve with double cream on the side if desired.
 
This post is part of the Food Friday meme,
and also part of the Food Trip Friday meme.

WORLD TOURISM DAY 2012

“The worst thing about being a tourist is having other tourists recognize you as a tourist. “ - Russell Baker
 

The United Nations World Tourism Organisation (UNWTO) has celebrated World Tourism Day on September 27 since 1980. This date was chosen as on that day in 1970, the Statutes of the UNWTO were adopted. The adoption of these Statutes is considered a milestone in global tourism. The UNWTO believes that the date for World Tourism Day is appropriate because it comes at the end of the high tourist season in the northern hemisphere and the start of the tourist season in the southern hemisphere, when tourism is of topical interest to many people worldwide, particularly travellers and those working in the tourism sector.
 

The purpose of this day is to raise awareness on the role of tourism within the international community and to demonstrate how it affects social, cultural, political and economic values worldwide. At its Twelfth Session in Istanbul, Turkey, in October 1997, the UNWTO General Assembly decided to designate a host country each year to act as the Organisation’s partner in the celebration of World Tourism Day.

At its Fifteenth Session in Beijing, China, in October 2003, the Assembly decided the following geographic order to be followed for World Tourism Day celebrations: 2006 in Europe; 2007 in South Asia; 2008 in the Americas; 2009 in Africa and 2011 in the Middle East.
 

This year’s theme aims to highlight tourism’s role in a brighter energy future; a future in which the world’s entire population has access to modern, efficient and affordable energy services. Tourism, one of the world’s largest economic sectors, has already taken important steps towards this future – improving energy efficiency and increasingly using renewable energy technologies in its operations. These steps are creating jobs, lifting people out of poverty and helping to protect the planet.
 

Various activities are promoted around the world by various tourist organisations. Different types of competitions, such as photo competitions promoting tourism, as well as tourism award presentations in areas such as ecotourism, are held on World Tourism Day. Other activities include free entries, discounts or special offers for the general public to any site of tourism interest. Government and community leaders, as tourism business representatives, may make public announcements or offer special tours or fares to promote both their region and World Tourism Day on or around September 27.

FALLING

“Gravitation cannot be held responsible for people falling in love.” - Albert Einstein

The creative meme of Magpie Tales this week has chosen “Flying Down”, 2006, by David Salle to stimulate the imagination of participants. Here is my contribution:
 

The Fall
 

The shot rang out

Crashing into the silence

Like a falling crystal chandelier

On marble floor.

Icarus fell precipitously

With a comet trail of feathers

And a gush of blood

Swallowed up by a hungry sea.

My fear of flying

Proved justified as I fell,

After I fell for you,

And then fell out of your favour.
 

A vortex swallows up all my debris

The hungry maws of Charybdis

Consume all of my hopes

My dreams fuel the gnashing Scylla’s jaws.
 

A flight of fancy,

An ill-fated pleasure trip,

A fall, a rough landing, a crash,

And a death foretold by myth, or was it the tarot?

MOVIE MONDAY - BEDTIME STORIES

“Never work with animals or children.” – WC Fields
 
We watched a movie on the hotel cable TV while we were away. It was not really our choice, it corresponded with the time we had available and what was on at the time, and seeing how it seemed light and fluffy and not requiring much concentration we sat through it. Nothing special, gave us a few smiles rather than belly laughs and it helped to pass the time. The film was targeted towards children, a little in the mould of Roald Dahl’s “Matilda”, but whereas “Matilda” was innovative and funny and wickedly amusing, this movie we watched was more like the Hollywood cookie cutter movies. There were some mischievous children involved and an adorable (?) animal involved, but the movie was very much Adam Sandler’s own.
 
The film was the Adam Shankman 2008 “Bedtime Stories”, starring Adam Sandler, Keri Russell, Courteney Cox, Teresa Palmer, Jonathan Morgan Heit and Laura Ann Kesling. Even though we re not Adam Sandler fans, he handled the role well and interacted well with the children and the animals, managing to hold onto his own, despite WC Fields’ injunction!
 
The plot centres on Skeeter Bronson (Sandler), the son of a small hotel owner who is promised as a child by his father Marty to be the manager of the family hotel. Economic difficulties force Marty to sell the hotel to Mr Nottingham (Griffiths) who has the hotel chain Nottingham Hotels. 25 years later, Mr. Nottingham plans to build a new hotel and wishes to appoint another man, the fawning Kendall to become the manager, because he is dating his daughter (Palmer). Skeeter’s sister (Cox) asks him to watch her kids, because the school at which she is the principal is being closed and she is looking for a job in Arizona.
 
The first night, Skeeter tells a bedtime story taking place in medieval times, with some additions from his nephew and niece. It comes true. Mr. Nottingham gives Skeeter a shot at the manager position because Skeeter gives him some insightful comments that Kendall did not have the nous to see. The next night, at the hotel, he tells another story set in the Old West, and he expectantly waits for it to come true, however, things don’t go according to plan... The night after that, out on a campfire, he tells the kids another story set in ancient Greece, and he ends up falling for his sister’s friend and colleague Jill (Russell). The last night, he tells them a story set in deep space, and unfortunately makes the discovery, and his nephew and niece change the ending to him being hit by a gigantic ball of fire. Nevertheless, not all is lost – this is a feel-good movie after all.

The film should be enjoyable for families with young kids and perfect for a rainy weekend as the family gathers around the TV for some entertainment together.

ART SUNDAY - EUGENE VON GUÉRARD

“Rest not. Life is sweeping by; go and dare before you die. Something mighty and sublime, leave behind to conquer time.” – Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
 

Whenever I visit another city I try and make some time to also visit the gallery there. We are very lucky in Australia, as each state capital has a magnificent state gallery, which is well run, has some wonderful art works in its permanent collection and periodically hosts visiting exhibitions. The Art Gallery of Western Australia in Perth is no exception and for Art Sunday today I am highlighting a painting from its collection. It is Eugene von Guérard’s, “Fern Tree Gully, Cape Otway Ranges”, painted around 1870.
 

Eugene von Guérard was born in Vienna in 1811. He was the son of the court painter to Emperor Franz Joseph I of Austria, Bernard von Guérard, and became a painter himself, studying under Johann Schirmer at the Academy in Düsseldorf. He also travelled extensively on the continent and spent some years in Italy before coming to Australia in 1852, lured by the discovery of gold on the Victorian goldfields around Ballarat, and hoping to make his fortune by prospecting for the precious metal.
 

After a year of unsuccessful prospecting, he resumed his painting career in Melbourne in 1854, and by 1870 was appointed First Master of Painting at the National Gallery School, Melbourne and Curator of the National Gallery of Victoria. He received commissions for landscapes and studies of pastoral properties. He quickly became respected for the meticulous accuracy and fine scientific detail of his landscapes. He returned to Europe in 1882.
 

This work of Eugene von Guérard encapsulates the application of European artistic traditions (especially German Romanticism), and the “sublime movement” to the Australian landscape. It is also an example of the series of works that show this the artist as a recorder of the approach of European settlement. Eugene von Guérard’s training was imbued with the philosophy of the German Romantics epitomized by the work and teachings of Caspar David Friedrich. Landscape painting, for Friedrich, was an intermediary between man and God, a way of expressing the spirituality of the land as well as humanity’s place in it. In line with this, Von Guérard’s training at the Düsseldorf Academy focussed on the intensive study of the elements of nature in order to know nature as a physical reality and spiritual truth. Nature was a living organism with cycles of life and death that were part of God’s grand design.
 

The sublime movement found expression through the work of European artists like Salvator Rosa and de Loutherbourg who wished to portray the magnitude and awe-inspiring strength of nature as God’s ultimate creation. Artists interested in representing the sublime through the Australian environment often decried the lack of dramatic landforms such as tall mountains, deep gorges, waterfalls and rushing torrents, as exist in the USA, for example. However, the English philosopher Edmund Burke advocated that silence and stillness could also encapsulate the sublime. von Guérard tried to capture the sublime moment though expressions of stillness, silence and transcendence.
 

God in nature could also be expressed in the symmetry of natural forms like rock faces and the arches formed by trees that often frame von Guérard’s compositions. To further reinforce the cyclical nature of the world, his compositions are frequently circular, moving from a central focus of interest, through other elements towards the infinity of the view back to the focal point. “Fern Tree Gully, Cape Otway Ranges” typifies this approach, the eye moves from the human element framed by a canopy of ferns and trees towards the peak in the middle of the picture and the unfolding Otway Ranges in the distance.
 

In the mid nineteenth century Victorian Britain had a craze for ferns. Houses were decorated with fern plants and motifs, special botanical gardens were established and artists incorporated fern elements in paintings, china, furniture and fabrics. This craze was transferred to Australia and as the hinterland was explored, new ferns found their way into domestic gardens and houses. The well-to-do had special “ferneries” built in their gardens where a variety of native ferns were cultivated.
 

Eugene von Guérard reflected this fashion in 1857 when he exhibited a painting of a fern tree gully in Melbourne’s Dandenong Ranges. That work is now in the National Gallery of Australia collection. The painting above “Fern Tree Gully, Cape Otway Ranges” is a companion piece and was completed after visits to Victoria’s Otway Ranges in October 1859 and April 1862 when von Guérard went on an expedition with the scientist Professor von Neumayer and fellow artist, Nicholas Chevalier. Von Guérard made numerous sketches of the wild and impenetrable forest area, these drawings are now in the Dixson Galleries in Sydney.

SAD SUNSET

“You know, I love the sunset when I am very sad…” – Antoine de St Exupéry
 

Even though the day in Perth today started out with rain and wind, the afternoon was simply beautiful. I walked along the banks of the Swan River and enjoyed the serenity of it. As the afternoon wore on into the evening, the sun set and the air became cool again. I then felt quite far away and a little lonely…
 

Here is the perfect piece for that wistful feeling as the orange fire of the sunset gives way to the blues and mauves of twilight: The second movement of Marcello’s concerto for oboe and strings.

MANGO PUDDING

“Behave so the aroma of your actions may enhance the general sweetness of the atmosphere.” - Henry David Thoreau
 
I am in Perth for work again and the weather here has been terrible. Wind, rain and cold. So much for the sunny West and the Spring Equinox! To be fair, the weather here is usually warmer and milder, but chance would have it that the weather is terrible when I visit.
 
I had a wonderful dessert at the hotel tonight and the reason I wanted to try it is because we make it at home and it is delicious and quite light. I was not disappointed with my dessert at the restaurant, however, it was nothing compared to the home-made variety.
 
Mango Pudding
 
Ingredients
4 small bowls
1 large, ripe, sweet mango
1 packet of instant mango jelly (orange will do if you can’t find mango)
A few drops of vanilla essence
Juice of half a lime
250ml of hot water
4 tablespoons of a quality full cream vanilla ice-cream
 
Method

Peel mango and cut one slice, reserving it for decoration.
Remove flesh from the mango and place into a blender, blending on low speed for 30 seconds.
In a 500 ml glass measuring jug, add the packet of mango jelly and 250ml of hot water and stir well until the mixture dissolves completely.
Add 4 tablespoons of full cream vanilla ice-cream to the jelly mixture and stir the mixture until the ice cream melts.
Add the mango pulp and stir through, adding the lime juice and vanilla essence.
Pour the mixture into four bowls, gently tapping on the bench to remove bubbles.
Cover with plastic wrap and refrigerate for at least three hours to set. The mango pudding is set when it is no longer runny and a bit springy.
Serve the mango pudding decorated with slices of mango, a dollop of cream and mint leaves.
 
This post is part od the Food Friday meme,
and also part of the Food Trip Friday meme.

ST EUSTACE

“Valour is stability, not of legs and arms, but of courage and the soul.” - Michel de Montaigne
 
Saint Eustace, also known as St Eustathius, was a Christian martyr who lived in the 2nd century AD. The saint is venerated in the Roman Catholic Church and is also commemorated in the Orthodox Church, on September 20.
 

According to legend, prior to his conversion to Christianity, Eustace was a Roman general named Placidus, who served the emperor Trajan. While hunting a stag in Tivoli near Rome, Placidus saw a vision of Jesus crucified, between the stag’s antlers. He was immediately converted, had himself and his family baptised, and changed his name to Eustace (Greek: Ευστάθιος - Eustathios, “most stable”, or Ευστάχιος, Eustachios, “rich crop”).
 
A series of calamities followed to test his faith: His wealth was stolen; his servants died of a plague; when the family took a sea voyage, the ship’s captain kidnapped Eustace’s wife Theopista; and as Eustace crossed a river with his two sons Agapius and Theopistus, the children were taken away by a wolf and a lion. Like Job, Eustace lamented but did not lose his faith. He was then quickly restored to his former prestige and reunited with his family; but when he demonstrated his new faith by refusing to make a pagan sacrifice, the emperor, Hadrian, condemned Eustace, his wife, and his sons to be roasted to death inside a bronze statue of a bull or an ox, in the year AD 118. The d’Afflitto dynasty, one of the oldest princely families in Italy, claims to be the direct descendant of Saint Eustace.
 
He is one of the patron saints of Madrid, Spain. Scenes from the story, especially Eustace kneeling before the stag, became a popular subject of medieval religious art. Early artistic depictions of the legend include a wall painting at Canterbury Cathedral and stained glass windows at the Cathedral of Chartres. He is considered to be the patron saint of hunters.
 
St Eustache in Paris is a church in the 1st arrondissement. The present building was built between 1532 and 1632. Situated at the entrance to Paris’s ancient markets (Les Halles) and the beginning of rue Montorgueil, St Eustache is considered a masterpiece of late Gothic architecture. The church’s reputation was strong enough of the time for it to be chosen as the location for a young Louis XIV to receive communion. Mozart also chose the sanctuary as the location for his mother’s funeral. Among those baptised here as children were Richelieu, Jeanne-Antoinette Poisson, future Madame de Pompadour and Molière, who was also married here in the 17th century. The last rites for Anne of Austria, Turenne and Mirabeau were pronounced within its walls. Marie de Gournay is buried there. The island of Sint Eustatius in the Caribbean Netherlands is named after him.
 
The Catholic church also celebrates a second St Eustace. While his date of birth unknown, it is recorded he died 29 March, 625 AD. He was second abbot of the Irish monastery of Luxeuil in France, and his feast is commemorated in the Celtic martyrologies on the 29th of March. He was one of the first companions of St. Columbanus, a monk of Bangor (Ireland), who with his disciples did much to spread the Gospel over Central and Southern Europe. When Columbanus, the founder of Luxeuil, was banished from the Kingdom of Burgundy, on account of his reproving the morals of King Thierry, the exiled abbot recommended his community to choose Eustace as his successor.

POETRY WEDNESDAY

“I like to think that the moon is there even if I am not looking at it” - Albert Einstein
 
Magpie Tales this week has chosen Salvador Dalí’s “Venus and The Sailor” of 1925 as the stimulus for sparking the imagination of participants in her creative writing meme. Although Dalí is predominantly known for his surrealistic paintings, this particular work shows clear evidence of Picasso’s cubist influences.
 
Salvador Dali (Born: 11 May 1904; Figueres, Spain, Died: 23 January 1989; Figueres, Spain) had an artistic repertoire that included sculpture, painting, photography, multimedia work, and collaborations with other artists, most notably independent surrealist film-makers. Dali was born into a quasi-surreal existence. His brother, also named Salvador, died as a toddler, nine months before Dali’s birth. His parents told him he was the reincarnation of his older brother, which he also came to believe.
 
As a child, Dali attended drawing school, and by the age of thirteen, Dali’s father was arranging exhibitions of his charcoal drawings. In 1922, Dali went to study at the School of Fine Arts in San Fernando, where he was known as a bit of a dandy, wearing long hair and sideburns, and stockings with knee breeches in the style of 19th century aesthetes. 
During his stay at the academy, Dali tried his hand in cubism and dada. But his stay was short lived, after he was expelled a few weeks before final exams, for stating that no one in the school was qualified enough to examine him.
 
After his expulsion, he travelled to Paris, where he met Pablo Picasso and Joan Miró, who heavily influenced his painting styles. Dali continually borrowed from many painting styles. From impressionism to renaissance works, he combined all elements into single compositions, raising interesting critiques from art critics, who were unsure as how to received his works.
 
Always a dandy, Dali grew a large moustache, which was a trademark of his appearance for the rest of his life. 

In 1929, Dali began a relationship with the woman who would later become his wife, Gala. His father disapproved, and saw his connection with surrealism as a demoralising influence on his son. Upon hearing reports that Dali had created a work with an inscription insulting his mother, who had died eight years earlier of breast cancer, the elder Dali disowned and disinherited his son, telling him never to return home. Dali then married Gala and moved into a house at Port Lligat.
 
Dali spent the middle and late years of his life between the United States and his beloved Catalonia, Spain, collaborating with other artists, canoodling with social elites, and creating many stories for the newspapers. After his wife’s death in 1982, Dali lost much of his will to live, and purposely dehydrated himself almost to the point of death. There was also a mysterious fire in his apartment in 1984, from which he was saved, but many thought was a suicide attempt. He died of heart failure five years later at the age of 84 years.
 
I have “tampered” a little with Dalí’s painting, cropping it and changing the colour scheme and adding the moon, which was there even though Dalí was not looking at it. I am sure he wouldn’t mind…
 
A Flower in the Moonlight
 
We started playing with words again tonight,
The singer articulating softly our innermost desires,
Our hearts vocalising dumbly our sweetest bitter dreams.
The room so small, the light so dim,
The night so deep, the short space between us,
So immense it could in light years be measured...
 

We’ve played this scene so many times before,
Two actors on the stage fumbling with props
Struggling with our lines, trying inarticulately to improvise
Forgotten speeches that we would not dare to speak
Even if we had remembered them.
Your eyes avoid mine while a flower blooms in your hand.
 

Above us the air a prism, and a hundred light-bulb stars shine on a celluloid sky
A room with walls of music, the pasteboard moon for ceiling.
If we could only bridge the gap, dissolve the ice
If you could touch me now, think of what would be gained!

You stretch your hand, as years of silence crumble
A thousand nights, dead, are resurrected
And at last, this time on cue, you offer me
A flower in the moonlight.

ROSH HASHANAH 2012

“We will open the book. Its pages are blank. We are going to put words on them ourselves. The book is called Opportunity and its first chapter is New Year's Day.” - Edith Lovejoy Pierce

The Jewish New Year or Rosh Hashanah is a high Holy Day as it is regarded as the birthday of creation. In 2012 Rosh Hashanah began in the evening of Sunday, 16 September 2012, and ended in the evening of Tuesday, 18 September 2012. Rosh Hashanah is also a day of memorial, recalling to mind personal acts and reviewing events occurring since the beginning of time. Synagogue services express hope for the future and feature the story of Abraham’s intended sacrifice of Isaac. God’s providence is commemorated by the blowing of the ceremonial ram’s horn, the shofar.

At home, special prayers are recited for a good year ahead and wishes are pronounced over an apple dipped in honey, with the intention being for the year to be as sweet.  Special round, smooth loaves of bread are baked symbolising the smooth and prosperous New Year to be.  Orthodox Jews observe the festival for two days. The holiday also marks the start of the Ten Days of Repentance.  Sabbath-like restrictions on work for both days (today and tomorrow) in both Israel and the Diaspora.

Rosh Hashanah meals usually include apples and honey, to symbolise a sweet new year. Other foods with a symbolic meaning may be served, depending on local minhag (“custom”), such as the head of a fish (to symbolize the “head” of the year). The Sephardi and Mizrahi communities hold a “Rosh Hashanah seder” during which blessings are recited over a variety of symbolic dishes. The blessings start with the phrase “Yehi ratzon”, meaning “May it be thy will”. In many cases, the name of the food in Hebrew or Aramaic represents a play on words or pun. The Yehi Ratson platter may include apples (dipped in honey, baked or cooked as a compote called mansanada); dates; pomegranates; black-eyed peas; pumpkin-filled pastries called rodanchas; leek fritters called keftedes de prasa; beets; and a whole fish with the head intact. It is also common to eat stuffed vegetables called legumbres yaprakes.

Some of the symbolic foods eaten are dates, black-eyed peas, leek, spinach and gourd, all of which are mentioned in the Talmud. Pomegranates are used in many traditions, to symbolise being fruitful like the pomegranate with its many seeds. The use of apples and honey, symbolising a sweet year, is a late medieval Ashkenazi addition, though it is now almost universally accepted. Typically, round challah bread is served, to symbolize the cycle of the year. Gefilte fish and Lekach are commonly served by Ashkenazic Jews on this holiday. On the second night, new fruits are served to warrant inclusion of the shehecheyanu blessing.

Happy New Jewish Year to all readers of this blog who celebrate this holiday!

MOVIE MONDAY - LIMITLESS

“Continuous effort - not strength or intelligence - is the key to unlocking our potential” - Winston Churchill
 
We watched an interesting film last weekend, which combined action with science fiction, social criticism with popular culture and Hollywood capitalism with aspirations to art – a tough job to combine all of these attributes, perhaps… It was the 2011 Neil Burger film, “Limitless” starring Bradley Cooper, Anna Friel, Robert de Niro and Abbie Cornish. It had a screenplay by Leslie Dixon based on the novel “The Dark Fields” by Alan Glynn.
 
The plot centres on Eddie Morra (Bradley Cooper) a down-and-out writer with writer’s block. As his life spirals downwards, his girlfriend Lindy (Abbie Cornish) dumps him (nicely). Eddie sees his existence implode into his filthy apartment and he struggles to make ends meet. He encounters by chance his ex-wife’s brother Vernon (Johnny Whitworth) who gives Eddie a pill called NZT, a drug that is able to make the brain use 100% of its capacity. Eddie takes the pill and suddenly he becomes a genius each of his memories, anything seen and read or heard all become immediately available to him. He is able to learn languages in hours, his mathematical skills increase a hundredfold and he not only starts, but finishes writing a brilliant novel.
 
When the pill’s effects wear off, Eddie seeks out Vernon to get more of the drug. However, Vernon is murdered and Eddie manages to escape, taking a cache of pills with him. His new abilities allow him to make big profits on the stock market where he attracts the attention of big businessman Carl Van Loon (Robert DeNiro). Unfortunately, some unsavoury characters are also looking for him: Gennady (Andrew Howard), a gangster and his thugs and a strange man in a brown coat (Tomas Arana). Eddie wins Lindy back but struggles to maintain his sanity by regulating the intake of the drug, or getting it back when it is stolen from him…
 
The movie was quite engaging and its basic premise was interesting and developed well, at least initially. As the film progressed, the plot weakened and the ending was a bit of a cop out with such an overt reference to a sequel that it was almost insulting to the viewer. Nevertheless we were kept interested and entertained while we watched it. The acting was fine but the film was carried by the tight direction and a host of impressive visual effect sequences by Joe Willems (cinematographer) and Connie Brink (Special Effects Coordinator). This was a concession to Hollywood’s demands for an action, dick-flick genre denomination. The film is worth seeing, even if only for the slickness of its look, although keep in mind the weak ending.
 
Now in terms of the drug, NZT, it is interesting to think of the possibility of its future existence! However, I think that it may make the people who take it completely and utterly mad!

ART SUNDAY - WARHOL

“Everything popular is wrong.” - Oscar Wilde

Andy Warhol (August 6, 1928 – February 22, 1987) was born in Pittsburg (né Andrej Varchola, Jr). His parents were working-class Rusyn emigrants from Mikó (now called Miková), located in today’s northeastern Slovakia, part of the former Austro-Hungarian Empire. Warhol’s father immigrated to the United States in 1914, and his mother joined him in 1921, after the death of Warhol’s grandparents. Their family name was anglicised to “Warhola”. Warhol’s father worked in a coal mine. Andy Warhol had two older brothers — Pavol (Paul), the oldest, was born in Slovakia; Ján was born in Pittsburgh. Pavol’s son, James Warhola, became a successful children’s book illustrator.

Andy Warhol showed his talent for art at a young age, so it was not difficult for him to choose a career in commercial art, studying pictorial design at the Carnegie Institute of Technology, which is presently Carnegie Mellon University. After graduating Warhol moved to New York City and worked as an illustrator for various popular magazines such as Vogue, Harper’s Bazaar and The New Yorker. In 1949, the pop icon shortened his name to Warhol after a credit in Glamour magazine mistakenly read “Drawings by Warhol.”

In 1952, Warhol had his first individual show with the exhibit “Fifteen Drawings Based on the Writings of Truman Capote”. His first group show was at The Museum of Modern Art in 1956. During the 1960s, Warhol truly made a name for himself, with iconic works such as “Campbell's Soup Cans”, “Disasters” and “Marilyns”. He also shot several 16mm films, including Chelsea Girls, Empire and Blow Job.

Warhol started publishing Interview magazine in the early 1970s and once again, returned to painting. These later works included “Maos”, “Skulls”, “Hammer and Sickles” and “Torsos and Shadows”. In the latter part of his career, Warhol devoted much of his time to rounding up new, rich patrons for portrait commissions. By the 1980s, Warhol was being criticised for becoming merely a “business artist”.

Warhol's publication, “POPism: The Warhol 60s”, and his exhibitions “Portraits of Jews of the Twentieth Century” and “Retrospectives and Reversal Series” kicked off his 1980s work. He appeared on TV screen with his self-created cable shows, “Andy Warhol’s TV” and “Andy Warhol’s Fifteen Minutes”, for MTV. In the years leading to his death, Warhol's paintings included “The Last Suppers”, “Rorschachs” and “Ads”, which is considered to be his return to Pop.

Nearly 20 years before Warhol died, he was shot in his studio, which was known as the Factory. In 1968, Valerie Solanis, the founder and sole member of SCUM (Society for Cutting Up Men) shot and nearly killed the artist. Warhol died February 22, 1987 after a routine gall bladder surgery. 

In 1994, the Andy Warhol Museum opened in his hometown of Pittsburgh. Warhol combined his early experiences and influences into an art form that would be called American Pop Art. His canvases have become icons of twentieth century modern art and have been much imitated, to the extent of bathos (presuming they started higher than that – if you are not admirer of Warhol’s art). The painting illustrated above is in the Hamburger Bahnhof Museum für Gegenwart (Museum for Contemporary Art) in Berlin. Andy Warhol’s large “Mao” (1973) is one of the iconic trademarks of the museum.