BACH SERENITY

“Beautiful music is the art of the prophets that can calm the agitations of the soul; it is one of the most magnificent and delightful presents God has given us.” Martin Luther
 

A restful Saturday, much needed even after the four-day work week, which was quite exhausting.
 

A lovely piece of music by Johann Sebastian Bach tonight. It is the Trio Sonata No.3 in D minor, BWV527. I. Andante & II. Allegro played by London Baroque: Ingrid Seifert~Violin, Richard Gwilt~Violin, Charles Medlam~Cello, Terence Charlston~Harpsichord.
 

FOOD FRIDAY - BABA GHANOUSH

“Go vegetable heavy. Reverse the psychology of your plate by making meat the side dish and vegetables the main course.” - Bobby Flay
 
Baba ghanoush is a Middle Eastern dish of eggplant (aubergine) mashed and mixed with virgin olive oil and various seasonings. The Arabic term means “father of coquetry”, which has been interpreted to suggest that it was invented by a member of a harem. It is eaten as a dip with khubz or pita bread, and is sometimes added to other dishes. It is usually of an earthy light-brown color. It is popular in the Levant (area covering Lebanon, Syria, the Palestinian Territories, Jordan, Kurdistan, Egypt, and Israel), as well Turkey, Greece and other Mediterranean countries.
 
Baba Ghanoush
Ingredients
 
1 large eggplant
1/4 to 1/3 cup tahini, as needed
3 garlic cloves, minced
1/4 to 1/3 cup fresh lemon juice, as needed
1 pinch ground cumin
1 tsp sumac powder
salt, to taste
1 tablespoon extra virgin olive oil
1 tablespoon chopped fresh flat-leaf parsley
 
Method
Prepare a medium-hot fire in a grill.
Preheat the oven to 200°C.
Prick the eggplant with a fork in several places and place on the grill rack 12-15 cm from the fire.
Grill, turning frequently, until the skin blackens and blisters and the flesh just begins to feel soft, 10 to 15 minutes.
Transfer the eggplant to a baking sheet and bake until very soft, 15 to 20 minutes.
Remove from the oven, let cool slightly, and peel off and discard the skin.
Place the eggplant flesh in a bowl and using a fork, mash the eggplant to a paste.
Add the 1/4 cup tahini, the garlic, the 1/4 cup lemon juice and the cumin and mix well.
Season with salt, add the spices and then taste and add more tahini and/or lemon juice, if needed.
Transfer the mixture to a serving bowl and spread with the back of a spoon to form a shallow well.
Drizzle the olive oil over the top and sprinkle with the parsley.
Serve with toasted pita bread triangles and vegetable crudités.
 
This post is part of the Food Friday meme,
and also part of the Food Trip Friday meme.

A PERIWINKLE FOR SCHUBERT

“Education is the ability to listen to almost anything without losing your temper or your self-confidence.” - Robert Frost
 
Today is the anniversary of the birth of:
Lachlan Macquarie, Governor of NSW (1762);
Franz (Peter) Schubert, composer (1797);
Zane Grey, writer (1875);
Irving Langmuir, scientist (1881);
Anna Pavlova, ballerina (1882);
Eddie Cantor (Edward Israel Iskowitz), Broadway entertainer (1892);
Freya Stark, traveller/writer (1893);
Tallulah Bankhead, actress (1903);
Lord (Donald) Soper, Methodist minister/pacifist (1903);
John Henry O’ Hara, writer (1905);
(Elaine) Carol channing, actress (1921);
Mario Lanza (Alfredo Arnold Cocozza), singer (1921);
Norman Mailer, US writer (1923);
Jean Simmons, actress (1929);
Christopher Chataway, athlete (1931);
Philip Glass, US composer (1937);
Suzanne Pleshette, actress (1937);
Beatrix, Dutch queen (1938);
Phil Collins, singer (1951).
 
Catharanthus roseus (Vinca major), the white periwinkle is the birthday flower for today. It symbolises tender recollections and pleasant memories. Astrologically, the plant is ruled by Venus.  The vinca has yielded two important cancer-fighting drugs, vincristine and vinblastine, that are useful in many forms of cancer chemotherapy.
 
St John Bosco (1815-1888) is the patron saint of young boys, apprentices and editors. St John  Bosco was only two years old when his father died. His early life was full of poverty and it was at the age of 16 when he was able to enter the seminary in Turin to become a priest. Early in his career he established a boarding house for 40 neglected boys in Turin, with workshops in tailoring and shoemaking. In 1859 he established the Salesian Order which specialised in education and pastoral work.
 
Franz Peter Schubert (1797–1828) was an Austrian romantic composer. German lieder reached their greatest expression in his beautiful lyrical songs, especially in the great cycles Die Schöne Müllerin [Fair Maid of the Mill] (1823) and Die Winterreise [The Winter’s Journey] (1827). His symphonies are the final flowering of the classical sonata forms, and the Fifth (1816), Eighth (the Unfinished, 1822), and Ninth (1828) rank with the best orchestral music. His chamber works include the well-loved Quartet in D Minor (Death and the Maiden, 1824) and the Quintet in A Major (The Trout, 1819). Schubert also wrote stage music, choral music, Masses, and much piano music.

Here is Franz Schubert’s “Der Hirt auf dem Falsen”, D965 (The Shepherd On The Rock) with Helen Donath, soprano, Dieter Kloecker, clarinet and Klaus Donath, piano.

MACHU PICCHU'S SECRET

“A people without the knowledge of their past history, origin and culture is like a tree without roots.” - Marcus Garvey
 
Shades of Indiana Jones! The news item yesterday regarding the discovery of a secret underground burial chamber of many rooms in Machu Picchu certainly fired up my imagination. This discovery was made possible thanks to a French engineer, David Crespy, who in 2010 noticed the presence of a strange “shelter” located in the heart of the city, at the bottom of one of the main buildings. For him, there was no doubt about it, he was looking at a “door”, an entrance sealed by the Incas.
 
Thierry Jamin, a French archaeologist, who has investigated several burial sites in the North of Cusco, listened carefully to the story of David Crespy. He was keen to confirm the facts behind the story. Accompanied by archaeologists of the Regional Office of the Culture in Cusco, he was able to visit the site several times. His preliminary findings were unequivocal: There is indeed an entrance, blocked by the Incas at an undetermined moment of history.
 
The site is strangely similar to burial sites, such as the ones Thierry Jamin and his companions often find in the valleys of Lacco and Chunchusmayo. In order to confirm the existence of cavities in the basement of the building, in December 2011 Thierry and his team submitted and official request to the Ministry of Culture in Lima, to perform a geophysical survey with the help of electromagnetic conductivity instruments. This license was granted a few months later. Realised between April 9th and April 12th 2012, the electromagnetic survey not only confirmed the presence of an underground room, but several.
 
Just behind the entrance, a staircase was discovered. The two main paths seem to lead to specific chambers, including to the main square one. Different techniques (such as the Molecular Frequencies Discriminator), used by the French researchers allowed them to highlight the presence of important archaeological material, including deposits of metal and a large quantity of gold and silver. Thierry Jamin is now preparing the next step: The opening of the entrance sealed by the Incas more than five centuries ago. On May 22nd 2012, he officially submitted a request for authorisation to the Peruvian authorities, which would allow his team to proceed with the opening of the burial chambers.
 
Various Peruvian archaeologists specialising in the study of metals and burial places will join the group on site, but also anthropologists, geologists, petrologists, curators, surveyors, civil engineers, etc. It is also worth mentioning all Thierry Jamin’s partners are based in France and work with him on his usual research as well as this special operation in Machu Picchu. It will be very interesting to hear more about this story, and I am sure that most people would be fascinated by the discoveries, whether treasure is involved or not!

SOUNDLESS MUSICS

“It is cruel, you know, that music should be so beautiful. It has the beauty of loneliness of pain: of strength and freedom. The beauty of disappointment and never-satisfied love. The cruel beauty of nature and everlasting beauty of monotony.” - Benjamin Britten
 
A Charlotte Gainsbourg image is what Magpie Tales has selected for us this week in order to inspire us and get the creative juices flowing. The connection with music is inescapable. Here is what I came up with:
 

Echoes of Soundless Musics
 
When you left, you know,
You took the record player with you
But left me all the records;
They silently proclaim
Words and music
That used to be the food of love.
 
In the long stilnesses of empty rooms
I can still hear clearly each track,
Complete with crackles,
Each scratch remembered
Amidst the echoes of our laughter
And the basset tones of your voice.
 
I touch the record covers,
Caressing the smoothness
Of the multicoloured glazed card;
A memory of your skin perhaps,
Cool, smooth and promising much,
Just as any cover should do.
 
When you left, you know,
You took all with you
That was easily portable;
The record player useless
Without the records,
While they still play for me:
 
Each image a trigger,
Each touch a memory
Each silent playback,
A sumptuous dish –
Sustaining my love,
For music is its food…

MOVIE MONDAY - UNSTOPPABLE

“Faced with crisis, the man of character falls back on himself. He imposes his own stamp of action, takes responsibility for it, makes it his own.” - Charles de Gaulle
 
Every now and then we like watching a good action/thriller, especially the believable kind where the situations depicted are not too far-fetched but still make for engaging, nail-biting viewing. The bonus is when such movies are based on or have been inspired by true stories. Such was the case with a film we watched yesterday. It was Tony Scott’s 2010 movie, “Unstoppable” starring Denzel Washington, Chris Pine and Rosario Dawson. It is a solid, action/thriller that is inspired by true events, the real-life CSX8888 incident in which a runaway train travelled for 66 miles on a track through northwest Ohio with nobody at the controls. The screenplay for “Unstoppable” was written by American screenwriter Mark Bomback.
 
The movie centres on a runaway freight train loaded with thousands of gallons of diesel fuel, eight carriages of molten phenol, a highly toxic and explosive chemical, and way ahead it, in the midst of a city, a curvy track that requires all trains to slow down to 15 mph to negotiate it safely. The train travels at 70 mph and the track ahead it must be cleared to avert disaster, while everything must be done to stop the train before it gets to the curved track. Two train operatives, a veteran (Washington) and a rookie (Pine), attempt to stop the train armed with little in the way of stopping impending disaster except a one-car locomotive and their wits.
 
The movie does have its faults, however, it is a quickly moving (pun intended!), solidly entertaining thriller from beginning to end. Although there are two minor subplots involving the family situation of the two leads, the director cannot afford to spend too much time on characterisation or back story, launching straight into the story with two incompetent railyard employees who are responsible for setting the disaster in train (pun intended again ;-).
 
Both Washingtom and Pine give great performances with some depth added to the heroics, mainly through glimpses of their private lives interspersed within the action sequences. There is a lot of coverage of the trains as they move backwards and forward on the tracks, and the runaway train 777 assumes an active antagonistic role, almost an animated incarnation of evil as it hurtles down the track. There is good supporting work from Dawson who plays a rail traffic control officer who tracks the progress of the rescue operation. Minor supporting roles also add a little depth to the movie and provide relief from the constant background action.
 
We enjoyed the movie and recommend it as a bit of mindless entertainment, which is quite well done. It is a typical “dick-flick” so be prepared for lots of heroics, action and tough man stunts exploring the (basically shallow, but quite straightforward) male psyche. This is a “we have a problem – lets solve it” movie with little emotional depth, yet quite engaging.

ART SUNDAY - MANET

“No one can be a painter unless he cares for painting above all else.” - Édouard Manet
 
Édouard Manet was born in Paris, France, on January 23, 1832, to Auguste Édouard Manet and Eugénie Désirée Manet. Manet’s mother was an artistic woman who made sure that Édouard and his two brothers took piano lessons. His father, an official at the Ministry of Justice, expected his son to study law and was opposed to the idea of him becoming a painter. It was decided that Édouard would join the navy, and at the age of sixteen he sailed to Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, on a training vessel. Upon his return he failed to pass the navy’s entrance examination. His father finally gave in, and in 1850 Manet began studying figure painting in the studio of Thomas Couture, where he remained until 1856. Manet travelled abroad and made many copies of classic paintings for both foreign and French public collections.
 
Manet’s entry for the Salon of 1859, “The Absinthe Drinker”, a romantic but daring work, was rejected. At the Salon of 1861, his “Spanish Singer”, one of a number of works of Spanish character painted in this period, not only was admitted to the Salon but won an honourable mention and the praise of the poet Théophile Gautier. This was to be Manet’s last success for many years.
 
In 1863 Manet married Suzanne Leenhoff, his piano teacher. That year he showed fourteen paintings at the Martinet Gallery; one of them, “Music in the Tuileries”, caused a hostile reaction. Also in 1863 the Salon rejected Manet’s large painting “Luncheon on the Grass”; its combination of clothed men and a nude woman was considered offensive. Manet elected to have it shown at the now famous Salon des Refusés, created by the Emperor to quiet complaints from the large number of painters whose work had been turned away by the official Salon. In 1865 Manet’s “Olympia” produced an even more violent reaction at the official Salon, and his reputation as a rebel became widespread.
 
In 1866, after the Salon jury had rejected two of Manet’s works, novelist Émile Zola (1840–1902) came to his defence with a series of articles filled with strongly expressed praise. In 1867 Zola published a book that predicted, “Manet’s place is destined to be in the Louvre”. In May 1868 Manet, at his own expense, exhibited fifty of his works at the Paris World’s Fair; he felt that his paintings had to be seen together in order to be fully understood. Although the painters of the impressionist movement were influenced by Manet during the 1860s, later it appeared that he had also learned from them. His colours became lighter, and his strokes became shorter and quicker. Still, Manet remained mainly a figure and studio painter and refused to show his works with the impressionists at their private exhibitions.
 
Toward the end of the 1870s Manet returned to the figures of the early years. Perhaps his greatest work was his last major one, “A Bar at the Folies-Bergère”. In 1881 Manet was admitted to membership in the Legion of Honour, an award he had long dreamed of. By then he was seriously ill, his constitution weakened by advancing syphilis, and walking became increasingly difficult for him. In his weakened condition he found it easier to handle pastels than oils, and he produced a great many flower pieces and portraits in that medium. In early 1883 his left leg was amputated, but this did not prolong his life. He died peacefully in Paris on April 30, 1883.
 
Manet was short, quite handsome, and witty. He was remembered as kind and generous toward his friends. Still, many elements of his personality were in conflict. Although he was a revolutionary artist, he craved official honours; while he dressed fashionably, he spoke a type of slang that was at odds with his appearance and manners; and although his style of life was that of a member of the conservative classes, his political beliefs were liberal.
 
“The Old Musician” of 1862 is characteristic of Manet’s early “finished” style. The three portraits in the centre of the painting are expressive and beautifully modeled, however, the two people on the extreme right are quickly executed and almost caricatured. The little girl on the left is flat, almost a cut-out. The stiff formality of the poses and the ill-defined background could mislead the viewer to think that this is an assembly of people in front of the backdrop of a photographer’s studio. Yet, Manet’s work is vivid and full of energy, the colours although muted, very agreeable and the composition, based on intersecting triangles, brings the viewer’s eyes back to the three faces in the centre. It is quite an intriguing work and one that could be interpreted allegorically. Time, art, music, gender, and death can all be seen here. The old man with the turban on the extreme right is especially enigmatic.

AUSTRALIA DAY 2013

“Oh, my ways are strange ways and new ways and old ways, And deep ways and steep ways and high ways and low, I’m at home and at ease on a track that I know not, And restless and lost on a road that I know.” - Henry Lawson

Today is Australia Day. Australia is a continent-country, in area the sixth largest country in the world, about 7.6 million square km in area.  It gained its independence from UK in 1901 and its population of only about 23 million people has accrued through colonisation and large immigration programmes. The capital city is Canberra, but this is an artificial city, a created small administrative centre, with under 400,000 people population.

The largest urban centres are Sydney, Melbourne, Brisbane, Perth, Adelaide and Darwin.  The North is subtropical and the South-eastern coast has temperate, almost Mediterranean climate, of greater variability of weather, however.  The majority of the continent is arid desert and scrub, making Australia one of the driest, if not the driest place on earth.

Vast mineral, oil, coal and natural gas resources exist and the fertile plains around the coast make this a bountiful land.  Immense open spaces make Australia one of the least density populated nations with only 2 people per square km. It is a country of largely underdeveloped rich resources, great natural beauty and relative isolation, which ensures Australia’s growing importance as a local and world power in the future.

Happy Australia Day!

Here is Australian composer Nigel Westlake’s Antarctica Suite for Guitar and Orchestra – 3rd Movement, “Penguin Ballet”.

FOOD FRIDAY - QUINOTTO

“Meat is a wasteful use of water and creates a lot of greenhouse gases. It puts enormous pressure on the world's resources. A vegetarian diet is better.” - Nicholas Stern
 
Quinoa is a grain-like crop grown primarily for its edible seeds. It is from a South American plant, Chenopodium quinoa. It contains more protein than any other grain, and is lower in carbohydrates than most other grains. It can be substituted for rice and couscous for more dietary variety. Here is a recipe for a vegetarian quinoa risotto, or “quinotto”.

Vegetable Quinotto 
Ingredients
4 cups vegetable stock
2 cups quinoa
Olive oil – about 3 tbsp
2 medium red capsicums, chopped
1 medium eggplant, chopped
2 medium yellow zucchini, finely chopped
4 green onions, thinly sliced
2 tablespoons fresh oregano leaves
1/3 cup lemon juice (optional)
Fresh oregano leaves, to serve (can substitute with chopped parsley)
 
Method
Place stock and quinoa in a large saucepan over medium-high heat, bringing to the boil. Reduce the heat to low and simmer covered, stirring occasionally, for 10 minutes or until just tender. Remove from heat and mix through a tablespoon of the olive oil. Set aside, covered for 10 minutes.
Cover the base of a heavy-based saucepan with a thin layer of olive oil. Heat over medium-high heat. Add capsicum and eggplant. Cook, stirring, for 1 to 2 minutes or until beginning to soften. Add zucchini, onion and oregano, and stir for 2 to 4 minutes. Cook, covered, for 15 minutes or until softened. Toss to combine. Cook, covered, until zucchini is tender.
Add zucchini mixture and lemon juice (if using) to quinoa. Toss to combine. Season with pepper. Sprinkle with oregano (or chopped parsley).
 
This post is part of the Food Friday meme,
and also part of the Food Trip Friday meme.

WORK, WORK, WORK

“Far and away the best prize that life has to offer is the chance to work hard at work worth doing.” - Theodore Roosevelt
 
I am snowed under with work these days. Since January 2, when I returned to work I have been doing the work of three people, as two of my colleagues resigned just before Christmas. I am in acting position to cover one of them, continuing doing my own job, as well as picking up urgent matters from the other colleague’s job. It leaves me little time to do much else, however, Last year I had also promised to do a short series of lectures on video for a free online course, and these past two weeks this has been another imposition on my time. Add to that some editing work I am doing on a dictionary – my days (and nights) are full!
 
I have been getting about 4 hours sleep a night, which even for me is not quite enough. The weekend is welcomed with great expectancy every week, and I can use the blessed two days to catch up. I am not grumbling, don’t get me wrong, being kept busy stimulates and enlivens me. However, what is not good is that I don’t have as much time as I would like to have in order to unwind and spend some time in relaxation and doing some of the things that take my mind off work. As much as one enjoys one’s job, there is always the need for tuning off work and enjoying one’s personal interests and hobbies and leisure activities.
 
Keeping up my daily blog posts has been difficult, but at least that commitment is a safety valve that lets off some steam and allows my mind to wander in areas that are not related to my work. However, I am not spending much time at all surfing the web, or visiting the blogs that I enjoy reading. I have neglected keeping up with friends, face to face as well as online… Even family is complaining that I am not as accessible as I used to be in the past.
 
I hope that we replace the two colleagues who have departed the office, very soon! This will allow some semblance of sanity to come back into my life and hopefully I can go back to my very busy lifestyle from my current hectic one!

CLEMENTI'S NIGHTSHADE

“The more one pleases everybody, the less one pleases profoundly.” - Stendhal
 
Today is the anniversary of the birth of:
John Hancock, American patriot (1737);
Muzio Clementi, Italian composer (1752);
Marie Henri Beyle (Stendhal), writer (1783);
Édouard Manet, French artist (1832);
Humphrey Bogart, actor (1899);
Hideki Yukawa, Japanese physicist (1907);
Django Reinhardt, Belgian Gypsy jazz guitarist (1910);
Bob Paisley, footballer/trainer (1919);
Jeanne Moreau, French actress (1928);
John C. Polanyi, Canadian chemist (1929);
Bill (William Elphinstone) Gibb, fashion designer (1943);
Princess Caroline of Monaco (1958).
 

The black nightshade, Solanum nigrum, is the birthday flower for this day.  The plant symbolises sorcery and witchcraft, scepticism, obscurity and death. The language of flowers ascribes the meaning “your thoughts are dark” to the black nightshade.  The berries of the plant are most poisonous when green and their black colour when ripe is the nigrum reference of the specific name. The young shoots of the plant may be boiled with other wild greens (especially Amaranthus blitum), potatoes and zucchini, and eaten as a vegetable dish, dressed with a simple vinaigrette sauce.  Astrologically, the black nightshade is under the dominion of Saturn.
 
Muzio Clementi (1752–1832) was an Italian composer, pianist, and conductor. His more than 100 piano sonatas set the definitive form for this genre of music, and he had a great influence on all aspects of piano music. He is remembered for his series of études, Gradus ad Parnassum (1817). He lived most of his life in England and did much to advance English music. He longed to write powerful symphonies and attempted to emulate Beethoven’s style. Latest editions of his works include four reconstructed symphonies, but these are minor works compared to those of his idol.

Many artists died on this day: Gustave Doré, the French illustrator in 1883; Edvard Munch, the Norwegian painter and lithographer (of The Scream fame) in 1944; Pierre Bonnard, the French painter in 1947; (Felipe Jacinto) Salvador Dalí (y Pubol), the most famous of the surrealist painters in 1989. The American composer, Samuel Barber, died in 1981 on this day.

A CHILD'S WORLD

Magpie Tales image prompt this week was rather stressful for me as I had recently heard the story of the attempted abduction of a friend of a friend's child. Fortunately that ended well, however, how many of these occurrences do we hear of that end in great pain or tragedy? We live in a wondrous world that is populated by many good people. But it’s enough for a single evil person to cause havoc and destruction - a devastation of lives that are unfortunate enough to interact with that evil...
 

A Child’s World
 

A child’s hand, so small:
A microcosm modelled
On that of its parents’ wide world.
 

A child’s hand, so soft,
As vulnerable as a flower,
As beautiful as a butterfly.
 

A child’s hand, so curious;
A world of rhymes and songs,
Of games and drawings.
 

A parent’s guiding hand,
Protective, loving, caressing;
A child safe, happy, content
Allowed to grow and flourish.
 

A world of possibilities,
Of endless potential and growth;
A child’s hand, so wondrous…
 

A world so fragile, easily upset,
As frangible as crystal;
A child’s hand, so easily led astray.
 

A lamb, easily led to slaughter,
Innocence lost, a life interrupted.
A child’s hand, so trusting.
 

A stranger’s rapacious hand,
The talon of a bird of prey;
A child abducted, molested,
Its life stopped, a growth arrested.

MOVIE MONDAY - LIOUBI

“A flower cannot blossom without sunshine, and man cannot live without love.” - Max Müller
 
We watched an interesting Greek film at the weekend. It was not very special or very original and the plot could even be described as quite ordinary or even simple. The movie-making was straightforward and traditional, very slow in its development and the actors capable but to exceptional. However, looking at the whole package, it worked and overall ended up being quite engaging despite all of the cons that seemed to outnumber the cons. It was the 2005 Laya Yourgou movie “Lioubi”, starring Alexis Georgoulis, Eugenia Kaplan, Nikos Georgakis, Lena Kitsopoulou and Olga Damani.
 
The plot is very much a social comment on the Greek reality of the early 21^st century. A country beset by economic and social problems, a place where racism and prejudice have come to the fore and where the battle for survival (at any price) becomes a primary consideration in a society that is in a state of disequilibrium and destabilisation. The film is very much a reflective piece and it describes the journey of a young Russian woman who comes to Greece to work and to perhaps build a better life for herself.
 
Liubi (whose name means “love” in Russian) is the young Russian woman, played sensitively by Eugenia Kaplan, who is the central character of the movie. She comes into the lives of a typical middle-class Greek family in Athens, engaged as the carer for the elderly matriarch of the family Mrs Eleni (Olga Damani) who suffered a stroke and is unable to speak or move, but who understands everything happening around her. Liubi is happy that she has been offered this small but important opportunity to try and build a life for herself. Dimitris, Mrs Eleni’s son (Alexis Georgoulis), is engaged to Penny but he is unhappy with his relationship and Penny’s demands. Anna, his sister (Lena Kitsopoulou) is on the verge of hysteria as she is desperately trying to not to have continual miscarriages. Anna’s husband (Nikos Georgakis) is a lazy good-for-nothing who is more of a burden than a help to the family. Liubi and Dimitris find themselves attracted to one another and they try to reach out to each other, but things get complicated as several critical situations put inordinate pressure on an already fragile set of relationships…
 
The film was sensitively and candidly shot and the director Laya Yourgou, who also wrote the script touches on several sensitive topics dealing with the characters and situations in an objective manner. The movie had some poignant moments, some of them relating to the special relationship that Liubi develops with Mrs Eleni. The two women seem to understand one another without being able to fully communicate. However, the final scenes of the movie bring out this touching connection and the seemingly powerless old woman manages to reward Liubi for the love she has shown her and give her the opportunity that she has been searching for in Greece.
 
A well-made and acted movie, definitely a B feature, but one that is warm and sensitively made, highlighting some flaws in the dysfunctional household in a country that is going through some tough times and is having to cope with numerous stressors and destabilisers of its social fabric.

ART SUNDAY - CEZANNE

“The most seductive thing about art is the personality of the artist himself.” - Paul Cezanne
 
Paul Cezanne (1839-1906) was a French painter who is often called the father of modern art. He strove to develop an ideal combination of naturalistic representation, personal expression, and abstract pictorial order. Among the artists of his time, Cezanne perhaps has had the most profound effect on the art of the 20th century. He was the greatest single influence on both the French artist Henri Matisse, who admired his use of colour, and the Spanish artist Pablo Picasso, who developed Cezanne’s planar compositional structure into the cubist style. During the greater part of his own lifetime, however, Cezanne was largely ignored, and he worked in isolation. He mistrusted critics, had few friends, and, until 1895, exhibited only occasionally. He was alienated even from his family, who found his behavior peculiar and failed to appreciate his revolutionary art.
 
Cezanne was born in Aix-en-Provence in the South of France, on January 19, 1839. His family was well-to-do and his father was a successful banker. His boyhood companion was Émile Zola, who later gained fame as a novelist and man of letters. As did Zola, Cezanne developed artistic interests at an early age, much to the dismay of his father. In 1862, after a number of bitter family disputes, the aspiring artist was given a small allowance and sent to study art in Paris, where Zola had already gone. From the start he was drawn to the more radical elements of the Parisian art world. He especially admired the romantic painter Eugène Delacroix and, among the younger masters, Gustave Courbet and the notorious Édouard Manet, who exhibited realist paintings that were shocking in both style and subject matter to most of their contemporaries.
 
Many of Cezanne's early works were painted in dark tones applied with heavy, fluid pigment, suggesting the moody, romantic expressionism of previous generations. Just as Zola pursued his interest in the realist novel, however, Cezanne also gradually developed a commitment to the representation of contemporary life, painting the world he observed without concern for thematic idealisation or stylistic affectation. The most significant influence on the work of his early maturity proved to be Camille Pissarro, an older but as yet unrecognised painter who lived with his large family in a rural area outside Paris.
 
Pissarro not only provided the moral encouragement that the insecure Cezanne required, but he also introduced him to the new impressionist technique for rendering outdoor light. Along with the painters Claude Monet, Auguste Renoir, and a few others, Pissarro had developed a painting style that involved working outdoors (en plein air) rapidly and on a reduced scale, employing small touches of pure colour, generally without the use of preparatory sketches or linear outlines. In such a manner Pissarro and the others hoped to capture the most transient natural effects as well as their own passing emotional states as the artists stood before nature. Under Pissarro’s tutelage, and within a very short time during 1872-1873, Cezanne shifted from dark tones to bright hues and began to concentrate on scenes of farmland and rural villages.
 
Although he seemed less technically accomplished than the other impressionists, Cezanne was accepted by the group and exhibited with them in 1874 and 1877. In general, the impressionists did not have much commercial success, and Cezanne’s works received the harshest critical commentary. He drifted away from many of his Parisian contacts during the late 1870s and ‘80s and spent much of his time in his native Aix-en-Provence. After 1882, he did not work closely again with Pissarro. In 1886, Cezanne became embittered over what he took to be thinly disguised references to his own failures in one of Zola’s novels. As a result he broke off relations with his oldest supporter. In the same year, he inherited his father’s wealth and finally, at the age of 47, became financially independent, but socially he remained quite isolated.
 
This isolation and Cezanne’s concentration and singleness of purpose may account for the remarkable development he sustained during the 1880s and ‘90s. In this period he continued to paint studies from nature in brilliant impressionist colors, but he gradually simplified his application of the paint to the point where he seemed able to define volumetric forms with juxtaposed strokes of pure color. Critics eventually argued that Cezanne had discovered a means of rendering both nature’s light and nature’s form with a single application of colour.
 
He seemed to be reintroducing a formal structure that the impressionists had abandoned, without sacrificing the sense of brilliant illumination they had achieved. Cezanne himself spoke of “modulating” with colour rather than “modelling” with dark and light. By this he meant that he would replace an artificial convention of representation (modelling) with a more expressive system (modulating) that was closer still to nature, or, as the artist himself said, “parallel to nature”. For Cezanne, the answer to all the technical problems of impressionism lay in a use of colour both more orderly and more expressive than that of his fellow impressionists.
 
Cezanne's goal was, in his own mind, never fully attained. He left most of his works unfinished and destroyed many others. He complained of his failure at rendering the human figure, and indeed the great figural works of his last years—such as the “Large Bathers” (circa 1899-1906, Museum of Art, Philadelphia)—reveal curious distortions that seem to have been dictated by the rigour of the system of colour modulation he imposed on his own representations. The succeeding generation of painters, however, eventually came to be receptive to nearly all of Cezanne’s idiosyncrasies. Cezanne’s heirs felt that the naturalistic painting of impressionism had become formularised, and a new and original style, however difficult it might be, was needed to return a sense of sincerity and commitment to modern art.
 
For many years Cezanne was known only to his old impressionist colleagues and to a few younger radical post-impressionist artists, including the Dutch painter Vincent van Gogh and the French painter Paul Gauguin. In 1895, however, Ambroise Vollard, an ambitious Paris art dealer, arranged a show of Cezanne’s works and over the next few years promoted them successfully. By 1904, Cezanne was featured in a major official exhibition, and by the time of his death (in Aix-en-Provence on October 22, 1906) he had attained the status of a legendary figure. During his last years many younger artists traveled to Aix-en-Provence to observe him at work and to receive any words of wisdom he might offer. Both his style and his theory remained mysterious and cryptic; he seemed to some a naive primitive, while to others he was a sophisticated master of technical procedure. The intensity of his colour, coupled with the apparent strictness of his compositional organisation, signalled to most that, despite the artist’s own frequent despair, he had synthesised the basic expressive and representational elements of painting in a highly original manner.
 
In the painting above, “Mont Sainte-Victoire with Large Pine” (ca 1887), at the Courtauld Institute of Art, we have a favourite theme of Cezanne’s The Montagne Sainte-Victoire is a mountain in southern France, overlooking Aix-en-Provence. It became the subject of a number of many of Cézanne’s paintings. In these paintings, Cézanne often sketched the railway bridge on the Aix-Marseille line at the Arc River Valley in the center on the right side of the picture. Especially, in Mont Sainte-Victoire and the Viaduct of the Arc River Valley (1885–1887), he depicted a moving train on this bridge. Only half a year after the opening of the Aix-Marseille line on October 15, 1877, in a letter to Émile Zola dated April 14, 1878, Cézanne praised the Mont Sainte-Victoire, which he viewed from the train while passing through the railway bridge at Arc River Valley, as a “beau motif (beautiful motif)”, and, in about that same year, he began the series wherein he topicalised this mountain.

SERENE SATURDAY

“I am very willing to share whatever I know or feel I know about finding some serenity in this lifetime.” - Dirk Benedict
 

A wonderful Saturday! Lovely weather making it perfect for some early morning gardening and then out to watch a matinée performance , in the Arts Centre Melbourne of “Oh, Suivant!”. This is from Belgium and it is a two person show of Europe’s favourite street, circus and physical theatre performers, D’Irque and Fien. Oh Suivant! is a family-friendly show jam-packed with juggling and circus tricks, jaw-dropping acrobatics and playful audience interaction. Inspired by the slapstick and physical comedy of silent movies, Oh Suivant! is a modern-day clowning farce reminiscent of Charlie Chaplin. After years of intense training in circus arts and twelve years of experience in street theatre in over twenty countries, D’Irque and Fien present the Australian premiere of their street-wise blend of circus, physical theatre and live music in a Melbourne exclusive season. We enjoyed that, as did the many children who were present in the audience.
 

Then a lovely walk along the Yarra and a light lunch at Southbank, followed by wonderful afternoon and evening. Here is a marvellous piece by Claudio Monteverdi (1567-1643), his “Messa a quattro voci da cappella”: 1.Kyrie; 2.Gloria; 3.Credo/ Sanctus 07:06; 4.Benedictus; 5.Agnus Dei. It is performed by the Ensemble Elyma directed by Gabriel Garrido.

PANFORTE

“Sweet is the memory of past troubles.” -  Marcus Tullius Cicero
 
Panforte is a traditional Italian dessert containing fruits and nuts, and resembles fruitcake or Lebkuchen. It may date back to 13th century Siena, in Italy’s Tuscany region. Documents from 1205 AD show that panforte was paid to the monks and nuns of a local monastery as a tax or tithe which was due on the seventh of February that year. Literally, panforte means “strong bread” which refers to the spicy flavour. The original name of panforte was “panpepato” (peppered bread), due to the strong pepper used in the cake. There are references to the Crusaders carrying panforte, a durable confection, with them on their quests, and to the use of panforte in surviving sieges.
 
Panforte di Siena
Ingredients
 
150 g unsalted almonds, roasted and coarsely chopped
75 g unsalted hazelnuts, roasted coarsely chopped
75 g unsalted pistachios, roasted coarsely chopped
100 g candied orange peel, chopped
75 g flour
30 g pure cocoa powder
1/4 tsp cloves
1/2 tsp cinnamon
1/2 tsp nutmeg
1/2 tsp allspice
Pinch white pepper
100 g sugar
200 g clear honey
35 g butter
Icing sugar to dust

Method
Preheat the oven to 150˚C.
Mix the nuts with the orange peel.
Sift the flour, cocoa powder and spices and mix through the nuts.
Gently heat the sugar, honey and butter in a pan till the sugar has dissolved and let it cook on higher heat for 3-4 minutes.
Quickly mix the syrup through the dry mix, scoop in a round tin (covered with baking paper) and press in in with your fingers.
Let it bake in the oven for 40 minutes and cool down in the tin. Remove the paper and dust with icing sugar.
Serve tiny portions. The cutting will need some force!
 

This post is part of the Food Friday meme,

and also part of the Food Trip Friday meme.

ST ANTHONY'S DAY

“We gain the strength of the temptation we resist.” - Ralph Waldo Emerson
 
January 17 is the Feast Day of St Anthony the Great. Anthony was born in to a wealthy family in Lower Egypt about 254 AD. Also known as Anthony of Egypt, Anthony of the Desert, and Anthony the Anchorite, he was a leader among the Desert Fathers, who were Christian monks in the Egyptian desert in the 3rd and 4th centuries AD.
 
Anthony live a life of ease and leisure until he was about 18 years old, when his parents died and left him with the care of his unmarried sister. One day shortly threafter he heard a sermon which quoted Jesus’ teaching: “If you want to be perfect, go, sell what you have and give to the poor, and you will have treasures in heaven; and come, follow Me” (Matthew 19:21). This made a great impression on him. Anthony then gave away some of the family estate to his neighbours, sold the remaining property, donated the funds thus raised to the poor, placed his sister with a group of Christian virgins, a type of proto-monastery of nuns, and himself became the disciple of a local hermit in the desert.
 
He spent his life praying and meditating, and his holiness marked him as one whose wisdom commanded respect. According to writing about his life, the devil fought St. Anthony by afflicting him with boredom, laziness, and visions of women who tried to tempt him. All of these temptations he overcame by the power of prayer. After that, he moved to a tomb, where he resided and closed the door on himself, depending on some local villagers who brought him food. When the devil perceived his ascetic life and his intense worship, he was envious and beat him mercilessly, leaving him unconscious. When his friends from the local village came to visit him and found him in this condition, they carried him to a church. These episodes provided a rich theme for Christian art, generally titled “The Temptation of St Anthony”.
 
Salvador Dali’s “Temptation of St Anthony” above is modern representation of this and builds on the rich iconography of the past centuries. The Saint in Dali’s painting is tempted firstly by the form of a horse in the foreground representing strength, sometimes also symbol of voluptuousness. The elephant which follows it, is carrying on its back the golden cup of lust in which a nude woman is standing precariously balanced on the fragile pedestal, a figure which emphasises the erotic character of the composition. The other elephants are carrying buildings on their backs; the first of these is an obelisk inspired by that of Bernini in Rome, the second and third are burdened with Venetian edifices in the style of Palladio. In the background another elephant carries a tall tower, which is not without phallic overtones, and in the clouds one can glimpse a few fragments of the Escorial, symbol of temporal and spiritual order.
 
When the Synod of Nicaea was convened, St Anthony was invited to participate. His eloquent defence of the Orthodox doctrine concerning the person of Jesus Christ was instrumental in weakening the position of the schismatic sect, Arianism. His witness led to the eventual and complete elimination of Arianism. He instructed his followers to bury his body in an unmarked, secret grave, lest his body become an object of veneration. The monastic rules of Saint Anthony, the “patriarch” of monastic life, have served as the basis for countless monasteries.
 
St Antony the Great of Egypt is the patron saint of pig breeders and farmers. His name has given us the English word “tantony”, a diminutive for pig, usually applied to the runt of the litter.
    From St Antony’s Feast be more bold,
    Raise your skirt a little, it’ll be less cold.
                Greek Weather Rhyme
 
St Anthony is also revered as the patron saint of skin diseases (erysipelas is a skin disease also known as St Anthony’s fire), of basket makers, brushmakers, and gravediggers.

YARROW FOR SUSAN SONTAG

“What we need, is to use what we have.” - Susan Sontag
 
Today is the anniversary of the birthday of:
André Michelin, French first tyre mass producer (1853);
Edward Gordon Craig, theatre designer (1872);
Robert Service, poet (1874);
Laura Riding, poet (1901);
Diana Wynyard, actress (1906);
Alexander Knox, actor (1907);
Ethel Merman (Zimmerman), actress/singer (1909);
William Kennedy, writer (1930);
Susan Sontag, writer (1933);
Marilyn Horne, US opera singer (1934);
Sade, singer (1960).
 
The plant for today’s birthdays is yarrow, Achillea millefolium.  The herb is named after Achilles, the ancient Greek hero who fought in the Trojan War. When the Greeks landed near Troy, some Trojans, led by Telephus, one of King Priam’s sons-in-law tried to stop the Greeks.  Achilles wounded Telephus with his spear, helped by Dionysus, god of wine. Telephus had been told by an oracle that Achilles would both wound and cure him. He promised Achilles to lead the Greeks to Troy if he would cure his wound. Achilles scraped rust from his spear and applied it to Telephus’s wound. The filings from the spear fell to the ground and yarrow sprang from them.
 
Yarrow symbolises heartache and cure.  Astrologically, this is a herb of Venus.  An older name of the herb is Venus-tree and several love oracles are based on this plant.  It was said that if the stem was cut across the initials of one’s future husband would appear.  An ounce of yarrow wrapped in a piece of yellow flannel and placed under one’s pillow would enable one to dream of one’s future spouse.  Eating yarrow at a wedding feast, ensured that the bridal couple would love one another for seven years.

***

Susan Sontag was born in New York City on January 16, 1933, grew up in Tucson, Arizona, and attended high school in Los Angeles. She received her B.A. from the College of the University of Chicago and did graduate work in philosophy, literature, and theology at Harvard University and Saint Anne’s College, Oxford.
 

Her books, all published by Farrar, Straus & Giroux, include four novels, “The Benefactor”, “Death Kit”, “The Volcano Lover”, and “In America”; a collection of short stories, “I, etcetera”; several plays, including “Alice in Bed” and “Lady from the Sea”; and nine works of nonfiction, starting with “Against Interpretation” and including “On Photography”, “Illness as Metaphor”, “Where the Stress Falls”, “Regarding the Pain of Others”, and “At the Same Time”.
 

Susan Sontag was considered one of the most influential liberal thinkers in the United States during the twentieth century. She was also a filmmaker and theatre director. As well as that, she was a human rights and anti-war activist. She owned fifteen thousand books in her personal library in her home.
 

In the 1970s, Susan Sontag learned she had breast cancer. Doctors did not expect her to survive. However, she went through a series of difficult treatments and she did survive. Her experience with the disease became the subject of one of her most famous works. “Illness as Metaphor”, published in 1978. “Illness as Metaphor” is a critical study of modern life. In it, the author maintains that modern culture creates myths or stories about sickness. She also criticised the language that people use when they talk about sickness – such as “battling a disease” or “the war on cancer”. Sontag felt these terms made sick people feel responsible for their condition. Her book gave readers the power to demand more information from doctors. Ten years later, she extended her opinions to the disease AIDS. Her short story “How We Live Now” was published in 1986 in the New Yorker magazine. Her book “AIDS and its Metaphors” was published two years later. It is about the social and personal effects of the disease.
 

Susan Sontag received many awards in the United States and from other countries. Israel, Germany and Spain honoured her with awards. In 2004, two days after her death, the mayor of Sarajevo announced the city would name a street after her. The mayor called her a writer and a humanist who actively took part in the creation of the history of Sarajevo and Bosnia. Susan Sontag died of leukaemia in New York City in 2004. She was seventy-one years old.

COLD WINTER

“People don’t notice whether it’s winter or summer when they’re happy.” - Anton Chekhov
 
Magpie Tales has given us a new image this week to stimulate literary creativity. This photograph first elicited a smile from me and then I noticed the stark contrast between the cool and warm colours. The contrast engendered three haiku.
 
Gently, silently
Snow falls outside my window;
Hot thoughts of your love.
 
Warm wool covers me up,
Fire burns fiercely in fireplace –
Alone my heart: Cold.
 
Wind howls, air freezes,
Icicles snap; Who needs furs,
While we two embrace?

MOVIE MONDAY - THE DESCENDANTS

“Every good relationship, especially marriage, is based on respect. If it's not based on respect, nothing that appears to be good will last very long.” - Amy Grant
 

I must begin this movie review by saying that I have watched several George Clooney films and have been quite disappointed. The greatly lamentable “Men who Stare at Goats” is one example, the muddled and rather boring “Syriana” being another lemon, and the so-so “The American” is another one. When we watched yet another Clooney film at the weekend, I had great reservations, but ended up pleasantly surprised. This film was quite a decent one, and Clooney does show his mettle as a serious actor.
 

The movie we watched was the Alexander Payne 2011 film “The Descendants” starring George Clooney, Shailene Woodley and Amara Miller. This was a rather run-of-the-mill drama that would appeal to a wide audience, but especially women given the lead actor and the plot. The movie is set in Hawaii and one gets to see some of the lush scenery, but not as much as I had hoped… The subplot does have a lot to do with the land as Matt King (Clooney) is a lawyer and the head of a trust that holds many acres of prime Hawaiian land that is in his family and must soon be sold for development making all the family members very rich. The question here is one of heritage and despoliation of the environment and of ties with the past. Throughout much of the film we see this aspect explored and how the “descendants” of the original owner of the land will deal with the pressures put on them by a capitalistic system.
 

The main story involves Matt King (Clooney) having to cope with the serious boating accident of his young wife, which has left her in a coma with no hope of ever recovering. King’s two daughters, the feisty and rebellious teenager, Alexandra (Woodley), and the younger more vulnerable Scottie (Miller), have been rather distant from their father and their mother’s state has forced the survivors to come together and re-establish damaged relationships. What does not help is the discovery of the comatose mother’s guilty secrets and the way that Matt King must cope with those in order to allow himself to heal and then help his daughters cope with their loss.
 

The film is standard drama, competently acted and has won multiple awards: The 2012 Oscar for best writing, adapted screenplay; the 2012 AFI Best Movie award; 2012 BFCA Best Actor award, 2012 Golden Globe Best Movie and Best Actor awards, etc, etc. The young Shailene Woodley does an excellent job of playing the rather volatile but feisty Alex King and she has the meatiest role in terms of a transformation. She rises to the occasion with aplomb and no doubt we shall see a lot more of her good work in the future. All the other actors played well, including a small but very well-played supporting role by Judy Greer as a betrayed wife. There are some lighter moments, for example when Alexandra’s insensitive loud-mouthed friend Sid (Nick Krause) comes into the scene, but there is always a tension and sadness in the background.
 

The film is a good one to watch when one is in a receptive and fairly high spirited mood, as it otherwise can be a little depressing. It may be too slow for the liking of some and there are no high speed chase scenes and other adventure action shots. It is a drama, there is a lot of talking and character development and it des make the viewer think a little, “What if it were me in that situation, what would I do?” Ultimately this is a redemption movie, where the themes of “sinning” and “forgiveness” are explored, with the subplot around heritage and what we pass on from generation to generation – the tangible as well as the intangible.