MOVIE MONDAY - MOONRISE KINGDOM

“Distance not only gives nostalgia, but perspective, and maybe objectivity.” - Robert Morgan
 
A few days ago we watched an enjoyable and rather quirky film, Wes Anderson’s 2012 “Moonrise Kingdom” starring Jared Gilman, Kara Hayward, Bruce Willis, Edward Norton, Bill Murray, Tilda Swinton and Frances McDormand. Essentially a coming of age film, it is also a nostalgic look backward to more innocent times and in its way is also a statement on the problems faced by children who are or feel neglected.
 
The film is set on an island off the coast of New England in 1965, in September, as a severe storm approaches. At an island camp, a Khaki Scout has gone missing. It is 12-year-old Sam, 12 (Gilman), a bespectacled misfit and an orphan. Ward (Norton), his enthusiastic scoutmaster, organises a search after calling Captain Sharp (Willis), the local policeman. Sam is running away with Suzy (Hayward), his pen pal. She is the taciturn oldest child in a quirky and unhappy household of two lawyers (Murray and McDormand, the latter having an affair with Sharp).
 
Sam and Suzy are well-organised and camp in the great outdoors, but need to sort through their own issues. They nevertheless manage to stay a step ahead of the searchers, while the storm gets closer. Social Services is called in and the representative (Swinton) suggests Sam may need electroshock therapy and afterwards to be confined in an orphanage. Various factions of the town mobilise to search for the missing children and the town is turned upside down, which might not be such a bad thing.
 
The film is a tender and nostalgic love story. As the screenplay is written by Wes Anderson and Roman Coppola, I suspect that it may be a little autobiographical, once again influenced (as is evident in some of his other films) by the sixties of Anderson’s youth. This film has a superficial childlike innocence and simplicity, but it treats the problems of childhood and puberty with candour and seriousness. The result is an accurate and deeply heartfelt memoir.
 
The two children play their roles wonderfully and Gilman especially, does a sterling job in bringing the wayward Sam to life. Bruce Willis as the policeman and the parents of Suzy (Bill Murray and Frances McDormand) play in an understated manner that supports the main story very well, but at the same time allows the subplot of the unlikely torrid love affair to work its humour through. Edward Norton who plays the dorky scout master is fantastic and Tilda Swinton as “Social Services” has a lot of fun with her brief, villainous role.
 
The film is quietly humorous, whimsical and almost like a modern-day (well, sixties…) fairy tale. There seems to be some affinity with Anderson’s “The Royal Tennenbaums”, but also dwells on a nostalgic view of the past and achieves a certain haunting beauty as the tale develops and concludes. We enjoyed it greatly and would recommend it highly. It is good to keep in mind, however, that the film polarised critics and public, with some viewers detesting it with a vengeance. Wes Anderson does have that effect on the viewing public.

ART SUNDAY - PAUL CEZANNE

“When I judge art, I take my painting and put it next to a God made object like a tree or flower. If it clashes, it is not art.” - Paul Cezanne
 
The French painter Paul Cézanne (1839–1906), who exhibited little in his lifetime and pursued his interests increasingly in artistic isolation, is regarded today as one of the great forerunners of modern painting, both for the way that he evolved of putting down on canvas exactly what his eye saw in nature and for the qualities of pictorial form that he achieved through a unique treatment of space, mass, and colour. Cézanne was a contemporary of the impressionists, but he went beyond their interests in the individual brushstroke and the fall of light onto objects, to create, in his words, “something more solid and durable, like the art of the museums.”
 
Cézanne was born at Aix-en-Provence in the south of France on January 19, 1839. He went to school in Aix, forming a close friendship with the novelist Emile Zola. He also studied law there from 1859 to 1861, but at the same time he continued attending drawing classes. Against the implacable resistance of his father, he made up his mind that he wanted to paint and in 1861 joined Zola in Paris. His father’s reluctant consent at that time brought him financial support and, later, a large inheritance on which he could live without difficulty. In Paris he met Camille Pissarro and came to know others of the impressionist group, with whom he would exhibit in 1874 and 1877. Cézanne, however, remained an outsider to their circle; from 1864 to 1869 he submitted his work to the official Salon and saw it consistently rejected.
 
His paintings of 1865-70 form what is usually called his early “romantic” period. Extremely personal in character, these works deal with bizarre subjects of violence and fantasy in harsh, sombre colors and extremely heavy paintwork. Thereafter, as Cézanne rejected that kind of approach and worked his way out of the obsessions underlying it, his art is conveniently divided into three phases. In the early 1870s, through a mutually helpful association with Pissarro, with whom he painted outside Paris at Auvers, he assimilated the principles of colour and lighting of Impressionism and loosened up his brushwork; yet he retained his own sense of mass and the interaction of planes, as in “House of the Hanged Man” (1873; Musee d’Orsay, Paris).
 
In the late 1870s Cézanne entered the phase known as “constructive”, characterised by the grouping of parallel, hatched brushstrokes in formations that build up a sense of mass in themselves. He continued in this style until the early 1890s, when, in his series of paintings titled “Card Players” (1890-92), the upward curvature of the players’ backs creates a sense of architectural solidity and thrust, and the intervals between figures and objects have the appearance of live cells of space and atmosphere.
 
Finally, living as a solitary in Aix rather than alternating between the south and Paris, Cézanne moved into his late phase. Now he concentrated on a few basic subjects: Still lifes of studio objects built around such recurring elements as apples, statuary, and tablecloths; studies of bathers, based upon the male model and drawing upon a combination of memory, earlier studies, and sources in the art of the past; and successive views of the Mont Sainte-Victoire, a nearby landmark, painted from his studio looking across the intervening valley. The landscapes of the final years, much affected by Cézanne’s contemporaneous practice in watercolor, have a more transparent and unfinished look, while the last figure paintings are at once more somber and spiritual in mood.
 
By the time of his death on Oct. 22, 1906, Cézanne’s art had begun to be shown and seen across Europe, and it became a fundamental influence on the Fauves, the cubists, and virtually all advanced art of the early 20th century. Apparently, Cézanne was not an easy man to love, but professors and painters adore him. Art critics lavish him with superlatives, including “a prophet of the 20th century”, “the most sensitive painter of his time”, “the greatest artist of the 19th century”, and “the father of modern art”. But he’s not quite a household name, and his posters have never been best-sellers at museum shops around the world. In fact, most non-professionals wouldn’t stand a chance of recognising a Cézanne unless it was clearly labelled. Even then, there’s no guarantee of popular appeal…
 
The painting above is “The Card Players”, 1890–92, exhibited in the Barnes Foundation, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. This is the largest version and is the most complex, with five figures on a 134.6 x 180.3 cm canvas. It features three card players at the forefront, seated in a semi-circle at a table, with two spectators behind. On the right side of the painting, seated behind the second man and to the right of the third, is a boy, eyes cast downward, also a fixed spectator of the game. Further back, on the left side between the first and second player is a man standing, back to the wall, smoking a pipe and presumably awaiting his turn at the table.
 
It has been speculated Cézanne added the standing man to provide depth to the painting, as well as to draw the eye to the upper portion of the canvas. As with the other versions, it displays a suppressed storytelling of peasant men in loose-fitting garments with natural poses focused entirely on their game. Writer Nicholas Wadley described a “tension in opposites”, in which elements such as shifts of colour, light and shadow, shape of hat, and crease of cloth create a story of confrontation through opposition. Others have described an “alienation” displayed in the series to be most pronounced in this version.

MUSIC SATURDAY - FAURÉ'S REQUIEM

“For death is no more than a turning of us over from time to eternity.” - William Penn
 
For Music Saturday, the “Requiem” by Gabriel Fauré. Gabriel Fauré, in full Gabriel-Urbain Fauré   (born May 12, 1845, Pamiers, Ariège, France—died Nov. 4, 1924, Paris), was a composer whose refined and gentle music influenced the course of modern French music. Fauré’s musical abilities became apparent at an early age. When the Swiss composer and teacher Louis Niedermeyer heard the boy, he immediately accepted him as a pupil. Fauré studied piano with Camille Saint-Saëns, who introduced him to the music of Franz Liszt and Richard Wagner. While still a student, Fauré published his first composition, a work for piano, Trois romances sans paroles (1863).
 
In 1896 he was appointed church organist at the church of La Madeleine in Paris and professor of composition at the Paris Conservatory. In 1905 he succeeded Théodore Dubois as director of the conservatory, and he remained in office until ill health and deafness forced him to resign in 1920. Among his students were Maurice Ravel, Georges Enesco, and Nadia Boulanger.
 
Fauré excelled not only as a songwriter of great refinement and sensitivity but also as a composer in every branch of chamber music. He wrote more than 100 songs, including “Après un rêve” (c. 1865) and “Les Roses d’Ispahan” (1884), and song cycles that included La Bonne Chanson (1891–92) and L’Horizon chimérique (1922). He enriched the literature of the piano with a number of highly original and exquisitely wrought works, of which his 13 nocturnes, 13 barcaroles, and 5 impromptus are perhaps the most representative and best known.
 
Fauré’s Ballade for piano and orchestra (1881; originally arranged for solo piano, 1877–79), two sonatas for violin and piano, and Berceuse for violin and piano (1880) are among other popular works. Élégie for cello and piano (1880; arranged for orchestra, 1896), and two sonatas for cello and piano, as well as chamber pieces, are frequently performed and recorded.
 
Fauré was not especially attracted to the theatre, but he wrote incidental music for several plays, including Maurice Maeterlinck’s Pelléas et Mélisande (1898), as well as two lyric dramas, Prométhée (1900) and Pénélope (1913). Among his few works written for the orchestra alone is Masques et bergamasques (1919). The Messe de requiem for solo voices, chorus, orchestra, and organ (1887) did not gain immediate popularity, but it has since become one of Fauré’s most frequently performed works.
 
Although he had deep respect for the traditional forms of music, Fauré delighted in infusing those forms with a mélange of harmonic daring and a freshness of invention. One of the most striking features of his style was his fondness for daring harmonic progressions and sudden modulations, invariably carried out with supreme elegance and a deceptive air of simplicity. His quiet and unspectacular revolution prepared the way for more sensational innovations by the modern French school.
 
Here is the Requiem, with Victoria de los Angeles, soprano; Dietrich Fischer-Dieskau, baritone; Orchestre de la Société des Concerts du Conservatoire; André Cluytens; conductor, recorded in 1963.
 

Introit et Kyrie

Offertoire

Sanctus

Pie Jesu

Agnus Dei

Libera me

In Paradisum

FOOD FRIDAY - GRAPEFRUIT

“One that would have the fruit must climb the tree.” - Thomas Fuller
 
The last of the grapefruit are hanging on our tree in the back yard and they are deliciously sweet and ripe, just as the new, small green ones are beginning to grow. With the heat, we have been enjoying them as a simple and refreshing dessert.
 
DRUNKEN GRAPEFRUIT
Ingredients
 
4 grapefruit (may use pink or yellow, one for each person)
2 fruit yoghurt (each 100 g), citrus flavour
4 dessertspoonfuls of gin
4 dashes of angostura bitters
1 pomegranate, seeded, for decoration (if desired)
 
Method
Segment the grapefruit according to the instructions here:

Put the grapefruit segments in a bowl and drizzle them with the gin and bitters. Mix gently and put in the freezer for 30-45 minutes.
 
When ready to serve, put 50 g of yoghurt in each serving bowl, add the grapefruit segments and garnish with pomegranate seeds (if desired).

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

YARROW & ST PETER'S CHAINS

“He that is good at making excuses is seldom good at anything else.” - Benjamin Franklin
 
The anniversary of the birth 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 only 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.
 
The Greek Orthodox Church today venerates the Chains of St Peter the Apostle. The Veneration of the Honourable Chains of the Holy and All-Praised Apostle Peter relates to the following: In about the year AD 42, on the orders of Herod Agrippa, the Apostle Peter was thrown into prison for preaching about Christ the Saviour. In prison he was held secure by two iron chains. During the night before his trial, an angel of the Lord removed these chains from the Apostle Peter and led him out from the prison (Acts 12:1-11).
 
Christians who learned of the miracle took the chains and kept them as precious keepsakes. For three centuries the chains were kept in Jerusalem, and those afflicted with illness and approached them with faith received healing. Patriarch Juvenal (July 2) presented the chains to Eudokia, wife of the emperor Theodosius the Younger, and she in turn transferred them from Jerusalem to Constantinople in either the year AD 437 or 439.
 
Eudokia sent one chain to Rome to her daughter Eudoxia (the wife of Valentinian), who built a church on the Esquiline hill dedicated to the Apostle Peter and placed the chain in it. There were other chains in Rome, with which the Apostle Peter was shackled before his martyrdom under the emperor Nero. These were also placed in the church. On January 16, the chains of St Peter are brought out for public veneration.

HEAT WAVE IN MELBOURNE

“If you saw a heat wave, would you wave back?” - Steven Wright
 
Presently in Southern Australia we are experiencing an extreme heat wave. Melbourne is set to sizzle through 44˚C on Thursday as temperatures are on course to peak above 40˚C for four consecutive days for the first time in 100 years. On Friday the temperature is predicted to rise to 42˚C before a cool change in the evening. I went out briefly today and it was quite unpleasant.
 
Extreme heat causes more deaths in Australia than floods, cyclones, and lightning combined. Children, the elderly, people who have certain medical conditions, and people who spend time outside have the greatest risk of suffering from heat exposure. However, getting overheated can cause high body temperatures, brain damage, organ damage, and death in anyone, not forgetting pets and household animals.
 
It pays to take steps to protect yourself and your family from heat-related disorders:

• Stay inside, especially between 10 am and 5 pm, which is the hottest part of the day.
• Stay in air conditioned rooms.
• Dodo not leave pets outside for extended periods and if possible take them with you in air conditioned rooms. Ensure you provide enough drinking water for your pets.
• Walk dogs only for short periods and do so in the cooler parts of the day (early morning, evening and night).
• If you must be outside, stay in the shade as much as possible and ensure you put on sunscreen.
• Dress in breathable, light clothing.
• Use lightweight, breathable covers when sleeping.
• Avoid drinking alcoholic beverages, carbonated beverages, and caffeinated beverages that can dehydrate you.
• Drink plenty of water, iced tea and fruit juices.
• Close your blinds and curtains to block the sun and heat during the day.
• Exercise in an air-conditioned gym or exercise early in the morning or in the evening once it is cooler outside.
• Supervise children playing outside and ensure they often are drinking cold water.
• Visit your community swimming pool to cool off.
• Remember that car seats and metal clasps for seatbelts can reach temperatures high enough to cause a burn. Avoid driving, especially if your car is not air-conditioned.

If your home is not air conditioned, consider going to a public place which is air-conditioned (shopping centres, public libraries, local council rooms that may be made available). Otherwise, at home:

• Stay downstairs or in your basement where it is coolest.
• Keep pets with you in cool locations.
• Use a fan and position it to blow in the room and out a window instead of from outside to inside.
• Avoid using your oven and stove; use small appliances such as slow cookers and tabletop grills.
• Eat cool meals such as cold soups, salads, and fruit.
• Drink iced water and other cool, nonalcoholic beverages
• Never leave children, pets, or people in a car on a warm or hot day!
• Check on older, vulnerable family members and friends on hot summer days.
• See your doctor immediately if you have cramps, become nauseous, or you start to vomit.

POETRY JAM - REFRIGERATE

“The story of life is quicker then the blink of an eye, the story of love is hello, goodbye.” - Jimi Hendrix
 
Poetry Jam this week is influenced by the cold weather that has paralysed Northern America over the past few days. "The challenge this week, is the word refrigerate and/or refrigerators. How can you use the word refrigerate loosely in a poem?"
Here is my poem:
 
Les Adieux
 
Fusing cascades of raindrops
Make of the window a distorting lens,
And I behind it look
At fractured, ever-changing images
Refracted, strangely broken and re-melded
As if through weeping eyes beheld.
 
The sombre, sober colours
Of winter’s limited palétte
Run, mix and separate again
Through my prismatic window.
Each hue with purest liquid mixed
Becomes translucent,
Each raindrop a note of colour in a chromatic fantasy.
 
Smelling of citrus tang
In wan, short, wintry afternoon,
The sun, tart, like an unripe orange
Appears, shines dully on wet cobblestones
And every lemon, yellow-green is its reflection
Shattered as it were
By every raindrop clinging to the window glass.
 
The ailing sun swathed
In sheets of leaf-green clouds
Expires, leaving a mauve remembrance
Heir to the cold starry realm of night.
Frigid, relentless, old mistress of silence,
Moon Lady rises, killing
Even the memory of sun with a refrigerated kiss.
 
Shining stabs of light
The stars rend the frozen atmosphere
And penetrate the window pane,
Burning their starlight tracks on my transfixed gaze.
Winter comes early this year
And Spring long gone and well away –
Unlike her, nevermore will you return.

MOVIE MONDAY - GOLDEN GLOBE AWARDS 2014

“My invention, (the motion picture camera), can be exploited... as a scientific curiosity, but apart from that it has no commercial value whatsoever.” - Auguste Lumière
 
The Golden Globe Award is an American tribute bestowed by the 93 members of the Hollywood Foreign Press Association (HFPA) recognising excellence in film and television, both domestic and foreign. The annual formal ceremony and dinner at which the awards are presented is a major part of the film industry’s awards season, which culminates each year with the Academy Awards. The 71st Golden Globe Awards, honouring the best in film and television for 2013, were presented on January 12, 2014, at the Beverly Hilton Hotel in Beverly Hills, California, where they have been held annually since 1961.
 
The awards originated in 1943 when a group of writers banded together to form the Hollywood Foreign Press Association and created a generously distributed award called the Golden Globe Award. The first Golden Globe Awards, honouring the best achievements in 1943 filmmaking, were held late in January 1944, at the 20th Century-Fox studios. Subsequent ceremonies were held at various venues throughout the next decade, including the Beverly Hills Hotel, and the Hollywood Roosevelt Hotel.
 
Profits from the annual ceremony have enabled the Hollywood Foreign Press Association to donate millions of dollars to entertainment-related charities, as well as funding scholarships and other programs for future film and television professionals. The most prominent beneficiary is the Young Artist Awards, presented annually by the Young Artist Foundation, established in 1978 by late Hollywood Foreign Press member, Maureen Dragone to recognize and award excellence of young Hollywood performers under the age of 21, and to provide scholarships for young artists who may be physically and/or financially challenged
 
The Golden Globe Awards are as follows:
Motion picture awards
Best Motion Picture – Drama
Best Motion Picture – Musical or Comedy
Best Director
Best Actor – Motion Picture Drama
Best Actor – Motion Picture Musical or Comedy
Best Actress – Motion Picture Drama
Best Actress – Motion Picture Musical or Comedy
Best Supporting Actor – Motion Picture
Best Supporting Actress – Motion Picture
Best Screenplay
Best Original Score
Best Original Song
Best Foreign Language Film
Best Animated Feature Film (since 2006)
Cecil B. DeMille Award for Lifetime Achievement in Motion Pictures
 
Television awards Awarded since 1956
Best Drama Series
Best Comedy Series
Best Actor in a Television Drama Series
Best Actor in a Television Comedy Series
Best Actress in a Television Drama Series
Best Actress in a Television Comedy Series
Best Mini-Series or Motion Picture made for Television
Best Actor in a Mini-Series or Motion Picture made for Television
Best Actress in a Mini-Series or Motion Picture made for Television
Best Supporting Actor in a Series, Mini-Series or Motion Picture made for Television
Best Supporting Actress in a Series, Mini-Series or Motion Picture made for Television
 
In terms of the winners for the best movies this year, the best drama movie winner was “12 Years a Slave” which concerns the true story of Solomon Northup. In the pre-Civil War United States, Solomon Northup (Chiwetel Ejiofor), a free black man from upstate New York, is abducted and sold into slavery. Facing cruelty (personified by a malevolent slave owner, portrayed by Michael Fassbender), as well as unexpected kindnesses, Solomon struggles not only to stay alive, but to retain his dignity. In the twelfth year of his unforgettable odyssey, Solomon’s chance meeting with a Canadian abolitionist (Brad Pitt) will forever alter his life. I certainly look forward to seeing this movie.
 
The best comedy or musical movie winner was “American Hustle”. This is a fictional film set in the alluring world of one of the most stunning scandals to rock the USA. American Hustle tells the story of brilliant con man Irving Rosenfeld (Christian Bale), who along with his equally cunning and seductive British partner Sydney Prosser (Amy Adams) is forced to work for a wild FBI agent Richie DiMaso (Bradley Cooper). DiMaso pushes them into a world of Jersey powerbrokers and mafia that’s as dangerous as it is enchanting. Jeremy Renner is Carmine Polito, the passionate, volatile, New Jersey political operator caught between the con-artists and Feds. Irving’s unpredictable wife Rosalyn (Jennifer Lawrence) could be the one to pull the thread that brings the entire world crashing down. This one is less appealing to me.
 
The best foreign language film award went to the Italian film “The Great Beauty”. It concerns journalist Jep Gambardella, who has charmed and seduced his way through the lavish nightlife of Rome for decades. Since the legendary success of his one and only novel, he has been a permanent fixture in the city's literary and social circles, but when his sixty-fifth birthday coincides with a shock from the past, Jep finds himself unexpectedly taking stock of his life, turning his cutting wit on himself and his contemporaries, and looking past the extravagant nightclubs, parties, and cafés to find Rome in all its glory: A timeless landscape of absurd, exquisite beauty. This one I shall definitely have to watch!
 
In terms of best director, the honour goes to Alfonso Cuarón for the film “Gravity” a science fiction flick, which tells of medical engineer and an astronaut work together to survive after an accident leaves them adrift in space. This one I would like to watch also.

The full list of awards can be seen on the HFPA site. Now that the buzz is over for the Golden Globes, the film industry is anticipating the Oscars, which may come up with a few surprise winners this year.

MAGPIE TALES - STEADFAST

“A fallen lighthouse is more dangerous than a reef.” - Navjot Singh Sidhu
 
“La Jument, off the coast of Brittany”, a photograph by Jean Guichard, is this week’s visual stimulus to followers of her blog for all sorts of creative writing pieces, as hosted by Magpie Tales. Here is my offering:
 
Steadfast
 
To stand firm,
While all around me wild storms rage,
When furious winds make oceans roil,
That is my purpose.
 
To send out light,
While darkest night quickly falls,
When even hope drowns in inky blackness,
That is my role.
 
To sound my horn,
While fog rolls in, enveloping all in cottonwool stillness,
When clouds come down to drown in stormy seas,
That is my function.
 
To be there,
While all betray you, and you feel unloved,
When none it seems has need of you, none wants you,
That is my reason for existence.
 
To be steadfast,
When all is lost, when you’re deserted,
While night falls and stars are all extinguished:
My love, a lighthouse steadfast,
There for you – a safe haven in stormy seas.

ART SUNDAY - PIETER BRUEGEL

“Doubt is a pain too lonely to know that faith is his twin brother.” - Khalil Gibran
 

Pieter Bruegel the Elder (ca 1520 – 1569) was a South-Netherlandish painter and father of Jan Bruegel. His contemporaries dub him 'Boeren-Bruegel' (Farmer-Bruegel) for his skilful sketches of country-life, a nickname that does not do justice to either his work or his talent. In addition to the famed ‘Wedding’ and ‘Kermis’ paintings, Bruegel creates landscapes, devout works and impressions of Hell in a confident and expressive style with great flair for composition and space. Much of his work is clearly inspired by Jeroen Bosch. What is unusual about his religious work is the setting: The landscape and figures in many of his works are Flemish, not Middle Eastern, and Saul’s conversion takes place in the Alps – most likely a remnant of Bruegel’s most recent trip to Italy.
 

Bruegel was probably born in the village of Brogel (also: Breugel or Brugel) in the Kempen. Until 1550 he studied with Pieter Coecke. In 1552-1553 he travelled to Italy, where he was introduced to the works of, among others, Michelangelo. For the development of his style, the landscapes he painted on the way were of greater significance than the impressions Italy made on him. Once back in Antwerp and after his marriage to his tutor’s daughter (1563) he settled in Brussels, where he died in 1569. He signs his work as ‘Brueghel’ until 1559. Later he leaves out the H, and signs as ‘Bruegel’.
 

The 1564 painting above is “The Procession to Calvary”, painted on wood, 124x170cm. This is the second-largest known painting by Bruegel. It is one of sixteen paintings by him which are listed in the inventory of the wealthy Antwerp collector, Niclaes Jonghelinck, drawn up in 1566. It was Jonghelinck who commissioned ‘The Months’ from Bruegel and he may also have commissioned this work. Jonghelinck’s Bruegels passed into the possession of the city of Antwerp in the year in which the inventory was made. In 1604 it was recorded in the Prague collections of Rudolf II, Holy Roman Emperor, then transferred to Vienna, and in 1809 (until 1815) in Paris, requisitioned by Napoleon Bonaparte as part of his war booty.
 

For Bruegel the composition is unusually traditional. Perhaps because he was treating such a solemn religious event, he adopted a well-known scheme, used previously by the Brunswick Monogrammist and Bruegel’s Antwerp contemporary, Pieter Aertsen. Christ’s insignificance among the crowds is a familiar device of mannerist painting (it recurs in the ‘Preaching of John the Baptist’, as well as ‘The Conversion of Paul’), as is the artificial placing of Mary and her companions in a rocky foreground, which is deliberately distanced from the dramatic events taking place behind them.
 

The procession to Calvary comes to a dead halt when Jesus collapses under the weight of the Cross (centre). Calvary is a different name for the Golgotha hill. To the right in the foreground a small mournful crowd has gathered around Mary and John the Evangelist. The composition consisting of several small groups vaguely calls to mind the work of Jan van Eyck. The landscape is more Flemish than Palestinian - if it wasn’t for the strange mountain the windmill stands on. Some think Bruegel may have tried to compare Flanders and Palestine: Flanders was governed by Spain, and Palestine was occupied by the Romans. Both were aspiring for freedom. In 2011 a motion picture premiered about this painting: “The Mill and the Cross”.

MUSIC SATURDAY - IPHIGÉNIE EN AULIDE

“Men are not prisoners of fate, but only prisoners of their own minds.” - Franklin D. Roosevelt

 
'Iphigénie en Aulide' (Iphigeneia in Aulis) is an opera in three acts by Christoph Willibald Gluck, the first work he wrote for the Paris stage. The libretto was written by Leblanc du Roullet and was based on Jean Racine’s tragedy “Iphigénie”. It was premiered on 19 April 1774 by the Paris Opéra in the second Salle du Palais-Royal.
 

Christoph Willibald Ritter von Gluck (2 July 1714 – 15 November 1787) was an opera composer of the early classical period. After many years at the Habsburg court at Vienna, Gluck brought about the practical reform of opera dramaturgical practices that many intellectuals had been campaigning for over the years. With a series of radical new works in the 1760s, among them ‘Orfeo ed Euridice’ and ‘Alceste’, he broke the stranglehold that Metastasian opera seria had enjoyed for much of the century.
 

The strong influence of French opera in these works encouraged Gluck to move to Paris, which he did in November 1773. Fusing the traditions of Italian opera and the French national genre into a new synthesis, Gluck wrote eight operas for the Parisian stages. One of the last of these, ‘Iphigénie en Tauride’, was a great success and is generally acknowledged to be his finest work. Though he was extremely popular and widely credited with bringing about a revolution in French opera, Gluck’s mastery of the Parisian operatic scene was never absolute, and after the poor reception of his ‘Echo et Narcisse’ he left Paris in disgust and returned to Vienna to live out the remainder of his life.
 

“ ‘Iphigénie en Aulide’ did not prove popular at first, although its overture was applauded generously from the start. [After the premiere] it was billed on 22, 24 and 29 April only to have its first run interrupted by the 1 May to 15 June 1774 closing of the theatre on account of the illness and death of Louis XV ...The opera was not returned to the stage until 10 January 1775, but it was revived annually in 1776-1780, 1782-1793, 1796-1824. It was mounted in Paris more than 400 times in this interval of 50 years.” It eventually turned out to be Gluck’s most frequently performed opera in Paris.
 

For the 1775 revival, Gluck revised Iphigénie en Aulide ... introducing the goddess Diana (soprano) at the end of the opera as a dea ex machina, and altering and expanding the divertissements. So, broadly speaking, there are two versions of the opera; but the differences are by no means so great or important as those between “Orfeo ed Euridice” and “Orphée et Euridice” or between the Italian and the French “Alceste”.
 

The plot has as follows: Calchas, the great seer, prophesies that King Agamemnon must sacrifice his own daughter, Iphigenia, in order to guarantee fair winds for the king’s fleet en route to Troy –- a demand that comes from the goddess Diana herself. Throughout the opera, Agamemnon struggles with the terrible choice between sparing his daughter's life and ensuring his subjects’ welfare.
 

Agamemnon summons his daughter to Aulis, the port where the Greek navy is gathering, ostensibly for her to marry Achilles, the great warrior hero. Then, reconsidering his decision to sacrifice her, the king tries to prevent her arriving with the fabricated explanation that Achilles has been unfaithful. Iphigenia, however, has already reached the Greek camp accompanied by her mother Clytaemnestra. The two women are dismayed and angered by Achilles’ apparent inconstancy, but he eventually enters declaring his enduring love for the girl, and the first act ends with a tender scene of reconciliation.
 

The wedding ceremony is due to be celebrated and festivities take place with dances and choruses. When the couple are about to proceed to the temple, however, Arcas, the captain of Agamemnon’s guards, reveals that the king is awaiting his daughter before the altar in order to kill her. Achilles and Clytaemnestra rush to save the girl from being sacrificed. Agamemnon finally seems to give up his plan to kill her.
 

The third act opens with a chorus of Greeks: They object to the king’s decision in case they are never allowed to reach Troy, and demand the ceremony be celebrated. At this point, Iphigenia resigns herself to her fate, and offers her own life for the sake of her people, while Clytaemnestra entreats the vengeance of Jupiter upon the ruthless Greeks. As the sacrifice is going to be held, however, Achilles bursts in with his warriors and the opera concludes with Gluck’s most significant revision of the original myth: Calchas’ voice rises over the general turmoil and announces that Diana has changed her mind about the sacrifice and consents to the marriage. In the second 1775 version Diana appears personally to consecrate both the wedding and Agamemnon’s voyage.
 

Here is the complete opera with De Nederlandse Opera (September 2011) with Les Musiciens du Louvre Grenoble – Directed Marc Minkowski and staging by Pierre Audi. Iphigénie: Véronique Gens; Diane: Salomé Haller; Agamemnon: Nicolas Testé; Clytemnestre: Anne Sofie von Otter; Achille: Frédéric Antoun.
 

http://youtu.be/XglTn41I7ok

GUILT-FREE CHOCOLATE CAKE

“All you need is love. But a little chocolate now and then doesn’t hurt.” - Charles M. Schulz
 

Now that the holidays are over and we have had the rather rich fare of the Christmas and New Year festivities, we should be easing into a healthier diet. This chocolate cake recipe has reduced fat content and is a healthier, but tasty, option than the fully-fledged, butter-rich version.
 

GUILT-FREE CHOCOLATE CAKE

Ingredients – Cake
2 large eggs
2 large egg whites
2 cups all-purpose flour
1 cup unsweetened cocoa powder
2 teaspoons baking powder
1 teaspoon baking soda
1 pinch salt
1 cup buttermilk
1 cup fruit purée fat replacement (see below)
1/3 cup canola oil
2 tablespoons instant coffee granules
2 teaspoons vanilla extract
2 and 3/4 cups sugar
 

Ingredients – Fruit purée fat replacement
Purée 2/3 cup pitted prunes (or equal amounts of prunes and dried apples) and 1/3 cup water in a blender or processor until smooth. Add 1 tablespoon each of lemon juice and lecithin granules (available in health food stores) and blend again.
The dark colour and strong flavour of this fat replacement make it best suited to chocolate-based or heavily spiced baked goods. To replace 1/2 cup butter, use 1/3 cup prune purée (makes 1 cup purée).
 

Ingredients – Glaze
2 tablespoons chopped hazelnuts, or almonds
3 ounces bittersweet or semisweet chocolate, coarsely chopped
3 tablespoons low-fat milk
 

Method
Prepare fruit purée fat replacement.

To make cake: Preheat oven to 165°C. Coat a 12-cup Bundt pan with cooking spray.
Place eggs and egg whites in a large mixing bowl and set bowl in a pan of hot water; stir occasionally to warm eggs.

Meanwhile, sift flour, cocoa, baking powder, baking soda and salt into a medium bowl. Set aside.
Whisk buttermilk, fruit purée, oil, coffee granules and vanilla in another medium bowl. Set aside.
Remove bowl of eggs from water. Beat with an electric mixer on low speed. Gradually add sugar. Increase mixer speed to high and continue beating until mixture is thick and pale, about 5 minutes.
Alternately fold the reserved dry ingredients and buttermilk mixture into egg mixture with a rubber spatula, making 3 additions of dry ingredients and 2 additions of buttermilk mixture. Scrape the batter into prepared pan.
Bake until top springs back when touched lightly and cake shrinks away slightly from sides of pan, 50 to 60 minutes. Place on a wire rack to cool for 10 minutes. Loosen edges and invert cake onto rack. Cool completely.
To make glaze and finish cake: Spread nuts in a shallow pan and bake in a 325°F oven until fragrant, 5 to 7 minutes. Let cool.
Combine chocolate and milk in a small heavy saucepan; heat over low heat, stirring, until glaze is smooth, and coat cake.
 

This post is part of the Food Friday meme,

and also part of the Food Trip Friday meme.

MUSICAL BIRTHDAYS

“I don’t know anything about music. In my line you don’t have to.” - Elvis Presley
 
Today is the anniversary of the birth of:
Lowell Mason, hymn composer (1792);
William Wilkie Collins, writer (1824);
Frank Doubleday, publisher (1862);
John Curtin, Australian Prime Minister (1885);
Jaromir Weinberger, composer (1896);
Dennis (Yates) Wheatley, novelist (1897);
Ron Moody (Ronald Moodnick), actor (1928);
Elvis (Aaron) Presley, singer (1935);
Shirley Bassey, singer (1937);
Little Anthony, singer (1940);
Stephen Hawking, physicist (1942);
Yvette Mimieux, actress (1942);
David Bowie (David Robert Jones), singer/actor (1947).
 
Laburnum, Laburnum anagyroides, is the birthday flower for this day.  It symbolises pensive beauty and in the language of flowers it carries the message: “Forsaken”.  All parts of the plant are poisonous.
 
Plough Monday was celebrated in Northern and Eastern England as the first day after the holidays when ploughing and other farm labours could begin.

            Plough Monday, next after the Twelfth Day is past.

            Bids out with the plough: the worst husband is last.
 
A “Fool Plough” procession was often carried out on this day when young farm labourers called Plough Jags, Plough Boys or Stots, as they were called, paraded through the streets. Sword dances were common, often culminating in a mock execution of a “victim”, who was invariably revived afterwards.  Such traditions can be linked to ancient fertility rituals to ensure good crops.  In particular, the ancient Greek Eleusinian mysteries in honour of Demeter, involved the ritual “sacrifice” of a youth to assure the success of that year’s crops.
 
On this day in 1896, Paul Verlaine, the French poet died. He took 20 years to sell 500 copies of his Poèmes Saturnias. He briefly taught in a school in Bournemouth in England, but returned to France where he drank heavily and died in poverty.
 
Also died on this day in 1198, Celestine III (Hyacinth Bobo), Pope of Rome died while in 1713, Arcangelo Corelli, the Italian violinist and composer expired. Another Italian, Galileo Galilei died on this day in 1642. He was a mathematician and astronomer, whose observations led him to accept the Copernican heliocentric solar system, invoking the wrath of the inquisition.

POETRY JAM - FIRE

 “Love in its essence is spiritual fire.” - Lucius Annaeus Seneca
 

Poetry Jam this week has chosen the theme of “Fire” to stimulate our creative writing endeavours: “However you want to write it, let the emotion and memories of fire flood over you and write how you feel when the word ‘Fire’ is spoken out loud.”
Here is my offering:
 

The Burning
 

The fire burnt my house
The smoke stifled my breath;
The flames licked my memories,
The tablet wiped clean.
 

Wind-carried sparks surround me
Igniting my flammable mementos.
The embers glow, the hot ash flies
My place of refuge, now a hell.
 

All’s lost up in smoke,
My eyes are blinded by my fears,
My tears making of the flames
A watery incineration.
 

The earth is roasted dry,
Even the air is fire-red.
My house no more a haven
My home no more.
 

My pockets empty,
All that I have the clothes I wear.
My mind is desiccated
All dreams have sublimated.
 

The fire burns, the flames destroy:
All my possessions charred and gone;
The fire cauterising wounds
It, itself, has opened.
 

The fire robbed me of my home,
The smoke asphyxiated me.
My souvenirs are smoke
All of my pages, ash now.
And yet you live, I still have you by my side,
The things lost, no more important than fallen leaves.
Stand by my side, hold my hand, and hope,
For the fire in our hearts, can make of this barren, deathly place
A paradise, again.

MOVIE MONDAY - MAN ON A LEDGE

“Crime butchers innocence to secure a throne, and innocence struggles with all its might against the attempts of crime.” - Maximilien Robespierre
 
We recently watched a good action thriller, which kept us amused on a rainy afternoon. It was Asger Leth’s 2012 “Man on a Ledge” starring Sam Worthington, Elizabeth Banks, Jamie Bell, Ed Harris and Genesis Rodriguez. Although there are plot holes in the screenplay by Pablo F. Fenjves, and although the ending is predictable, the movie kept us engaged and there was enough humour interspersed with the action and tension to make it an interesting and enjoyable film.
 
In Sing Sing prison, Nick Cassidy (Worthington), an ex-cop now a con, is informed that his appeal is denied by the court. When his father dies, Nick receives authorisation to go to the funeral escorted by two policemen. However, he has a fight with his estranged brother Joey Cassidy (Bell) and Nick manages to escape in the scuffle. Nick takes on an assumed identity and becomes a guest on a 21st floor room of the Roosevelt Hotel in New York. After leaving a suicide note protesting his innocence, he climbs onto the building ledge through the room window and threatens to jump off, attracting a crowd on the street below.
 
The negotiator Lydia Mercer (Banks) is assigned to convince the unknown jumper to give up his intention to commit suicide. Meanwhile Nick’s brother, Joey and his girlfriend Angela Maria ‘Angie’ Lopez (Rodriguez) break into David Englander’s (Harris) office building and the secure safe room to commit a heist. Nick claims innocence to Lydia and asks her to give him more time to prove that he is innocent of the crime he is accused. Lydia believes that Nick is honest and decides to investigate his claims. Meanwhile the special forces are called in to remove Nick off the ledge by force and several police officers become embroiled in what appears to be complicated story. Is Nick innocent or is he in cahoots with his crim brother? Is Nick’s partner cop, Mike (Anthony Mackie) a friend or a foe? Why did Nick choose the Roosevelt Hotel owned by Englander to stage his suicide? Does Nick intend to jump off the ledge at all?
 
The pace of the film is rapid and there are enough action scenes to keep friends of this genre very happy. There are some plot twists and the flash-backs and flash-forwards are done well, not at all confusingly. The characters and their parts in the plot are revealed as we the movie progresses, with plenty to keep the viewer on the edge of their seat as Nick dangles precariously on his ledge. This is definitely NOT a movie for acrophobics as there many dizzying views of the long way down from the ledge and Nick does slip a few times risking to fall off. The direction is good and the acting also very good.
 
It is a typical dick-flick, but with a lot of redeeming features. Many critics were rather caustic about this film, including Worthington’s lapse into an Australian accent (which we enjoyed!). The movie does not pretend to be something that it is not, and is thus good entertainment. This is something that the public recognised and the worldwide box-office revenue was a respectable $46 million. It kept us interested and amused and as the story unfolded we chuckled and gasped at the appropriate places.

ART SUNDAY - RAOUL DUFY

“In art, the hand can never execute anything higher than the heart can imagine.” - Ralph Waldo Emerson
 
Raoul Dufy (1877 - 1953) was a French artist, who was born on June 3, 1877 in Le Havre, France and studied at the École des Beaux-Arts, as well as with Othon Friesz and Lhuillier. Although inspired by Matisse and resembling him in his devotion to rhythmic line, pure color and decorative effects, Dufy was a painter of great independence and originality.
 
During the first half of the 20th century, the Fauves, the Cubists, and the Surrealists dominated the art of France. Throughout all of these developments, Dufy went on painting the most highly civilised subjects he could find, the elegant holiday places and events of the rich.
 
Dufy’s palette and his taste for beauty eventually led him to the world of fashion and fabric design. He formed a close relationship with the couturier Paul Poiret, for whose fashion house he designed a logo; he also designed silk fabrics. This association bought him financial security. He eventually became one of the most sought-after illustrators of his day and designed sets and costumes for the theatre as well as upholstery and wallpaper.
 
One of the largest paintings of modern times was the gigantic mural done by Raoul Dufy for the pavillion of electricity at the 1937 International Exposition in Paris. The finished work, depicting the history and importance of electricity to the 20th century, was 197 feet wide and 33 feet high. Dufy christened it “La Fée Électricité” (shown above).
 
After the Exposition closed, Dufy’s mural, too big for exhibition, was stored away from public view in 250 sections. Dufy worried about its neglect and sought some way to keep his gigantic work on view. The answer was provided by a Paris publisher, who proposed that Dufy reproduce the mural as a color lithograph. Dufy set to work in 1951 and shortly before his death in 1953 completed the most ambitious lithography project ever undertaken: Three feet high by twenty feet wide, done in twenty-two colours and printed in ten sheets.
 
He was devoted to America and the American scene, to which he paid two visits. The latter of these visits was in 1951, for medical treatment of his arthritis. Crippling as his ailment was, Dufy did not allow it to halt his work or to diminish his great joy in life. Treatment of his arthritis by injecting cortisone improved his condition so much that he was able to return to his farmhouse in Provence where he painted several hours a day. He died in 1953 at the age of seventy-five.

MUSIC SATURDAY - ALBICASTRO

“If I could I would always work in silence and obscurity, and let my efforts be known by their results.” - Emily Brontë
 

Giovanni Henrico Albicastro was the pseudonym of Johann Heinrich von Weissenburg (c. 1660 – after 1730), a talented amateur musician who published his compositions pseudonymously. Albicastro came from the village of Bieswangen, near Pappenheim in central Bavaria, not far from the village of Weissenburg (“White Castle”, thus “Albicastro”). Johann Gottfried Walther included Albicastro in his Musicalisches Lexicon (1732) under the mistaken supposition that Albicastro came from Switzerland; consequently he has often been included in lists of Swiss musicians. He might be classified as a Bavarian-born composer of Italian music that was published in both the Protestant and Catholic Low Countries.
 

In 1686 Weissenburg arrived in Leiden, in the Netherlands, where he registered at the University of Leiden as a Musicus Academiae, but his name does not appear in the university’s archives. In 1696 a collection of twelve of his trio sonatas appeared, entitled Il giardino armonico sacro-profano (“The Sacred-Profane Harmonic Garden”), Opus 3. Edited by Francois Barbry, it was published in Bruges by Francois van Heurck; no copies of the last six, or of Albicastro's opus 1 or opus 2 from Bruges seem to have survived.

In Amsterdam a separate set of opus numbers were published by Estienne Roger: Collections of violin sonatas (Opp. 2, 3, 5, 6 and 9), trio sonatas (Opp. 1, 4 and 8), and string concertos (Op. 7) in a Corellian idiom. During the last phases of the War of the Spanish Succession (1701–1713), he served as a captain of cavalry. He remained active in this position until 1730, the last that is heard of him.
 

Here are his complete opus 7 concertos, played by Collegium Marianum & Collegium 1704 Riccardo Masahide Minasi, principal violin Václav Luks, harpsichord & direction Luca Giardini, Eleonora Machová, Markéta Knittlová, Edouardo Garcia Salas - violin I Lenka Koubková, Jan Hádek, Lenka Zelbová, Petr Zemanec - violin II Josef Fiala Donate Schack, Katerina Trsnavská - viola Marek Štryncl, Detmar Leertouwer, Doris Runge - cello Xenia Löffler, Meike Güldenhaupt - oboe Jan Krigovský, Ondřej Štajnochr - double bass Evangelina Mascardi – theorbo.

The illustration is Poussin’s “Landscape with a Calm Lake (1650/1651).

FOOD FRIDAY - VEGETABLE SOUP

“Go vegetable heavy. Reverse the psychology of your plate by making meat the side dish and vegetables the main course.” - Bobby Flay
 

We are experiencing a bout of cool, rainy weather in Melbourne at the moment. As the temperature is low, it is a good idea to revert to some nice soup for a light dinner. Use your own resources and seasonal vegetables to make this a year-round treat.
 

Pureed Vegetable Soup
Ingredients
 

1 tablespoon butter
1 tablespoon olive oil
1 onion, chopped
1 stalk celery, chopped
2 cloves garlic, chopped
1 teaspoon chopped fresh thyme or parsley
6 cups chopped potatoes, broccoli, carrots, beans (or whatever other vegetables you have)
2 cups water
4 cups vegetable broth
1/2 cup cream
1/2 teaspoon salt
Freshly ground pepper to taste
Pinch of ground mace
 

Method
Heat butter and oil in a Dutch oven over medium heat until the butter melts. Add onion and celery; cook, stirring occasionally, until softened, 4 to 6 minutes.
Stir in vegetables and cook for a few minutes to coat with oil and brown slightly.
Add garlic and thyme (or parsley); cook, stirring, until fragrant, about a minute or two.
Add water and broth; bring to a lively simmer over high heat. Reduce heat to maintain a rollicking simmer and cook until very tender.
Puree the soup in batches in a blender until smooth. (Use caution when pureeing hot liquids.) Stir in cream, salt, mace and pepper.
Serve with some crusty bread and butter.
 

This post is part of the Food Friday meme,

and also part of the Food Trip Friday meme.

URBAN GARDENS

“If you have a garden and a library, you have everything you need.” - Marcus Tullius Cicero
 

Living in the city certainly has its advantages. Our society is becoming increasingly urbanised and therefore governments tend to look after city dwellers better than they do country dwellers – after all that’s where most of the votes are. A city can offer convenience in transportation, shopping, amenities, services, facilities, entertainment, sporting venues, etc, etc. The down side of all of this of course is that we are becoming crowded into smaller and smaller spaces, with a decreased privacy, more liable to the effects of excessive noise, pollution, congestion, crime, etc, etc.
 

One of the greatest things that city dwellers may need to sacrifice is the pleasure of natural ambience, be it the wide open spaces of the great outdoors or the tamed natural space of a garden. Sure enough there may be parks in a city and some houses may be lucky enough to have a garden, but for the most part, in most large cities around the world, the opportunity to interact with nature may be limited.
 

I consider myself exceedingly lucky to live in a major metropolis (Melbourne has a population of 4.25 million, and it also has the fastest growing population rate amongst all Australian capital cities), but still be able to enjoy the pleasures of an urban garden. Our garden is a sanctuary, a space where we can enter and unwind, observe the change of the seasons, and be able to extend our activities into, as weather allows. It is a place where we can plant and cultivate – flowers for our vases, herbs for the kitchen pot and even a few seasonal vegetables: Tomatoes, cucumbers, zucchinis, lettuce, Spring onions, spinach, silverbeet, according to the season.
 

We are gradually being surrounded by increased housing density. Single dwellings in our street are being demolished and in their place there are multi-dwelling developments being built. Units, flats, apartment buildings. It is sad to see the gardens gradually disappearing and what once was a green suburb become a place of concrete and multi-storey (generally ugly) buildings. Such is the way of urban agglomerations, human greed and increasingly lax building regulations that allow more and more people to live in smaller and smaller spaces. At the current rate, it looks like Melbourne will become more like another of the overseas ugly large modern cities with great aggregations of multi-storey apartment buildings everywhere.
 

When we lived in Athens, our suburb was green and gardens were not infrequently seen. Now visiting Athens one doesn’t recognise the place of old. Athens has become a large, sprawling concrete jungle. Only the very rich and privileged can afford dwellings with gardens. Melbourne is marching down the same path, unfortunately.
 

For the present, we can enjoy our garden, our urban oasis and be grateful that we are able to maintain it against the overdevelopment that is surrounding us. Inevitably of course, even our little Eden will disappear and concrete will be found where now there roses blooming…

NEW YEAR'S DAY

“Celebrate what you want to see more of.” - Tom Peters
 
New Year’s Day: The Romans introduced the custom of celebrating the beginning of the year on January 1st in 46 BC.  They called this celebration the January calendae, and they decorated their houses with lights and greenery for the three days that the festivities lasted. People exchanged gifts that were carefully chosen so as to ensure the propitiousness of the year ahead. Gifts of honey and sweets were given and meant that one wished the receiver to have a year of peace and sweetness; gifts of money or gold meant that the year would be prosperous; while giving lamps or candles meant that the year would be filled with light and happiness.  The emperor also received gifts from the citizens to wish him a happy year ahead.
 
This tradition was adopted by the countries that Rome had subjugated. In England, for example, the feudal lords received samples of produce from the peasants tilling their land.  The lords in turn sent to the King something more valuable (gold was always a popular gift!).  Amongst the common people a traditional New Year’s Day gift was a dried orange stuck with cloves and a sprig of rosemary tied with silk ribbons.
 
Many Englishmen used to give their wives money so that they could buy pins for the whole year ahead. Before the industrial revolution of the 1800s, pins and needles were very expensive as they were hand-made. After the 1800s when pins and needles were mass-produced, the custom disappeared, but the term pin-money is still used to describe money set aside for minor personal expenses.
 
Handsel Monday, the first Monday in the New Year, was a great holiday in Scotland in olden times. It was devoted to the giving and receiving of presents or money.  Handsel refers to a gift at the commencement of a new season, some new beginning or the enduing of some new garment. Farmers used to treat their workers to a hearty breakfast on this day and young children visited their parents and relatives requesting a gift.  Postmen, deliverers of newspapers and other neighbourhood providers of various services also expected some sort of present, this “handsel” being the equivalent of the Boxing Day gift in England (see December 26th).  “Handsel Money” can also refer to the first (and hence lucky) sum of money a trader receives at the beginning of the trading day.  This tradition is still very much alive and well in Greece and many of the Near Eastern countries.
 
St Basil was one of the Fathers of the Greek Orthodox Church. He was born in Caesarea (now, in Turkey) in the fourth century AD and during his life he sailed to Greece, where he was active, until his death on the 1st of January.  Many legends relating to his life commemorate his kindness to children.  This has led to the custom of gift giving on New Year’s Day in Greece.  St Basil thus has a similar role to the Santa Claus of other nations.  Being the first day of the year, tradition has it that one must receive money on this day (and hence continue to receive it everyday of that year!).  This is the Greek custom of the “bonamas” (a term perhaps related to the Italian buon anno or even the French bonne âme), a monetary gift to friends and relatives.
 
The vassilopitta, St Basil’s Cake, is another Greek tradition, and this is a sweet, raised yeast cake which contains a silver or gold coin (depending on the family’s finances!).  The father of the family cuts the cake after the New Year is heralded in and distributes the pieces in strict order: First, one for the Saints, then one for the House, then one for each member of the family, from the most senior to the youngest child. Then pieces for the guests, livestock and then for the poor, the remainder being for the “house”.  The person finding the lucky coin is assured of luck for the rest of the year.
 
The tradition of the “first foot” or podhariko is widespread in Greece, as it is in some other European countries, and the British Isles.  This involves the first visitor to enter the house on New Year’s Day.  He sets the pattern of good or bad luck that will enter the house for the year.  The luckiest first foot is a dark-haired stranger who must be male.  Unlucky first foots are female, red or blond-haired, cross-eyed, with eyebrows that meet across the nose.  The first foot must have been outside the house before midnight and must enter the house any time after the clock has struck midnight, as long as he is the first to come in.  Good luck is ensured if the “first foot” brings with him some token gift, a loaf of bread symbolising sustenance for the whole year, coal or wood symbolising warmth or a few coins or some salt, symbolising prosperity.
 
Other Greek traditional sweets for New Year’s Day (except the vassilopitta) are melomakarona (honey macaroons) and dhiples (thin, crisply fried pancakes served with honey and crushed nuts).  A renewal of the water in the house is another custom.  Fresh spring water is drawn and taken into the house on New Year’s morning as St Basil’s Water. This is used to fill ewers, jugs, vases and other containers, thus blessing the house for the whole year.
 
Carolling is popular and the carollers must be given some money to ensure prosperity for the coming year.  The carol sung is the New Year’s kalanda (from the Latin calendae, first day of the month). The carollers often hold a model of a sailing ship, beautifully made and decorated, symbolising St Basil’s ship on which he sailed to Greece. They accompany themselves with steel triangles, drums, fifes and other folk instruments while going around from house to house. Here is the Greek New Year’s Carol: