Art

I'm all excited because:
a) it's a long weekend here in Canada, and
b) I got my Art Gallery membership card in the mail.
<-- That's a picture of it, there.
Now I can go to all the special exhibits without paying the entrance fee over and over, and there are many other perks, too -- not the least of which is a 15% discount in the Gallery Bookstore!
Some of you may recall a former picture I once posted of the giant spider in front of the National Gallery. The place is just down the street from me, less than ten minutes to walk there.
Right now I am reading a terrific book about art.
It's actually about the life of Leonardo da Vinci.
And recently I read a novel, the main focus of which, was art. This was Jose Saramago's Manual of Painting and Calligraphy, a book I nearly slobbered over when I first saw it at a bookstore in Toronto! It is Saramago's first novel, [1976] but only now released to the English reading world.
In it, the main character says:
A man advances through spaces, through rooms crowded with faces and forms, and clearly does not emerge as he went in, otherwise he might as well have kept away. I said this in praise of museums. I say this every time I enter a museum so that no one may wonder at each new quest for the secret or message I know remains intact inside, even when brought to light.
This is exactly how I feel after a visit to a major art gallery.
I leave a little bit different than I was when I walked in.
In a positive way!
*****

Splash du Jour: Friday

"... I know that tea is no minor beverage. When tea becomes ritual, it takes its place at the heart of our ability to see greatness in small things."
-- Muriel Barbery, The Elegance of the Hedgehog --

Have a great Friday!
*****

Splash du Jour: Thursday

He was one of those guys that think they're being a pansy if they don't break around forty of your fingers when they shake hands with you. God I hate that stuff.
-- J.D. Salinger, The Catcher in the Rye --

Have a great Thursday!
*****

Splash du Jour: Wednesday

And it occurred to him that there were two parts to being a better person. One part was thinking about other people. The other part was not giving a toss what other people thought.
-- Mark Haddon, A Spot of Bother --

Have a great Wednesday!
*****

The Elegance of the Hedgehog

I have to pop by for a few minutes while I am cooking a [late] chicken dinner to say a few words about a truly remarkable book.
The Elegance of the Hedgehog, by Muriel Barbery.
I just finished this book yesterday and I must say, I LOVED it.
This is a book that is heavy on idea, rather than plot. And so, to really appreciate this novel, one must love idea, and philosophical musing.
We hear these musings and "profound thoughts" through the voices of the book's two alternating narrators; a reclusive 54-year old female concierge named Renee, and a precocious, intellectually-gifted 12-year old girl named Paloma.
The author has these two personalities living in the same building, yet virtually unknown to each other until the later stages of the narrative.
Each of them feel the alienation of being extremely intelligent but not fully known or understood by those around them. Renee's difficulty has been lifelong, suffering from a negative self-image since childhood. She finds inner peace only in the pursuit of her autodidactic lifestyle, exacerbated since the recent death of her husband Lucien.
Paloma's issues are obviously more recently acquired, and thus not nearly as entrenched. Born into an affluent family, she suffers from a feeling of privilege, and feels intellectually distanced from everyone around her. Paloma develops a rather jaded attitude toward social interaction -- and harbors suicidal thoughts.
A wealthy Japanese man moves into the building and becomes friends with Renee. What he does for her self-image is truly revolutionary, and through wondrous turns and events, Paloma and Renee finally meet. What follows is a truly heartwarming merging of these three characters.
But relationships of mutual benefit and comfort [and love] inevitably carry with them the possibilities of triumph and tragedy. And so it is that Muriel Barbery gives us a book literally filled and crammed with the most beautiful and wondrous of ideas, yet also housed in the pain and sorrow of loss.
I'm not at all doing the book any justice with this brief review -- but my chicken is done! And so I must go.
Suffice it to say this is the best book I have read in 2012.
If you have read it, I would love to hear your opinion of it.
*****

Splash du Jour: Tuesday

Have a great Tuesday!
*****

Splash du Jour: Monday

Those of us who feel inspired, as I do, by the greatness of small things will pursue them to the very heart of the inessential where, cloaked in everyday attire, this greatness will emerge from within a certain ordering of ordinary things and from the certainty that all is as it should be, the conviction that it is fine this way.
-- Muriel Barbery, The Elegance of the Hedgehog --

Have a great Monday!
*****

A.K. in 33: A Trifecta Writing Challenge

Dear friends, my holiday time is nearly over. Monday shall soon be upon me like the slavering ghoul of an unwanted nightmare.
But I have spent a portion of this glorious sunny Saturday reflecting upon the current Trifecta Challenge.
This week we're revisiting an early Trifextra prompt: retelling. This time, we're asking you to retell your favorite book. In 33 words. Nothing like a challenge.
So I thought and I thunk, and here's what happened:

Passion? The wheels of a train will crush it. Passion teaches us nothing but the fact that true happiness in life comes from what is put into it, not from what is extracted.

*****

Splash du Jour: Friday

Have a great Friday!

*****

Splash du Jour: Wednesday

What am I in the eyes of most people — a nonentity, an eccentric, or an unpleasant person — somebody who has no position in society and will never have; in short, the lowest of the low. All right, then — even if that were absolutely true, then I should one day like to show by my work what such an eccentric, such a nobody, has in his heart. That is my ambition, based less on resentment than on love in spite of everything, based more on a feeling of serenity than on passion. Though I am often in the depths of misery, there is still calmness, pure harmony and music inside me. I see paintings or drawings in the poorest cottages, in the dirtiest corners. And my mind is driven towards these things with an irresistible momentum.
-- Vincent Van Gogh --

Have a great Wednesday!
*****

Almond Blossom

I am well into Day Two of a vacation.
I have not gone anywhere -- I'm just staying right here -- but it is so nice to not be going to work for a week!
I began this week with a foray into the world of fine art, visiting the National Gallery just down the street from where I live. I can literally see the place from my apartment, and after 15 years of residence here, I finally bought a membership. Now I can go as many times as I want to all the special exhibits without paying the entrance fee.
[Thank you Lorin, for presenting this wonderful idea to me].
Yesterday my friend and I went to the Van Gogh "Up Close" exhibit.
It was fantastic!
For several months this summer, the Ottawa National Gallery showcases 45 paintings representing some of Van Gogh's more detailed work. Hence, the name "Up Close".
Obviously, no cameras were allowed in. My favorite piece was called Almond Blossom, seen above. A bigger image --> HERE.
Vinny cranked this one out in 1890, on the occasion of his nephew's birth, and it is meant to signify budding life.
I stared at this painting and just wondered HOW he could have done it. As you look at the thing, the sky above the branches actually appears to move, swirling.
Anyhoo -- if I continue along these lines for the week, by the time I return to work next Monday, I will be "cultured." For instance, tonight my friend and I are conducting an experiential study of gourmet pizza!

Splash du Jour: Tuesday

You can resolve to live your life with integrity. Let your credo be this: Let the lie come into the world, let it even triumph. But not through me.
-- Alexander Solzhenitsyn --

Have a great Tuesday!
*****

Splash du Jour: Monday

Interest is never enough. If it doesn't haunt you, you'll never write it well. What haunts and obsesses you may, with luck and labour, interest your readers. What merely interests you is sure to bore them.
-- Steven Heighton --
Have a great Monday!
*****

Ducklings: A Saturday Snapshot

For this week's Saturday Snapshot I am utilizing one of Alyce's provisos:
The snapshot of a "friend".
My decade-long faithful Reading Partner is [among other things] a certified Duckmistress©. Which is to say, every summer she raises another brood of ducklings on her Illinois-based duck-farm.
Here is a shot of the current brood of peepers in a bit of an impromptu huddle.
If I'm not mistaken, the topic at this particular beak-flapping was the current state of the Euro-dollar, and the repurcussions of Spain's monetary bailout.
Aren't they adorable?
What is cuter [besides kittens… and Nicole Kidman]… and -- seriously thinking now, maybe… Nicole Kidman holding a kitten?
What is cuter than a fuzz-faced pile of world-weary ducklings?
I agree.
Nothing!

Thank you Alyce, for hosting this terrific Saturday Snapshot meme @ At Home With Books.
*****

Splash du Jour: Friday

Have a great Friday!
*****

Splash du Jour: Thursday

"I didn't take lessons, and I don't know my scales."
-- Lindsey Buckingham --
A few months ago, I rediscovered my love of Fleetwood Mac. My friend and I watched the 1997 concert DVD The Dance about ten times, and together realized that Lindsey Buckingham is one of the best guitarists out there. Truly amazing.
Just yesterday I discovered that Mr. Buckingham is going to be in my city on Sept.7th for an outdoor concert, at Folk Fest.
I will definitely be in attendance, maybe with my equally enamored friend.
If you are under the age of…. 40? -- and unfamiliar with this guy's work, I cannot think of a better song to leave you with than I'm So Afraid, from The Dance DVD.
The guy refuses to play with a pick. It just boggles the mind. Take the seven minutes to listen to this song, and stay with it, the real guitar solo doesn't get going until about the four minute mark…

Have a great Thursday!
*****

Splash du Jour: Wednesday

"Miss Abigail, I want to be an author because writers know when a person is lonely. I mean, when Molly read me some books, those writers reached out and said, Look Gideon, we know about your loneliness and we know you're feeling downtrodden. And they said...I'll stand up for you. You're not lone anymore."
-- Leo Uris, Mitla Pass --



Have a great Wednesday!
*****

Splash du Jour: Tuesday

Without missing a beat Heath replied: "Yes, but there’s a second kind of reader. There’s the social isolate- the child who from an early age felt very different from everyone around him. This is very, very difficult to uncover in an interview. People don’t like to admit that they were social isolates as children. What happens is you take that sense of being different into an imaginary world. But that world, then is a world you can’t share with the people around you- because it’s imaginary. And so the important dialogue in your life is with the authors of the books you read. Though they aren’t present, they become your community.”
Pride compels me, here, to draw a distinction between young fiction readers and young nerds. The classic nerd, who finds a home in facts or technology or numbers, is marked not by a displaced sociability but by an antisociability. Reading does resemble more nerdy pursuits in that it’s a habit that both feeds on a sense of isolation and aggravates it. Simply being a “social isolate” as a child does not, however, doom you to bad breath and poor party skills as an adult. In fact, it can make you hypersocial. It’s just that at some point you’ll begin to feel a gnawing, almost remorseful need to be alone and do some reading -- to reconnect to that community.
-- From the essay Why Bother, in Jonathan Franzen's How To Be Alone --

Have a great Tuesday!
*****

Splash du Jour: Monday

And when the event, the big change in your life, is simply an insight -- isn’t that a strange thing? That absolutely nothing changes except you see things differently and you’re less fearful and less anxious and generally stronger as a result; isn’t it amazing that a completely invisible thing in your head can feel realer than anything you’ve experienced before? You see things more clearly and you know that you’re seeing them more clearly. And it comes to you that this is what it means to love life, this is all anybody who talks seriously about God is ever talking about. Moments like this.
-- Jonathan Franzen, The Corrections --

Have a great Monday!
*****

The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks

I have been extremely lax in my reviewing, lately.
Hah!
Get it? Lax? Lacks? [Never mind…] But this book is just too good to not recommend to one and all.
The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks, by Rebecca Skloot.
It seems so cliche of a phrase, but in this case it is so true:
"I could not put the book down!"
It is the true story of Henrietta, an African-American woman who died in 1951 from a vicious case of cervical cancer. Before her death, a surgeon at John Hopkins extracted samples of the cancerous tumor and reproduced them in culture. At that time, researchers everywhere were trying similar experiments with patients, but cells would reproduce for a while, and then die.
To the surprise of everyone involved, Henrietta's cells were different. Not only did they not die, they are STILL not dying. HeLa cells, as they came to be known, continue even now to reproduce at alarming rates and inconceivable numbers, aiding in ongoing cancer research worldwide.
The author tells us: "One scientist has estimated that if you could pile all HeLa cells ever grown onto a scale, they'd weigh more than 50 million metric tons…" [incidentally, this is heavier than several Empire State buildings!]
Laying these cells end to end, they would "wrap around the Earth at least three times, spanning more than 350 million feet."
Almost all of us, healthy or not, have in one way or another benefited from the usage of Henrietta's amazing cells.
Yet, neither Henrietta herself, nor any of her family, were aware of what was taking place. Decades later, when the human source of such an incredible medical breakthrough was revealed -- her husband, children, and siblings entered a time of sincere confusion over what exactly it means to have Henrietta's cells not only "alive" but dispersed on such a global scale.
In the interim, a multi-million dollar industry of HeLa cell distribution developed. It is an understatement to say that many people and corporations have financially benefited from the HeLa phenomenon. Yet the Lacks family have never realized any remuneration whatsoever, and today cannot even afford basic health care.
This book is an attempt to at least rectify the issue of recognition.
Rebecca Skloot spent a decade in research and writing to give us this story of a remarkable woman, her family, and the repercussions of an astounded world trying to keep pace with her crazy cells!
This is a five-asterisk must read. More novelly than most novels!
*****

Rainbow: A Saturday Snapshot

On the way home from work two nights ago, I stopped for gas at The Rockcliffe Shell Station. I filled up the Mazda just as an extremely fast-approaching storm swept in. The rain had just begun pelting down, along with an awesome light show of lightning.
The woman at the next pump said to me, "Can you see the double-rainbow from where you are?" and I moved over a bit and WOW..... I did see it.
It was crazy awesome!
So I raced home to get my camera, but by the time I got up here to the 14th [really the 13th] floor, it had become just a single rainbow, and I snapped this shot.
But hey, ANY rainbow is better than just sky.... so here it is.

Thank you Alyce, for hosting this terrific Saturday Snapshot meme @ At Home With Books.
*****

Splash du Jour: Friday

Musing takes place in a kind of meadowlands of the imagination, a part of the imagination that has not yet been plowed, developed, or put to any immediately practical use ... time spent there is not work time, yet without that time the mind becomes sterile, dull, domesticated. The fight for free space--for wilderness and public space--must be accompanied by a fight for free time to spend wandering in that space.
-- Rebecca Solnit, Wanderlust: A History of Walking --

Have a great Friday!
*****

Splash du Jour: Thursday

Top 10 Bookstore Pickup Lines

10. Care to come back to my place for a little Dickens?
9. When you're tired of dating "speed readers" -- call me.
8. You're pretty nicely stacked yourself.
7. Have you seen a copy of Tax Tips for Billionaires?
6. Who's your favorite Karamazov brother?
5. I've got a great reading light next to my bed.
4. I can bench-press a whole stack of James Michener novels.
3. While you're turning those pages, mind if I lick your fingers?
2. You're hotter than Emily Dickinson in a tube top.
1. Is that an unabridged dictionary in your pocket,
or are you just glad to see me?

Have a great Thursday!
*****

Splash du Jour: Wednesday

This is my new business card. What do y'all think?
Is it too… bookish?

Have a great Wednesday!
*****

Splash du Jour: Tuesday

It is quite impossible these days to assume anything about people's educational level from the way they talk or dress or from their taste in music. Safest to treat everyone you meet as a distinguished intellectual.
-- Ian McEwan, Atonement --

Have a great Tuesday!
*****

Splash du Jour: Monday

Have a great Monday!
*****

Dream Come True: A Trifecta Writing Challenge

The weekend is here, nearly gone, actually -- and it's been a cool one.
I mean temperature-wise.
NOT EXACTLY TANNING WEATHER!
Hence, I've stayed inside the apartment, read a great book, and drank copious amounts of coffee and dreamed about winning lotteries.
This weekend's Trifecta Writing Challenge is as follows:
Complete the following story in 33 words:
'It wasn't the first time.'
-- Here's my starry-eyed response:
It wasn't the first time.
Nor even the second. Nearer a thousand and one, give or take. But Cipriano wouldn't select those six numbers on any Lottery ballot ever again. Because this Friday, he won the damn jackpot!

Click on the image of me walking away with the loot to see that this is not exactly "the first time" I have mused upon this topic...

$$$$$

Drummer in Profile: A Saturday Snapshot

In the very early '80's, I played in a rock band.
Our name was Hellion -- the collective name that best described what we all were, as individuals. Little heedless hellions.
Someone, I know not who, snapped this shot at one of our gigs, and recently our bass player, the guy in the white shirt, displaying his wisp of chest hair and Shania Twain midriff -- sent it to me. It was such a BLAST from the past!
The only one of us who went on from there to make an [extremely] successful career in the music business was the first guy, in the brown shirt -- our sound man.
Sadly, our lead vocalist in the center [striped shirt] is now deceased.
We shall forever miss you, Darce!
Can you guess who I am?
That's right. I'm the young, somewhat muscular girl at the far right. The last guy. The drummer in profile.
Oh, to be so young again! So crazy. So wonderfully idealistic and crazy in the head!
To have so much HAIR!

Thank you Alyce, for hosting this terrific Saturday Snapshot meme @ At Home With Books.
*****

Saramago Fans Rejoice!

<-- Look at what I bought tonight!
Those who are familiar with the fact that I love the work of Jose Saramago [my alias of "Cipriano" is borrowed from the main character of his novel The Cave, my actual name being… Fred] will no doubt be able to imagine my intense joy at the discovery that there are yet more works available by this wonderful, inimitable, writer.
Manual of Painting and Calligraphy is his first novel -- and has only now been translated into English and released on the unworthy bookstore shelves. Amid sudden heart palpitations I saw it in a store while I was in Toronto recently, and finally got it tonight. Being the unbelievably tenacious cheapskate that I am, I patiently [or not so patiently] awaited the arrival of a bookstore gift-card in the mail. It had no time at all to burn a hole in my pocket as I made a beeline to the "S" section of the Chapters store tonight! I can't wait to read the thing. From the synopsis, I gather that it will be somewhat similar to his excellent The History of the Siege of Lisbon -- a sort of intertwined love story set against a background of actual Portuguese history.
I continue to mourn the death of Jose Saramago [June 18th, 2010] and will never forget the moment when I first heard the news of his passing. But it is so incredibly fortuitous to discover that there are yet other Saramagian treasures for me to devour. Raised From The Ground is a novel scheduled for release on the very day of my birthday at the end of this year.
And yet another, The Lives of Things, Saramago's sole collection of short stories [be still my heart] was released just weeks ago and has yet to find its way into my paws. But it will. Oh…. it will!
And dear friend, if you have yet to discover this Nobel Prize winning master of the craft, I have only two more things to say to you:
Do it.
Read him.

Splash du Jour: Friday

How many mystery writers does it take to screw in a light bulb?
Two.
One to screw it almost all the way in, and the other to give it a surprising twist at the end.

Have a great Friday!
*****