Music Monday ~ Composer of Opera & "the Caruso of Rock" - Two Birthdays.

Is there any reason to compare Leoncavallo and Roy Orbison ? It's an unlikely pairing. Both were born today, 23 April, 79 years apart - is that where similarity ends?

Ruggero Leoncavallo 23 April 1857 – 9 August 1919) was an Italian opera composer and librettist. Although he produced numerous operas and other songs throughout his career it is his opera Pagliacci (1892) that remained his lasting contribution, despite attempts to escape the shadow of his greatest success. Pagliacci owes its continuing success in part to the composer’s ability to balance humour, romance, and darkly violent moods. My post on Leoncavallo from 2012 is HERE.

Born 79 years later, in Texas on 23 April 1936:
Roy Orbison
Roy Kelton Orbison (April 23, 1936 – December 6, 1988) was an American singer-songwriter known for his distinctive, impassioned voice, complex song structures, and dark emotional ballads. The combination led many critics to describe his music as operatic, nicknaming him "the Caruso of Rock" and "the Big O". While most male rock-and-roll performers in the 1950s and 1960s projected a defiant masculinity, many of Orbison's songs instead conveyed vulnerability. His voice ranged from baritone to tenor, and music scholars have suggested that he had a three- or four-octave range. During performances, he was known for standing still and solitary, and for wearing black clothes, to match his dyed jet black hair and dark sunglasses, which lent an air of mystery to his persona.

"Caruso of rock" eh? Something there to consider? A quick look at both natal charts.

Leoncavallo born 23 April 1857 in Naples, Italy at 4 PM (Data from Astrodienst)

Orbison born 23 April 1936 in Vernon, Texas, USA, at 3.50 PM (Data from Astrodienst)

The very obvious similarity: lots of emphasis in both charts on Taurus, sign ruled by Venus, planet of the arts. Leoncavallo had Sun conjunct Pluto (darkness and intensity), Venus and Mercury conjunct Uranus (the unexpected and/or modern) along with Mars nearby also, all in Taurus.

Orbison had Sun conjunct Uranus, with Mercury and Mars conjoined, all in Taurus.

What they were thought to share - that gravitaion towards a classic style with operatic tone - where's the astrological signature? I could be wrong on this, but I'd look towards Saturn for this kind of thing. Orbison had Saturn in Watery, emotional Pisces somewhat uncomfortably yet workably semi-sextile Venus in Aries, and helpfully sextile Mercury and Mars in Taurus - so Saturn does link to his personal planets.

Leoncavallo's Saturn was also in a Water sign, Cancer and linked to Mercury and Mars in Taurus by helpful sextile. So both men had a Watery Saturn making aspect to personal planets.

Saturday & Sundry Thoughts on PLUTO in TRANSIT

I shall blame this post on the fact that transiting Pluto is currently sitting smack dab on my natal Mercury in Capricorn. I knew, from previous experience when transiting Pluto sat on my natal Venus in Sagittarius some 15 or so years ago, that I'd be experiencing something out of the ordinary, and transformative. Back then I was, eventually, catapulted from the UK to the USA - how transformative was that!?

As passing readers might recall from recent posts, yes, something out of the ordinary has happened - again with Pluto again conjunct a personal planet. A diagnosis of breast cancer. Thankfully the discovery was early, via mammogram, and dealt with by a quick surgery procedure (lumpectomy). There had been no spread to lymph nodes and margins. That experience was plenty scary and, to a point, transformative too! These words from astrologer Jan Spiller's brief piece on Pluto hits home:

The goal of PLUTO : to experience total self-mastery and fearlessness in any situation. This can only happen when you accept the process of passing through your personal terror for the sake of Right Action.

From a piece at Kepler College website:

In modern parlance it is common for people to look at important changes – relationship or marital status, professional change or moving, even starting a yoga class on Tuesday nights, as “transformative.” However, these changes seem more part of normal life and normal adult development and they usually occur within other defined structures; they are therefore more like “first order change” – there is alteration but the organism or individual, maintains its continuity. This is not the kind of change to consider when we describe astrology’s Pluto.

The word “transformation” is defined as a change in form, shape, or appearance. Its Greek equivalent is “metamorphosis” and, we know from Ovid’s famous poem of the same name, metamorphosis not always an improvement. Positive transformation is rare in our lives.

Most transformations or metamorphoses are kindled from life-shattering events: Near Death Experiences, visitations from angels or aliens, warfare, imprisonment or becoming a victim of a violent crime, natural disasters, grave economic collapse, life-threatening illness or disability, or when one loses loved ones and home, like when the tidal wave and nuclear disaster happened in Japan or when Hurricane Katrina hit..... Here we encounter life’s essential fragility, sometimes the impinging presence of evil, including that which is within us. These are involuntary changes that are more like “fate”.

From an excellent piece Doing Pluto by astrologer Eric Francis, of Planet Waves

Mythology and astronomy cast Pluto as the lord of Hell, but astrology tells another story. No astrologer, it is safe to say, underestimates Pluto or takes him for granted, or none does so for long. Largely thanks to the work of Jeffrey Green and his spiritual mentor, Yogananda, we recognize Pluto as the evolutionary engine in the astrological chart. While society may twist and crumble, and while emperors may rise in power, on the inner level, Pluto is the ultimate influence we cannot deny. Anyone who has consciously gone through a Pluto transit have seen and this at work: Pluto is the uncompromising force for change, the catalyst for growth, and the slowly moving point of no return. Once Pluto has been through our lives, and it does not happen often, nothing is quite the same.

Scrolling down further:

Unforgettable Fires

When Pluto makes contact with degrees where it or other planets were when we were born, we get a phase of direct experience, called a transit. It is simple to pick these times out of the ephemeris and the most hardened skeptic would agree that something was up. At such times, we have always reached a limit.

The limitation Pluto imposes has less to do with adhering to outer structure, expectations, or following a programmed sense of inner responsibility (like Saturn), but rather imposing the necessity to follow one's evolutionary path. This is to say, under Pluto's guidance, we are compelled to respond to the necessities of our soul's journey. To do this, we are presented with circumstances that teach us we indeed have a soul, and that it actually has a mission. However you may feel, these ideas turn out to be beyond the grasp of most people, who simply wonder why they are in pain and don't get what we now call the lesson. For this reason, we can get a sense of why the world so often feels like it is devoid of soul energy, of the expression of meaningful inner truth. And we can see why so many people require incredibly painful experiences in order to grow or wake up.

Speaking of waking up, Pluto deals with the subject of sex on the hormonal, orgasmic and control-based levels, the ones we usually prefer to ignore, or to ignore the power of. These issues will come up as real-life circumstances; we get to choose how we handle them.

There's plenty of advice around the net on "surviving Pluto transits". While these are well-meaning, and no doubt can prove helpful to some readers, I avoided them. The first time I even considered searching for pieces on the topic was in preparing this post. I was aware of the Pluto transit to a personal planet of mine, that was all I needed to know. I find other peoples' experiences and other astrologers' ideas on coping to be less helpful than just doing what comes naturally to me, myself and I - hoping that'll be enough!

I am not going to obsess about the remaining time Pluto will be around my chart, nor will I think too far ahead to the time Pluto will visit natal Sun. It's quite likely, anyway, that by then, there will have been the call: "Come in Twilight - your time is up!"

Astrology is a fascinating and useful tool, but at times like this it feels more comfortable, to me, to put my chart on the top shelf, out of my direct line of daily vision.

Arty Farty Friday ~ A.A. Milne, E.H. Shepard, Christopher R. & Winnie the P.

Watching a DVD of the 2017 biographical drama film "Goodbye Christopher Robin" this week reminded me that here was another of those magical collaborations we encounter from time to time, partnerships which bring forth something that becomes almost legendary. I've mentioned a few such partnerships in past blogs...off the top of my head: Billie Holiday and Lester Young, Billy Strayhorn and Duke Ellington. Author A.A. Milne and artist E. H. Shepard make up another such pair. In this case though, sadly, it is said that neither man was too happy about the success of their collaboration, because it overshadowed their other work. Milne's famous son Christopher Robin was also unhappy about his involvement. That does seem a tad ...erm... ungrateful all round, doesn't it? Perhaps, from their point of view, their lives were taken over in ways they had neither planned nor foreseen - they were all taken in directions they would rather not have pursued. Still, millions of children and adults have reason to be grateful for what emerged.

This set of first editions is priced $16,500

The film, by the way is well worth a look.

My 2009 archived post on A.A. Milne is HERE. I'm curious to see A.A. Milne's natal chart against that of E.H. Shepard. Both charts are set for 12 noon as birth times are unknown. Click on chart image for larger version.

A.A. Milne born in London, England on 18 January 1882.

Milne's is a very Earthy natal chart: Sun, Moon and Venus in Capricorn. Saturn, Neptune, Jupiter and Pluto in Taurus. Uranus in Virgo. Air enough to crank up his writing skills came from Mercury in Aquarius and Mars in Gemini. A Grand Trine in Earth links Uranus to Neptune & Jupiter to Venus, perhaps to Moon also. Moon's position isn't exact as shown, due to lack of a birth time.

Shepard's chart isn't as Earthy, his Sun and Mercury are in Fiery Sagittarius, but there's still emphasis on Taurus from Neptune and Pluto, with Mars there too. Uranus is in Virgo in both charts, so the pair shared an Earthy generational tone, along with millions of others.

Both men had served in World War I, they suffered from memories of the horrors they had experienced. I'm tempted to connect their ease of collaboration to Chiron (the mythological Wounded Healer) in Taurus, sign ruled by Venus, planet of the arts. Chiron is conjunct Jupiter and Neptune in Milne's chart; conjunct Neptune and Mars in Shepard's. Their writing and drawing collaboration could well have afforded a means of healing their mental wounds.

E.H. Shepard born in London, England on 10 December 1879.

Bicycle Day

Filed under "Trivia":

Today, 19 April, is Bicycle Day - as Sir Michael Caine would say, "Not a lot of people know that!"

"Bicycle Day does not, as one might expect, celebrate the ubiquitous two-wheeled mode of transport, beloved of city- and country- dwellers alike the world over. Rather, it celebrates a particular historical event that involves a trip on a bicycle.

‘Trip’ is the operative word here, as Bicycle Day commemorates the first time Dr. Albert Hofmann intentionally took Lysergic acid diethylamide (LSD) having accidentally discovered it three days previously. Following the deliberate 250mcg dose he started to feel a little odd, so decided to ride his bicycle home. What happened on that trip would lead to LSD becoming a very popular recreational drug – not without its problems though, which is why taking LSD is not a recommended way to celebrate Bicycle Day.

Instead, why not read Ken Kesey’s One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest while listening to ‘Lucy in the Sky With Diamonds’? Trippy, but perfectly safe."

From https://www.daysoftheyear.com/days/bicycle-day/

USA in the 1950s

A soupçon of synchronicity was experienced at the weekend. On Saturday I was led, via a link at naked capitalism, to some photographs:
20+ Rarely Seen Photos Of America In The 1950’s Show How Different Life Was Before

Monika Brazaitytė wrote:

"The 1950’s are often viewed as a golden era in U.S. history, a time of happiness and prosperity, despite the threat of nuclear annihilation, racial segregation and the looming Cold War.

While most photos from the time are in black and white, color photography was still a relative novelty at the time and the film was quite expensive for regular people, the photos below are in glorious color. This means that they are more relatable, and makes the period feel closer to us than ever.

Many of the photos were collected by Denis Fraevich, a New Yorker of Russian descent who loves to bring the era back to life. “The pictures were found at auctions, flea markets and yards, digitized and posted on the Internet,” he told Bored Panda........"

An interesting collection of photos!

Later the same day we decided to rent a handful of DVDs for weekend viewing. One of my choices, watched the same evening, was picked purely due to director and cast members: Suburbicon. The movie, directed by George Clooney, was originally a Coen Brothers vehicle from the 1980s, but was shelved until Clooney came along, re-wrote parts of it and took over direction. Matt Damon and Julianne Moore have starring roles. How bad could this be?

It was, in fact, pretty bad! Synchronicity? Well the story is set in much the same era as depicted by those photographs I'd looked at just hours before. In fact it was almost as though some of those photographs were coming to life before my eyes.

Suburbicon is a mess of a movie, although it did hold our interest. The storyline didn't go where we initially thought it was going, there were continual deviations along with a fumbled attempt to weave two separate themes together.

The ultimate message, for viewers who managed to stay with the film to the end, was that back in the 1950s, racial hatred in the USA was so intense that it could blind the seriously prejudiced to such an extent that pure evil, going on right under their noses, was able to pass, almost without notice.

After watching Suburbicon, those photographs mentioned at the top of the post didn't seem at all "Golden Age-ish". The 1950s, in the USA anyway, had distinctly creepy underpinnings!

Music Monday ~ "Pickin' up good vibrations"

We accompanied husband's daughter and son-in-law to see a Beach Boys tribute band perform on Friday evening - Woodie and the Long Boards. The concert was housed in an event/ballroom area rather than the usual theatre setting. Dance enthusiasts were able to enjoy their nostalgia both mentally and physically.

Unsurprisingly, dancers were mostly "of a certain age", but quite adept at swingin' those hips and doing all the cool gestures and....well...whatever. You can probably tell from this that I'm not, and never have been, much of a dancer myself. A bit of square dancing and the odd shuffle to a last waltz has been my lifetime limit. My brain might co-ordinate with my fingers for writing or typing purposes, but it refuses to co-ordinate with my feet for dancing purposes. Anyway...

I realised fairly quickly that The Beach Boys must have written many more songs than I'd ever realised. My knowledge extends to what was played by BBC disc jockeys, back in England in the 1960s and 70s, and later by older disc jockeys suffering from chronic nostalgia.

Good Vibrations is Beach Boys' gold standard, Gold Only Knows, Barbara Ann; my own favourite, not written by the band, but a traditional song of the Bahamas Sloop John B, and all their other hits were played, along with some more obscure to all but dyed in the wool Beach Boy fans.

Glancing at the lyrics of Fun, Fun, Fun this morning I realised why, in spite of their great, well-polished sound, The Beach Boys never managed to outshine The Beatles in the UK (for some, they didn't mange to do so even in the USA) :

Well she got her daddy's car and she cruised through the hamburger stand, now
Seems she forgot all about the library like she told her old man, now
But with the radio blasting goes cruising just as fast as she can now
And she'll have fun, fun, fun till her daddy takes the T-bird away
(fun, fun, fun, 'till her daddy takes the T-bird away)

In the UK, back then, we didn't have T-birds for daddy to take away. We were lucky if we had a bike on which to ride to the railway station to catch a train to school, or to work. We couldn't relate, nor I feel sure could some of the poorer families in the USA at that time. We understood Beatles' lyrics, though, we'd lived'em!

Woke up, fell out of bed
Dragged a comb across my head
Found my way downstairs and drank a cup
And looking up I noticed I was late
Found my coat and grabbed my hat
Made the bus in seconds flat
Made my way upstairs and had a smoke
And everybody spoke and I went into a dream...

I read the news today, oh boy
Four thousand holes in Blackburn, Lancashire
And though the holes were rather small
They had to count them all
Now they know how many holes it takes to fill the Albert Hall
I'd love to turn you on......

This is not to say that I was a great Beatles' fan back then, but with this amount of hindsight I can see that while The Beach Boys offered the feel of a privileged and slightly exotic lifestyle, The Beatles, for us were like a familiar plate of fish and chips, with just the right amount of salt and vinegar added.

Woodie and the Long Boards entertained the crowd on Friday evening, in spite of a rather dodgy sound system. It was good to hear lots of foot-tappingly familiar music, and to watch some of our near-contemporaries shakin' their thang on the dance floor.

The real thang for Music Monday:

Saturday and Sundry Thoughts on Communicating Massively

There are still a few of us around who are able to recall life before computers, and therefore before the internet. Heck - I can even remember life before television! Mass communication, in those days, came via newspapers and radio, and to a lesser extent via film and newsreels at the cinema. First time I saw a TV working was for the coronation of Queen Elizabeth II in 1953. A few neighbours, my parents, grandparents and I piled into the home of a local business woman who had the only set in the village where my grandparents lived.

I do remember when the very first mention of computers reached my delicate ears, in 1966/7. I'd been working for a few months for a local Devonshire (south-west England) 'bus company in the accounts office. One of the senior employees had been sent on a training course, on his return he regaled us with tales of the binary system leaving our brains limp and imaginations reeling. All we had to work with in those days were very basic mechanical adding machines, one step up from the abacus. Having, out of necessity, trained my non-mathematical brain to add long columns of figures in hotel ledgers during the few years previous, I often opted to "do it in my head" rather than tackle the awkward adding machine.

None of us could have possibly envisaged the amazing developments we've seen during ensuing decades. Online banking, shopping, social networking, the dreaded Facebook, smartphones, ipads..... spam, porn sites, viruses, malware, Twitter - the good, the bad and the ugly of it all. I am well aware that my own life turned in a very unexpected direction, all due to the internet, for it was through the net that husband and I met.

There's a downside to these developments and changes though, there's always a downside.

Television should be the last mass communication medium to be naively designed and put into the world without a surgeon-general's warning.
Alan Kay

Over roughly the same time span: from TV sets becoming commonplace, followed rapidly by computer development, up to the present, corporate power has risen in tandem. Now multinational corporations own media, at least they do in the USA and have tentacles worldwide. TV has become a major arm of the corporations' mass brain-washing system. Oh, they'd been doing it before TV, but the opening up of mass communication made it so much easier! As more time has passed evidence has continued to emerge that we are under constant surveillance. Recent developments relating to Facebook's gathering of personal information is disquieting to say the least. Perhaps nobody senses danger if all the stolen information is used simply to target a few adverts for shoes, bandages, bras, toasters - whatever it was we were searching for online last. But the feeling that there could be other, darker, uses for the information gathered is not a happy one. Facebook is currently at the centre of discussions on this front, but Google and others are also quietly gathering our personal data, and have been doing so for years.

The solution? For ordinary souls such as I, and passing readers who do not wish to divest ourselves completely of access to television, computer and internet, all we can do is be aware of the potential "weaponry" in our living rooms, remain vigilant, never forgetting possible sub-text, and remember to keep in mind, always, this question: who is "paying the piper"?

When discussing this topic, several years ago, and before Facebook became the monster it now is, a friend observed that as we become increasingly under cyber influences, man-made (or manipulated), the structure of the human psyche will probably transform - over time. Sensibilities will increase and entirely new avenues might open up. Aquarian Age stuff to come?

My view: humans will, almost certainly, evolve psychologically due to the highly technological world they've been born into. We are at the slimmest end of the science fiction wedge of that eventuality right now. It must be happening, week by week, year by year, decade by decade.

My husband's opinion:

"Follow the money!" You can tell which industry is making the most money by the number of TV spots they are running. These ads can cost as much as a million dollars a minute. Cars, pharmaceuticals, insurance, smartphones, political candidates; who’s on top tonight?

I read a piece about the rise and fall of a country once. The one thing that I remember most is that the aggressor took over mass media first. Radio, newspapers, television...town criers to internet... mass communication is first to go. So, money has taken over our mass media. Have we been conquered?

Arty Farty Friday ~ 2 artists born 13 April, both with "scandalous" reputations.

Glancing down the list of births on 13 April, through the decades, I noticed two artists whose work had been considered by many as scandalous: James Ensor and Pierre Molinier. The two artists were born 40 years apart, Ensor in Belgium in 1860, Molinier in Agen, France, in 1900.

In his final decades, James Ensor was an international celebrity showered with official honors in his native Belgium. But in the 1880s and 1890s, the young Ensor was a scandalous and defiant figure.

This was a period of great social and political unrest in Belgium, and also of incredible cultural ferment. Bursting with mad creativity sparked by the latest developments in the avant-garde, Ensor freely mined artistic sources both high and low, old and new, familiar and exotic, and oscillated unpredictably between painting, drawing, and printmaking. From an advanced mode of naturalism in step with broader European trends, Ensor's art quickly morphed into something so fantastic, bizarre, grotesque, and satirical that even his avant-garde peers had difficulty accepting it. To this day, Ensor's art continues to baffle in its psychological complexity, internal contradictions, and sheer eccentricity.

http://www.getty.edu/art/exhibitions/scandalous_ensor/index.html

An account of French artist Pierre Molinier’s colourful life reads like that of the protagonist in an Oscar Wilde novel. A product of France’s oft-fictionalised fin de siècle degeneration, Molinier defied all societal norms to live a life of hedonistic excess. Both homosexual and a transvestite in an era when both were frowned upon – he asbcribed himself the title of ‘lesbienne’ – Molinier pursued fetishism and the latent eroticism of the subconscious mind to its most extreme degree......................
By 1955 Molinier had begun a fruitful correspondence with André Breton, the founder of Surrealism, who dubbed him 'the magician of erotic art' and decided to include his sensual, and at times violent, works in the International Surrealist Exhibition. This marked the artist’s official induction into the movement, and he soon earned a reputation as an artist who would dare to execute the ideas his reputable contemporaries, who included the likes of Salvador Dalí, only dreamt of.

His investigation into fetishism and depravity, both through painting and photography, steadily gathered momentum, culminating in an extensive series of portraits and self-portraits in which Molinier himself often features as a many-limbed woman, a dominatrix, or a devil. When his dwindling health prompted his death at the age of 76, it was executed with the all the charisma his character would suggest; a great lover of guns, he died from a single self-inflicted gunshot wound.
http://www.anothermag.com/art-photography/8019/the-forbidden-photo-collages-of-pierre-molinier

James Ensor, 13 April 1860, Ostend, Belgium at 4.30AM.

Pierre Molinier, 13 April 1900, Agen, France at 8.00AM.

There aren't many clear similarities. The obvious factor in Ensor's chart, reflecting his rather rebellious and uncompromising style is Venus(planet of the arts) conjunct Uranus (planet of the unexpected and the rebel). In addition Neptune, planet of creativity, dreams and the mysterious was sitting right on his rising degree - if time of birth is correct at Astrodatabank - it has AA rating so is reliable.


In Molinier's case, data from Astrodatabank, also AA rated, look at the chart shape as a start! It's made up of oppositions forming a cross, and involving the important points in a natal chart: the ascendant/descendant, mid-heaven and nadir! Oppositions can signify irreconcilable differences in a personality, or sometimes a kind of balancing act, an effort to reconcile opposites. Molinier had Pluto (eroticism, intensity) sitting close to his Gemini rising degree, with Venus and Neptune in Gemini also - what better "trade mark" for his style? In opposition to the Gemini planets are Uranus and Jupiter, an excess of the unexpected/futuristic, perhaps attempted balancing of the artist's runaway sexual intensity with an excess of the unexpected, using avant garde methods of photography.

Their common Aries Sun position seems secondary!

Personal Magnetism

My old copy of R.H. Naylor's "Home Astrology", more than 70 years old, pages yellowing and brittle, is still a source of interest, as part and parcel of the history of popular astrology; opening it at random I see these words:

"Some people are naturally magnetic, i.e. others are blindly attracted to them. This power of attraction often appears to be entirely independent of physical appeal or character".

Mr. Naylor goes on later to warn that,

" There is no greater enemy of personal magnetism than the modern passion for imitation. The young people of today are so busy trying to model themselves upon their favourite film star, theatrical celebrity or public figure, that they forget to be themselves."

Ah! Mr. Naylor (wherever you are - in some great astrology conference in the sky), it was ever thus, and will be for ever more, I suspect!

"BE YOURSELF" he says "The real you is quite unlike anybody else, and for just that reason, it is naturally attractive."

Digging deeper into astrology than the Sun Sign, it becomes blindingly obvious how unique - and I do mean unique in its literal sense - each of us is. Nobody else is born in exactly the same place at exactly the second you took your first breath. Not even your twin, if you have one. Every living thing on this Earth is unique. Every dead thing, too, come to think of it.

It's hard advice to take, for a young person though - not to imitate others. Imitation is part of how we, as humans, and creatures of the Earth learn. We watch our parents and siblings, and imitate them. Later we read and watch, and imitate when we write our first letter, or draw our first scrawly piece of artwork. Almost every great writer or artist has been inspired by someone else. That's just the way life is.

I clearly recall, in my schooldays, trying to copy somebody else's style of handwriting, because my natural style didn't please me. The school mistress fairly quickly recognised what I was up to, and gave me a lecture along the lines of Mr. Naylor's advice. I felt squashed and embarrassed for a while, but little by little I adjusted my handwriting, until, though it did retain whispers of the style I'd so admired, it was different, and solely my own.

Mr. Naylor advised that, however much we might admire and wish to emulate another person, we should not aim to become a carbon copy, photocopy, or clone of that person, losing our own identity in the process.

Within our individuality, we do have close astrological relationships with some around us. It's not at all surprising that we sometimes latch on to a certain style - or a certain smile - attached to someone whose planetary blueprint complements our own in some way. What I find absolutely fascinating is how this can happen without knowing anything about the other person. That's the "magnetism" of which Mr. Naylor writes.

THER-HAPPY

Therapy: treatment intended to relieve or heal a disorder. Originally from from modern Latin therapia, from Greek therapeia ‘healing,’ from therapeuein ‘minister to, treat medically.’

It's a nice-sounding word, rolls off the tongue satisfyingly; I've decided to pronounce the word 'ther-happy' during coming weeks and months, as I begin a (theoretical) five years of hormone therapy as a preventative measure against breast cancer returning. The oncologist I met last Friday advised that, due to my advanced age, and the fact that the cancer was found early, radiation and chemo-therapies would not be used, going forward. She did strongly advise, however, hormone therapy. This treatment, just one small tablet per day, blocks any estrogen in the body; cancer cells feed on estrogen if certain markers were present in the lab tests performed on tissues and blood samples obtained over past weeks.

I'm hoping that known side effects from these tablets will not be too severe. The doctor has already ordered a bone scan, as bone density loss is one side effect of this treatment, and I have been on the border of osteoporosis for many years. Other possible side effects are higher cholesterol levels, potential for blood clots, joint aches and pains, and sundry other unpleasant-sounding stuff. Not all women experience severe difficulties, however. I guess much depends on one's age group, and on how much estrogen was skidding around the body to start with. Regular check-ups will follow, next meeting with oncologist in 6 weeks to see how I'm coping with the tablets, and to note results of the bone scan.

So, I'm nearing the end of this 6-week "adventure", which began with a mammogram on 27 February. From now on it'll be a matter of taking the tablets, taking some exercise - walking more regularly will help; eating well - plenty of fresh veggies; taking my regular calcium + VitaminD3 and magnesium, and - above all - maintaining a positive attitude .

I could not have asked for a better outcome than this, other than to have been told that the mammogram result was an error - which it wasn't !

I'm truly thankful, and very, very grateful to all the doctors, specialists and nurses I've encountered along the way. Their attitudes, personalities and approaches have helped me to cope with this highly unexpected, and disconcerting, adventure more than I could ever express, added to which, of course, the constant support of my husband.

Some additional personal therapy will follow: finding a comfortable bra, once I'm told that I can be rid of the pesky elastic bandage currently binding my chest.

Music Monday ~ Remembering Paul Robeson

Paul Robeson, born this day, 9 April, in 1898, was one of the greats, a true supporter of the workers of the whole world, including the Welsh and Scottish miners of the UK, with whom he felt deep connection.

Happy Birthday Paul Robeson! Yes, the struggles go on!

Brilliant and multi-gifted, Paul Robeson gained prominence as athlete, lawyer, concert singer, actor, and social activist. Born to an African-American minister and his wife in Princeton, New Jersey. Robeson's mother died when he was just 6 years old. The family underwent difficult economic times when their father resigned from his ministry position because of pressure by the white financial supporters of the church. After nine years of low paying work, Robeson Snr. accepted appointment to the parsonage of another church. Paul attended New Jersey schools, and by high school had proven himself an outstanding student and athlete. He won a four-year scholarship to Rutgers, despite efforts by the high school principal to prevent him from taking the qualifying exam.

Because he was excluded from living at the Rutgers dormitory, Robeson lived with a black family during his college years. His athletic talent earned him a place on the school’s football team, where he had to overcome physical assaults by teammates in attempts to keep him off the team. When the team travelled, he roomed with the coach, rather than members of the team. By the end of his college years, he attained 14 varsity letters in football, basketball, baseball, discus, shotput and javelin. He also excelled in other college activities, becoming a prize-winning debater, and a glee club member. Robeson’s academic achievements culminated in his nomination and acceptance into the Phi Beta Kappa Society and Rutgers’ honor society, Cap and Skull. At graduation, his classmates selected him as class valedictorian. In his valedictorian address, he called upon his classmates to work for equality for all Americans.

After graduating from Rutgers, Robeson entered Columbia University Law School, supporting himself by working as a professional football player, a job as a postal worker, positions in athletic coaching, and acting jobs. Although he attained his law degree, Robeson pursued a career as a performer because the law firm where he was hired barred his representation of clients.

Paul starred in several theater performances, and rose to prominence in the Harlem Renaissance movement. With his powerful baritone voice, he transitioned from acting to concert vocalist, opening in solo concerts by the mid-1920s.

Making his home base in London, he associated with many followers of socialist thought, including George Bernard Shaw. He toured the United States and Europe extensively as a concert performer.

When World War II began, he returned to the United States, with a commitment to overcoming fascism. Despite his political statements, Robeson remained a popular performer. However, after the war ended and the red-baiting McCarthy era evolved, Robeson became target of various government probes. He announced in 1947 that he would retire from his career as a concert performer to devote his time to overcoming racism and fascism.

During the 1950s and 1960s, Paul Robeson continued his political activities, which were intensively scrutinized by the U.S. government. FBI Director J. Edgar Hoover declared him a national security threat, and Robeson’s passport was cancelled. This caused international protest. He regained his right to travel eight years later. He returned to Europe, and made journeys to the Soviet Union and Africa. After extensive travels, he expressed interest in returning to the United States to join the Civil Rights Movement.

Paul Robeson died in January 1976, he left a legacy as an extraordinarily gifted actor, singer, and political activist.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paul_Robeson
http://astrologyspeaks.blogspot.com/2012/03/


Here's a rendition by Paul that I'd not heard before - "Mood Indigo" music composed by Duke Ellington and Barney Bigard with lyrics by Irving Mills.



And...his tribute to the Welsh miners

Saturday & Sundry Movies

Last weekend we rented 4 DVDs from the local video store - just for a change from Netflix which had been throwing up far too much garbage of late! We visited the store intending to rent a couple of the recent Oscar-nominated movies, changed my mind - too pricey, they'll eventually reach Netflix, I suppose. So 4 DVDs from recent releases came home with us, movies unsung, unheard of - by me at least. There was, it turned out, no outstanding film among these choices, but all provided food for chit-chat later, whether positive-ish chit-chat or ..."WTF was that!?"

First off the shelf:

Singularity with John Cusack - science fiction. This is the film that brought forth our "WTF was that?" remark.

Singularity is an almost too blatant mash-up of other recent sci-fi themes in film and TV, stitched together in haphazard fashion, with minimal, simple dialogue, acceptable but mediocre performances, and a few clunky special effects. I learned from Wikipedia that even more stitching and patching had been involved than we suspected.

Singularity began as a low-budget sci-fi film called Aurora, which was shot in 2013 in the Czech Republic and Switzerland. John Cusack was not involved in the original shoot. Years later, scenes with Cusack were shot and inserted into the new production, and extensive CGI effects were used to tie the new material to the original film. Jason Pirodsky from The Prague Reporter gave a negative review, criticizing production values, continuity errors, and the film's "thoroughly unconvincing narrative" ......also criticized the addition of Cusack, noting that he only interacts with one other character as his performance was shot years after the majority of scenes were filmed

Basic plot premise relies on the rise and rise of artificial intelligence.

Synopsis

In 2020, Elias van Dorne (John Cusack), CEO of VA Industries, the world’s largest robotics company, introduces his most powerful invention–Kronos, a super computer designed to end all wars. When Kronos goes online, it quickly determines that mankind, itself, is the biggest threat to world peace and launches a worldwide robot attack to rid the world of the “infection” of man. Ninety-seven years later, a small band of humans remain alive but on the run from the robot army. A teenage boy, Andrew (Julian Schaffner) and a teenage girl, Calia (Jeannine Wacker), form an unlikely alliance to reach a new world, where it is rumored mankind exists without fear of robot persecution.

Not recommended - except for its peculiarity!

Next two off the shelf turned out to both be adaptations of books, portraying real life stories - of this I wasn't aware until we'd watched the DVDs.

The Glass Castle

The Glass Castle is a 2005 memoir by Jeannette Walls. The book recounts the unconventional, poverty-stricken upbringing Walls and her siblings had at the hands of their deeply dysfunctional parents. The book was adapted as a feature film, released in the summer of 2017. Walls' real-life childhood was spent squatting in homes and living in poverty, the film stars Brie Larson as Walls with Naomi Watts, Woody Harrelson, Max Greenfield, and Sarah Snook in supporting roles.

Same Kind of Different as Me is a 2017 film based on the 2006 book of the same name by Ron Hall, Denver Moore and Lynn Vincent. The film stars Greg Kinnear, Renée Zellweger, Djimon Hounsou, Olivia Holt, Jon Voight, and Stephanie Leigh Schlund.

Storyline: After Ron Hall, a selfish successful art dealer, admits to cheating on her, his wife Deborah forces him to volunteer at a homeless shelter. There Denver Moore, a homeless ex-convict, helps him to change his life.



Both films are worth watching, though hardly outstanding. Both are well-acted, but possibly not nearly as close to all actual facts as portrayed by the two books from which they were adapted.
The Glass Castle will probably make you angry; Same Kind of Different as Me might irritate from too much....well....just too much!

The Hero
Last to be watched - saving the best for last, thought I. Star of this show, lovely Sam Elliott, long-time favourite, and actually taking the leading role for a change in The Hero. Enjoyable as it was to feast my eyes and ears on Sam and his excellent performance in this movie, it is yet another story with a depressing theme of someone afflicted by cancer. One of the two book adaptations above had also had terminal illness as part of its theme. This I could have done without!

The Hero is a 2017 American comedy-drama film directed and edited by Brett Haley and written by Haley and Marc Basch.

Lee Hayden (Sam Elliott) is an aging Western icon with a golden voice, but his best performances are decades behind him. He spends his days reliving old glories and smoking marijuana with his former-co-star-turned-dealer, Jeremy (Nick Offerman), until a surprise cancer diagnosis brings his priorities into sharp focus. He soon strikes up an exciting, contentious relationship with stand-up comic Charlotte (Laura Prepon), and he attempts to reconnect with his estranged daughter, Lucy (Krysten Ritter), all while searching for one final role to cement his legacy.

Sam Elliott fans will enjoy this movie. In spite of the sadness in its theme, it doesn't end too badly.

Arty Farty Friday ~ Leonora Carrington, Feminist & Surrealist

Leonora Carrington OBE (6 April 1917 – 25 May 2011) was an English-born Mexican artist, surrealist painter, and novelist. She lived most of her adult life in Mexico City, and was one of the last surviving participants in the Surrealist movement of the 1930s. Leonora Carrington was a founding member of the Women’s Liberation Movement in Mexico during the 1970s. She was born into a wealthy family, her fathe a successful textile manufacturer, her mother, Maureen (née Moorhead), was Irish.

A good, well-illustrated read on Ms Carrington's life story is at Widewalls website - do go take a look. The piece begins:

Painting is a need, not a choice , said the legendary painter and novelist Leonora Carrington, who managed to completely redefine female symbolism through her own interpretation of surrealism. She was a restless and prolific artist throughout her career – she worked in oil painting, bronze and cast iron sculpture, but also mixed-media pieces that combined wood, glass, and various iron objects. Besides her important role in the history of surrealism, Carrington was also known as a romantic partner of another prominent surrealist, Max Ernst. The two of them shared their dream worlds and symbolic universes through their magnificent artworks. Carrington has also rejected the surrealist ideal of woman as the main source inspiration and she turned to novel realms such as the animal world, the occult, and Celtic mythology.

These two 4 minute videos show a selection of her paintings, the first, from the Tate Gallery in Liverpool, includes some explanation as well as commentary:







For some large-size images of her artwork, take a look at the website linked below. It really is essential to see her paintings in such sizes, to fully appreciate their intricacy and detail; not that it makes them easier for ordinary mortals like us to understand. We can probably ascribe our own meanings to at least some of them.

https://sites.google.com/site/tombowersites/leonora-carrington



ASTROLOGY

Born on 6 April 1917 in Clayton-le-Woods, Lancashire, UK. Chart is set for 12 noon - time of birth is unknown. Moon and rising sign positions will not be exactly as shown.

Without a time of birth to indicate rising sign and exact Moon position, we're left with just sketchy indications of personality. This lady, however, could truly have been described as what Sun sign fans love to call "an Aries". Due to her natal Sun, Mercury, Venus and Mars all in Aries, she would have in her nature many of those textbook Aries attributes: initiator, impulsive, confident, courageous, and so on. We've gleaned enough about her from online biographies to realise that she was certainly all of those things and more!

Natal Moon could have been in late Virgo or early Libra - not easy to guess which. I can see arguments for either, but if pressed I'd speculate on Venus-ruled (planet of the arts) Libra, another Cardinal sign, and opposite her Cardinal Aries Sun - bringing a sense of balance to her more exaggerated head-strong Aries instincts.

Jupiter lies in the other Venus-ruled sign, Taurus, and in semi-sextile to her natal Venus. Jupiter represents, among other things, travel, so lying here in what can be an awkward aspect, semi-sextile to Aries Venus, I see this as a calming and more stable influence on her prominent Aries-ness. Jupitarian highlighting could also link to her move to live and work in Mexico.

Uranus! Any surrealist painter is certain to have Uranus and/or Aquarius highlighted natally. Ms Carrington had Uranus in Aquarius, its sign of rulership in modern astrology. Uranus lay at at 22 degrees, and in helpful sextile aspect to Mercury, at 24 degrees of Aries. This lady was always going to gravitate to surrealism in her painting and fiction writing, and/or, in some other lifetime, perhaps to science fiction.

Considering the mystical mythical subject matter of her many paintings and her novels and short stories, mysterious Neptune had be linked into her chart - somehow. Neptune lay at 2 degrees of Leo when she was born; if natal Moon were in early Libra, as suspected, then Neptune would be in helpful sextile to her Moon - that'd work well!

UPDATE ~ on Last Week's 9 to 5 Adventure

Yesterday I visited the surgeon's office - the surgeon who performed my lumpectomy "procedure" on 27th March.

The appointment's purpose was for compression bandage and dressings to be removed, incisions checked, and for the passing on of information obtained from investigation of the offending cells and lymph nodes removed or biopsied as part of the procedure.

The office was pretty busy - lots of people waiting. The surgeon, we were told, was currently seeing a woman who was in the same position I'd been, just a few weeks ago. My heart went out to this lady!

After a chat with the surgeon's personal assistant/secretary, who kindly congratulated me on the way I'd handled the whole thing (little did she know the anxieties and obsessions with which I'd tortured myself - or perhaps she did), we then met the nurse practitioner who removed the long compression bandage and dressings, declared all well, healing nicely. Before she began the undoings, though, she told us that the surgeon had given her permission to give us "the good news". Smiling very broadly, she told us that all tests on lymph nodes etc. had come back as "clean", and emphasised what good news this was - could hardly have been better in fact! I started choking up, but called my stiff upper lip into service, and threw my arms around her...

"Thank you, thank you!"

I'm tightly re-wrapped, but not waist-deep this time. Compression is used to help the inner breast cells to come together over the wee hole left by the procedure. I have to return in a week, to have the incisions checked again.

In the meantime, tomorrow I have an appointment to see an oncologist at the Cancer Center - part of the hospital complex, to discuss what comes next. I'm hoping that treatment going forward will be minimal in view of the good news received, and my advanced age, but I'll not feel too cock-a-hoop until we see what this specialist has to say. So far, though, news has been so very, very good!

Sugar - Good Yet Toxic!

An interesting piece by Clara Wiggins appeared on the BBC website last week:
Doctors are finding one way that sugar can benefit your health: it may help heal wounds resistant to antibiotics.

It begins:

As a child growing up in poverty in the rural Eastern Highlands of Zimbabwe, Moses Murandu was used to having salt literally rubbed in his wounds when he fell and cut himself. On lucky days, though, his father had enough money to buy something which stung the boy much less than salt: sugar.

Murandu always noticed that sugar seemed to help heal wounds more quickly than no treatment at all. So he was surprised when, having been recruited to come to work as a nurse for the UK’s National Health System (NHS) in 1997, he found that sugar wasn’t being used in any official capacity. He decided to try to change that..........

On the inside of a human body, however it's a different matter:

Sugar Is Definitely Toxic, a New Study Says
by Alice Park at time.com (2015).
First paragraphs:

Fat was the food villain these past few decades but sugar is quickly muscling in to take its place. As rates of sugar-related disorders such as diabetes, obesity and heart disease climb, many experts believe that when Americans rid themselves of fat, they simply replaced it with sugar in all its forms.

But proving that the rise of the chronic diseases was actually linked to higher sugar consumption is a challenge. Dr. Robert Lustig, from the department of pediatrics at the University of California, San Francisco, who has made a name for himself publishing books and research addressing the question of sugar’s effects on the body, wanted clearer answers. Now, in a paper published Tuesday, he and his colleagues believe they have come up with the definitive evidence that sugar, as Lustig says, “is toxic.”

Music Monday

A question posed at Quora's website the other day became fodder for this post.
The question:

What is the single most important thing to know about music?

Snips from some answers:


It’s whether or not you can put the spirit in the room.

“Most people play their instruments, and they don’t play music. They don’t listen to anything around them. They’re not playing the music — they’re playing the notes. It drives me absolutely crazy,” he (Bruce Hampton) remarked in a 2016 interview. "Whether we’re talking about a bluegrass trio on the front porch, Messiaen at the great organ of Saint-Trinité, a high school choir concert, or a sequencer-driven arena pop act, the most important thing a musician can learn is to get out of the way of the spirit knocking at the door of that room.
Otherwise, what the hell are we doing?"
(From answer by Curtis Lindsay, pianist, composer.)

Memory is important to music, simply put, because the full enjoyment of any song or piece requires the listener to remember what came earlier in the work. You couldn’t really appreciate a story or, say, a film if you had completely forgotten the beginning by the time it ended—and while music usually functions a bit differently from more narrative forms of art, the same is true of a five minute pop song or hour-long Symphony.

Recognizing the importance of memory to listening to music reveals why both unfamiliar forms of music and complex forms of music are both harder to appreciate: we are less able to absorb all of the details in such works when we hear them, and thus have a harder time remembering them and (therefore) experiencing them as cohesive wholes. It explains why most people enjoy strophic pop songs, and why even many professional classical musicians don’t like atonal music written during the last 100 years—in such music it is almost impossible to remember a given pitch or set of pitches close to immediately after they are played/sung.
(From answer by Zalman Kelber)

That the music you perform is for the audience in front of you. Leaving them behind and mystified with your mastery of theory, technique and superior knowledge means you are making noise not music.
(By Ron Restorff)

Don’t just listen, feel it. (By Roahan Guragain)



Music is eternal. Music is related to emotional world and is universal language of communication between people of all nations.(By Yuri Polchenko)



That it transcends all ages and cultures. (By Joan Jaccaud)


When you are down or feeling happy, Music is your best friend!
(By Joel Joseph)


If it sounds good to you, listen to it. (By Phyllis Hall)

"Feel it?" Yes, agreed! How could one not feel Lara Fabian's rendition of this?

"Caruso" was written by Italian singer-songwriter Lucio Dalla in 1986, the song was dedicated to Enrico Caruso, famous Italian tenor. The song tells of the pain and longings of a man about to die, while he is looking into the eyes of a girl who was very dear to him.
Caruso, throughout his life, had many love affairs, some with married women, some ending badly. A few years before he died, he met and wed a woman 20 years his junior, Dorothy Park Benjamin, whom Lucio Dalla describes in this song. With her he had a daughter named Gloria.




Translation:

There where the sea shines and wind blowing strong in the old terrace facing the gulf of Sorrento a man embraces a girl who had cried, then clears his throat and starts singing:
I love you very much but so much so much love you know. It's a chain by now that melts the blood inside veins you know.

Watching the lights in the sea he remembered the nights over there in America but were just fishing boats and the white wash of a helix. He felt the pain in the music and came down from the piano but when saw the moon peeking through the clouds it seemed to him sweeter even than death.
He looked at the girl into her eyes, those eyes as green as the sea, then a tear suddenly slid down and he believed to drown.

I love you very much but so much so much love you know. It's a chain by now that melts the blood inside veins you know.

Power of the Opera where every drama is a fake, why with a little bit of makeup and mime you can become someone else. But two eyes looking at you so close and true make forget the words and confuse your mind. Thus everything becomes so far away, also the nights over there in America and looking back see your life as the wake of a helix. Yes, it's life that ends but he didn't think about much indeed he already felt happy and began to sing again.

I love you very much but so much so much love you know It's a chain by now that melts the blood inside veins you know. ♪