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. ♪

Saturday & Sundry Tales of Outer Planetary Transits

If ever I have serious doubts about the validity of astrology, at its core, I remember my personal experiences when outer planetary transits conjoined some of my natal planetary positions.

My natal Sun is at 6.46 Aquarius, natal Jupiter at 6.03 Pisces. At the time of these events and developments I was unaware of the planetary transits. With hindsight, I'm very glad of my ignorance.

Uranus transited Aquarius from mid-1995 to late 2003. Uranus' transit of Pisces commenced March 2003. My natal chart received a "multiple-whammy" during these transits. My second Saturn return happened within that time span, as well as a transit of Pluto to natal Venus, and Neptune's transit of natal Sun.

The story begins on 21 April 1996 on a Sunday evening, in a northern English city, at around 9.20 pm. Uranus on this date was a little past 4 degrees of Aquarius, 2 degrees from my natal Sun position. A partial solar eclipse had occurred on 17/18 April at, I think, 28 Aries. My natal Moon is at around 24.40 Aries. Transiting Mars was at 21 Aries.

On this Sunday evening my long-time partner watched TV in the living room as I prepared to take a bath. A fire, which, unknown to us, had started in a large adjoining empty building spread close to our second floor apartment (3rd floor USA-style). I heard a strange crackling noise, went to the kitchen to investigate. Flames licked the window. We realised what had happened, grabbed coats (I was only semi-clad), thankfully I also grabbed my handbag. We hurried down two flights of stairs, as fire engines drew up outside. As we reached the ground an explosion occurred above, probably from gas boilers in the building. We stood with two other tenants, thankful to be outside and alive, watched everything we owned, and our home for the past 23 years, disappear in an horrendous fire.

The whole block of buildings had to be demolished later. We still had our car, parked in a nearby garage, the few clothes on our backs and my handbag containing credit card and a little cash.

That was the start of a very difficult phase. Three days later my partner, probably still affected by shock, fell in the street and damaged his hand so badly that he needed plastic surgery and was admitted to hospital. I remained in a bed and breakfast place.

My work friends and my mother were a great help to us, both with contributions, and moral support. Our insurance helped a lot too, as did the result of legal proceedings against the owner of the adjoining building - but not until some years later.

Within a month or so we found another apartment, but it proved not ideal. We had one break-in during the year we lived there - those burglars were unlucky, we owned next to nothing!

In the early spring of 1997, as Uranus exactly conjoined my natal Sun, we moved into a rented house in a nice area. The whole episode had come to seem like a nightmare turned adventure. More changes were to come, however.

That summer of 1997, Uranus started its retrograde movement. My mother was diagnosed with terminal illness. This happened rapidly and unexpectedly, affected me deeply. My second Saturn return was exact in April 1997. Mum seemed fine when she visited us at Easter, by mid-August she had died. She left me a bungalow on the coast where she and my Dad had spent a good part of their retirement. On the day Mum died retrograde Uranus, was at 5.59 Aquarius, one degree from my natal Sun, 8th house.

I was nearing retirement. We didn't want to live on the coast, but after trying unsuccessfully to sell the bungalow, we decided we'd have to move there after all. In March 1999 we moved home, as Mars hovered at 13 Scorpio, Moon's North node in my chart which opposes natal Uranus/South node. Transiting Uranus had moved on now and lay 7 degrees from natal Sun, but Neptune was inching slowly towards natal Sun.

Soon after moving to the bungalow on the coast, my partner's health began to fail, both mentally and physically. He was much older than me, and we'd been together for more than 30 years. From 2000, until he died in the first weeks of 2003, I looked after him, heart breaking, knowing that I'd lose him painfully and slowly. Throughout this time, transiting Pluto was approaching my natal Venus at 19.59 Sagittarius, 6th house.

To help things along (or not) Neptune conjoined my natal Sun exactly from September to December 2001, and wasn't far away for months after that. Looking back, I can see that Neptune acted somewhat like an anesthetic, or some kind of drug which, along with the computer I'd just bought, helped me through what was, without doubt, the worst period of my life. I'm pretty sure that from time to time I acted as if I were under some kind of intoxication - which WAS purely astrological!

That first home computer of mine arrived along with Neptune in Aquarius. Because I was tied to the house, caring for my partner and unable to go very far for very long, the computer became something of a life-raft. I made a few on-line friends via message boards, and instant message programs, who, bless 'em, along with Neptune's intoxication, kept me afloat through those bad times. I doubt that I could have coped without the computer.

Uranus didn't leave Aquarius until late 2003 and before Pluto left its conjunction with my natal Venus another adventure awaited me. Still reeling from the loss of my partner, I met my (now) husband. At first he was an e-mail penfriend, then, during a short holiday in the USA we met in person. He later came over to the UK, spent time there, and we eventually married. I sold the bungalow, went through the rigmarole of visa and immigration hoop-la, arrived in Oklahoma, USA late in 2004. Events seem rapid, with hindsight, but at the time it didn't feel that way. Life seemed to be proceeding in ultra-slow motion.

Uranus conjoined my natal Jupiter at 6.03 Pisces in February 2005, just after we had bought a house in Oklahoma and moved from my husband's previous home. I'd already bought a new computer, soon afterwards astrology software followed, and a box of secondhand astrology text books. Much study and experimenting ensued.

Jupiter, the publishing planet, danced around the vertex in my chart (natal Mars conjoins this sensitive point). I started blogging. Other astrology bloggers were kind enough to notice my blog, and offer support.

Summing up: the transit of Uranus through Aquarius was a little like a tornado passing through a small town. When that planet first entered Aquarius I had a Mum, a long-standing partner, a home of many years, and a job. When Uranus left, none of those remained. Amid the chaos in my life, Uranus, ruler of technology,left something for me to hold on to - the computer, which became my life raft, eventually guiding me across the Atlantic to a new way of being and, incidentally, to blogging.

What indicates "astrology at work" is the timing, the way events dovetail with transits. Skeptics might respond that there are "ordinary" reasons for these events. Maybe so, but there are no ordinary reasons for such exact timing.

Now, bringing this tale right up to date in 2018, as Pluto conjoins my natal Mercury in Capricorn, I've needed surgery for a small breast cancer, discovered following a routine mammogram, as described in previous posts. Hello Pluto - it brings me no pleasure at all to see you again!

Arty Farty Good Friday

"2,000 years ago one man got nailed to a tree for saying how great it would be if everyone was nice to each other for a change."
(Douglas Adams)

 Raising of the Cross by Peter Paul Rubens

 Watercolour of Jesus Christ Crucifixion On Good Friday Photograph: Matthew Gibson

Dali's painting, below, was inspired by an old drawing by St John of the Cross, a 16th century priest; he along with St. Teresa of Avila, founded the Carmelites. Dali painted his own version following a series of dreams.

 Christ of St. John of the Cross by Salvador Dali

 Famous Good Friday Dinner by Edgar Degas

It was a 9 to 5 Job !

A quickie post just to celebrate finishing the "procedure" I underwent yesterday, 27 March.

The whole event did actually take from 9 to 5! We arrived at the hospital at required time of 9 AM. Not all of the 9 to 5 time span was used for surgery, there was a lot of waiting time to spend, and chunks of tests to establish exactly where "the nasty" is located, and to leave a marker for surgeon as he carried out the small lumpectomy. Some tests were fairly easy, one was a tad challenging mainly due to the length of time it took, while in some discomfort.

After the tests to find positions and direction of lymph nodes, came the inserting of a wire marker to show position of the small tumor, to to assist the surgeon. I was lucky to have a surgeon whose reputation is second to none in the state. The radiologist, also, deserves an Oscar for his skills, enthusiasm, and cheerful support in both my prior biopsy, a week or two ago, and in today's tests. He said, after completing his part of the procedure, "It'll be all downhill from here - you'll have a nice nap and then go home!" True enough, but there was a l-o-n-g wait before the nap, while the surgeon finished a much bigger operation than mine. The waiting time was the worst part of the whole thing, lying, sometimes uncomfortably, on the usual hospital bed-cum-trolley, in a small room. The husband was always with me though - that was a plus! My actual surgery took, I am told, around 45 minutes. I was away from the husband for 2 hours though, due to various additional preparation, plus some recovery time. During surgery husband had much appreciated supporting visits from his daughter, and later from his son-in-law.

I now have "binding" or "wrapping" around my breasts. I'm actually glad of my relatively small bra' size, something I've cursed during most of my adult life. I was given prescriptions for pain medications and stuff for nausea - which I don't have, thankfully. Pain is there but it's quite bearable, I shall not take maximum of pain pills unless it becomes truly essential.

Next appointment: 4 April, to see the surgeon for follow-up talk.

I feel a song coming on:

"Not the blaze of noon...."

“...inside every old person is a young person wondering what happened.”
― Terry Pratchett, Moving Pictures

In spite of current concerns, I don't often actually feel "old". Maybe I should.




Some words on old age from a favourite poet: Henry Wadsworth Longfellow: last two verses of Morituri Salutamus (See full poem here)

As the barometer foretells the storm
While still the skies are clear, the weather warm,
So something in us, as old age draws near,
Betrays the pressure of the atmosphere.
The nimble mercury, ere we are aware,
Descends the elastic ladder of the air;
The telltale blood in artery and vein
Sinks from its higher levels in the brain;
Whatever poet, orator, or sage
May say of it, old age is still old age.
It is the waning, not the crescent moon;
The dusk of evening, not the blaze of noon;
It is not strength, but weakness; not desire,
But its surcease; not the fierce heat of fire,
The burning and consuming element,
But that of ashes and of embers spent,
In which some living sparks we still discern,
Enough to warm, but not enough to burn.

What then? Shall we sit idly down and say
The night hath come; it is no longer day?
The night hath not yet come; we are not quite
Cut off from labor by the failing light;
Something remains for us to do or dare;
Even the oldest tree some fruit may bear;
Not Oedipus Coloneus, or Greek Ode,
Or tales of pilgrims that one morning rode
Out of the gateway of the Tabard Inn,
But other something, would we but begin;
For age is opportunity no less
Than youth itself, though in another dress,
And as the evening twilight fades away
The sky is filled with stars, invisible by day.

Gotta love that last line!

Martian Music Monday

For any Netflix viewers who have grown jaded from watching too many police procedurals, detectives chasing serial killers, etc etc, yet find the average 'romcom' to be somewhat hackneyed, no matter what spin is added - do give Martian Child a look.

Martian Child, a 2007 American comedy-drama film directed by Menno Meyjes and written by David Gerrold, is based on his fictional Hugo and Nebula Award-winning short story of the same name, and not on David Gerrold's semi-autobiographical novelette also confusingly titled The Martian Child. The film stars John Cusack as a writer who adopts a strange young boy who believes himself to be from Mars.

The movie is not as science fiction oriented as the title implies. It's a sweet story, with some superb acting from young Bobby Coleman as the child in question.

John Cusack is excellent, he strikes just the right note as the child's adoptive father, his real life sister, Joan, plays his fictional sister. David Schiff (Toby from The West Wing), and Angelica Houston (who will be, for me, forever Clara from Lonesome Dove) pop in to the story from time to time.


BUT - it's Music Monday, so what else but this?
Starman





Or this - I love this music, part of a great, and much, much longer story, that is pure science fiction:

...The chances of anything coming from Mars
Are a million to one, he said
The chances of anything coming from Mars
Are a million to one, but still, they come...

Weekend with the Waistdeeps

While I wait, and try not to worry, and imagine, and obsess, here's something from the husband's huge collection of vintage photographs. A few years ago he took to writing fanciful fun narratives to some of the photographs. Not everybody "gets" this type of wackiness, but I enjoy it - always have -I guess that's partly how we originally latched on to one another! ;-)

It was to be a work-free week-end in the hills at the famous Woodsnipe Walls Manor for the members of the Waistdeep Nature Club. After gathering for the get-away in the gilded grand foyer, the group wandered out on the grounds for this group picture to commemorate the great event.

Just as the photographer yelled “pose” someone pinched the butt of Geary Stype, standing third from the right. Geary obviously suspects Gilda Goldflue standing just to his left. Gilda is ignoring him, of course. Geary did not see the guilty grin on Baldwin Molepost, just to his right. Actually Baldwin is grinning because he is secretly wearing a tie fashioned from a scarf belonging to Caldera Soo (standing, far left). Caldera designed her own blouse, hat and matching scarf. This morning her scarf went missing.Caldera, it must be noted is standing next to B. F. D. Blasko the well known vampire and vacuum cleaner repairman. They are not related.

The women of course perceived immediately that there were not enough men to go around. The men, of course, in typical masculine fashion, perceived that there were not enough women to go around.

All the girls are wearing hats for identification purposes.

Inside, the cook was making celery soup and singing "Heart and Soul” along with the wireless which was playing, “Night on Bald Mountain” by the Harmonicats.

Someone noted later in green ink, that Ivie Leak (seated fourth from left) was not a Waistdeep Nature Club member at all but an undercover writer for Popular Séance magazine.

But then, that’s another story, isn't it?

As reported by my husband, anyjazz.

Mid-week Meanderings

This post will stand until the weekend. I shall be otherwise engaged. Currently I have something serious on my plate - some surgery. More on this later on, perhaps.

Anyway, a few odds and ends:



On the environment....

"Your descendants shall gather your fruits." (Virgil)

(Note: no doubt it was implied anyway, within this ancient wisdom that: "whether the fruits be nourishing or poisoned is up to you.")

"And Man created the plastic bag and the tin and aluminum can and the cellophane wrapper and the paper plate, and this was good because Man could then take his automobile and buy all his food in one place and He could save that which was good to eat in the refrigerator and throw away that which had no further use. And soon the earth was covered with plastic bags and aluminum cans and paper plates and disposable bottles and there was nowhere to sit down or walk, and Man shook his head and cried: "Look at this Godawful mess."
Art Buchwald, humorist.

On future potential for revolution - here, there and everywhere:

A poem, by Otto Rene Castillo who was a Guatemalan revolutionary.

One day
the apolitical
intellectuals
of my country
will be interrogated
by the simplest
of our people.

They will be asked
what they did
when their nation died out
slowly,
like a sweet fire
small and alone.

No one will ask them
about their dress,
their long siestas
after lunch,
no one will want to know
about their sterile combats
with "the idea
of the nothing"
no one will care about
their higher financial learning.

They won't be questioned
on Greek mythology,
or regarding their self-disgust
when someone within them
begins to die
the coward's death.

They'll be asked nothing
about their absurd
justifications,
born in the shadow
of the total life.

On that day
the simple men will come.

Those who had no place
in the books and poems
of the apolitical intellectuals,
but daily delivered
their bread and milk,
their tortillas and eggs,
those who drove their cars,
who cared for their dogs and gardens
and worked for them,
and they'll ask:

"What did you do when the poor
suffered, when tenderness
and life
burned out of them?"

Apolitical intellectuals
of my sweet country,
you will not be able to answer.

A vulture of silence
will eat your gut.

Your own misery
will pick at your soul.

And you will be mute in your shame.

On different elemental matters:

In "The Night Sky" by Richard Grossinger, some food for thoughts astrological:

In 1869, the Russian chemist Dmitri Mendeleev discovered that the chemical properties of the elements (My note: this refers to the non-astrological elements)are periodic functions of their atomic weights, i.e. of the number of protons in their nuclei. When he arranged the then-known elements in a series, he found that there were familial resemblances among elements at regular numerical intervals. For instance, carbon, silicon and tin lie in a series for which the member between silicon and tin was then apparently missing. This was later found to be germanium. Fluourine, chlorine, bromine and iodine constitute another family. Then there's a group of lithium, sodium and potassium; another of nitrogen phosphorus, arsenic and antimony; and so on. Nature contains a hidden periodic function which is basic to form and order in the world. (My note: There are "families" in astrological elements too, at regular numerical intervals - the Fire family Aries, Leo, Sagittarius, the Air family Gemini, Libra, Aquarius etc.) All the other elements are based on the simplest one, hydrogen with its single proton, which is also - we were to find out - the fuel of the stars.

Mendeleev's periodic table, and the reality that lay behind it gave a new basis for understanding the history and evolution of matter. Mathematical relationships determined the seemingly limitless display of forms in nature, from plants and animals to stars and galaxies. It was hauntingly Pythagorean, as Heisenberg would remind us.

The echo of astrological elements and modes and the way they were arranged by ancient astrologers is discernible. They had no knowledge of periodic tables and suchlike, as far as we know.

I have confidence that astrology is more than mere superstition. It's something rooted in the very nature of the universe. Oh - it's rough and ready, imperfect and encumbered with a plethora of unnecessary accessories, but beneath it all there is a gem - just waiting to be discovered.

Vernal Equinox!

Welcoming Spring with, appropriately enough,
"The Coming of Spring" by Erté

An archived post on Erté is HERE.

“In olden times, it meant the long dark of winter was finally over, and things would start growing again and the world would be renewed. The solstice was the promise–that the days wouldn’t just keep on getting shorter until they disappeared altogether. The equinox was the day when the promise was fulfilled.”
― M.R. Carey, The Girl With All the Gifts

Also today the Sun moves into zodiac sign Aries, bringing in an astrological New Year - here's to a happy one for us all!

Music Monday ~ Inescapable Follow-up to Previous Post !

And this:



And...

"Watch Yourself!" (Zeus to Narcissus)

Not a day passes when I don't read at least a handful of questions at Quora relating to narcissism. For example :

Are relationships with narcissists doomed to fail?

Does a narcissist know they are a narcissist?

Do narcissists know when they are wrong? Mine never admitted he was wrong and never apologized.

Why is there so much unreliable, erroneous and opinionated information about narcissism on Quora?

Narcissism. Can we lay blame on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and others, names of which escape me? People use those tools because they are like mirrors - all about them, their need for an audience . Blogging filled that need for some people, for years. Blogging was but the overture to the full-blown symphony!

Is blogging a symptom of chronic narcissism? Is using Twitter and/or Facebook et al a sign that the disease has become acute?

Blogging, for me, is and has been simply a way to experiment with a girlhood dream of being a writer or a reporter or journalist. Maybe there is some retro-narcissism going on.

I've always found Facebook a wee bit creepy, though was never quite sure why. I opened an account early on and almost immediately deactivated it, re-opened it years later, then deactivated it again. As for Twitter, I can see that for some people it could feed incipient or rampant narcissism (and that is a very awkward word to type, I'm finding). Looking in on Twitter has, very occasionally, led to information I'd have otherwise missed, but beyond that, I'm not enthusiastic. If Twitter is a narcissistic pastime, I fear I'm not doing it right!

Here's a ponder-worthy topic on which to close: is perusing one's astrological natal chart the ultimate in narcissism?

Arty Farty Friday ~ A Glance at Impressionism

I've been a little distracted and otherwise engaged for a few days so, instead of my usual arty farty dish with a side order of astrology, today's post is just a brief review of some well known Impressionist paintings. Impressionism isn't my own favourite genre, but it is easy on the eye, that cannot be denied. Impressionism is almost like comfort food, when one is weary of surrealism, abstract art and...well...the outright weird!

Sheepishly Heading for Easter and Springtime

Easter, and the run up to it, brings to mind a rhyme I used to repeat, long ago and far way near the north-eastern coast of England:
Tid, Mid, Miserai (or Misere)
Carlin, Palm, and Paste egg day.
Reciting it as a child, gobbledegook-wise, I didn't care what it meant, I just wanted to get at those chocolate Easter eggs! I later grasped that it had something to do with the Sundays of Lent, and customs attached.

Carlin(g)s are black peas, eaten on Passion Sunday, On Palm Sunday sometimes dried palm leaves were handed to members of church congregations, and Paste eggs (possibly a corruption of Pasch) eggs were what all the kids eagerly anticipated.

As for the mysterious first line of the rhyme, there are two explanations:
'Tid' was the second Sunday in Lent when, it seems, the Te Deum was sung/chanted in church; Mid could refer to a hymn 'Mi Deus', sung on the third Sunday of Lent; Miserai/misere might be the psalm 'Miserere Mei', sung on the fourth. But there's also a very slight possibility, because the purpose of the rhyme was to count Sundays before Easter, that Tid, Mid was a variation of an ancient Celtic-based method/language once used in the north of England for counting sheep. Exact spelling varies with dialects of northern England, but one, two three, four, five = yan, tan, tithera, mithera, pip. Could 'tithera', 'mithera' equal 'tid' 'mid'? I'm not confident about this, it doesn't really fit snugly. Interesting though. It has been noted that even in parts of the United States the old sheep-counting method is not not unknown, possibly brought across the Atlantic by early immigrants.

The full ancient sheep-counting method went like this, with spelling variations.
(My grandmother and neighbours of her generation always pronounced "one" as "yan", by the way.)

Yan
Tan
Tethera
Methera
Pim
Lethera
Severa
Hovera
Dovera
Dik
Yan-a-dik
Tan-a-dik
Tethera-a-dik
Methera-a-dik
Bumfit
Yan-a-bumfit
Tan-a-bumfit
Tethera-a-bumfit
Methera-a-bumfit
Giggot

The sheep were counted up to twenty, the shepherd then closed one finger and repeated the count until all his fingers of one hand were down = a hundred sheep. Next he would close a finger on his other hand and begin anew. So up to 500 sheep could be counted using this method.

Regarding the mysterious custom of eating black carlin peas during Lent: there's no religious significance, but the tradition is said to be linked to the civil war of 1644. Royalist Newcastle in the north-east of England was under siege from the Scots. People were dying of starvation. The story goes that, either a French ship docked in Newcastle with a cargo of Maple Peas which were distributed to the people out of charity; or that a French ship was wrecked off the coast near Newcastle and containers of peas were washed ashore, much to the relief of starving inhabitants. Either way, a custom was born! Carlin peas are soaked overnight in water, boiled well then fried in butter and served with vinegar and bread and butter. My East Yorkshire grandmother used to prepare carlins that way, each year around Easter time.

Here's the late and much lamented Jake Thackray with one of his self-penned ditties, very appropriate to this post.




When I first posted on this old counting method, 4 years ago, some comments received added more interesting tid-bits:

David: "Hickory, dickory dock the mouse ran up the clock" is from the same counting scheme

Twilight: Hi! I didn't know that - but now you've mentioned, of course! The rhythm is the same and..."hovera dovera dik" - Wikipedia: Westmorland shepherds in the nineteenth century used the numbers Hevera, Devera and Dick.

JD : Still used by shepherds in Cumbria (it was on the BBC's 'Country File' not so long ago). Base 20 counting system goes way back to the Babylonians, I think, and was used by the Maya.

Twilight: I suppose 5, 10 or 20 counting methods were an inevitable consequence of humans finding themselves with 5 fingers on each hand - and 5 toes on each foot. :-)

Kaleymorris: This reminds me of a 10-based counting method called Chisanbop. Yours seems a bit more efficient.

Twilight: Hmm - I'd never heard of that one - clever stuff!
Looking for generally related information on finger counting, I came across the fact that, well into the Middle Ages, the Greeks and Romans seem to have used fingers for computations. The Homeric term for counting = "pempathai", which means to count by fives. It's interesting that in the sheep-counting language in my post the word for five is "pim", so it could possibly be a left-over derivation from words used by the occupying Roman legions back in the mists of time?
Yan
Tan
Tethera
Methera
Pim