I couldn’t gather my mind together as I tried to write my second post today. Although I have some subjects to work on, the pressure (you might remember what I’m talking about!?) confuses me. Therefore, I decided just to confabulate about the maze!
Yes! As I wrote about my social and political issues in the last months and expressed my position, it’s getting worse. Everything is so muddled up that I wonder who is who and what is what!
I don’t want to begin bitching again ( it looks like I’m going to do it!) But if you look at the happening worldwide, there are such unbelievable events. For example, in Germany, the brand new health minister does the same dung as his predecessor and says; We can’t control the Omicron, but we hold the circulation. However, the small business owners go bankrupt one by one. Although we see in England and Irland, the bans lifted slowly but surely, and Denmark goes along next.
I was always interested in getting the news from every corner and any source in the world. It has been a habit since my time working as a journalist. And even Harrison Ford is in the same opinion as me. He once said: <I read many different newspapers because they all report differently, then I make an overall picture of everything that happens.> Therefore, I see how the US government challenges putting mandates in different enterprises and their workers although in their neighbourhood; Canada, the Convoy of Freedom, is rolling on; however, we see and hear nothing in the popular news!
Meet the truckers: The men and women of the Freedom Convoy 2022 msn.com
The Canadian prime minister, Justin Trudeau, once said that the unvaccinated people are Nazis! Now we can watch these people marching peacefully and mixed up two times vaccinated, unvaccinated, and even with boosters all there! Oh yeah, freedom has no categories.
I think that the Prime Minister has exceeded its limit. Here in Germany, we have a political party inclined to the rights; (Neo Nazist) named AFD. They abused the protests of unvaccinated for their profits. But there is a difference, and thank goodness, the German government knows to put a discrepancy in between. They just advise the good protesters to distance themselves from the wrong people!
I know it could be easier to accept all things coming from above, close your eyes, and enjoy the “nice” life. But it is apparently hard for me to do it. Let’s look forward to what will happen next. Freedom also needs patience, as I have learned it my whole life.
Here is an excellent article thereabout. Have a lovely weekend, everybody. 💖
Today, I would like to look back again at one of my favourite artists and filmmakers, Ingmar Bergman. With the help of an excellent article from the site: About Bergman. On this well-done site, we can find everything we want to know!
I have always become stunned by how Bergman began his movies. I think he had permanently tried to dig inside the soul of humans, ours, to reflect.
For example, in his movie; Winter Light from 1962, it begins so: In the final moments of Pastor Tomas Ericsson’s noon service, only a handful of people are in attendance, including fisherman Jonas Persson and his pregnant wife Karin, and Tomas’s ex-mistress, the atheist Märta. After the service, though coming down with a cold, Tomas prepares for his three o’clock service in another town. Before he leaves, however, the Perssons arrive to speak to him. Jonas has become morose after hearing that China is developing an Atomic bomb, and the children are starving!
PS: Sorry, it is only possible to watch it on YouTube, though it is worth seeing it. 🙏
Or in the movie: “Through a Glass Darkly“, the scene begins with a happy, playful family who celebrates in the garden, and suddenly one (the father) goes into the house, gets into the sitting room and weeps terribly.
His other work and in my opinion; one of his masterworks, Wild Strawberries, it begins with a dream of an aged professor (played by Victor Sjöström, one of the pioneers in cinema) who has a lot of corners and edges in his life to confront with. Interestingly, when the great artists share their memories in their works, they mostly are well accomplished—for example, Woody Allen’s Radio Days or Federico Fellini’s Amarcord.
Please let me once again share this fascinating dream scene with an excellent narration about this dream. PS(2): My efforts to find some scenes to share it seem only this way; watching on YouTube! Thanks for your understanding. 🙏😁
Following the books, the movies have significantly influenced my life. Of course, I am talking about the good ones! They have taught me much and expanded my view of life towards the world. And Ingmar Bergman is one of them. Here is a part of the article about his life. Thank you for being here. 🙏💖🙏
Ernst Ingmar Bergman, born on the 14th of July, 1918 in Uppsala, died on the 30th of July, 2007 on Fårö, was a Swedish film and theatre director, writer, theatre manager dramatist and author. Ingmar Bergman wrote or directed more than 60 films and 170 theatrical productions and authored over a hundred books and articles. Among his best-known works are the films The Seventh Seal, Wild Strawberries and Persona, as well as his autobiography The Magic Lantern.
Shakespeare, Molière, Ibsen, and Strindberg were all enormously essential influences on Bergman, not only in his theatrical work but indeed the entirety of his artistic career.
Bergman’s films are set almost exclusively in Sweden, and starting with 1961’s Through a Glass Darkly, they were filmed primarily on the small island of Fårö, northeast of Gotland. The international reception of Bergman’s films reflects a not inconsiderable fascination with a Scandinavian exoticism: inscrutable language, primaeval nature and flaxen-haired women. In Bergman’s films, the depiction of nudity and “natural” sexuality contributed to their success.
Looking over Bergman’s career, another hallmark of his work for stage and film is the recurrent company of loyal collaborators. Some notable examples from this ensemble include the cinematographer Sven Nykvist, the actors: Max von Sydow, Liv Ullmann and Bibi Andersson, and the costume designer Mago.
The relationship between the artist’s life and works (despite the tendency of biographical analyses to fall victim to the cult of genius) is in the case of Ingmar Bergman as inextricably tangled as it is compelling. In countless interviews and artistic representations, and especially in The Magic Lantern, Bergman repeatedly referred to his childhood and its importance for his artistic vision. A number of his relatives were also creative colleagues. Here
After a long while, I must reblog this; a history of thoughts, to see every corner of our minds…There is a teacher who talks about our ways in today education!
PS: with the FFB or C masks, I can’t breathe!
Back to school after Christmas break: new rules, old madness. Post-Christmas on-line staff meetings have reached unbelievable levels of senselessness this year. Here is a sheer example.
Principal (smiling): Welcome back to school. Can you hear me? Yes? Good. I have had some problems with my connection this morning……So, we are gathered here today to implement the new dispositions from the Ministry of Education which have just been dispatched……
Teacher WhatsApp chat:
(Maria) : Here is yet another scam! To be sure. Ready?😤
Prologue: (Play your part as Opa and Oma (Grandpa & ma).
Sometimes it’s strenuous being grandparents when the grandchild has been grown a little older and enjoyed more staying with them. It’s maybe because you do your best to make her happy.
However, you can breathe a sigh of relief when she goes back to her parents, but after a while, you miss her excessively!
Now, let’s get on the volcanoes! Our first plan was to rent a car to participate in the volcano tour. Renting a car was complicated enough as the production of new automobiles has become less in the last years, you can hardly find one. However, we’ve got a car, or better to say, a cart, to have our tours around. (Regina has always had many plans!)
It was an exciting experience. We drove to a parking lot, and there we had to get into one of the buses, which took us around the hills and mountains on a narrow street and let us look at the so many volcanoes.
I have recorded a short clip:
Here we can have a better view with my adorable wife’s pics.
Especially when the driver, in a short break, offered Regina his help to take some pictures with her mobile-phone:
Anyway, it was a one-for-all tour. There were explanations in three languages; Spain, English, and German, which you may notice in the video. (no French! je ne sais pas pourquoi?), and the tour ended with Johann Strauss’s Also Sprach Zarathustra. What for me as a Jungian is self-evident! It is also good here, I think, to finish this with a Masterwork of all time in cinema. I will try for the third section. 🙏🤗💖
We see here that middle-ranking officials can be so important in ancient Egypt. Why? We might never know it; although the exact location of that Tomb is now lost, several wall paintings from the Tomb were acquired by the British Museum as the greatest treasure where they are now on display.
Nebamun was a middle-ranking official “scribe and grain accountant” during the period of the New Kingdom in ancient Egypt. He is thought to have lived c. 1350 BCE and worked at the vast temple complex near Thebes where the state-god Amun was worshipped. Wikipedia
Let’s enjoy this brilliant description by Marie Grillot, who helps us to see between the lines of the painting. 🙏💖
Fragment of a polychrome painting representing the garden and the pool of Nebamun – painted plaster Provenance: Tomb of Nebamun – Theban Necropolis (location lost today) Discovered in 1820 by Giovanni d’Anastasi on behalf of Consul Henry Salt Salt Collection acquired by the British Museum in 1821 – Reference EA 37983 – museum photo
The rectangular pool is lined with papyrus, blueberries and mandrakes that bloom in unison in a delicious and subtle monochrome. The wave, of a tender blue enlivened by wavelets of a more sustained tone, is dotted with open lotuses or in buds. A varied fauna evolves in perfect harmony: ducks and birds whose colours reflect the difference of species rub shoulders with fish with fins and gills materialized in ochre-brown.
The pond is part of a wooded area made up of several species of fruit trees: sycamores, fig-trees, date palms or doum… Some fruits have already fallen while others are still attached to the branches: their colour ranging from yellow to dark brown testifies to their degree of maturation…
Fragment of a polychrome painting representing the garden and the pool of Nebamun – painted plaster Provenance: Tomb of Nebamun – Theban Necropolis (location lost today) Discovered in 1820 by Giovanni d’Anastasi on behalf of Consul Henry Salt Salt Collection acquired by the British Museum in 1821 – Reference EA 37983 – museum photo
The overall view is geometric and harmonious. However, the “perspective” in which the scene takes place does not fail to surprise us: the basin, for example, is seen both from the “top” and from the side, in-depth… The explanation is that the space is “represented according to the laws of aspect, a concept proposed by Emma Brunner-Traut. The element consists in deconstructing a scene, a character, … to show them under all their facets, combining the diversity of points of view, or under their elements considered as the most characteristic”…
Such a place – which must have been the prerogative of noble residences – seems ideal for recharging one’s batteries, enjoying the shade and freshness of the foliage with the lapping of the water, a few rustling of wings and the song of a bird. According to his codes, if the artist has been able to restore its “earthly” aspect, it is also necessary to consider the more “subtle” dimension linked to life in the au beyond, to the divine… Indeed, “in addition to the totality of the constituent elements, it is also necessary to show an organized universe (that is to say where Maât reigns)”, specifies Thierry Benderitter.
Fragment of a polychrome painting representing the garden and the pool of Nebamun – painted plaster Provenance: Tomb of Nebamun – Theban Necropolis (location lost today) Discovered in 1820 by Giovanni d’Anastasi on behalf of Consul Henry Salt Salt Collection acquired by the British Museum in 1821 – Reference EA 37983 – museum photo
On the other hand, the British Museum has attached itself to the reading of a scene – small but full of meaning – in the upper right corner: “a Goddess leans out of a tree and offers fruits and drinks to Nebamon (now lost). Artists accidentally painted her skin red at first, then repainted it yellow, the correct colour for a Goddess’s skin. On the left, a sycamore-fig tree speaks and greets Nebamon as the owner of the garden; his words are recorded in the hieroglyphs “…
Nebamun was a scribe and accountant of wheat in the granary of divine offerings in the temple of Amun at Karnak in the New Kingdom during the reigns of Thutmose IV and Amenhotep III.
Fragment of a polychrome painting representing the garden and the pool of Nebamun – painted plaster Provenance: Tomb of Nebamun – Theban Necropolis (location lost today) Discovered in 1820 by Giovanni d’Anastasi on behalf of Consul Henry Salt Salt Collection acquired by the British Museum in 1821 – Reference EA 37983 – museum photo
Therefore, his position was significant enough to have his eternal home on the west bank of Thebes. It was discovered in 1820 by Giovanni d’Athanasi… “Yanni” had entered the service of the British consul general Henry Salt when he was barely 20 years old to assist Giovanni Battista Belzoni. When he left in 1819, he replaced him in the field, then supplying the consul’s collections while building his own…
Henry Salt (Lichfield, UK – 14-6-1780 – Alexandria, Egypt – 30-10-1827) diplomat, consul of England in Egypt from 1816 to 1835, collector of antiquities
For him to be “on the job”, Salt had built for him a small fortress at Gournah. He thus lived among the villagers whom he employed for his excavations… Is it thanks to this “proximity” that he discovered the Tomb of Nebamon? We cannot say… but unfortunately, proven is that its location – even if it is instead located in the necropolis of Dra Abu el-Naga – is regrettably lost today…
Eleven panels painted on plaster were taken from the chapel and sold by Consul Salt to the British Museum in 1821. This 64 cm high and 72 cm wide was recorded under (the reference) EA 37983.
Please don’t get chilled when you see the word: “Spiracy” up there. I haven’t put the “con.” before that but “Sea”! Although, As if the meaning will be the same in the end. As we will learn more and more, slowly but surely, it seems that we are sawing the branch on which we sit!
In the last days of our trip, our son Raphael sent us a pic from reportage on Netflix with a note; “you might like to watch”. And we did it two days ago.
It is a documentary made by Ali Tabrizi, a 27 Youngman from England (with Persian origin) who dared to create this stunning one and a half-hour film as a disclosure. (Additive: We can see hardly any intellectual one staying in Iran!)
If you have subscribed to Netflix, watch this well done and, at the same time, horrifying reportage. I mean “horrifying” only because of the bitter truth hidden before our eyes.
That is worth watching disclosure about something that rarely comes to the topic. It makes our eyes open and expands or broadens our thoughts.
I am almost sure that our adorable friends, Pam Lazos and Susan Scott, and others who have some activities to keep life safe on this planet, will be interested in watching it.
Seaspiracy is a 2021 documentary film about the environmental impact of fishing directed by and starring Ali Tabrizi, a British filmmaker. The film examines various human impacts on marine life and advocates for ending fish consumption. Wikipedia
I don’t want to say I hope you’ll enjoy it, but I hope you will watch it!
Today afternoon, we are invited to a small birthday party of our granddaughter, Mila (she became three years old last Thursday). I will go there and hug her and congratulate her anniversary, though, in the back of my mind, I wonder how her future will look like, and it worries me!
First, I must mention it is not any birthday or other anniversary of someone! My mind engaged with The Beatles these days because of their new documentary movie: Get Back. Although unfortunately, it’s on the Disney channel, and I can’t watch it because I’m not registered there. However, I watch the video clips from that movie now and then and remember my youth as we grew up with them.
Of course, it is not something new, but what hit my mind to write this post is remembering Billy Preston and his influence on The Beatles.
Billy Preston was one principal emphasis in the Beatles works, especially in the later albums. Some people say he was the fifth Beatles, but I believe George Martin was the fifth Beatles and led their songs in such magnificent and tuned sound for many years. Notwithstanding, Billy Preston gave a unique soul to the songs, notably, their latest works despite all of these.
He had a turbulent life, as many artists should have? He worked with so many famous musicians. In addition to his successful solo career, with several funks and R&B hits, Preston gigged for a host of all-time greats: Ray Charles, Little Richard, Sam Cooke, Miles Davis, Aretha Franklin, the Rolling Stones…the list goes on.
He also had intoxication problems, and I think he had suffered a lot too under his sexual orientation;
As an adult, Preston’s star was tarnished by addiction, arrests and self-sabotaging behaviour that his manager, Joyce Moore, and half-sister Lettie, said was most deeply rooted in his mother’s refusal to believe that he was being sexually abused by the pianist of summer touring company, and later a local pastor.
It’s part of a lurid, longer tale, calling to mind other promising, oft-prodigious young talents who never managed to get out from under damage inflicted by adults when they were children.
A year later, he entered America’s living rooms. He appeared on The Nat King Cole Show, below, to duet with TV’s first national Black variety show host on “Blueberry Hill,” a 40s tune Fats Domino had popularized earlier in the decade. Which I never knew!
“You have a very excellent career ahead of you,” Cole predicts, following their performance.
Daughter Natalie Cole later enthused that the celebrated crooner “lets this kid have all the glory,” though the self-possessed pre-teen holds his own ably, alternating between organ and his own impressive pipes.
Within the year, Cole and Preston shared the big screen, and a memorable part, when they were cast as “The Father Of The Blues” W.C. Handy, as a child and adult, in the 1958 movie St Louis Blues.
César Manrique pintando en el estudio de su casa de Tahíche. Lanzarote, 1985 Spiegel
Prologue Yes! That’s me, back again from my vacation. However, it was an adventure more than a holiday journey. Because, as you already know by now, we both, my wife and I, are not that good and submissive! Therefore, regrettably, I would say; that was a brave act of ours!
(“PS 2 times in millions!!: I had been dreaming that I had turned off my M. Phone for suspected two last days in our holidays, just for a breathe. I tell you, when I came back, there were thousands of Emails and notifications and… Hush; it wasn’t a dearm!”) 😭
On the other side, It’s beautiful and, especially for me, an unusual Silvester time under such a clear sky and warm (ca 22 C.) climate. And as we’d noticed, how easily the Spanish people do with the new crisis. It was also outstanding. Of course, as I have promised, I will share my pictures and experiences about this short trip, but let me begin with a visit to the house and museum of a great artist, Cesar Manrique, whom I’d honestly never heard of before.
First, I must add here that something saddened and aggrieved me after I read his biography, to know that he took part in the Spanish Civil War end of the 30s but to my surprise on the side of Franco! Perhaps that could be described as his youthful naivety. I would do that because the arts and artists can never belong to or even exist in any fascist regime. With that, I calm my heart and dare to say that he was a great artist in a suitable place and at the right time.
In his biography, the writer describes his feeling as follows:
He participated as a volunteer in the Spanish Civil War on Franco’s side. His war experience was atrocious, and he refused to talk about it. In the summer of 1939, once the war was over, César returned to Arrecife. He bore still wearing his military uniform. After greeting his mother and siblings, he went up on the flat roof, took off his clothes, angrily stepped over them, sprayed them with petroleum and burned them. (From his Biography.)
What piqued my interest was the way of life those days (in the 70s) and how people with art and artists could live so happily and free.
I think it was how I always wanted to live, and luckily, despite residing in Iran and being so far away from the centre of the events, I had got a lot of that and could dream of being there. When I was looking at his works and the pictures, and the fascinating architecture of his house, made into volcanic mountains and chilled lava, I was just fascinated and stunned!
Here is an excellent recording of this house.
And his way to approach the art:
César Manrique Cabrera (24 April 1919 – 25 September 1992) was a Spanish artist, sculptor, architect and nature activist from Lanzarote. Wikipedia
Anyway, as I was enjoying this loving life, I wondered in the back of my mind how unlucky is the new generation didn’t experience this wonderful life.
I will continue for sure, after I’ve got the pictures taken by the master of photography, of course, my wife. 😉🤗
There are lots of such portraits! (s. here) It seems that it was a favourite pastime back then. Or a try to leave a beautiful reminder behind? Here is one of these beauties; let’s enjoy reading this brilliant explanation by Marie Grillot. 🙏💖
Her “class”, distinction, and nobility have stood the test of time: beautiful and elegant during her lifetime, she will remain so for eternity …
Her gaze is frank and straight, even if, on scrutinizing it more closely, his large brown eyes seem to hide an unfulfilled question deep within them. The round, dark iris stands out from the white gaze, which looks slightly damp. It is animated by a subtle dot of white paint, giving it a spark of life. Thin and short eyelashes are treated individually. The eyebrows, with well-defined implantation, follow the shape of a circumflex accent.
The nose is delicate and straight; its edge is underlined by a more marked paint touch. The furrow’s hollow leading to the lips is surrounded by a light white line.
The mouth is attractive with its lips with a cupid’s arch asserted and with their fine labial commissures. Tinted with a discreet pink, they seem to want to sketch a smile …
The brown hair, nicely wavy, leaves the part of the forehead visible. It’s gathered certainly, in a bun at the neck’s nape and is adorned with a thin gold crown or a tiara. This is not the only adornment. Indeed: “The woman wears square emerald earrings set in gold with pearl pendants. Around her neck is a heavy necklace composed of a large emerald in a rectangular frame and a large one. Red oval stone, possibly carnelian, flanked by two rectangular gold plaques. All the frames are made in gold leaf “.
This distinguished woman, who poses elegantly three-quarter length, obviously had as much taste for choosing her dress as her jewellery… “Her clothes are most unusual: a blue-purple tunic, with a golden clavus that continues in a decorative band under the neck where it is edged with gold leaf; and over the shoulder, a creamy white coat, almost the same colour as the background, is draped in the manner of contemporary statuary “(extracts from” Ancient Faces: Mummy Portraits from Roman Egypt “, Susan Walker and Morris Bierbrier).
She lived in the 2nd century AD and undoubtedly belonged to a wealthy class, perhaps even the elite. Indeed, only the wealthiest could afford quality funeral rituals. After having been Greek, Egypt became Roman… and cosmopolitan: Egyptians, Greeks and Romans mingled. The new “masters of the land” adopted the funeral customs of Pharaonic Egypt, and the Romans introduced the art of portraiture.
This type of portrait was produced during the model’s lifetime by itinerant painters who never signed their works … Even if they remained in anonymity, have been they then “known”, renowned? We whispered the name of the best, the most talented; was it “good taste” to be “immortalized by so and so? These questions keep their question marks …
The support for these portraits – which will, during mummification, be placed on the face of the deceased – is most often a plank of wood (lime, fig, cedar or sycamore) which has been smoothed and coated beforehand. The sketch is then executed in red or black. “Then, the portrait was carried out using mineral and vegetable pigments bound with heated wax (encaustic), which allows a slow and meticulous work resulting in small close touches for the face. On the other hand, the neck, the hairstyle and the clothing are treated with broad strokes of the brush “.
44.2 cm high and 20.7 cm wide, painted “with encaustic”, on a linden board, this portrait called “of Fayoum ‘” comes more precisely from Er-Rubayat, north of Hawara. In “Ancient Faces: Mummy Portraits from Roman Egypt”, the authors specify that: “The portraits associated with the cemetery of Er-Rubayat were mainly acquired in the 1880s by the Viennese merchant Theodor Graf, who exhibited them in several places in Europe and America, acclaimed by the public, selling them to various institutions and private collectors… “.
Sir Robert Ludwig Mond (September 9, 1867 – October 22, 1938)
This is the case with the generous patron Robert Ludwig Mond (Farnworth, UK, 9-9-1867 – Paris, 22-10-1938), then bequeathed to the British Museum. He entered it in 1939 under the number EA65346.
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