Steve Jobs, the co-founder of Apple died today. He was only 56 years old. He’d been battling pancreatic cancer for a long time. He was a visionary who, as says in the NY Times “helped usher in the era of personal computers and then led a cultural transformation in the way music, movies and mobile communications were experienced in the digital age”. Very sad news indeed.
R.I.P. Steve and thanks for your many contributions.
Lucian Freud, Girl with Fig Leaf, 1948
Celebrated painter Lucian Freud (grandson of that other Freud), passed away last week at the ripe age of 88, leaving behind an astounding body of work (see the New York Times article here). I’m sad about his passing of course as I’m a big fan of his early drawings which I discovered through a great book I made sure to get my own copy of called Lucian Freud on Paper. I thought I’d do my own kind of tribute by posting an art project I did a while ago (still ongoing) which was inspired by a drawing of his called Girl with Leaves. Just visit here to see what it’s about.
The singer Amy Winehouse has been found dead at her flat in north London at the age of 27. The award-winning artist, famous for hits including Rehab from the critically acclaimed album Back to Black, was discovered by police in the late afternoon. Her death was being treated on Saturday night as “unexplained”. – guardian.co.uk
Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland and Through the Looking Glass by Lewis Carroll (on audiobook, performed by Christopher Plummer) ★★★★½
I’ve read Alice in Wonderland, an all-time favourite story several times in my life, seen movie adaptations, etc, and won’t post a review about it as such, though do want to say that if you haven’t heard this audiobook with Christopher Plummer narrating, you should get your hands on it ASAP. His performance of the unabridged text brings it to life in a way I’ve never experienced before. With such a vast range of voices and accents and modulations that render each character instantly recognizable, he make a funny story even more amusing, and I know I’ll come back to this recording again and again. I had previously given this book a 5-star rating because it is one of my all-time favourites, but Plummer’s reading of Chapter 9: The Mock Turtle’s Story with a plaintive tone throughout, reminded me that I’ve never much liked the Mock Turtles’s long ramble, save for those more delicious morsels.
This audiobook also included the recording of Through the Looking Glass and here I’m sorry to say that Plummer’s performance was so over the top—almost as if he’d had a couple dozen of double espressos AND done some high-grade cocaine—that it quickly got on my nerves and I stopped it halfway through. I didn’t let this affect my rating as this would hardly have done justice to Carroll’s original work nor to the brilliance of Plummer’s reading of the first story. Beg, borrow or steal this audiobook right now!
(Available, among other places on iTunes and Audible.com)
Here’s a little photo gallery of pictures I took today (click on the thumbnails to view them full-size). I hadn’t seen my collection of Christmas decorations in quite a few years, and took them out just in time for my dad and I to enjoy them on Christmas day. We had Cherry Clafoutis which was quite delicious, followed by a gift exchange and then quiet time chatting while I played around with some paint. I gave him a framed watercolour (you can see it here), and I got a giant bar of Swiss chocolate to satisfy my chocolate cravings for quite some time, along with a couple of great books; Barney’s Version by Mordecai Richler, a born and bred Mile Ender who had plenty of admirers and detractors alike and who often said that one of his goals was to write at least one book that would
be read after his death. I’m sure his wish has been fulfilled many times over since his passing in 2001. As it happens, I’ve never read him and wanted to discover his writing through this very book. I don’t know if he ever wished for movie rights too, but the soon-to-be released movie version is coming out in theatres, probably in a week or two. I also got Super Sad True Love Story which came out to glowing reviews this year. It’s written by Gary Shteyngart, another author I’ve been wanting to read for some time now.
Of course I couldn’t resist taking pictures of my kidz too. I dressed up Coco as the gift he’s truly been, since this was our very first Christmas together. He put up with our little impromptu session without grumbling although I wouldn’t say he had a ball exactly. Mimi refused to pose for me altogether, a very rare occurrence, and Ezra was just being his grumpy old self, an occurrence which is not rare in the least.
“I never quite know what people mean by political. They
may be saying that it’s a brave work. Or they might be saying
the work makes them uncomfortable, that they don’t want
to deal with it.”“We live in a society that packages things into handy boxes,
and we’re used to being told what to think. But one of the challenging and gratifying things about literature is that it doesn’t tell you what to think. It asks you what you think…. When I write a book and hand it over to my publisher,
I consider it half-finished. The other half of the work happens
in the hearts and minds of the reader. It’s a personal experience and it’s different for everyone.” (Washington Post)“I think of ‘activism’ as a simple action meant to secure a specific result: for this purpose I go to school board meetings,
I vote, I donate money, and occasionally fire off an op-ed piece. But that’s not what I do for a living. Writing literature is so much more nuanced than these things, it’s like comparing chopping vegetables to neurosurgery. Literature is one of the few kinds of writing in the world that does not tell you what
to buy, want, see, be, or believe. It’s more like conversation, raising new questions and inspiring you to answer them for yourself. …”“For some reason, people in the U.S. are fond of putting me in a box labeled ‘political,’ which could mean anything…. If it means ‘inclined to change people’s minds,’ that seems ludicrous as
a category because great literature will always do that. Fiction cultivates empathy for a theoretical stranger by putting you inside his head, allowing you to experience life from his point
of view. It can broaden your view of gender, ethnicity, place
and time, power and vulnerability, things that influence social interaction. What could be more political than that?” (barbarakingsolver.com)“I think writing a novel is a political act, automatically, because of the way it draws the reader into a carefully constructed world-view and generates empathy for the people who inhabit that world.”
“I never think that anything I’m writing is bluntly political in any way. I’m not going for commentary. And if I worried about controversy in this country I would just shut myself into a room and never come out. Anything one does is likely to be labelled absurdly and that is part of what [The Lacuna] is about.” (Telegraph)
“I think the novelist’s duty, then, is to own up to the power
of the craft, and use it wisely.”(Faber & Faber)
All quotes by Barbara Kingsolver, American author of among others ThePoisonwood Bible and the recent The Lacuna—the former of which I’ve read, absolutely loved, and wholeheartedly recommend and the second of which I look forward to reading eventually—founder of the Bellwether Prize, an award bestowed every other year on an unpublished work of “socially responsible literature.”
There’s no question that Julianne Moore is a beautiful woman and a great actress. It’s also obvious that this beautiful campaign for Bulgari accessories, published among other places in the pages of Vogue magazine, was inspired by classic paintings of the great masters, and I would venture specifically the famous Grande Odalisque by Ingres. But may I just say that the handbags render these images even more contrived than is the original inspiration? They’re the raison d’être of this campaign of course,
but I guess it goes to show that bag ladies, no matter how gorgeously nude, glamorous and chic, always end up looking… a little bit ridiculous (sorry Julianne.)
Photographed by Mert Alas & Marcus Piggott
Literature remains one of the best guarantees of some sort of real progress
in our hyper-technological society.
[Mario Vargas Llosa 2010 recipient of the Nobel Prize in literature]
La littérature reste une des meilleures garanties pour espérer une sorte de progrès
dans nos sociétés hypertechniques.
[ Mario Vargas Llosa, extrait de la revue Le Monde de l'éducation - Avril 2000 ]
Photo: Associated Press
There are two types of people in this world: good and bad. The good sleep better,
but the bad seem to enjoy the waking hours much more.
More than any time in history mankind faces a crossroads. One path leads to despair
and utter hopelessness, the other to total extinction. Let us pray that we have the wisdom to choose correctly.
The lion and the calf shall lie down together but the calf won’t get much sleep.
I took a speed-reading course and read War and Peace in twenty minutes.
It involves Russia.
When I was kidnapped, my parents snapped into action. They rented out my room.
I was depressed… I was suicidal; as a matter of fact, I would have killed myself
but I was in analysis with a strict Freudian and if you kill yourself they make you
pay for the sessions you miss.
Don’t think of death as an ending. Think of it as a really effective way of cutting down your expenses.
Interestingly, according to modern astronomers, space is finite. This is a very comforting thought—particularly for people who can never remember where they have left things.
Some guy hit my fender, and I told him, ‘Be fruitful and multiply,’ but not in those words.
If my films don’t show a profit, I know I’m doing something right.
