Things my daughter tought me...

Eugene Manet and his Daughter

Berthe Morisot, 1881

"I love my dad because he is the best father he is capable of being."
~ Alex age 9

Sorcerer's Apperintace? Really?

The internet is a buzz with these new photos of Jerry Bruckheimer's production featuring Nic Cage as the Sorcerer in Disney's new live action adaptation of the poem by Goethe. The same poem Walt based the famous sequence in Fantasia on. You know, the one with Mickey Mouse in his sorcerer's hat.

I know it's not just me. Almost everything I have read on this is commenting on how stupid Cage looks and what a dumb idea this is. Honestly WDC, not everything needs to be "re-imagined".

So is Cage a strung out character from the Matrix or a homeless Van Helsing? Was there something in the original poem about the Sorcerer that has been missed all these years? Is there a darker part of the Goethe poem that Walt left out of his original take?

I wasn't sure so I googled it and found this 1955 translation done by Edwin Zeydel.

That old sorcerer has vanished

And for once has gone away!

Spirits called by him, now banished,

My commands shall soon obey.

Every step and saying

That he used, I know,

And with sprites obeying

My arts I will show.

Flow, flow onward

Stretches many

Spare not any

Water rushing,

Ever streaming fully downward

Toward the pool in current gushing.

Come, old broomstick, you are needed,

Take these rags and wrap them round you!

Long my orders you have heeded,

By my wishes now I've bound you.

Have two legs and stand,

And a head for you.

Run, and in your hand

Hold a bucket too.

Flow, flow onward

Stretches many,

Spare not any

Water rushing,

Ever streaming fully downward

Toward the pool in current gushing.

See him, toward the shore he's racing

There, he's at the stream already,

Back like lightning he is chasing,

Pouring water fast and steady.

Once again he hastens!

How the water spills,

How the water basins

Brimming full he fills!

Stop now, hear me!

Ample measure

Of your treasure

We have gotten!

Ah, I see it, dear me, dear me.
Master's word I have forgotten!

Ah, the word with which the master

Makes the broom a broom once more!

Ah, he runs and fetches faster!

Be a broomstick as before!

Ever new the torrents

That by him are fed,

Ah, a hundred currents

Pour upon my head!

No, no longer

Can I please him,

I will seize him!

That is spiteful!

My misgivings grow the stronger.

What a mien, his eyes how frightful!

Brood of hell, you're not a mortal!

Shall the entire house go under?

Over threshold over portal

Streams of water rush and thunder.

Broom accurst and mean,

Who will have his will,

Stick that you have been,

Once again stand still!

Can I never,

Broom, appease you?

I will seize you,

Hold and whack you,

And your ancient wood I'll sever,

With a whetted axe I'll crack you.

He returns, more water dragging!

Now I'll throw myself upon you!

Soon, 0 goblin, you'll be sagging.

Crash! The sharp axe has undone you.

What a good blow, truly!

There, he's split, I see.

Hope now rises newly,

And my breathing's free.

Woe betide me!

Both halves scurry

In a hurry,

Rise like towers

There beside me.

Help me, help, eternal powers!

Off they run, till wet and wetter

Hall and steps immersed are Iying.

What a flood that naught can fetter!

Lord and master, hear me crying! -

Ah, he comes excited.

Sir, my need is sore.

Spirits that I've cited

My commands ignore.

"To the lonely Corner, broom!

Hear your doom.

As a spirit

When he wills, your master only

Calls you, then 'tis time to hear it."

WTF Bruckheimer? If the essence of this poem has already been captured in an iconic masterpiece by one of the greatest movie makers off all time why not, just this once, leave well enough alone?

Balloon
Jeff Koons, 2008 Exhibition

Is this Art? Its the age old question people have asked since Cubism came on the scene and Warhol started painting Campbell Soup cans. To me it is art. In all its gaudy awful glory it is the best art there is. It is the art that holds our culture up to a mirror and asks us to study what it is we have truly become. We are a bunch of balloon animals. We don't have a bowl of fruit sitting on our table. We have condensed soup in a can.

I'm bored at work. Does it show?

Lost in Jane Austen

I stumbled on something this weekend. A mini-series called Lost in Jane Austen . Four one hour episodes were played over Sunday and Monday night on the Ovation Network.

Ovation isn't a network that I have watched a lot. In fact, I didn't even notice it until this weekend when I stumbled across and three part documentary recounting Andy Warhol's factory days. This played to my adolescent fascination with the avaunt guard of the 60s and 70s. I didn't learn anything new, but it was interesting to see some of the people I had previously only read about. Interesting because it is always fun to put a face to a name. Also, it was striking how there were two distinct types of people. Those who loved their days spent at the factory and looked back at it with a sense of nostalgia and the perspective time. Then those who who were clearly enthralled with the whole idea of the factory lifestyle and who still, even with the passage of time had not quite moved on. Like the cheerleaders and jocks who show up at the 20th high school reunion trying to re-live their glory days.

Anyway. Lost in Jane Austen. A whole new take on Austen's most famous novel Pride and Prejudice. I have to admit, when I saw the advertisements for this I rolled my eyes. So much has been produced in recent years to capitalize on Austen's stories. Everything from books about people who love Austen to books that imagine the next chapter in the lives of many of the characters. People wonder if Elizabeth and Darcy really did live happily ever after. Did Lydia ever woke up and realize what a twit she had been? There is even a series of mystery novels that cast Elizabeth and Darcy as detectives. Gross.

Still, my natural curiosity forced me to sit in on this train wreck. But it wasn't a train wreck. It was actually wonderful! I think its success as a story comes from the fact that it isn't trying to pretend to be Austen. In fact, the whole point is that its messing it all up.

The adventure starts when Amanda (what a horribly un-Austen name) who has read Pride and Prejudice so many times she has memorized its pages, walks into her bathroom only to find Elizabeth Bennet staring at her. There is portal you see, that connects her shower to Longbourn (the Bennet's home) and Elizabeth has walked through it. Amanda is not quite sure of the whole thing, but takes the chance to see what it is like to be a part of the book. And who among us wouldn't? Who hasn't day dreamed of being a part of their favorite book? Who wouldn't want to meet Mr. Darcy and walk the grounds of Pemberley?

The problem of course, if you haven't caught it already, is that Elizabeth is no longer in the story. She has gone to be a part of the 21st century and left Amanda shivering in her place. Without Elizabeth, how can the story possible turn out as it should? Well, of course it doesn't. All sorts of horrible twists and turns occur that would seem imposable to imagine in the original, but given the events of this story seem all too natural. What makes all of this calamity acceptable? The thing that drags us along with it, not kicking and screaming but dying to see the next turn, is Amanda. She is just as upset as we are. The story is all messed up and she knows it. Hates it. Wants to set it all right somehow. Amazingly I found that I was with her every step of the way. When it was over I was dying for more.

Given how great of a story this whole thing was I went to Amazon, because I new that something this wonderful must of have come from a book. But no, it is straight from scriptwriter, Guy Andrews' head. From google I also learned that they are trying to turn it into a motion picture. I wish Andrews would turn it into a novel and really explore some of the new and bizarre plot twists.

Either way I know I will be enjoying it soon. It comes out in American DVD format on April 13 and I have already pre-ordered my copy. Now.. . popcorn anyone?

Pride and Prejudice

Something happened this weekend that forced me to admit something to myself. I am a superficialist. You see this weekend, for the first time in my life someone sent me money via Western Union.

I'm not saying that there is anything inherently wrong with having money wired to you or that the people who received wired money are at all bad. Its just that... in my imagination people who have money wired to them are in some sort of desperate situation that was brought on by tragic circumstances or stupidity or a combination of both.

Again, its not that there is anything wrong with being desperate. Its just that, well. I don't want to be desprate. I don't even want to look. Desprate. And in some twisted way, having money wired to me makes me appear that I am, even though I'm not. Are you following this? I'm not sure I understand it either.

But it was this twisted complicated prejudice of mine and my weird since of pride that lead me to a grocery store, really out of my way and not in a nice neighborhood so I could avoid running into anyone I know while I picked up over $300 in cash from the customer service counter.

The truly odd thing is, I didn't need the money wired. Alex's father owed me for half of her ticket to Hawaii and for reasons that I still don't understand he couldn't send a check. I wasn't desperate for the payment. The money for the ticket had come from my savings.

So what is it about me that has me so obsessed with always being in control that I don't even want to appear to be out of control even when I'm not. WTF?

I have spent sometime pondering that question. I don't have an answer. In fact, the more I think about it the odder the whole thing seems. Still, when I look back with they way I handled the whole thing, I'm not sure I would ever change how I did it.

Happy Spring

Victoria Gardens
Epcot, Walt Disney World
by Katy 2007

Spring is here at long last. I think I have a new apperchiation for the changing of the seasons after that winter I just lived through last weekend. Today started out right and spring like.

Can I just say how much I love spring? It is a time of birth and renewing. A time for fairies and magic. A time of color and peace.

Tinkerbell in bronze
Magic Kingdom, Walt Disney World
Katy, 2008

Also, I have my photos again. I have resorted to using a method that I normally would not use against protected internet imagies, but since these images are mine I don't feel bad.

Open Window, 1905

Henri Matisse

Odds and Ends ...

Untitled, 1989

Mark Rothko

1. It is still winter. It is St. Patrick's day and I was cold this morning. That is just wrong. I live in Texas. I should be sweating. I should have spent the weekend in shorts with my windows open. Not huddled under a blanket listening to a hail storm.

2. Alex recently commented "I think this is the coldest and longest winter ever in my life time."

3. Alex has gone to see her father in Hawaii. She got on the plane this morning. Now I just hope I make the most of it and do something fun I wouldn't normally do.

4. If you think you have seen less of my photos and more other art work you aren't going mad. Snapfish, has started charging people to download their own pictures. So for me to post a picture that I took with my camera and then loaded onto snapfish will cost me 75 cents. I have taken to trolling the internet and using art until I can sort out a new way to use my pictures while I'm not at my home computer.

La Psyché

Berthe Morisot, 1876

The shape of a woman's body seems to be something that has captivated every civilation through out history. The ideal varies from place to place. The Greeks seemed to perfer women to be heavier, more able to bare children. The overwhelming culture in the United States seems to prefer women to be skinny, in shape and toned. Their stomachs flat like a man's. Who knows where that comes from really. Most will say its the ideal forced on us by advertisments, but I suspect the advertisers got that ideal from somewhere else first.

Regardless of where that has come from there is no doubt that it is here. I'm not that ideal. I'm far from it. I have always rejected the notion of the need to obess about weight. I have never been skinny. I haven't always been fat though. I gained weight when I was pregnant with my daughter and never quite felt the urgent need to lose it. Oh I have dabbled in weight loss over the years. Mostly due to wanting cute clothes that are hard to find in my size. (I'm too fat for skinny clothes and too skinny for fat clothes).

Now there is another reason. Health. I'm not in any danger of falling over dead anytime soon. My blood pressure and colesteral levels which are checked more than most people's with my never ending doctors visits are all good. Better than good. Still, I look around and see old people who have to carry around extra weight and it doesn't look like fun. I might not die, but life might not be as fun as it could be if I were in better physical shape. If I could run up 2 flights of stars or walk 10 miles I would be better off. I might even be able to walk into a store and find something in my size.

We'll see how this goes.

Picture of Depression Era Billboard

My father lost his job yesterday. He worked for a small family owned business and not being one of the family members, he was the first salesman to be let go. This isn't the first time my father has been out of a job. His employment situation was always precarious during my childhood. His achievements in the business world convinced my sisters and I that being your own boss is the worst possible thing that could happen to a person.

Still, my father has always landed on his feet. (Even when it took bankruptcy to get him there). Given what he has been through in the past he is taking the whole thing in stride. Confident that a new opportunity is just around the corner.

I can't help by worry for him though. He as great friends who have always bailed him out. Gave him capital, offered their services for free, bought his business for more than it was worth, and even found him a job. Now what? When most of his friends are retired what jobs to they have to offer? The few that are still working own their own businesses that are in the process of shedding extra workers. I'm afraid he might have to go it alone this time. There is not a lot of demand out there for 65 year olds with no computer skills.

Jet Lag

Airplane Parts sculpture 2001 by Nancy Rubin

This time change is kicking my butt. Its Thursday and I am still feeling the effects of the hour I lost on Sunday. The thing that has saved me from going completely mad is the fact that I USED to wake up at 5:00 in the morning. Two hours before I had to be anywhere. There were a lot of reasons for this, but the main one is that it takes that long for me to feel "with it".

Now, despite my alarm singing Monty Python's "Always Look on the Bright Side of Life" to me every morning, I am waking up, hitting the KILL switch and going right back to sleep. I have been late every morning, running to catch the bus. Not fun.

Why do we continue to do this to ourselves? I don't get it. Why do we continue a tradition that was set up to encourage child slavery? Are farmers still so hard up for farm hands that they need their children to be able to work the fields after school?

Since all of our Congresspeople are sliding their own pet projects into spending bills, I think we should all write letters to our representatives asking them to slip in a new law. One that would make it illegal for the government to steal time, and thus ending the whole daylight savings scam that has been robbing the American people of sleep for far too long. Whose with me?!

Meanwhile I am really hoping this gets better. I need my mornings back. Maybe I will catch up Saturday when I can sleep for as long as I want.

This Island Earth

Has any one else seen the moon the last few days?


Last night she was beautiful. Full and glowing in her lunar magic against that midnight-blue sky. Clouds, thick and yet pulled thin like raw cotton when it is being cleaned by hand, floated by. They were obscuring our few of her before perfectly framing her face, just for a moment.

What is it about her that has captured our imaginations? I have lived in a world where man has walked on the moon, but no one has been there in my lifetime. It almost seems like a Hollywood fable now. A fairy tale. I have seen man walk on the moon just as I have seen men Journey to the Bottom of the Sea. When are we going back? In Hollywood there is always room for a sequel.

Absolutly Nothing

In the Garden at Maurecourt
by Berthe Morisot, circa 1884

There are so many things to do in this life and at times I feel like I want to do them all. I want to read every book, hear every song, see every movie, join every discussion. Just be in on the action. Last month every weekend was filled with something. Even my "off" weekend was taken up by my mother's fall. So now I find myself coming to another weekend of craziness.

A group of people are heading to Galveston to help with repairing homes damaged by hurricane Ike. When I was asked if I wanted to go it seemed years away, and a fun afternoon with friends. Then yesterday I read the description of what we were doing. Hanging sheet rock. Moving furniture in and out of rooms. I feel tired already.

Am I just a whining here? Today I am telling them I can't go. Instead of being at the church at 7:30 Saturday morning I am going to be at home, in my bath robe. Instead of hanging sheet rock I am going to take Alex to her acting class and then I'm going to rest, maybe clean my own house for a change. I am spending the day with my daughter doing nothing in particular. A lost art.

The end is here.

Can I just say that February is a really short month?
Still, in that short time I think I have learned a lot from this challenge. It was harder than I thought it would be and I did over my left overs fear.

Still, this week saw the death of a half a cup of lettuce that I cut up on Monday for a salad, didn't eat that night and ended up never using. Also 1/4 a cup of milk that we didn't use before it expired. Oh, and some pesto sauce that I made to go on our pasta one night. I am really sad about this because it was really good and when I made it I had to use 1/4 cup of olive oil... that stuff isn't cheap. Anyway, when I was doing the dishes that night I left the sauce pan for last since I meant to put the rest of the sauce in a container for freezing. But... I walked out of the kitchen and completely forgot that it was there. So when I found it in the morning... it didn't look like it could be salvaged.

That was it. My month in not wasting food. I think we did alright. I not only eat left over side dishes now, I actually plan menus around them. I will definitely keep this one going into the future.