Overheard

Last week I was sitting in my local Starbucks, studying. This song came on the radio. My heart swooned. It's just that kind of song. 

That night there were two young women who were working the coffee bar. This song came on the radio. This conversation followed:

I don't like this song.

Me either.

What's it even suppose to be about?

Yeah, no kidding. 

That night there was a middle aged gentleman who was buying a cup of coffee and reading the newspaper on his iPad. This song came on the radio. This conversation followed. He looked up and made this simple reply:

This song is about love. 

The redemptive power of love.

Last week I was setting in my local Starbucks, studying. This song came on the radio. My hear swooned. This conversation followed. A simple reply was made. It's just that kind of song. 

Joshua Bell signing my CD - photo by Alex

One of my first celebrity crushes. I don't think I will ever stop loving Joshua Bell. He was in Houston on Friday playing a recital concert. After two hours of painting beautiful music with his violin, Bell sat in the lobby and signed autographs. He has a new CD out, so of course he was signing CDs, but he was also signing programs. Meaning the line was insane. Still, when we walked up he smiled. Shook our hands, asked Alex what her name was and if she enjoyed the concert. Like an idiot I was just smiling repeating, "Thank you for doing this, you are really wonderful" over and over again.

I was going to post a youtube video of him playing here, but I've spent the last hour watching videos. Now it is time for bed and I still can't decided which one to post. I'll leave it up to you to google him if you want. I hope you get lost in the music too.

What I need today...

Today my daughter went to our local water park with the youth group at church. And I thought... that's just what I need today of all days - just something fun.

Summer Days...

Saturday was one of those perfect summer days. Where by the early evening you feel happy, tired, but at the same time refreshed. If that makes any sense. We had gone to the local science museum, seen exhibits of ancient Ukraine, dinosaur bones and fossils, and then gone for ice cream. One of those days where no one rolled their eyes at me, or at least not much, this is reality after all, and things just seemed easy.


It was one of the days that I wish mothering was solely made up of.

We got home and were sitting on the couch. I felt like we could be in one of those Country Time Lemonade commercials. Sticky with ice cream, smiling, colored in sepia tones.

Art and Prayer

Set us fee, God

free to try new ways of living;

free to forgive ourselves and other;

free to love and laugh and sing;

free to lay our burden of security;

free to join the battle for justice and peace;

free to see and listen and wonder again

at the gracious mystery of things and persons;

free to be,

to give,

to receive

to rejoice as a child of your Spirit.

Some things to do before I die ...

Alex is grounded (still) and one of my favorite things to do when she is not allowed to watch TV is watch things I know she hates. As I was flipping through channels to find something suitable I stopped on the Bucket List. Jack Nicholson was laying in bed in the hospital room he shared with Morgan Freedman. Why did these men not win Oscars for this movie? Granted, I only watched for another ten minutes because as soon as Jack started puking- a side affect of chemo treatments - they were venturing in to memories I'd rather not relive and so I changed the channel.

But it got me thinking. What is on my bucket list? I'm probably too young to make one. I'm sure this list of things I want to do before I die will change before I die. Already, I'm not too sure how important some of them are to me. It was still interesting to think about and to see what it is I have going on in my head. Traveling an decluttering seem to be main themes. There are 40 things because it is the number of Journey. They aren't listed in a particular order.

1) Learn to sew – like FOR REAL. [This is something I have dabbled in a lot over the years. I would like to actually sew something more useful than a pillow.]


2) Start and continue an exercise regime for three months, even if it kills me [God, I'm lazy]

3) Stay away from restaurants/cafes for 3 months [Yup, still lazy]

4) Learn to accept my body and all its imperfections (yeah, right)

5) Read some more classic novels I should have already read

6) Go to Paris with a man

7) Spend a summer in the United Kingdom

8) Go to Vancouver

9) Visit Alex while she's attending New York University and take her to a Broadway play [I’ve always wanted to live in New York City. I should at least attempt to live vicariously through my baby.]

10) Take Alex on an insane road trip that involves educational opportunities crazy tourist traps and at least one fancy haunted hotel
11) Take an art class of some sort

12) If I’m going to get married, I’d like to do it before I’m 40 [if not – oh well.]

13) Finish writing a book [should probably start it too.]

14) Go through all my artwork and select some to matte and frame. AND hang them on a wall

15) Gather pictures of Alex’s childhood and compile them into a coffee table scrapbook thing

16) Spend an entire 24 hour day without cussing once [I should try to do this one before I become a minister]

17) Let my child make a really big mistake without pointing it out to her – and then calling every single relative to let them know about it [I don't think I'll ever be able to do this... ever]

18) Own a pearl necklace

19) Have enough disposable income to be able to donate large sums to people and organizations I care about

20) Get that Tree of Life tattoo I’m always thinking about

21) Dig out my paints and easel and paint a new painting and hang it on my wall

22) Create another Art Car
23) Read Little Women aloud to Alex [I might have to wait until she is in a comma to do this.]

24) Take Alex to a rock concert, cheer and pretend I am a fan of crowds and loud music for the night [then again, I might just wait until she is 16, buy her concert tickets and hand her the keys to my car]

25) Befriend someone who knows how to fix everything and works for free

26) Write in a journal every day until all the pages are full

27) Make it a habit to drink 8 glasses of water a day [though I am beginning to think if it were actually good for us to drink this much water God would have added caffeine]

28) Finish my masters degree [starting on this one soon]

29) Get rid of all the things in my house that are just clutter and would benefit someone else [I'm trying, but convincing other people that their stuff is crap and they should get rid of it, isn't easy]

30) Build a bonfire, make hot chocolate, and have a party and enjoy it

31) Change the course of another person's life for the better
32) Make a really good meal completely from scratch for no real reason and invite people over and enjoy it

33) Buy some expensive bras and matching underwear. [I like the idea of this, though shopping for a bra isn't all that exciting]

34) Watch every movie on the IFC top 100 list [I already sat through Citizen Kane the rest couldn’t be THAT bad.]

35) Buy a plant and keep it alive, instead of treating plants as if they are meant to be disposable

36) Attend a wine tasting class and discover what it is I’m supposed to be tasting

37) Go through the stuff I left at my parent’s house [or just toss it all into the dumpster]

38) Organize a box for Alex to hold her special childhood crap memorabilia, limit size of said box so that she can never say she doesn't have room for it in her own house

39) Spend some amount of time by myself on retreat

40) Come to grips with the fact that there is no way everything will be exactly as I wish it would be

Finding the Heart of Gustav Mahler

Its been the driest of Mays in my little world. The swamp has fallen into drought. I shudder to think of how my daughter's grades have fallen. In the middle of the night, my kitchen and living room flood and I shudder to think of all that is still not mended. A move-out date is looming on my calender and festering in every unpacked corner of my apartment while a clouded air of insipid vacations, unpaid debts, and uncertain relationships loom.

In the midst of these ominous ramblings, I went to a lovely performance of the Houston Symphony on Sunday afternoon which is notable because my mother and I usually only attend three of four concerts a year. Classical music is a bond we have had since I was child who played the double bass quite well and she was a devoted mother who drove me across the universe to attend private lessons, orchestra rehearsals and various performances. My mother gave me a lot of her time and a lot of herself.  She taught me how to walk away from an unreasonable argument, to appreciate artist expression even when you don't understand it, and to love classic movies. I like to think that my short lived career as a child musician helped my mother appreciate classical music, even if she doesn't fully understand it.

Symphonic music at its best expands our capacity to feel, to enter the compassion and the pain of being human.  Classic music holds joy deeply, and for the time we are experiencing a composer's work we borrow his passions and make them our own.

Such was the case of Sunday's performance of Mahler's 10th, and unfinished Symphony. When Mahler wrote the sketch for his final symphony he was a man living on borrowed time. Doctors had discovered he suffered from an incurable heart condition and it was uncertain how long he would live. He had learned too that his wife, Alma - an insatiable flirt - was having an affair. As unfinished works go, the sketch Mahler left behind was quite complete. Mahler wrote out all his basic melodies and cords and filled the margins with his notations of regret for the life he would not live and the heartache brought on by a cheating wife. When he died in 1911, two years after starting his final work, Mahler left us not only the bones of a symphony, but a memoir of human suffering.

And yet, despite the shrinking high A of his trumpeter and funeral march of his bass drum, the final movement of Mahler's final symphony leaves us with an uplifting melody. The kitchen floods, the grades slide, the good man is gone, the lawn turns brown, but with Mahler you come back to basics: Do I regret this life? Is it, despite all our brave words, a cheat and a waste? Does it make any slight difference to the universe that we are present?

Spending an afternoon with the Symphony simply is an extravagant gift from the heart of the performers to the hearts of whoever is sitting nearby. Life is good, no matter the disappointments — O God the disappointments. Just square your shoulders and give them your utter best. As the late great Marilyn Monroe said, "I don't want to make money, I just want to be wonderful." Life is insurmountable, but we mount up every morning and ride forward.

A True Classic

Since Alex was grounded on Monday (for reasons I won't detail) I have been celebrating the birthday week of Katharine Hepburn watching some of my favorite Hepburn classics.

At a time when women were seen as the weaker sex, she didn’t wear make-up or dresses, she didn’t cooperate with the media, and she had a habit of insulting other people in the business. She had red hair and freckles and a sharp cheekbone. But she was one of the best and most popular actresses of the twentieth century. She won four Academy Awards and was nominated for eight more. My favoriate films of hers include: Little Women (1933), Alice Adams (1935), Bringing Up Baby and Stage Door (1938), The Philidephia Story (1940), Women of the Year (1942), Adam's Rib (1949), The African Queen (1951), Pat and Mike (1952), Desk Set (1957), Guess Who’s Coming to Dinner (1967), The Lion in Winter (1969).

She made a name for herself on Broadway in the role of an Amazon in The Warrior’s Husband. The role required her to come on stage by leaping down a flight of steep steps while carrying a stag on her shoulders, and a talent scout was so impressed by the feat that he offered her a movie deal. She starred with John Barrymore in A Bill of Divorcement (1932), and suddenly she went from making $80 a week to $1,500 a week. It took her just a year to win her first Oscar, for her role in Morning Glory (1933). After that, she handpicked each of her movies, a noted luxury in the golden age of Hollywood, and she often had a say in who the other actors in the movie would be. Sometimes she rewrote her own lines.
She said, "If you obey all the rules you miss all the fun."
And, "Love has nothing to do with what you are expecting to get - only with what you are expecting to give - which is everything. What you will receive in return varies. But it really has no connection with what you give. You give because you love and cannot help giving."
And, "If you always do what interests you, at least one person is pleased."



*References -  Me: Stories of My Life by Katherine Hepburn.
**Photo and date of films found at http://www.imdb.com/.

Touring Art

Tonight I had the opportunity to attend a free reception at the Houston Museum of Fine Arts. Among other things we were treated to a guided tour of their neoclassical collection as well as the National Gallery of Art's collection of impressionist paintings which is now slowly touring the country.

It was wonderful to have the opportunity to see these paintings at a time when the gallery was closed to the public. Instead of feeling like a herd of cattle, as one so often does when popular works are on display I had the chance to spend some time with these fascinating paintings.

One painting left a particular impression on me. I have long been an admirer of Mary Cassatt's work. She spent most of her career capturing moments of women and children in their everyday lives. She has a way of filling her paints with a hundred possibilities. Beyond the images she captures, emotions, stories, entire lives seem to jump off her canvas and into the imagination of the viewer.

Mary Cassatt

Little Girl in a Blue Armchair, 1878

Collection of Mr. and Mrs. Paul Mellon

1983.1.18 

The name of this picture is Little Girl in a Blue Armchair, but really I think it should be titled, Alex and Gryffindor. I never thought I would find that sloppy posture and board expression enduring, but somehow, way back in 1878, Mary Cassatt captured that face and melted my heart.

I turned on the radio this morning...

I turned on the radio this morning and learned that today is Star Wars Day. According to the online resource Wookieepedia, it is typically celebrated by sci-fi fans the world over with parties, movie marathons, Star Wars-themed toys, the occasional light-saber duel, and movie-quote exchanges on Twitter. You could also celebrate by reading one of the many Star Wars-related novels, playing a video game, or gazing at your collection of action figures in their original packaging. “It’s nice that this particular date seems to observe and celebrate the power of the Force, and we’re thrilled that Star Wars fans continue to find new ways to connect with a galaxy far, far away,” said a Lucas Films spokesperson.

Despite the fervor of some of its fans, Star Wars Day is not a religious holiday yet, although the Church of Jediism is lobbying hard. The City of Los Angeles prefers to celebrate Star Wars Day on May 25, the anniversary of the film’s release, but as for the rest of us ...

May the Fourth be with you.

The Duck in a Chiken Coop

It's the birthday of Thomas Merton, born in Prades, France (1915). Merton was a Trappist monk, but he was also the author of more than 50 books, 2,000 poems and a personal diary that spanned much of his lifetime.

Merton was educated in France and the United States before beginning his university career at Cambridge University. But he left after only one year and returned to America to attend Columbia University and live with his grandparents. Merton decided to write his master's thesis on William Blake, and he found himself deeply influenced by Blake. He converted to Christianity, and in 1941 he entered a Trappist abbey in Kentucky, where he remained for most of his life. In his diary from this time, Merton wrote, "Going to the Trappists is exciting. I return to the idea again and again: 'Give up everything, give up everything!'" Merton had become well-known throughout the world, in part because of his writing, in particular his autobiography The Seven Story Mountain (1948).

He said, "An author in a Trappist monastery is like a duck in a chicken coop. And he would give anything in the world to be a chicken instead of a duck."

Merton was also known for his dialogue with other faiths, and for advocating non-violence during race riots and the Vietnam War. Merton was encouraged to write at the abbey, but he was not allowed to leave. And so a new abbot allowed Merton to leave the abbey in 1968 for a tour of Asia, where he met the Dalai Lama, and where he died accidentally, touching an electric fan as he stepped from his bath.


The Everlasting Gospel (excerpt)
by William Blake

The Vision of Christ that thou dost see
Is my Visions Greatest Enemy
Thine has a great hook nose like thine
Mine has a snub nose like to mine
Thine is the Friend of All Mankind
Mine speaks in parables to the Blind
Thine loves the same world that mine hates

Thy Heaven doors are my Hell Gates
Socrates taught that Melitus
Loathd as a Nations bitterest Curse
And Caiphus was in his own Mind
A benefactor of Mankind
Both read the Bible day & night
But thou readst black where I read white

Day at the Theater

On Saturday Alex and I were on the Island of Galveston, Texas to see a musical at The Grand 1894 Opera House, named such because it was built in 1894 and it is very grand. The main stair case with its carved wooden rails is a wonderful reminder of the craftsmanship of a different era when stage and hall were built for architectural ascetics and not optimal acoustics or prime audience viewing. All the better though because the way musicals are priced now-a-days one can buy a small yacht for what it costs to see a show. With more than a handful of obstructed view sets Alex and I were able to see Monty Python hysterics set to music – and a rather nice pillar - for a mere $40.

I admit that I was skeptic when I first heard that Eric Idle was going to turn Monty Python’s greatest motion picture triumph, The Holy Grail, into a musical. Boy was I dead wrong. Spamalot is fresh and hilarious while staying true to the original Python voice and it tells a story that both Alex and I love.

Alex enjoys seeing the Black Knight become a quadruple amputee and we both laugh listening to The Lady of the Lake croon about her missing part. When theater is working, really working, we find it hasn’t changed much since Shakespeare even if a line like Lancelot likes to dance a lot would not have played well on Broadway during Roger’s and Hammerstein’s day. All of the business and politics of the world is left in the lobby. We take our seats and wait with great anticipation for the curtain to rise. For two and a half hours we are putty in the actors’ hands, crying, laughing - and even singing - right along with them; creating something beyond the human realm of understanding. They are presenting us with part of their soul and we give them part of ours in return.

The Animals Come Parading In

If you are listening to NPR right now, you might be hearing the Carnival of the Animals, or at least that's what I'm doing right now. That and telling Alex to go away. I feel bad of course, but really, when I say things like, "this is my favorite part!" she takes that as her cue to start telling me why, in excruciating detail pink is and always will be her favorite color.

I love the Carnival of the Animals because I grew up a bassist and it is one of the few orchestral pieces that features what I believe to be one the greatest instruments ever invented. And also, I love Camille Saint-Saens. He was a child prodigy, with perfect pitch and a fantastic memory. He learned the piano and organ, composed nice waltzes and gallops by the age of five and wrote his first symphony at sixteen. During his lifetime he was most famous opera was Samson and Dalila He was always surprised that the greater public gave him such high praise, yet constantly wanted to hear Samson and Dalila and ignored his other work. Over the course of his lifetime he composed more than 300 pieces and he was the first major composer to write specifically for the cinema. He might best-known today for Carnival of the Animals, a collection of pieces written for piano and orchestra, but it was never published or performed in full in his life time. Saint-Saens was afraid that the frivolous work might hurt his reputation.

I think what endures Saint-Saens to audiences still today is the way his music tells stories. Of course, who is better to interpret those stories than the artist at Disney Animation Studios. Here is a segment from Fantasia 2000 where flamingos tell the story of the Finale of the Carnival of the Animals.

Self Portriat

boiling water

silky rich hot chocolate

soothing calming tea

Happy Ending of the First Week of Advent

For the last few years I have made a vow not to step foot in a mall during the month of December. I intend to keep that same promise again this year, but I have to admit that I wouldn't mind being in this food court.

From Novel to Movie

I have seen more movies this month than I have in the last year. With Disney releasing its 50th animated feature tomorrow that promises to be either to be the masterpiece that I've heard ramblings about or a the total dud that I've been dreading, I thought it wise to get the reviews of two more movies out of the way. No matter how it ends up, Tangled will deserve its own post.

Today's theme is book adaptations - Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Part I and The Girl Who Kicked the Hornet's Nest.

Let's start with the later shall we? I don't have the same book to movie baggage with this one that I have with Harry Potter and that I had with the previous two Girl With A Dragon Tattoo movies, but to be fair I have rather liked the director's adaptations so far. Even though I came away from the second movie wondering if certain points would be lost a person who had not read the novel I felt the first two films translated the themes and character's of their respective books to the silver screen better than most I've seen.

However, the rapped pass in which these films have been released means that I had to see The Girl Who Kicked the Hornet's Nest before I had read the book. I know what you are thinking, that book has been out for almost a year, however its a rather popular book and as of this morning I am number 63 on the library hold list. I don't have much hope of getting my hands on the thing before New Years. So I have no Novel to Movie to compare here.

If you haven't read the books or seen the first two movies, you need to do your homework before going to the theater. This movie is the last in Stieg Larson's Millennium series and the whole story is amid at tying up loose ends. What unfolds is a fast past conspiracy story in which paranoia becomes the norm for anyone even indirectly associated with the central character Lisbeth Salander.

Lisbeth has the potential to be one of the great characters of the modern novel. Even in film as Noomi Rapace who plays Lisbeth in all three Swedish movies has come to embody this character. Pity poor Kate Mara, the young actress chosen to play Lisbeth in the coming Hollywood version of the saga. She will be compared to Rapace, who has captured just the right blend of psycho majesty and emotional cripple in the character.

We learn so much about Lisbeth throughout the course of the books and films, and yet I left the theater wishing I knew her better. Really, without giving too much of the story away that kind of sums up this movie for me. It made me want to read the book so I could find out what was left out. My friend assures me that was made it onto the screen was the mostly whole of Lisbeth's story, and if that is true, I am immensely saddened that Stieg Larson didn't live to write more.

Over all a great work of art. I'm not sure how it ends the series for me though. I give it a 3 out of 5, but I do think it is a must see - even if not in the theaters.

Harry Potter is a different animal. The first book came out in 1997 when I was a freshman in high school and needless to say, Jo Rowling's character's have been my old friends these past ten years. I was even willing to look past some of the bloated writing (what part of Goblet of Fire was worth 600 pages?). Conversely, the movies that started as rather unimpressive and shallow, and have become better and better with each installment (save Goblet of Fire).

Half-Blood Prince, among the worst of the books in my opinion, was turned into one of the best of the movies, thanks to excellent editing from being forced to condense the novel and the amazing direction of David Yates, giving the series the needed darker tone. Yates returns for Deathly Hallows, and while the first installment suffers from not being able to stand on its own, it has certainly left me excited for next July.

Without giving away spoilers, Deathly Hallows opens with warnings of the impending threat kicking off a more political aspect immediately gives the film a distinct feel that separates this one from previous installments. When the film eventually settles into the series of camping scenes, they are slightly less annoying than they were in the novel, and actually give the trio some much-needed character development. Its kind of sad that it took this long to actually get some real character injected into the movies, but at least it finally happened. Also worth noting is the facial hair worn by Radcliffe and Grint, officially making them no longer twelve.

Speaking of no longer twelve, please do not bring your young children to this movie. Harry Potter has grown up with its audience, and this film is the darkest yet. Yates has gone even darker than his take on Half Blood Prince, and the results are great. The film was given a PG-13 rating for a reason. I felt comfortable with my eleven year old seeing it, but I did worry for her friend's little brother who is six.

With the characters in the woods for so long though, the supporting cast is left rather useless unfortunately. Alan Rickman's Snape, one of the best parts of previous films, only has one scene near the beginning. However, some returning characters make the most of their limited time, notably Brandon Gleeson as Mad Eye Moody, Helena Bonham Carter as Bellatrix Lestrange and Imelda Staunton as Delores Umbridge.

The biggest fault is its inability to stand on its own two feet. The film ends at the appropriate time for an intermission, but lacks the punch required of a proper ending. Deathly Hallows will be better reviewed once the film is complete. Fans of the novels should be pleased with the extended length, and fans of the films should at least enjoy the excellent visuals and astounding direction. Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Part I is an extremely promising sign of what is to come.

I give it an overall 4 out of 5 with the potential of a 5 rating if the second part proves to be as good as I hope.

Thanksgiving Tree

Thanksgiving Tree

Houston, Texas
Photo by Katy 2010

Autumn is one of my favorite times of the year. The weather changes and suddenly the 90 degree days and 100 percent humidity are bad memories under the bridge. The temperature drops to a cool 60 degrees and its the perfect time to sit in the park, watch the blue skies and share a cup of coffee with a good friend under the tall pine trees. Pine trees, oak trees, magnolias we have all kinds of trees in this wooded part of my city, but none that change colors. None that look like the fall I've seen in photos. Fall foliage doesn't come to us so I brought the fall into our home. My mother's home really. The football tickets were added by my father. I know, it really throws off the look, but who can blame the old Aggie for wanting to remember the time his team beat Oklahoma?

I love not working....

I love not working. I know there are people in this world who say they don't know what they would do with themselves if they did not have a job to suck up 8 hours of every day of their lives, but I'm not one of those people. Perhaps that's why I was a tad depressed on Wednesday after the interview I had with a small employment law firm actually went well. I'm the first person they interviewed so I could still not get the job, but I gave good answers to their questions and even had them laughing. This firm offers a transportation allowance, birthday parties, holiday parties, jeans once a month and not I was never asked if I could work with "difficult personalities" its every paralegal's wet dream. Except I don't really want to be a paralegal. I don't want to work 60 a week in an office that takes three elevators and an escalator to reach. That's not even exaggeration for emphisis - whoever designed that building was high.

To make up for a day that was lost to suites and interviews I took myself to see the Menil collection yesterday. Its one of my favorite museums to visit. Its actually a complex of several galleries, that - in true Houston no zoning fashion - are located in the middle of one of the older neighborhoods near downtown. One this day I only visited the main collections located in a low gray building. The large gallery space is divided into smaller rooms of a dozen or so paintings each. Each space has two, sometimes three entrances, so you circle back through areas, peek around corners, compare paintings, view pieces from a longer perspective – intimacy and distance, the vague unsettling dis-ease induced by Surrealism. Claustrophobia and open-endedness. It’s dream work. It’s the uncanny that rises like perfume from the most familiar objects in your world.

A short brochure introduces new shows including my favorite this time around, KURT SCHWITTERS: Color and Collage. But in the exhibition areas, there are no texts on the walls, no structured guided tours explaining historical development. There’s simply exposure to art in an intimate setting. The perfect presentation of Schewitters' work. Schwitters transformed the “useless” forms of everyday life into a language and aesthetic by nailing and gluing together forgotten pieces of urban waste – train tickets, scraps of fabric, candy wrappers. I love making collages. There is something spiritual in the process of sitting before all these found objects and finding their collective beauty.

Photography is not allowed inside the galleries. I have located photos and a great article on the history Schwitters' work - in true Houston fashion - on the Dallas Art News blog. So CLICK HERE for more.

Saints and Ceilings

Sistine Chapel painted by Michelangelo, 1512
photo courtesy of Wikimedia Commons

Today is All Saints Day, an observance that can be traced back to the reign of Pope Gregory III in the eight century. In 1512 Pope Julius II chose this day to display Michelangelo's paintings on the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel for the first time. The chapel itself was built about twenty-five years earlier, and various Renaissance painters were commissioned to paint frescoes on the walls. It was Pope Julius II who commissioned Michelangelo to paint the ceiling.

Michelangelo was 33 years old at the time, and he tried to point out to the Pope that he was known for his sculpture, not his painting, but the Pope wouldn't listen. So Michelangelo used his skills as a sculptor to make the two-dimensional ceiling look like a series of three-dimensional scenes - a technique that was relatively new at the time. It took him four years to finish the job, between 1508 and 1512. He worked from a scaffold 60 feet above the floor, and he covered about 10,000 square feet of surface. Every day fresh plaster was laid over a part of the ceiling and Michelangelo had to finish painting before the plaster dried.

For several centuries, art historians had believed that Michelangelo was more interested in form than in color, because the frescoes he painted were so dark and dull. Then, over a ten-year period during the 1980's, a group of restoration experts removed hundreds of years of dirt, smoke, and varnish from the Sistine Chapel's ceiling, and it turned out that the frescoes were some of the most colorful paintings of the whole Renaissance.

The German writer Wolfgang Von Goethe wrote, "We cannot know what a human being can achieve until we have seen [the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel]."

Centuries of saints, known and unknown have pass through this world and touched our lives directly and indirectly. Some of these saints I have known as personal friends of mine, some I have known only slightly and some I never had the pleasure to meet. We cannot know what human beings can become of until we honor what those who came before.

Music Bringing Art Alive

Walt Disney's Fantasia is one of those works of art that does not fit well into any one category. It was first conceived as a vehicle for Disney Animation's star, Mickey Mouse. It has to be remembered that at the time this project was first started in 1937 cartoons and their characters were seen as little more than fast past vehicles for gags. Though Disney's Snow White that was to be released in 1938 would slowly changed that, the perception that animation is a medium for children still persists today.

In making a short that would feature his main star, Mickey in a short set to The Sorcerer's Apprentice by Paul Dukas which was originally inspired by the Goethe poem, hoped to create a piece that captured the imagination of both adults and children. As the production progressed, Walt realized the potential of the project and turned to his friend, conductor Leopold Stokowski of the Philadelphia Orchestra to assist him in selecting great pieces of orchestral work that could be brought to life through drawings. Stokowski expressed his enthusiasm for the project by stating: "The beauty and inspiration of music must not be restricted to a privileged few but made available to every man, woman and child. That is why great music associated with motion pictures is so important, because motion pictures reach millions all over the world."

My favorite segment is The Night on Bald Mountain/Ava Maria. This is the only animated segment in the film that blends two entirely separate musical compositions by two different composers. The Night on Bald Mountain segment is a showcase for animator Bill Tytla, who gave the demon Chernabog a power and intensity rarely seen in Disney films. The nocturnal Chernabog summons from their graves empowered restless souls. The horror of the demons, ghosts, skeletons, witches, harpies, and other evil creatures comes to an abrupt end with the sound of the bells.



The bells send Chernabog and his followers back into hiding, and the multiplane camera tracks away from Bald Mountain to reveal a line of faithful robed monks with lighted torches. The camera slowly follows them as they walk through the forest and ruins of a cathedral to the sounds of the Ave Maria. The animation of the worshipers is some of the smallest animation ever done: the camera had to be so close to some of the work that it had to be rendered at only an inch or so high. Even a slight deviation in the width of the final painted line would have been distracting to a movie audience on the big screen. The multiplane camera then finally tracks through the trees to reveal a sunrise as the film fades to its conclusion.

Originally the plan was for the procession to enter an actual church, and there are numerous concept drawings of gothic architecture, stained glass windows, and actual statues of the Virgin Mary as can be seen on the Fantasia Anthology bonus disc. Ultimately, this ending was deemed too overtly religious by Walt, and he opted for a more natural setting instead. However, the forest design in the segment still mimics that of a cathedral with an overtly gothic motif.