Painting of the Week - In Blue by Wassily Kandinsky

Wassily Kandinsky, In Blue, 1925

Kunstammlung Nordrhein-Westfalen, Dusseldorf
(Image source)

This week's painting of the week comes at the request of Vanillabear who is apparenrtly teaching her class of six year olds about Russian Abstract Expressionist art! *thumbs up* This isn't really my area of expertise but let's muddle our way through it!

Kandinsky (1866-1944) was a lawyer before he realised his true calling was art and started painting at the relatively late age of 30, moving to Munich in 1896 and enrolling in the Academy of Fine Arts. In 1910 he began to explore abstractionism and wrote the theoretical treatise Concerning the Spiritual in Art (published in 1912). A pioneer of pure abstraction, although his early works are traditional mimetic figure/form paintings, Kandinsky is mostly known for his works consisting of semi-geometric forms with colour masses to which he made musical analogies.

I chose In Blue because I feel its a good representation of his art and theories. Various overlapping shapes float through an undefined blue dreamspace while surrounded by a glowing yellow aura. But unlike the shapes of Malevich, these ones appear less solid as if they're happily bouncing around and happened to be caught at that moment. The happy feeling comes from the combination of colours on a blue background. Kandinsky considered blue a cold and calm colour while yellow was dynamic, almost violent. The two form a great contrast and with the warming red, solid brown, and white that's full of possibilities, we have something that's radiant and joyful. You can almost hear them going *wheeeeeeeeeeee!!!!!!* are they bounce around. *Thumbs up, Wassily!*

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Movie review - The International

From Tom Twyker, director of the awesome Run Lola Run, comes The International, a movie in which Clive Owen and Naomi Watts attempt to take down a multi-national bank whose major portfolio description is funding terrorists and arms dealing. An *Economics Thriller*, if you will. I had actually not heard of this movie until Suboo suggested we take advantage of tigharse Tuesday. Was it worth two hours of my life? Yes and no.

On one hand, I thought the plot was entertaining, if somewhat preposterous. I mean, the reasoning as to why a bank would want to put themselves in a precarious position to fund revolutionary armies seems somewhat counterproductive in my (admittedly poor) understanding of economics given that any returns are extremely high-risk, contingent on the backed team 'winning', and probably won't be seen for god knows how long. The reasoning given about why the bank would do it - controlling debt - also seemed quite shaky given that new governments have to be recognised before they can pay off any debt unless theyre rich in natural resources, and they can still default. Anyway. my research on the background of this film indicated that an international bank was involved in arms dealing in the 80s-early 90s. So, the plot taught me something new and interesting!

As a thriller, I suppose it's alright. There are some pretty good moments of tension - following Clive and Naomi as they try to figure out what's going on, wondering if various characters are going to be killed, the presence of good set piece scenes - my faves being the Milan Presidential Rally, and of course, the Guggenheim. But just when I thought the film had reached a climax, it kept going. Then it reached another point that I thought was the climax. Then it kept going. And going. For a 118 minute movie, it felt pretty long. I did notice some people checking the time on their phones. This is not a good thing in a thriller. But the last scenes are alright, again if somewhat preposterous, so bear with it.

The acting is alright. Clive Owen is his usual deadpan self which works when you're a stressed Interpol agent. Naomi Watts is good if somewhat underused as a DA trying to build a case against baddies. The case seems somewhat outside of her jurisdiction but...yeah. I was happy to see that her forehead was not botoxed into submission - frown lines of concern did appear when she was agitated! Armin Mueller-Stahl as one of the bankers has the right blend of creepy and steeliness. It amused me that all the Italian characters either came in smooth or histrionic though :D.

In summary, not a fail, but not fantastic. There are some good and interesting bits of the movie that are very heavily counterweighted by really bad bits. It was unlucky that this film happened to be released at this point in time because the credits show that while the *baddies* are taken down, the *diversified portfolio* of the bank is delivering excellent profits. On the other hand, perhaps arms dealing gone wrong is the real reason behind the World Economic Crisis!
5-6/10

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Painting of the Week - The Dance of Life by Edvard Munch

Edvard Munch, Livets Dans (The Dance of Life), 1900
Munch Museum, Oslo, Norway

A few years ago, there was a Munch exhibition here with some really good works coming over from the Munch Museum in Oslo. It was on during my Great European Adventure 2004 so I only had a period of about a week to see it before it closed. The brother and I went to do our look-see, it turned out on the day we rocked up that we had about 2 hours to look at the 100 or so paintings, prints and drawings. Being such an emotionally torrid man, we left the exhibition also feeling extremely emotionally drained. But hey, it was still a great exhibition.

The brother's favourite painting of the exhibition was The Dance of Life (don't ask me why). The composition which Munch (1863 - 1944) repeated several times and is semi-autobiographical in that he depicts his tortured relationships with women. At the centre, a young Munch dances with Milly Thaulow, a woman with whom he had an affaire while still a young man. She rejected him and he never really got over the heartbreak. To the sides stand Tulla Larsen, Munch's lover/fiancee with whom he also had *issues*, culminating in him getting a bullet lodged in his left hand in 1902. They broke up soon after.

Tulla in white hopefully darts forward to pluck a flower of romance while Tulla in black sadly watches the central couple. And then there's the dancing pair behind Tulla in black. That grotesque man represents Gunnar Heiberg who introduced Munch to Larsen, and whom Munch suspected of having an affaire with Larsen prior to their relationship. Torrid indeed.

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Valentines drinking

I forgot to post this over the weekend. Suboo, Ee-lyn and I went out to celebrate Ee's last day in Melb as well as singledom with a bunch of skinny asian girls with too much make up. We ran into some of Suboo's friends who requested that when I post it that I give them specific aliases. Unfortunately I can't remember what they were because I was too drunk. Oh well

Suboo and chum

I try appreciate his effort in celebrating romance

After running into three chicks who were seriously just standing around, pouting and posing, we decided to try and take *Asian girl* photos. This is my attempt. I just want to slap myself.

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...this is serious

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Work update

According to the Uni I'm finishing my PhD at the beginning of next month.

HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAH

Anyway, that's clearly that's not going to happen. I'm going to be reviewed on Wednesday to explain why that's not going to happen and to ask them to keep giving me money nonetheless. It should be okay, although sometimes it feels I'm constantly in meetings. If they want me to finish, they should just let me work!

Anyway, the fires are still burning :( Here are some amazing photographs of what went down.
Getty/AFP/TheAge/News.com.au

Painting of the Week - Lady Helen Vincent by John Singer Sargent

John Singer Sargent, Lady Helen Vincent, 1904
Birmingham Museum of Art, Birmingham

I can't be bothered profiling a new artist so here's a piece by John Singer Sargent demonstrating his skill as a portraitist. Sargent had established himself as an incredible portraitist in Paris where he studied but moved himself to London after the Paris Salon scandal surrounding his Portrait of Madame X. In London, he became the leading paint of the English aristocracy and the Jewish-American haute-bourgeoisie. Lady Helen Vincent reflects the much-prized quality of Sargent's portraits in that they reflect not only the sitter's looks but also their personality. Of course, what we see may not always be what the sitter wanted...

In her portrait, we see Lady Helen opulently dressed, gazing at us while she leans against a balustrade and plays with her string of pearls. At first glance of her incredible dress, her flawless complexion, pretty face and long neck, our reaction is like that of the art dealer Rene Gimpel who said in 1920 that she 'must be the most beautiful woman in England.' But look again - is she looking at us with a haughty gaze and arrogant tilt of the head, playing with her pearls as if giving us only a fraction of her attention? If so, then we're thinking more like landscape designer Edwin Luytens who called her 'hollow inside, dilettantish, and utterly superficial.'

So which interpretation do you think is the real Lady Helen Vincent?

Book comments - The Secret of Scent by Luca Turin

The bad weather for the last few weeks here caused me to look for new ways to entertain myself. The thought of leaving the house during daylight hours was impossible, and the heat generated by a computer or TV meant I was loathe to switch either item on. Basically I ended up going over my many books and starting to read ones that I'd bought and for one reason or another, not read.

I remember purchasing The Secret of Scent thinking it was going to tell me the technical ways perfumes are put together (the combination of oils, alcohols, etc) and how they work on our brains and stimulate memory but instead found that it seemed instead to be on organic chemistry and physics.

Anyway, I decided to give it another go and while biochemistry is still not the most rivetting of subjects (to me), the real strength of TSOS is Turin's writing, which is similar to what my own writing has been called - unscientific. For example, he describes the academic's search for funding in these words: "I was an academic scientist living in a world where money, like sexually transmitted diseases and car accidents, is something that only happens to other people, and not very prudent ones at that." Later on, he describes the scent of a gardenia as "...so perfectly pretty from every angle it almost hurts, like early pictures of Audrey Hepburn."

The text is also littered with random tidbits of information that would appeal if you, like me, are acting as a receptacle of useless knowledge. Did you know that when a molecule has more than 16 carbons it in, the less likely it is to have a scent that we're able to detect? Also, the first synthetic musk came from experiments involving and is very similar to TNT? Wow!!!

So if you're a nerd or are interested in some irreverent phrasing, this is a pretty interesting book. But if you don't like organic chemistry or physics, then give it a pass.

Movie review - The Class/Entre les Murs

So we trundled on down to watch the winner of the 2008 Cannes Palm d'Or. Set in a multicultural middle school in the 20e arrondissement of Paris, the movie is based on the semi-autobiographical novel by François Bégaudeau who also plays the teacher of the eponymous class. The movie looks at the struggles of trying to teach students something when they are unable or unwilling to understand. But is it prize-worthy?

The movie is presented, documentary style, as an academic year in the life of the teacher. The film begins with the teachers introducing themselves to each other and joking about how they try to teach their subjects (the implication being that the students are impossible). We meet M. Marin (Bégaudeau) try to instill discipline into his class of surly 14 year olds. We meet his class; there's Wei - the Chinese immigrant who's older than the rest but finds it difficult to communicate, Esmerelda who's rude and yet clearly highly intelligent, Khoumba who used to get on well with M. Marin but is now surly, and undisciplined Souleymane.

We see the circular nature of problems in the education system: parents criticise the teachers for not being able to raise the grade of the school, the teachers are frustrated at have having to teach a state-proscribed syllabus that the students are not interested in or are not prepared for, while the kids complain about having to learn archaic things like the imperfect subjunctive that have no relevance to their lives. M. Marin walks a thin line between trying to be friends with this students in order to encourage their learning but also trying to keep the students in line. Ultimately things go haywire when he uses the term *pétasse* to scold the actions of some students in his class. But illustrative of the way the teaching system may be outmoded, the word has different connotations from the teacher to the modern jargon interpretation of the the students and they take offense (I had to look this up, a good discussion on the definition/translation can be found here).

My first reaction on watching the rowdy school scenes were *I don't remember school being like that!* Then again, I went to a single-sex private school were you were only allowed in if you could pay the fees so the racial and economic microcosm was different to that presented in the movie. And being a disciplined supernerd meant that I didn't have difficulty explaining myself or learning anything teachers tried to drill. Some of the scenes are pretty repetitive and dull, but I'm sure that is the case for a lot of students in class.

If I had to really complain, there were times when the hand-held camera gave me a headache from the jiggling. Also, it was noted while the move addresses some pretty big issues, none are given a satisfactory conclusion. Of course, issues such as how to deal with problem students/interracial relations/inspiring students to learn are never going to be dealt neatly in two hours. And there was something strange at the end when *spoiler* a student distressedly tells M. Marin that she learned nothing in the course of the entire year.*end spoiler.

I've seen some comments saying this movie isn't as inspiring as others in the same genre like Dangerous Minds, Freedom Writers, Dead Poet's Society or To Sir, With Love. To them I say, time has moved on and Hollywood has a way of glossing over things so that problem people get fixed up with a little understanding. That doesn't happen in real life and The Class is meant to be reflective of 'real life' where an idealistic teacher is sometimes not enough to fix a problem student because in real life, idealistic teachers get cynical very quickly. In any case, a very intelligent and thought provoking movie on education and its role in society, raises questions about the best way to teach, and what to do when people just won't learn. And yes, it's very good.
8/10

The Fire.

Regular readers will know that I prefer to keep this place lighthearted but I would really like to make a comment about the bushfires that are currently ravaging the state.

For people who live here, there's not really much to say that you haven't already read or seen. For those who haven't been here for a while or don't live here, the footage pretty much says it all. The really scary ones are of people trying to out-drive the fire and dying in their cars - it moved that fast. There's a strange feeling of shock and sadness around, not helped by the news that a very prominent now-retired newsreader is one of the casualties, and having the jingle his network wrote for him earworming around our collective heads.

The current toll is 130 people, probably more. I'm a gonna donate blood later this week. Who's up for that?Photos are from www.TheAge.com.au

Painting of the Week - Gare St. Lazare by Claude Monet

Claude Monet, Gare St. Lazare, 1877

Musee d'Orsay, Paris

Claude Monet (1840 - 1926) doesn't need much of an introduction. A founding member of the Impressionist group, his painting Impression: Sunrise gave the movement it's name. Or rather, a critic (I forget which one) hated the painting and their style so much he called the entire group "Impressionists" in a derogatory manner. Unfazed, Monet stayed dedicated to the Impressionist principles of painting outdoors (en plein air), and capturing different light conditions of the same scene.

This dedication to the cause meant that Monet created whole series of the same images over and over again - haystacks, lilypads, Rouen Cathedral, etc. The Gare St. Lazare was painted 11 times, and each one is a study in how the smoke and steam billow around the station and of the shadows falling from the glass ceiling onto the tracks below.

An amusing story was told by Renoir about Monet being allowed to paint in the Gare St. Lazare. To get a train to Rouen delayed by half an hour so as to produce the best light effects, Monet got dressed up in his best suit of clothes and told the station master he was a famous artist and had chosen the Gare St. Lazare over the bigger Gare du Nord because it had more character. The station master complied in halting the train and even put more coals in the engines to produce even more smoke and steam!

Blog Challenge - Music Genre (Opera)

Since some of the more popular and fun genres got taken by the time I found out about this week's blog challenge, I decided to explain a little about Opera.

I've mentioned before my love for it and how people don't understand. I recognise the difficulty in appreciating it - it's an extremely convoluted and some may say unnatural way of singing. The storylines are often ridiculous and sung in a foreign language - and even if you did speak the language, the vocal presentation means the words are often still incomprehensible. And to make matters 'worse', since voice is often considered more important than appearance (although this is changing, for the better or worse), the roles are often presented by plump people pretending to be young lovers.

People often snort when you talk about a voice that can bring you to tears. However, the form showcases what the human voice is capable of and in the words of dancinghula and Kt after their first opera, they felt a sensation of 'movement' when the singers were doing their arias - akin to being at a rave and the bass causing their internal organs to reverberate!

Anyway, here are a number of arias that illustrate 'movement'.

Viens Malika (Flower Duet) from Lakme by Leo Delibes, sung by soprano (Anna Netrebko) and mezzo-soprano (Elina Garanca).


O Soave Fanciulla from La Boheme by Puccini, sung by Pavarotti and Mirella Freni


Au Fond du Temple Saint from The Pearlfishers by Georges Bizet, sung by tenor (Roberto Alagna) and baritone (Bryn Terfel - enjoy the visual joke of little Alagna vs. big Terfel).


If you're willing to give opera a try and sit through a performance, I'd recommend Mozart or Verdi because a lot of their works have been ripped off for advertising/movies and are pretty recognisable.

Sull'aria from The Marriage of Figaro, sung by sopranos Kiri Te Kanawa and Ileana Cotrubas - used in The Shawshank Redemption


Der Holle Rache (ff to 2:50), from The Magic Flute, sung by soprano Diana Damrau


Der Vogelfanger Bin Ich Ja from The Magic Flute, sung by Bryn Terfel


Soave Sia Il Vento from Cosi Fan Tutte, sung by soprano (Miah Persson), mezzo (Anke Verdung), and Bass (Nicolas Rivenq)

Holy Sheet!!!

Paolo Maldini Says Yes To Italy Comeback!

Legendary Milan and Italy defender Paolo Maldini admits he will return to play for the Azzurri after he heard of Goal.com's campaign to bring him back to La Nazionale for one last time...

Read the rest here!!!

Hot vs. Cold

So last week I wrote about how record-breakingly hot it was in Melbourne (and someone wanted to point out that it was also really hot in Adelaide). Not long afterwards, London had it most severe blast of cold weather in a while. The snow resulted in snowmen, recreations of the War of Independence, and basically shut down the City because it threw the public transport into chaos meaning people, such as Kahuna, were stranded at home and couldn't get to work, resulting in billions of dollars worth of lost income.

But Pooey wasn't one of those slackers because she's walking distance to her place.

Anyway, this made me wonder yet again what's the better option? Heat that saps your energy and keeps you from sleeping? Cold that seeps into your bones until your bodily functions shut down? Bone-searing hot winds which can be quite pleasant until it burns you and makes you cry? Snow that can be made into snowballs resulting in fights and makes you cry? I personally think it's easier to keep warm than to keep cool, but I throw it open to the pack!

poll by twiigs.com

This is why youtube rocks!

I don't know if this Audi advertisement will be aired in Australia. I hope so because it's totally awesome.

That song is going to be stuck in my head for months.

*EDIT* I've been told to include this ad for the Skoda Fabia!

YUM!!! It's stuff like this that makes me want to be a pastry chef.

Also, I've never heard of Oren Lavie but I love this song and the video clip!

I love stop motion :D