The Artist of Disappearance

The reading year 2012 has started. The first finished novel (actually a collection of three beautiful novellas) is by Anita Desai called The Artist of Disappearance.

Book's three novellas fit in 156 pages (Houghton Mifflin Harcourt) and share some big themes like problems of modernisation of society, solitude, social alienation, nature of art, role of artists and such things somewhat familiar from her previous books.

Whitman, Shakespeare and Company

Picture by Hanhensulka

The picture is of Walt Whitman and is located on a wall next to the Shakespeare and Company bookshop in St. Michel on the left bank of Seine opposite Notre Dame in Paris, France. The previous owner, an American called George Whitman, died in December 2011 in Paris at 98. The text (translated into French by León Bazalgette about hundred years ago) is from from Walt Whitman's poem 'To A STRANGER' from his life's work "Leaves of Grass":

"Passing stranger! you do not know how longingly I look upon you..."

The Shakespeare and Company is presently owned by George's daughter, Sylvia Whitman. Neither she nor George is related to Walt the Poet.

Tilda has no errors, or does she?

Aargh! Apparently there is an error in this, if one can call it like that. The photo is linked to the image sharer site imgur.

The picture depicts Tilda Swinton as 'Orlando' in film by the same name, which is based on Virginia Woolf's book Orlando: A Biography. The book tells a tale of a woman (or a man) who exists through space and time starting in the Elizabethan England.

Aurora Borealis 70N, 30E

The Aurora from TSO Photography on Vimeo. Video is by a Norwegian nature photographer Terje Sørgjerd from TSO Photography

Ah, nostalgia. Here, it's been three days close to plus 40 deg, today was better but we'll get the heat back shortly.

On the other hand, through the warm, flowing tears or nostalgia I do remember the frost biting my cheeks, fingers and toes. Oh well, there it is...

It is no Stradivarius, just a naughty violin

Picture: Satu Vänskä of Australian Chamber Orchestra plays her million(+)-dollar Stradivarius, taken from The Age

It is a truth most likely that World is full of judgements governed by Wanker Index (WI).

I don't know how the index works but can give wine tasting by us ordinary mortals, who don't carry a dog's snout to smell things, as an example, or food tasting, appreciation of poetry, hiphop or music in general for that matter. It seems that judging violins also falls under the spell of WI.

Today's The Age reports of a finding by Dr. Claudia Fritz of University of Paris that modern violins are indistinguishable from, or better than, the Guarneris or Stradivari raped by time and lauded by hordes of opera and symphony loving rankers (like this blogger, by the by).

I wonder if WI also governs the use of plural with an 'i' for all instances of nouns ending with '-us'. Naah, most unlikely.

Read more in 'Million-dollar Stradivarius loses out in play-off with modern violin' by Ian Sample and Gina McColl in The Age

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2012

The morning stirred up
like yesterday and before
Still, it’s a new year