“You know, I love the sunset when I am very sad…” – Antoine de St Exupéry
 

Even though the day in Perth today started out with rain and wind, the afternoon was simply beautiful. I walked along the banks of the Swan River and enjoyed the serenity of it. As the afternoon wore on into the evening, the sun set and the air became cool again. I then felt quite far away and a little lonely…
 

Here is the perfect piece for that wistful feeling as the orange fire of the sunset gives way to the blues and mauves of twilight: The second movement of Marcello’s concerto for oboe and strings.

“We will open the book. Its pages are blank. We are going to put words on them ourselves. The book is called Opportunity and its first chapter is New Year's Day.” - Edith Lovejoy Pierce

The Jewish New Year or Rosh Hashanah is a high Holy Day as it is regarded as the birthday of creation. In 2012 Rosh Hashanah began in the evening of Sunday, 16 September 2012, and ended in the evening of Tuesday, 18 September 2012. Rosh Hashanah is also a day of memorial, recalling to mind personal acts and reviewing events occurring since the beginning of time. Synagogue services express hope for the future and feature the story of Abraham’s intended sacrifice of Isaac. God’s providence is commemorated by the blowing of the ceremonial ram’s horn, the shofar.

At home, special prayers are recited for a good year ahead and wishes are pronounced over an apple dipped in honey, with the intention being for the year to be as sweet.  Special round, smooth loaves of bread are baked symbolising the smooth and prosperous New Year to be.  Orthodox Jews observe the festival for two days. The holiday also marks the start of the Ten Days of Repentance.  Sabbath-like restrictions on work for both days (today and tomorrow) in both Israel and the Diaspora.

Rosh Hashanah meals usually include apples and honey, to symbolise a sweet new year. Other foods with a symbolic meaning may be served, depending on local minhag (“custom”), such as the head of a fish (to symbolize the “head” of the year). The Sephardi and Mizrahi communities hold a “Rosh Hashanah seder” during which blessings are recited over a variety of symbolic dishes. The blessings start with the phrase “Yehi ratzon”, meaning “May it be thy will”. In many cases, the name of the food in Hebrew or Aramaic represents a play on words or pun. The Yehi Ratson platter may include apples (dipped in honey, baked or cooked as a compote called mansanada); dates; pomegranates; black-eyed peas; pumpkin-filled pastries called rodanchas; leek fritters called keftedes de prasa; beets; and a whole fish with the head intact. It is also common to eat stuffed vegetables called legumbres yaprakes.

Some of the symbolic foods eaten are dates, black-eyed peas, leek, spinach and gourd, all of which are mentioned in the Talmud. Pomegranates are used in many traditions, to symbolise being fruitful like the pomegranate with its many seeds. The use of apples and honey, symbolising a sweet year, is a late medieval Ashkenazi addition, though it is now almost universally accepted. Typically, round challah bread is served, to symbolize the cycle of the year. Gefilte fish and Lekach are commonly served by Ashkenazic Jews on this holiday. On the second night, new fruits are served to warrant inclusion of the shehecheyanu blessing.

“Continuous effort - not strength or intelligence - is the key to unlocking our potential” - Winston Churchill
 
We watched an interesting film last weekend, which combined action with science fiction, social criticism with popular culture and Hollywood capitalism with aspirations to art – a tough job to combine all of these attributes, perhaps… It was the 2011 Neil Burger film, “Limitless” starring Bradley Cooper, Anna Friel, Robert de Niro and Abbie Cornish. It had a screenplay by Leslie Dixon based on the novel “The Dark Fields” by Alan Glynn.
 
The plot centres on Eddie Morra (Bradley Cooper) a down-and-out writer with writer’s block. As his life spirals downwards, his girlfriend Lindy (Abbie Cornish) dumps him (nicely). Eddie sees his existence implode into his filthy apartment and he struggles to make ends meet. He encounters by chance his ex-wife’s brother Vernon (Johnny Whitworth) who gives Eddie a pill called NZT, a drug that is able to make the brain use 100% of its capacity. Eddie takes the pill and suddenly he becomes a genius each of his memories, anything seen and read or heard all become immediately available to him. He is able to learn languages in hours, his mathematical skills increase a hundredfold and he not only starts, but finishes writing a brilliant novel.
 
When the pill’s effects wear off, Eddie seeks out Vernon to get more of the drug. However, Vernon is murdered and Eddie manages to escape, taking a cache of pills with him. His new abilities allow him to make big profits on the stock market where he attracts the attention of big businessman Carl Van Loon (Robert DeNiro). Unfortunately, some unsavoury characters are also looking for him: Gennady (Andrew Howard), a gangster and his thugs and a strange man in a brown coat (Tomas Arana). Eddie wins Lindy back but struggles to maintain his sanity by regulating the intake of the drug, or getting it back when it is stolen from him…
 
The movie was quite engaging and its basic premise was interesting and developed well, at least initially. As the film progressed, the plot weakened and the ending was a bit of a cop out with such an overt reference to a sequel that it was almost insulting to the viewer. Nevertheless we were kept interested and entertained while we watched it. The acting was fine but the film was carried by the tight direction and a host of impressive visual effect sequences by Joe Willems (cinematographer) and Connie Brink (Special Effects Coordinator). This was a concession to Hollywood’s demands for an action, dick-flick genre denomination. The film is worth seeing, even if only for the slickness of its look, although keep in mind the weak ending.
 
Now in terms of the drug, NZT, it is interesting to think of the possibility of its future existence! However, I think that it may make the people who take it completely and utterly mad!

“Everything popular is wrong.” - Oscar Wilde

Andy Warhol (August 6, 1928 – February 22, 1987) was born in Pittsburg (né Andrej Varchola, Jr). His parents were working-class Rusyn emigrants from Mikó (now called Miková), located in today’s northeastern Slovakia, part of the former Austro-Hungarian Empire. Warhol’s father immigrated to the United States in 1914, and his mother joined him in 1921, after the death of Warhol’s grandparents. Their family name was anglicised to “Warhola”. Warhol’s father worked in a coal mine. Andy Warhol had two older brothers — Pavol (Paul), the oldest, was born in Slovakia; Ján was born in Pittsburgh. Pavol’s son, James Warhola, became a successful children’s book illustrator.

Andy Warhol showed his talent for art at a young age, so it was not difficult for him to choose a career in commercial art, studying pictorial design at the Carnegie Institute of Technology, which is presently Carnegie Mellon University. After graduating Warhol moved to New York City and worked as an illustrator for various popular magazines such as Vogue, Harper’s Bazaar and The New Yorker. In 1949, the pop icon shortened his name to Warhol after a credit in Glamour magazine mistakenly read “Drawings by Warhol.”

In 1952, Warhol had his first individual show with the exhibit “Fifteen Drawings Based on the Writings of Truman Capote”. His first group show was at The Museum of Modern Art in 1956. During the 1960s, Warhol truly made a name for himself, with iconic works such as “Campbell's Soup Cans”, “Disasters” and “Marilyns”. He also shot several 16mm films, including Chelsea Girls, Empire and Blow Job.

Warhol started publishing Interview magazine in the early 1970s and once again, returned to painting. These later works included “Maos”, “Skulls”, “Hammer and Sickles” and “Torsos and Shadows”. In the latter part of his career, Warhol devoted much of his time to rounding up new, rich patrons for portrait commissions. By the 1980s, Warhol was being criticised for becoming merely a “business artist”.

Warhol's publication, “POPism: The Warhol 60s”, and his exhibitions “Portraits of Jews of the Twentieth Century” and “Retrospectives and Reversal Series” kicked off his 1980s work. He appeared on TV screen with his self-created cable shows, “Andy Warhol’s TV” and “Andy Warhol’s Fifteen Minutes”, for MTV. In the years leading to his death, Warhol's paintings included “The Last Suppers”, “Rorschachs” and “Ads”, which is considered to be his return to Pop.

Nearly 20 years before Warhol died, he was shot in his studio, which was known as the Factory. In 1968, Valerie Solanis, the founder and sole member of SCUM (Society for Cutting Up Men) shot and nearly killed the artist. Warhol died February 22, 1987 after a routine gall bladder surgery. 

In 1994, the Andy Warhol Museum opened in his hometown of Pittsburgh. Warhol combined his early experiences and influences into an art form that would be called American Pop Art. His canvases have become icons of twentieth century modern art and have been much imitated, to the extent of bathos (presuming they started higher than that – if you are not admirer of Warhol’s art). The painting illustrated above is in the Hamburger Bahnhof Museum für Gegenwart (Museum for Contemporary Art) in Berlin. Andy Warhol’s large “Mao” (1973) is one of the iconic trademarks of the museum.