Top Notch Art

Over time, painters who did ceilings have set the bar for our 3D painters of today. We all know the half truths about Michelangelo who actually did not spend all that time that the movie showed, painting on his back. He stood. He did have a crick in his neck, however, from doing it up straight in order to accomplish the gorgeous Sistine Chapel ceiling. In the days of yore, wanting to impress their rich dinner party guests, the like-rich had their already high ceilings look even more lofty and domed in hiring the brushes of artists who would create an impression. We have  sidewalk trickster artists today, who make us step aside the chasms  right in the middle of the cement. Doing high ceilings is called di sotto in su to be exact, and it is still being accomplished today but sadly, rarely. Rubens of old, was a bit smarter and had his ceiling art done in the studio and then applied it later to ceilings. He saved his neck. When we chance to visit, not just the Sistine Chapel, which we can stay to admire  for only a short period, we must  remember that almost all great castles and villas and palaces needed in their cold venues something memorable. They made their visitors feel spiritual seeing angels and dragons and horses that fly and the ever present little bewinged babies that gave them sense of being heaven bound. To see these works feels you enter a fantasy come true. It's a pity that beds weren't installed then because you can hold your head up for only a short time.  Anything more, is painful and dizzying. These days, we slap on bumpy or smooth plaster, paint it white and call it a day. No one is much interested in looking at ceilings. Why? They're all too busy admiring the weird padded stuff down below. There isn't much to admire  and you will never see anything out of place such as a tossed sweater, half downed cookie or sneakers peeking out from under the couch. But kudos to Chagall who did the Paris Opera House and Tiepo who did the largest number of them, not forgetting  Pozzo who was the first to make ceilings look domed when they really weren't.  Ah, before sleep, to have a ceiling as lovely above one's bed!  

Broke Pros

How many times do we have to hear young professionals talk about their debt? Everyone thinks that medical and technical and education folk are making big money. Maybe that's how it appears, but when you owe as much as half a house worth of dollars due to your education, you are more burdened than other workers in simple jobs that don't require long term education at high cost. It's part of the societal ego mask we don't want to think about.  When are we going to stop such nonsense as some courses in high school that  are meant to inspire some students to get into some professions but offer none to others just as important to them. The key word here, is "some". Courses such as Trig (sorry mathematicians) have absolutely no value for many and could be replaced by, for example, pre- medical subjects for future nurses and doctors and practitioners. The whole high school system from Grade Eleven on, could be changed so that when our students graduate all of  them have some of what society requires and that they want to contribute to.  Instead, we force them to borrow hugely to do what we need from them in the future. Former students who have through their huge amounts of money borrowed in their education and training and have achieved their goals, could return to high school to help educated those coming up. Not book-learning published professors but by those active in the  trades and professions who can spare some time to return to high school to advise and mentor.  Perhaps it seems impossible but all hard achieved possibilities begin with the impossible. In my high school days, I often asked myself why am I strugging in math class when I prefer to know more in the field I intend to take on. You can't please everyone but there were far too many kids in my Trig class who were stressed by a discipline that had absolutely no use in their future plans. Others, for example, loved the class because they were on to an engineering or science future. You can't please everyone, but what can be done is to find out from the students themselves where they are likely to head and allow them those kinds of courses.  Is that impossible or is it merely a hard possible?

East Is Not West

 Today, as always, I listen to CBC. I hope it never disappears as was hinted some time ago. It is our one media that flows across the country like a gentle glue that unites Canada more than any other country that calls itself united when it is usually a collection of individual states priding themselves on being  unique units. And if that "uniqueness" is too strong, it's more putting up fences than uniting anything. Texas for example appears to stand alone in our minds as a kind of "country".  Or Rio, is another example. World wide, we ordinaries don't rush over to a globe to check these things out. It just is. Here in Canada, no city stands alone entirely. Yes, they are unique, but everyone feels the provinces on which they lie and the overall sense is that they remain, though special, truly Canadian. The far North, that sometimes I feel might want to be a different country because of its vast, shiningly icy differences, is and always will still be Canadian. But when, in the morning our delightful Steven Quinn on the West Coast puts a true Pacific spin into the air waves, he is followed not long after by Tom, a terrific radio personality and a brilliant one, but in my opinion solidy a Torontonian. I am able not to feel it cross-the-country radio Canada. And I do try. I adore Tom's interviews, his talk of visits to other places but who remains in the concrete boots, Toronto, Montreal and the Maritimes. Sorry, to say that because I am an avid listener and very much enjoy his program. For the rest of the day CBC continues, mostly Eastern Canada with issues there and the arts and sciences and politics there. Many of my young friends in BC, had to move there, to connect with the great monster talent guru, New York, USA in order to make it big. That is truth, my dears. Many of my childhood mates, such as Alexander Ross from little old New Westminster, BC went there specifically to make a name for himself. And he did. Come on, CBC, you  need to get over yourself and make a bit of a tilt toward the great peaceful, and beautiful oceanside, called The Pacific.  

Guided Tour Snobs

There are such creatures as those who downplay and insult the fans of the guided tour. They tell us they much prefer to live "amongst the natives" because it's the way to learn about the people of another country. That doesn't quite fit into logic. Most of us haven't the funds to go live somewhere for a couple of years to "learn" it. We have two weeks on what we have saved up merely to see the wonders of the world even if it's only a half hour lecture in front of them or a stroll around their timelessness. Ordinary people like us who have travelled most of the world in small blips here there and everywhere, feel priviledged anyway, to have gone in a time when there weren't armed military about or fences and padded ropes keeping us from touchingm standing in awe or being breathing close to or walking amongst such as the rocks of Stonehenge just before the stars came out.  To hear the sound of chanting as we entered the home of the golden or jade Buddah, to touch the side of a pyramid in Egypt or in the Mexican jungles, to shudder on viewing Goya or marvel at the colour of Van Gogh or sweat in the moist heat of Bali or drink true Turkish coffee is only a moment perhaps, but something that lasts forever in one's memory. The guides who lead their bunch of behatted or flag bearing customers are varied. Some are dreadful such as the woman who sat at the front of a tour bus reading the tour from a book but who looked stupendous with three foot long blond hair, skinny skirts and sun glasses that earmed her huge tips by elderly gawking males. My favorite guide was a little Mexican professor whose ancient Chevrolet drove us to the interior mountains of that country like a pro, and who would go anywhere our maps revealed. Even to the tiny hotels in those jungles' ads that had open holes in the walls as AC and a hose in the corner as showers, were tolerable because of this small, poorly beshirted man's love of his country.  A friend who went to Italy and slept for a year on beaches and barns, and bragged about her more "personal experiences" in travel as opposed to ours. She she never did get to see the treasures of the Vatican because they all were booked up by horrible people like us. We got only, from the world, briefly but perfectly, sensory pictures that remain for savouring today. No apologies. 

Don't Tell Me

 Having a stranger beside me yapping into the air with piece of plastic in its ears is nothing new to me any more. Used to be they were speaking to you. Not so now. These individuals who have things stuck into their ear canals are actually half listeners. Whatever they are listening to, whether it be voices,  music, something called a "podcast", it's evidently something they are only half interested in. They go for a hike or a run or pedal a bike going nowhere with a plastic gizmo stuck into their heads or zoning an audio book and they call it reading. That's the one that most offends me. Why? If it is a book, then it can't be much of a piece of art if it takes only half of one's attention to sense. I am of the old-fashioned opinion that what we read or listen to, should take in all of our attention. Art is "feeling" and that means it needs to appeal to every aspect of sense. If you're sweating it out lifting weights or driving or shopping for a bargain, your senses are busy elsewhere, not on what's stuck in your ear.  And news podcasts bother me the most. I do not have the will nor the patience, to listen to someone, no matter how British their lovely accent be, ranting  a novel or a news casts for  me. Let. Me. Read. The reading eye is much faster than the ear. No matter how wonderful a journalist is, thank you very much, I want to read the words  mainly because I can skip over the doo doo and get on with the facts and then, decide what my  opinions are. I don't need someone intercedeing and calling it helpful. Back off tellers, I can read and think for myself. I want to savour words sometimes, and maybe reread a lovely passage in a book or on kindle.  Often I just like looking at the word or maybe googling it, or appreciating the artist's creation of words, ones that no one will find in a dictionary. Many journalists, also, have voices that should never, never be doing podcasts. Ugh. They are great at what they set out to do: collecting information to pass it on without colouring it. That's called journalism. And I am also tired of journalists who think they are expert detectives and judges. They are not trained for it. Sorry but my ears have told me all this, and I am listening.