Archives: 2013

March 12, 2013

By ritalovestowrite

Fab blogger Kate Shrewsday gives us a lesson on real life and Sunday Tea. Yet another delightful post from Kate. This really makes me want to have a proper tea. Who’s up for it?

kateshrewsday's avatarKate Shrewsday

It is a truth universally accepted that a tea which takes hours to create can disappear in a a matter of minutes.

I speak, of course, not of a hastily compiled plate of snacks in front of the telly. No; I refer to Afternoon Tea, that iconic repast, that halcyon meal taken best on good china with one’s little finger cocked daintily at odds with all the others.

Afternoon tea, whose single redeeming green thing is a thin sliver of cucumber imprisoned between bread slices trimmed within inches of their existence; the meal which graces every decent London hotel at four sharp  every afternoon; the meal of the tiered cake stand and the doily.

Ah, yes, the doily. Doily was a London draper who invented this small round finely crocheted phenomenon to protect furniture. His work was renowned for the genteel, but these days it has metamorphosed into the strangest…

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2 Comments | posted in Thought of the Day

March 11, 2013

Leibster Award

By ritalovestowrite

liebster

Thanks to Random Dorkness who has nominated ritaLOVEStoWRITE for the Leibster Award.

The award is a “blogger to blogger award” that both allows us to show our appreciation to other worthy  bloggers and  lets us get to know some one new.

Here are the rules:

1. Each person must post 11 things about themselves.
2. Answer the questions that the tagger set for you plus create 11 questions for the people you’ve tagged to answer.
3. Choose 11 people and link them in your post.
4. Go to their page and tell them.
5. No tag backs!

11 Things About Me:

  1. I’m a wife, mother and dog owner who lives in Northern Baltimore County, Maryland, USA
  2. I’m a writer and graphic designer.
  3. I support the ARTS.
  4. I like all the colors in the crayon box, but the color that likes me best is probably dark red. However, given a choice, the color I wear the most is black.
  5. I need to clean my office and walk the dog.
  6. I like an eclectic range of music (as you probably have guessed from my blog posts.)
  7. Jane Austen IS my homegirl.
  8. I am surprised when people don’t know who Jane Austen is. Just as they are surprised that I like to read novels by a 200 year old author.
  9. I love to bake and am seriously thinking of making Mondays “Muffin Mondays”  where I post a muffin recipe, make the recipe, and show the results. I might even SHARE the results.  What do you think?
  10. I sing, play guitar and bass guitar (acoustic) and do a little song writing.
  11. My goal for this blog is to do at least one post entry every day for a year. I started in late May 20112 and  I haven’t missed a day… YET!

Answers to Random Dorkness‘ 11 Questions:

1.  What is the answer to the great question of Life, the Universe, and Everything? Well, since it IS Douglas Adams’ birthday I’m going with “42”.
2.  In your opinion, is the climbing hydrangea or the bougainvillea more evil? Bougainvillea, because you can spell ” Big evil” with letters if you mix them up (and leave out a bunch.
3.  Can you hula-hoop? Not really. But I can on the Wii Fit, does that count?
4.  Even if you could hula-hoop, why the heck would you want to? To obtain a rockin’ mid section, and gain Wii points.I also like the sound of the marble going around the hoop.
5.  What’s the magic word? Well, in my house it’s “Please.” Of course the magic phrase is “Thank you.”
6.  Rock, paper, scissors, lizard, or Spock? SPOCK.
7.  What sort of punishment should a blogger be subjected to, who recycles his or her old ideas and just hopes against hope that no one will notice? Wait… you can do that???  I’ve got to get in on the game. I don’t know… Make them read their own boring stuff?
8.  If I gave you a bucket of water balloons and let you loose, who would you splosh first, and why? Is it a hot day outside? Hmmm my friends. To cool them off.
9.  What is the first thing that pops into your head when you cross your eyes, stick out your tongue, and hop up and down on one foot? “Do not bite tongue!”
10.  What is your superpower? I hope it is finding the good in people/things/life. And I hope everyone knows that they have that power inside them and that they just need to ignore the Kryptonite of negativity around us and use it to make our lives (and the world) a little bit better. 11.  Do you have a secret identity? I can’t tell you. Its a SECRET.

The 11 Blogs I’ve picked to Nominate (in no particular order):

  1. Kate Shrewsday
  2. Lynn Reynolds
  3. Austenprose
  4. Bell Grove Plantation
  5. Peter Galan Massey
  6. Writer Vs. the World
  7. The Roaming Gastronome
  8. J.G. Burdette
  9. retireediary (photo challenge of the week)
  10. Seth Snap
  11. Irevue

2 Comments | posted in postaday, Thought of the Day, Writing

March 11, 2013

Kate Sheppard 3.10.13 Thought of the Day

By ritalovestowrite

“All that separates, whether of race, class, creed, or sex, is inhuman, and must be overcome.” –Kate Sheppard

Social reformer, suffragist, writer, and first...

Catherine Wilson Malcolm was born on this day in Liverpool, England in 1847. Today is the 166th anniversary of her birth.
Although christened Catherine she preferred Kate. She lived in London, Nairn (Scotland) and Dublin. She was well-educated and excelled in science, the arts and law.  She shared her father’s love of music and her mother’s faith in the Free church of Scotland (her uncle was a minister in the church.) She lived in the UK until 1869. After her father passed away her mother, brother and sister moved to Christchurch, New Zealand.  At 24 she married Walter Allen Sheppard, and they had a son, Douglas.
In New Zealand she got involved in the temperance movement.
Women’s Christian Temperance Union, which advocated women’s suffrage as a means to fight for liquor prohibition. For Kate, suffrage quickly became an end in itself. Speaking for a new generation, she argued, ‘We are tired of having a “sphere” doled out to us, and of being told that anything outside that sphere is “unwomanly”.’ [New Zealand History Time Line]
She quickly became the leading voice for the movement and deployed her organizational, writing and speech making skills to rally other women to the cause.  The women refused to follow the advice of critics such as ” Wellington resident Henry Wright” who wrote…
…women were ‘recommended to go home, look after their children, cook their husbands’ dinners, empty the slops, and generally attend to the domestic affairs for which Nature designed them’; they should give up ‘meddling in masculine concerns of which they are profoundly ignorant’. [Ibid]
New Zealand became the first country to pass a Woman’s suffrage bill, granting woman the right to vote, in 1893. A a 766-foot-long petition containing 32,000 signature was unrolled in front of the country’s Parliament to get the job done.
National Council of Women at the inaugural mee...

National Council of Women at the inaugural meeting in Christchurch in 1896 (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Sheppard  continued to work for women’s rights  and freedoms. She traveled the world to promote the women’s right to vote, and  became president of the National Council of Women of New Zealand as well as the editor of The White Ribbon, a New Zealand newspaper owned, managed and published by women.
She died on 13 July 1934, a year after the first woman MP, Labour’s Elizabeth McCombs, entered Parliament. In recent years Sheppard’s contribution to New Zealand’s identity has been acknowledged on the $10 note and a commemorative stamp. [Ibid]

Related articles:

1 Comment | posted in Australia, History, Kate Sheppard, New Zealand, postaday, Thought of the Day, Today's Birthday, Women's Rights

March 9, 2013

Secondary Character Saturday Alan Rickman: Colonel Brandon

By ritalovestowrite
[Courtesy Fan Pop]

[Click on the image for animated Alan; Image Courtesy Fan Pop]

Who: Colonel Brandon

 

From: Sense and Sensibility

 

Title page from the first edition of Jane Aust...

 

By: Jane Austen 

 

Published: 1811

 

Pros: Kind, considerate, thoughtful, decent, patient, gentle, faithful, honorable, sensitive, generous, caring… and , oh, yeah, RICH.

 

Although reserved and not passionate, he has a very good heart and helps out those in distress. His charitable behavior toward Eliza Williams and Edward Ferrars makes him the unnoticed knight in shining armor. [Book Rags.com]

 

Cons: Unromantic (on the surface at least), dull, remote, joyless, grave.  He appears stern and dour. especially when compared to Willoughby.

 

English: "when Colonel Brandon appeared i...

English: “when Colonel Brandon appeared it was too great a shock to be borne with calmness” – Marianne, expecting Willoughby, leaves after Colonel Brandon appears. Austen, Jane. Sense and Sensibility. London: George Allen, 1899. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

 

Most Shining Moment: Traveling from Cleveland to Barton Cottage overnight to fetch Mrs. Dashwood to Marianne’s sick-bed.

 

Not a moment was lost in delay of any kind. The horses arrived, even before they were expected, and Colonel Brandon only pressing her hand with a look of solemnity, and a few words spoken too low to reach her ear, hurried into the carriage. It was then about twelve o’clock, and she returned to her sister’s apartment to wait for the arrival of the apothecary, and to watch by her the rest of the night. [Sense and Sensibility, Chapter 43]

 

Least Shining Moment: [I love Brandon, don’t get me wrong. I don’t know that there is a bigger Brandon fan out there than yours truly. BUT … ]  Marianne (rightly) thinks Brandon too old for her. His attraction to her is largely based on a decades old attraction to another woman, Eliza Williams*, to whom he was separated from when he was shipped off to the Army. Essentially he is in love with a ghost from his past.   I know we live a different times but… crushing on some one who is nearly 20 years your junior because they remind you of lost love is a bit creepy, isn’t it? .

Brandon and Marianne (Kate Winslett) in the 1995 movie version of Sense and Sensibility [Image Courtesy: Fan Pop]

Brandon and Marianne (Kate Winslet) in the 1995 movie version of Sense and Sensibility [Image Courtesy: Fan Pop]

It is as good for him as it is for Marianne that it takes them the entire novel to get together. He’s a very patient man. And in the time it takes for her to realize that he is actually a wonderful guy, he has learned to appreciate her for who she really is (and not just as a substitute for his long-lost Eliza.) I think at the end of the novel Brandon really does love Marianne for herself. Perhaps that is the sweetest journey of all in the book.

 

He has clearly already had his heart-broken, and the romantic Marianne believes that everyone is fated to only love once; she prefers the young, handsome, and spontaneous Willoughby, who eventually jilts her. Proving that patience is a virtue, Brandon remains on the perimeter until Marianne gets over being jilted. Brandon’s character and temperament conform to Austen’s and Elinor’s idea of sense rather than sensibility. [Book Rags.com]

 

Alan Rickman played as Colonel Brandon in the 1995 movie directed by Ang Lee, from a screenplay by Emma Thompson. It was “the first cinematic Jane Austen adaptation in 50 years” [IMDb Sense and Sensibility] I love the movie. Like most Austen adaptions it swings wildly away from the book at times, but, still, Ahhhhh… it is a delight. And Rickman’s pitch perfect Brandon is certainly a big part of why I’m so fond of the film. He’s soooo somber, and the poor guy never seems to get his timing right. He’s always walking in just as  Marianne is expecting the more pleasant company of Willoughby.

As Marianne languishes in the other room, Brandon begs for a commission from Elinore. She suggests he fetch her mother, Mrs. Dashwood to Cleveland. [Image Courtesy: Fan Pop]

As Marianne languishes in the other room, Brandon begs for a commission from Elinore. She suggests he fetch her mother, Mrs. Dashwood to Cleveland. [Image Courtesy: Fan Pop]

The comparison between the two men (sensible Brandon and sensual Willoughby) is a secondary theme  in the book (it echos the dichotomy of the sisters’ relationship) but  the movie gives it a wonderful treatment with almost identical scenes of the male character carrying Marianne to safety through the rain. Willoughby does so almost effortlessly towards the beginning of the movie. He puts her down on her mother’s couch as if she is light as a feather. The episode hardly cost him any effort and Marianne is instantly besotted with him.  For Brandon it is a different story. He falls to his knees when he makes to the main hall at Cleveland. He’s spent every ounce of his energy in the task of finding and rescuing Marianne.  But, as she is lifted out of his arms, she is too ill to notice, much less thank him. … SIGH… for those of us who like a tablespoon of  unrequited love in our fiction it is a lovely scene.

 

 

 

Brandon reads to a recovering Marianne (in the 1995 movie version of Sense and Sensibility) [Image Courtesy Fan Pop]

Brandon reads to a recovering Marianne (in the 1995 movie version of Sense and Sensibility) [Image Courtesy Fan Pop]

*BTW: The Brandon and Eliza back story would make such a lovely historically based novel. Some one get on that please.

 

 

 

7 Comments   |  tags: , , , | posted in Alan Rickman, books, Colonel Brandon, England, Fiction, fictional character, Film, Jane Austen, JASNA, postaday, Secondary Character, Sense and Sensiblity, Thought of the Day

March 8, 2013

Aidan Quinn 3.9.13 Thought of the Day

By ritalovestowrite

“I think my being such a nomad let me into acting. I was always having to create a new image whenever we moved.” — Aidan Quinn

Legends of a Fall [Image courtesy: Tristar films]

Legends of the Fall [Image courtesy: Tristar films]

Aidan Quinn  was born on this day in Chicago, Illinois, USA in 1959. He is 54.

Born to an Irish American family, he grew up in Illinois ( in Chicago and Rockford) and in Ireland. His mother, Teresa, was a bookkeeper, his father, Michael, was a literature professor. Brothers Robert, Paul,  and Declan  and  sister Marian  round out the Quinn brood. He studied acting at the Piven Theatre Workshop in Evanston, Illinois and has a BFA in acting from DePaul University in Chicago, IL.

Quinn in Desperately Seeking Susan.

Quinn in Desperately Seeking Susan.

After working on the stage in Chicago he made the jump to film in 1984 with the drama Reckless, but broke through with the comedy Desperately Seeking Susan in the role of Dez in 1985. The Television drama An Early Frost, in which Quinn plays a young man with AIDS, earned him his first Emmy nomination. The next year he played a small role in [one of my favorite movies of all time] The Mission. “…Quinn found a niche playing sensitive, intelligent male characters, often in supporting roles. Notable films include Avalon, Benny & Joon, Michael Collins and Practical Magic.” [Biography.com]

One film that was close to his heart was also a family affair. He plays Kieran O’Day in 1998’s This is My Father.

This Is My Father

He plays a poor Irish farm hand in love with Moya Farrelly’s Fionna in This Is My Father

The film was written and directed by his brother Paul, brother Declan was the cinematographer, and sister Marian had a cameo.

Although having starred alongside “big names …and in some “big” films such as Legends of the Fall, Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein… and Michael Collins he has managed to keep a fairly low profile. This is not something he’s unhappy about, since he likes to keep his private life private. [Aidan Quinn — The Biography]

“Celebrity” he says  ” is not a thing to seek.” That’s not to say he doesn’t keep busy. Between films, television and the stage Quinn has performed regularly (averaging 3 or 4 projects a year) since he entered the business.

Recently he’s been in the movie  Sarah’s Key and the US version of Prime Suspect. You can currently catch him in Elementary.

Aidan Quinn 2 by David Shankbone

Aidan Quinn 2 by David Shankbone (Photo credit: david_shankbone)

Leave a comment | posted in Aidan Quinn, Film, Ireland, postaday, television, Theatre, Thought of the Day, Today's Birthday

March 7, 2013

Townes Van Zandt 3.7.13 Thought of the Day

By ritalovestowrite

“I don’t think you can ever do your best. Doing your best is a process of trying to do your best.” — Townes Van Zandt

Van Zandt in the film Heartworn Highways
Van Zandt in the film Heartworn Highways (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Townes Van Zandt was born on this day in Fort Worth, Texas, in 1944. Today is the 69th anniversary of his birth.

He was born into East Texas Oil royalty. His great-great-great grandfather was a prominent leader of the Republic of Texas and his great-great grandfather was a founder of Forth Worth. His father, a corporate lawyer traveled extensively for his job, and the family moved frequently when Townes, his brother Bill and sister Donna were growing up.

When he was 12 he got a guitar for Christmas and he taught himself to play. He wanted to be like Elvis, who he saw on Ed Sullivan, because Presley had “all the money in the world, all the Cadillacs and all the girls, and all he did was play the guitar and sing.” [Townes Van Zandt] He did well in school and scored very high on standardized test.  He went to the University of Colorado at Boulder for a while, but his parents pulled him out because of his depression and binge drinking. They had him hospitalized  for manic depression. The treatment he received left him with out much of his long-term memory. He tried going back to school for pre-law and tried to join the Air Force, but neither panned out.

So he turned to music. By 1965 Van Zandt was playing regularly in local Huston venues. He was influenced largely by folk (Dylan) and Blues. At first he performed mostly covers, but then he started to write his own songs.

Singer-Songwriter Townes Van Zandt in Concert ...

Singer-Songwriter Townes Van Zandt in Concert at “Kult” Niederstetten, Germany (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

He never hit the big time (though other artist had #1 hits with his songs). He was on the constant grind of touring, writing and recording. There was a lot of drinking a substance abuse interspersed amongst the touring, writing and recording. Still he put out some pretty awesome music in the 30 years he performed, and he was a big influence on performers to come… and his voice — one part gravel, one part yodel, one part whiskey — breaks your heart.

Here’s Pancho and Lefty

and here’s  Colorado Girl

By 1996 years of hard living had caught up with him. He fell down a flight of concrete steps and hurt his neck and hip on December 19 or 20th, but he refused medical treatment until December 31st. X-rays revealed a fractured hip. Faced with detoxing and a series of operations Van Zandt left the hospital with his ex-wife. He died the next day, on  January 1, 1997. He was 52 years old.

Here’s a list of his albums. (For my money The Late Great Townes Van Zandt  and No Deeper Blue are the best.)

The Late Great Townes Van Zandt

The Late Great Townes Van Zandt (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

For the Sake of the Song – 1968
Our Mother the Mountain – 1969
Townes Van Zandt – 1969
Delta Momma Blues – 1971
High, Low and in Between – 1972
The Late Great Townes Van Zandt – 1972
Flyin’ Shoes – 1978
At My Window – 1987
The Nashville Sessions – 1993 (recordings from the aborted Seven Come Eleven album, recorded 1972)
No Deeper Blue – 1994

Cover of "No Deeper Blue"

Cover of No Deeper Blue

The art of Townes Van Zandt reveals itself a little at a time. Every hearing brings forth something you can’t believe you missed all the other times, or something that rings even truer today than back. [Townes Van Zandt Central]

In 2004 director Margaret Brown made a documentary about the singer called  Be Here To Love Me: A Film About Townes Van Zandt, for Real to Real films.

 

 

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And believe it or not… there’s a Townes Lego! (What no lego cigarette or guitar?)

Minifig Famous People #20: Townes Van Zandt

Minifig Famous People #20: Townes Van Zandt (Photo credit: minifig)

Leave a comment   |  tags: , , | posted in Music, postaday, Texas, Thought of the Day, Today's Birthday, Townes Van Zandt

March 7, 2013

Happy World Book Day! (What’s on your Night Stand?)

By ritalovestowrite

Super quick post to wish you all a Happy World Book Day!

So here’s my quick reader’s quiz for you…

  • What YOU are reading today (What’s on your night stand)?
  • Who is  your favorite author?
  • What is your favorite book of all time?
  • What’s your favorite series?
  • What was / is your favorite book as a child?
  • What genre of literature do you gravitate you?
  • Bound / paper or e-book? And why?
  • Where is your favorite place to read?
  • What’s the one thing that keeps you from reading?
  • AND… what / who do you wish some one would write a book about?

Here, in no particular order, are some of the books we’ve looked at over the last 9 months on ritaLOVEStoWRITE…

tolkien books

Tolkien’s perfect trilogy.

2006 edition of Brave New World published by Harper Perennial Modern Classics

2006 edition of Brave New World published by Harper Perennial Modern Classics

James and the Giant Peach

James and the Giant Peach (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

The fourth edition of The American Language is still available on Amazon.com.

The fourth edition of The American Language is still available on Amazon.com.

The Shel Silverstein collection "borrowed" from the shelves of an obliging independent brick and mortar bookstore, Greetings and Readings in Hunt Valley, Maryland.

The Shel Silverstein collection “borrowed” from the shelves of an obliging independent brick and mortar bookstore, Greetings and Readings in Hunt Valley, Maryland.

Cover of Wives and Daughters. [ Image courtesy: Amazon.com]

Cover of Wives and Daughters. [ Image courtesy: Amazon.com]

Anne Tyler 3 books

The Anne Tyler trifecta

Milne House at Pooh Corner1000

Classic Winnie the Pooh

Anansi Boys

I’m reading Gaiman’s Neverwhere now, but I blogged about Anansi Boys a little while ago.

Tweedeedle

Tweedeedle by Johnny Gruelle (of Raggedy Anne fame)

Dune cover art [Image courtesy: Book Wit]

Dune cover art [Image courtesy: Book Wit]

Complete set of the seven books of the Harry P...

Complete set of the seven books of the Harry Potter series. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

[Image courtesy: Goucher Library. Photo by: ritaLOVEStoWRITE]

[Image courtesy: Goucher Library. Photo by: ritaLOVEStoWRITE]

——————————————————————————

Clearly I’ve got a thing for the classics and children literature. [Interesting I have no problem airing my eclectic musical taste for all the blogosphere to see, but when it comes to books I hide my paperbacks in the closest… what’s up with that? The fact is I don’t read ENOUGH, or at least — I don’t read as much as I’d like. Maybe I should take a pledge on this World Book Day to READ MORE! But would that mean I’d have to blog less? Hmmmm.]

 

7 Comments   |  tags: , , , , | posted in books, Elizabeth Gaskell, fictional character, Frank Herbert, H L Mencken, Jane Austen, JASNA, JK Rowling, Johnny Gruelle, JRR Tolkien, Literature, Neil Gaiman, postaday, Shel Silverstein

March 6, 2013

Michelangelo 3.6.13 bonus Thought of the Day

By ritalovestowrite

“I live and love in God’s peculiar light.” — Michelangelo

Michelangelo Buonarroti

Michelangelo Buonarroti (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

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Some days are deserts I struggle to find some one to profile on this blog…and some days are overwhelming. Today, besides Dame Kiri (who got the official Thought of the Day birthday nod) Michelangelo, Cyrano De Bergerac, Gabriel Garcia Marquez, Elizabeth Barrett Browning, Willie Mays, and astronaut Gordo Cooper were on the A List for a possible birthday nod. I think it came down to the fact that I wanted to listen to some opera today, so Kiri won.

But I just can’t ignore Michelangelo. 

Especially given what is happening RIGHT NOW in what is arguably his most famous “installation” the Sistine Chapel.

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Michelangelo di Lodovico Buonarroti Simoni was born  on this day in Caprese, Italy in 1475. Today is the 538th anniversary of his birth.

The family soon moved to Florence, when Michelangelo was still a baby. His mother was ill, so little Michelangelo was sent to a wet-nurse who was part of a family of stone cutters.

Michelangelo’s father realized early on that his son had no interest in the family financial business, so agreed to apprentice him, at the age of 13, to the fashionable Florentine painter’s workshop. There, Michelangelo was exposed to the technique of fresco. Michelangelo had spent only a year at the workshop when an extraordinary opportunity opened to him: At the recommendation of Ghirlandaio, he moved into the palace of Florentine ruler Lorenzo the Magnificent, of the powerful Medici family, to study classical sculpture in the Medici gardens. [Biography.com]

“Faith in oneself is the best and safest course.” — Michelangelo

He went back to Florence in 1495 and worked  as a sculptor. Three years later he moved to Rome where he met Cardinal Jean Bilhères de Lagraulas.

Michelangelo sculpted his Pieta, a sculpture of Mary holding the dead Jesus across her lap, for the Cardinal’s tomb.

 

Rome tickets & pictures 2010 082

 

Carved from a single piece of Carrara marble, the fluidity of the fabric, positions of the subjects, and “movement” of the skin of the Pieta—meaning “pity” or “compassion”—created awe for its early spectators. [Ibid]

His next major work was David.

front

front (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

He “turned the 17-foot piece of marble into a dominating figure.” [Ibid]

“A man paints with his brains and not with his hands.”— Michelangelo

Next he was asked by Pope Julius II to paint the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel.

The project fueled Michelangelo’s imagination, and the original plan for 12 apostles morphed into more than 300 figures on the ceiling of the sacred space. … Michelangelo fired all of his assistants, whom he deemed inept, and completed the 65-foot ceiling alone, spending endless hours on his back and guarding the project jealously until revealing the finished work, on October 31, 1512…. The resulting masterpiece is a transcendent example of High Renaissance art incorporating the Christian symbology, prophecy and humanist principles that Michelangelo had absorbed during his youth. The vivid vignettes of Michelangelo’s Sistine ceiling produce a kaleidoscope effect, with the most iconic image being the Creation of Adam… [Ibid]

michelangelo

michelangelo (Photo credit: 熊͘)

The ceiling of the Sistine Chapel

The ceiling of the Sistine Chapel (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Click here for a virtual 3-d tour of the Sistine Chapel.

“I am still learning.”— Michelangelo

After the Sistine Chapel his work moved more toward architecture. He designed the tomb for Pope Julius II, the Laurentian Library in Florence, and the Medici Chapel. In 1546 he was appointed as the new architect for St. Peters Basilica in Rome. He designed the famous dome that crowns the church and work was well underway on it when Michelangelo died on Feb 18, 1564.

Robert MacPherson (1811-1872) - Rome - St. Pet...

Robert MacPherson (1811-1872) – Rome – St. Peter’s Dome in the Vatican. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Last Judgment of Michelangelo Buonarroti

Last Judgment of Michelangelo Buonarroti (Photo credit: Wikipedia) The Last Judgement is a massive painting that takes up the alter wall of the Sistine Chapel. It took 4 years to complete.

Related articles

Leave a comment   |  tags: , | posted in Art, David, Europe, Italy, Michelangelo, Pieta, postaday, Sculpture, Thought of the Day, Today's Birthday

March 6, 2013

Kiri te Kanawa 3.6.13 Thought of the Day

By ritalovestowrite

“When I perform Strauss, it is as if the music fits me like a glove. My voice seems to lie in a happy area in this music, which is lyrical and passionate at the same time.”–Kiri te Kanawa

Kiri Te Kanawa [Image adapted from Last.fm.com]

Kiri Te Kanawa [Image adapted from Last.fm.com]

Claire Mary Teresa Rawstron was born on this day in Gisborne, on the North Island of  New Zealand in 1944. She is 69 years old.

She was adopted by Thomas and Nell Te Kanawa as an infant. She went to school at Saint Mary’s College in Auckland where she was trained to sing. In her teens and 20’s she was a popular singer in New Zealand.  “She enrolled in the London Opera Center in 1966, and had her Covent Garden debut 1 December 1971.” [IMDb — Kiri Te Kanawa] Her first performance on  stage was as the Second Lady in Mozart’s The Magic Flute.

She “was granted a three-year contract as a junior principal at Covent Garden.” [Bach Contatas.com] and soon came to…

international attention singing the role of Xenia in Boris Godunov and the Countess in Le Nozze di Figaro….after her successes at Covent Garden, Kiri Te Kanawa performed her Metropolitan Opera debut as Desdemona in Otello (replacing an ill Theresa Stratas). Her other performances include Fiordiligi in Cosi fan tutte, Arabella in Arabella, Rosalinde in Die Fledermaus, Violetta in La Traviata, Tosca in Tosca, Pamina in Die Zauberflöte and, most notably, her numerous performances as Donna Elvira in Mozart’s Don Giovanni.[Ibid]

Te Kanawa sang “Let the Bright Seraphim” at Prince Charles and Lady Diana’s wedding. Her “O Mio Babbino Caro,” and “Ch’il bel sogno di Doretta,” by  Puccini, were featured in 1986’s “A Room With A View.”

She was made a Companion of the Order of Australia in 1990, awarded the Order of New Zealand in the 1995, made an  Officer of the Order of the British Empire in 1973, and made “Dame Commander of the Order of the British Empire in 1982 for her services to music.” [IMDb — Kiri Te Kanawa]

But why am I TALKING about her when I could be letting you HEAR her sing ?

Here’s O Mio Babbino Caro by Puchinni

And how about a little Mozart on a snowy afternoon? Here’s Porgi amor from Le nozze di Figaro

Lastly here’s Schubert’s Ave Maria…

2 Comments   |  tags: , | posted in Kiri Te Kanawa, Music, Opera, postaday, Thought of the Day, Today's Birthday