Women's Portraits in Western Art

Thanks to my friend Jan for forwarding the link to an amazing little video showing women's portraits over 500 years. There's neat cello music, too. Check it out.

Chilly Spring evening at the pool

Our swimming pool association had its Spring general membership meeting this past Thursday evening. We were supposed to meet at 7 p.m. at a nearby church. When we arrived a few minutes before 7, everyone was still milling around in the church parking lot. The church had agreed to let us meet there, but nobody showed up to let us in.

So, we all headed over to the pool! It was pretty neat to go through the gates just before dusk. The pool is still wearing its winter coat and all the chairs had gone home for the winter. There was something really magical about being there.

We headed for the pavilion, turned over some picnic tables, set out the refreshments, and gathered wood from the grounds (head start on Spring cleanup) to build a fire in the fireplace.

It was a cool evening, and we had probably the shortest meeting on record, but it was fun having our Spring reunion at the pool with the fire to chase away the chills.

The pool opens at noon on May 24. We can't wait!

How early was Easter this year?

Easter this year was Sunday, March 23.

Easter is always the 1st Sunday after the 1st full moon after the Spring Equinox (which occurred on March 20 this year). Easter can be one day earlier (March 22) but that is pretty rare.

This year is the earliest Easter any of us will ever see. Only people now 95 or older have ever celebrated Easter this early. And none of us alive today will ever, see it a day earlier!

Here are the facts:

The last time Easter fell on March 23 was 1913.
The next time Easter will be this early will be the year 2228 -- 220 years from now.

The last time Easter fill on March 22 was 1818.
The next time will be in the year 2285, in 277 years.

Throw in early Daylight Savings Time, and it's no wonder I'm so discombobulated!

Coach Ken starts spring practice

Spring really is here. Yesterday was the first day of Navy football practice, presided over by Coach Ken Niumatalolo and his new staff.

The defense, which was very green last year, has lots of repeaters for this season, but the O-line lost 4 of 5 starters, so some juggling is going on there.

In one of the more interesting moves, Coach is trying to find new ways to use backup QB Jarod Bryant. Barring anything unforseen, Kaipo looks to have a lock on the starting QB job again this year, but Bryant is deemed to be too good to keep on the bench. So, he's getting a try at slot back and punt returner.

The slot back possibility is really intriguing. We've always thought that Bryant is great at handling the ball, and he has some nice moves. Kaipo has the upper hand in reading and reacting to defenses. Having both of them in the backfield could make for some really interesting possibilities. Stay tuned.

Spring practice continues until the intra-squad game on April 18. This is going to be fun!

Daylight Savings Time in March -- Grrrrrrr!

Daylight time started too long ago, and Easter came extra-early this year, too. So Easter is over, and it's light until well after 7, and it all makes me want to switch to my spring clothes -- only it's still too cold! This is madness of the worst kind. Fie on all the policy-makers who were deluded into thinking this would be a good idea.

Last Night's Movie: "August Rush"

A brilliant young cellist has a chance encounter with the singer in a rock band on their respective post-performance highs in Manhattan. Separated by the cellist's overbearing father/manager, they are force to go their separate ways. When the cellist gives birth to a son nine months later, the father forges her name to adoption papers and tells her the baby is dead.

Ten years later the cellist is teaching music in Chicago and grieving for her dead baby. The rock singer left the band and is living in San Francisco, but is still grieving for his lost love. And a little boy living in a children's home runs off to Manhattan to find his parents, because he can hear them in his head.

The ensuing story is driven by the force of love that binds people, and by music as a language that communicates by resonating with us and within us in ways we're not usually conscious of.

There are wonderful sequences that intercut the cello and the rock band in ways that are pure magic.

The whole movie is has a magical fairy tale quality (with a little Charles Dickens thrown in), but it's beautiful and satisfying. Jonathan Rhys-Meyers and Keri Russell give wonderful performances as the rock singer and cellist, and young Freddie Highmore is charming as Evan/August.

"August Rush" gets two thumbs up in our house.

Madelaine's Dress Is Finished!

It wasn't easy and it involved ripping out and re-sewing a bunch of stitching, but Madelaine's blood red Empire gown for "The Fall of the House of Usher" is finished! It's beautiful and worth all the work.

Then I helped Craig with the valet's coat. We were applying a nice twisted braid edging when we ran out of thread! That's what happens when you get so caught up in the small stuff that you stop noticing the big stuff -- like basic supplies.

I'll keep helping Craig with the coat and vest, but my next big project will be the cushion and bolster cover for the Recamier couch. It will be a complete change from working with the red crushed silk, which is truly lovely, but gets to be hard on the eyes when you have to rip out a lot of stitches. The fabric for the couch is a fairly heavy upholstery fabric in medium blue with gold stars woven in. I'm probably going to need to use stablizer on the edges, as I suspect it's going to want to ravel. Stay tuned for pictures.

Global Warming: Our Fault?

My boss recently mentioned that he'd been reading an interesting book on global warming called "Unstoppable Global Warming: Every 1,500 Years." Authors Dennis T. Avery and S. Fred Singer present another view of climate change, and one that any thinking person should consider. They cite myriad studies of ice core samples, stalagtites, tree rings, etc. and present some interesting conclusions. The great ice age cycle of plus or minus 100,000 years seems to be linked to our solar system's passage through the arms of the Milky Way. There are documented shorter 1,500 cycles of warming and cooling that seem to be related to solar activity. And within those periods there are fairly sudden and dramatic shifts in temperature and weather patterns, including devastating storms.

They also look at human history -- periods of peace and productivity during the warm periods, when less effort is required to produce food and stay warm, and periods of strife and withdrawal during cold periods. They talk about an unnamed cold period prior to the Roman Era, the Roman Warming Period, the cooling period of the Dark Ages, the Medieval Warm Period (roughly corresponding to the Renaissance), the Little Ice Age, which ended around 1850, and the current Modern Warm Period. Hmmm...this has happened before, when people weren't running air conditioners and barging around in gas-guzzlng SUVs.

One of the thoughts I'm left with is that it's a lot less scary to think that we broke it and so we can fix it, rather than acknowledging our own puny place in the universe. Face it, people like to think they're in charge. People don't like change, and this is likely to bring lots of changes.

Should we abandon efforts to reduce greenhouse gases? Probably not.

Should we expect that reducing greenhouse gases will produce changes in the earth's climate? I wouldn't bet the farm on it.

I wish the policy makers would stop to consider what kinds of things might be productive. Maybe they should look at development patterns in coastal areas that are likely to be affected. New Orleans isn't the only vulnerable spot on earth.

The world is full of stories of great floods and drowned kingdoms. There's a Welsh folk song called "The Bells of Aberdovey," about church bells that can be heard beneath the waters off West Wales. There's a myth about the kingdom of Ys/Is off the coast of Brittany in France. The kingdom drowned, and the inhabitants retreated eastward until they came to a place along a river that was as wonderful as Ys, and they called it Paris (the equal of Is).

I could go on, but I'll write about this again soon. Meanwhile, I invite you to take a good look at the world around you. Remember that Ocean City, MD, gained prominence as an ocean resort after a great storm in the 1930s created an inlet that opened the inland bay to the sea. When you drive in the mountains, look at the folds in the rock that was blasted away when the highway was built. If you see a u-shaped formation, remember that the bottom of the u is actually the bottom of a layer of rock that was folded and then the upper layers eroded away by weather, or even by glaciers. The world that we see right now is not the world as it's always been. Does it really make sense to think that it will always be thus?

Last Night's Movie: "Atonement"

"Atonement" is a beautifully filmed adaptation of the Ian MacEwan novel of the same title. The story is compelling but complicated, and making the leap from page to screen took a great deal of skill and understanding of how to tell a story visually. Overall, it worked. But it left me wanting to read the novel -- and that's not a bad thing at all.

There's a complicated tracking shot near the end of the movie that runs about 5 minutes in length. Pulling it off was a logisticial tour de force, but it's not the longest track shot in the history of cinema, as somebody stated in the making-of extra on the DVD.

Alfred Hitchcock's 1948 film "Rope" held that distinction for a long time. He had a special set built with movable walls and plotted everything so carefully that the entire movie is a series of long tracking shots -- each up to 10 minutes long. Read more about how it was done at wikipedia.

The single longest shot, however, was accomplished in 2002, by director Alexander Sukorov in "The Russian Ark." The entire movie is one sustained 90-minute Steadicam shot, captured while the operator walked through the Hermitage Museum in St. Petersburg, accompanied by a crew of seven shlepping hard drives, lights, battery packs, etc, and surrounded by a cast of 2,000 extras in period costumes.

You can rent this at Blockbuster, and if you love movies, you should. Be sure to watch the making-of, too. The crew had the use of the Hermitage for something like 24 hours, starting one evening and ending the next. During that time they had to work with the Hermitage staff to remove/protect works of art, bring in the extras and move them around, shoot the movie, and then put everything back the way it was. They got permission to use Catherine the Great's china and tableware, but they had to put museum staff in costumes and they were the only ones allowed to handle it.

The crew agreed that if anything went wrong in the first few minutes, they could start over, and they did two or three times. But, given the limitations of batteries, etc., they had to get it all on the next take. They did -- but the cameraman admitted that when he entered the ballroom for one of the final scenes, he didn't think he could carry his rig any longer. One of his crew told him what he needed to hear, and he got his second wind and was able to finish.

The ballroom scene, by the way, is a recreation of the last ball held in what was then the Winter Palace, in 1913. This was the first time dancing was held in that room since then.

Full Moon Tonight

Which means that this is the first full moon after the Vernal Equinox. And you KNOW what that means...

First Day of Spring!

Hooray!

Clark Brothers to appear on "Idol Gives Back"

The Clark Brothers, the bluegrass trio that won "The Next Great American Band" show last summer, will be part of the American Idol Gives Back show on April 9th. They've been working on a CD, and I can't wait to hear them again. There are clips on their website. Click on the links I've inserted and have a listen.

Lil's quilt -- and matching pillow

A while back I posted pictures of a lap quilt that I made for our friends Russ and Lil as a wedding present. Since I had leftover fabric, I pieced a cover for a little round pillow to match as a Christmas present. Russ took some pictures.

To make the pillow, I did some basic measurements, added enough for seam allowances and to make a casing at each end for a draw string (made from the quilt fabric). Once I had all that figured out, I cut out a piece of muslin to use as a pattern and then laid patterned fabric pieces on it to see how it would all fit together. I didn't stitch the pieces to the muslin -- just kept the muslin to use over again. I wrote on the muslin in pencil how much I allowed for seams, casings, etc., so I wouldn't have to reinvent that wheel.

And I did make a pair of pillows for Craig's brother and his wife for their family room. For those I used the same size pillow form and just a single piece of fabric. And I bought cording instead of making (and turning) the drawstrings myself.

The pillow for the "House of Usher" chaise longue is larger than this, but I'll use the same basic technique for measuring, etc. I may insert some piping braid in the seam at each end of the long section, to frame the round ends. Stay tuned...

Heather's Cabinets

Here are Niece Heather's kitchen cabinets, with the cherries that Uncle Craig painted. These were the inspiration for the tablecloth (see below). And that's Chef Jeff, making jalapenos stuffed with cheese and sausage. Makes me hungry just thinking about it.

Heather's Tablecloth

A while back I promised to post photos of the 70-inch round tablecloth I made for Heather for Christmas. I posted a detailed step-by-step how-to piece that you can access in the archives if you're so inclined. Anyhow, here's the finished product. I had enough fabric left (see my how-to) to make some placemats or napkins -- when we finish the "House of Usher" costumes.

Furnishing the House of Usher

Craig's production of "The Fall of the House of Usher" is taking on a life of its own.

Madelaine's second dress, an Empire number in blood red crushed silk, is almost finished.

Craig deconstructed a Goodwill coat and we've transformed that into the valet's coat, and bought the fabric for a coordinating vest.

And -- TA-DA -- Steve Landry, the set carpenter for Blue Rock Productions, where the movie will be shot, has finished Roderick's chaise longue, AKA Recamier couch.

We looked at lots of period paintings and photos of existing pieces. Craig designed what we wanted, gave the drawings and dimensions to Steve, and he ran with it. We have a long cushion for the seat, and found some great fabric that's appropriate to the period to cover it. I also picked up a bolster pillow, and will cover that, too. Of course, the wood will be finished; there are a couple of treatments we're considering.

I love this piece so much that I'm going to find a place for it in our house when the shoot is over. Craig has thoughts of his own, though. He wants to set it up in the lobby when we have a screening and let Madelaine recline tragically on it, in the red silk gown. I'm sure we'll do that at least once, but eventually it's going to end up in the upstairs sitting room.

Thanks to Steve for doing such a beautiful job. Don't you love all those gentle curves?

Daylight Savings in Alaska

Here's the latest from our friend in Alaska:

Here in AK we're gaining 5 mins. 45 secs a day and are already up to 11
hours plus of daylight. It doesn't matter how much daylight we have
as we are now 2 hour ahead of the sun
and day time temps are still hovering around 35 if
we're lucky. We won't be able to plant outside until
late May. We're in the time affectionately called
breakup which means that the snow is melting at a
rapid rate and then at night the water freezes giving
us a slippery ride in the AM. It also doesn't mean
that we won't get more snow tis month or next.   So
much for daylight savings. 

Spring forward

Between last night and this morning we lost an hour, an annual occurrence that always causes grumbling in our house. Although Craig is denying it this morning, he used to refer to this as changing time zones. Today he's insisting that changing to an earlier time zone would put us somewhere in the Atlantic Ocean, and he's not buying my argument that it also might place us in the Maritime Provinces of Canada. Whatever...

It's always a disruptive time, and changing this early in the year seems more disruptive than usual. Sunrise in these latitudes will now occur close to 7:30 am for a while, making it harder for those of us who awaken more naturally with light than with noise. The days were already long enough at the other end to give us light to drive home from work. It's still a little chilly to do much outdoor work after dinner, and it's too early to do any serious planting because the danger of frost isn't past. So what's the point? We may not have to turn the lights on quite so early in the evening, but we'll need more lights in the morning, so I'm not sure there will even be any energy savings, unless everyone stays in bed until after the sun comes up!

Well, we're stuck with it, so we're just going to have to put up with what man hath wrought until everything evens out. Grrrr...

Lost our electricity -- again

Yep, last night we were watching a movie, and shortly before the end, the power went out! It was an annoying surprise. We thought the wind storm had pretty much died down by then, but you never know.

We have LOTS of flashlights, but discovered that we had moved the flashlight from the living room the last time the power went out, so Craig had to pick his way to the kitchen. We turned off the TV and few lights that had been on and came upstairs, where we have more flashlights, and were able to get ready for bed, throw on an extra cover, crawl in and read by flashlight for a little while. Fortunately, the power (and heat) came back on in the middle of the night

Today we've got to remember to take a couple of flashlights back downstairs and put them where they belong.

Moral of the story -- make sure you have your emergency supplies (flashlights and batteries, radio, water, extra blankets, etc.) and KNOW WHERE THEY ARE.

Happy St. David's Day!

It's March 1, St. David's Day, the Welsh national holiday. This day commemorates the death in 588 A.D. of David of Wales, a holy man who is remembered for drinking only water, and for his abilities as a preacher and teacher.

It's traditional on St. David's Day to wear a daffodil and eat leeks in some form. Tonight I think we'll have lamb with braised leeks! And it's a good excuse to sing, as if any Welsh person needed an excuse.

This March 1st in Baltimore is chilly and windy. If the old saying is correct ("In like a lion, out like a lamb"), spring is on its way.