The annual willow bash is almost here ...



Click here for all the fun

I am afraid the rendezvous with all of you have been rather sporadic of late. Please bear with me, but work has been hectic and, more pressingly and enjoyably, I have been busy preparing for The Third Annual Willow Manor Ball organised by our dear friend, willow of life at willow manor. The big affair is scheduled for this Thursday, September 30th, and willow is planning lots of fun for all who attend. For more info, click on the caption of the poster to the left.

A cursory look at my short list of talents and skills will reveal what anyone who knows me will readily tell you: ballroom dancing is not one of my, eerrrhhh, strengths. Indeed, I was thinking of sitting this one out. But how could I resist? The big fling, after all, is put together by the very best blog friend anyone could ever have. Indeed, 10 months ago, when I first began blogging, willow was the very first person to visit, first to comment on my blog and first to sign up as a follower after my bashful pitch for blog friends. Indeed, I think I started most of those first blog posts "Dear willow...", but sheepishly dropped the introduction just before hitting the 'publish post' button. She has been a kind and supportive blog friend ever since. And, more to the point, her own blog is consistently engaging, enriching and stimulating. Willow is one of the finest poets to be found in the blogosphere, as you can see by clicking here. And most beautifully, there are so many other bloggers who will eagerly voice these same sentiments, who make a stop at the willow manor a part of every blog day. The first toast of the night will most certainly be for you, dear willow. "You're the best", to use a favorite and generous expression of yours!

As far as I know, I will be the lone guest from Spain, which strikes me as a bit of a responsibility. So rather than polishing off my foxtrotting or lindyhopping steps, I will try to bring some flamenco flair and fire to the festivities. For the occasion, I have asked the incredible Eva Yerbabuena to be my dance partner. Watch and enjoy the video below, and see that I will certainly have my work cut out for me. So wish me luck and wish willow all the best, today, on the 30th and always. See you there ...



I hope you get as much from this video as I do, although I know it is impossible for this medium, as wonderful as it is, to convey the raw power of such performances. Back in the 1980s and early 90s, before my daughters arrived on stage, I was a regular at various flamenco bars, venues, cellar caverns and hovels in Madrid, much as I had haunted jazz clubs in New York for so many years. I became friends with some of these artists and others kindly tolerated my grateful, fascinated presence. It is beyond me to describe the impact some of those all-night sessions had on me as I watched and listened to some of the finest singers, guitarists and dancers perform for each other, after hours, sometimes until 8 or 9 in the morning or whenever.

Some of the dancers, like Eva Yerbabuena in the video, completely knocked me out. Flamenco music is rhythmically very rich and complex and the rhythms that define the various palos (styles) can be highly sophisticated. Yet that artistry is put at the service of something that at moments seems primal, almost atavistic, the stylized outpouring of a savagery and wildness that can really shake one. I hope you feel a bit of that ferocious artistry in the clip.

Through my friendship with some flamenco guitarists, I was fortunate to be able to sit in, literally, on dance classes at the famous Amor de Dios flamenco dance school in Madrid. Since the dancing is so bound up with the guitar playing and singing, they would actually have guitarists and singers there. These were classes, not rehearsals for a show; yet, they would have two guitarists (teacher and advanced student) and a singer participate in all of the classes. Sitting on the floor while all of this was going on, with the dance instructor and as many as 20 students working on their moves, whirling, pounding, clattering steps, with the thrumming guitars and the singer's plaintive call, all in front of a room-length floor-to-ceiling mirror was a privileged experience I will never forget. I can still feel wave upon wave of those driving rhythms surging up my spine from the spot on the wooden floor where I sat in rapt witness two decades ago.

But, I never did learn to dance … and what all of this has to do with willow’s dance this Thursday, I do not know. Oh well, blame it on Eva Yerbabuena. Check her out.

Chime the bells

Today's post is dedicated to a simple and heartfelt ceremony to celebrate Barry Fraser's last chemotherapy session.

A few days ago, through willow's Life at Willow Manor, I found out about Barry and learned of a ritual followed by cancer patients at Princess Margaret Hospital in Toronto, Canada. Apparently, there is a bell at the end of the hall above the exit to the chemo unit, and, as Barry explains on his blog, "patients completing their last treatment of chemotherapy, ring the bell as they leave. And whenever it rings the nurses and volunteers and other chemo patients pause for a moment and applaud. When I finish my last injection of chemo, on Thursday February 18th at about 2pm Eastern Standard Time, I'm also ringing that damn bell! As loud and as long as I can!"

A great many people from all over the world have decided to join in the clanging and ringing, the chiming and dinging and donging at that time (8:00 pm for me here in Spain) to celebrate this milestone in Barry's battle against cancer. My bell offering is this lovely image of bluebells:

Photo: Morning Bells — © Thomas Ljungberg, from Onexposure. Click to enlarge.

Barry, you have said you are overwhelmed by the show of support. I am sure you are wondering how to give voice to your appreciation, but I want to ask you, at least for one instant, not to give or feel the need to give thanks for anything, but to allow me and many others to express our gratitude for what you have done and are doing.

So thank you for your courage and example. Thank you for sharing your fears and your determination with us, thank you for knowing who your friends are, even the so many of us who have not met you. Thank you for knowing to call out for a helping hand when needed, thank you for knowing how to summon up a friendly choir of belled voices and accept a gentle arm around the shoulder. Thank you for choosing not to walk down that corridor and out that door today alone, but allowing all of us in this blogging community to walk that walk with you and ring that bell by your side.

In short, thank you for reminding and showing us all just how meaningful, purposeful and powerful blogging can be. There is nothing virtual or cyber about these sentiments and wishes. Our gratitude and solidarity are very real. We ring our bells for you and for all of us — cancer and the fight to stave off its ravages are something present in the lives of everyone. No one is untouched.

I urge everyone to visit Barry at An Explorer's View of Life and see the bells that other Theme Thursday participants are striking today.

And to actually join Barry in the ringing, and help him lay some righteous joyous doo-wop on that bell, I leave you with the R&B group the Willows singing Church Bells May Ring ...

Magpie tales

Today marks the debut of willow's Magpie Tales blog, "dedicated to the enjoyment of writers, for the purpose of honing their craft, sharing it with like minded bloggers, and keeping their muses alive and well".

Her first prompt was the pewter creamer shown in this photo with the simple instruction "write a short fictional account or poem using the picture as your inspiration".

So, willow, here goes ...

In memory loving

between sleep and waking

when dreams alloy

with sun scented curtains

from the leaden shadow

she comes akimbo

hand on hip

a smile

a curl

a lip

the pewtersmith

lays a wreath

upon her breast

Good luck with Magpie Tales, willow! To see what other bloggers have found in the pewter prompt click here.

Magpie sighting — the Impressionists are here ...

Ever since our good friend willow of Life at Willow Manner formally declared herself a magpie and a practitioner of magpiety, I have been on the lookout for that preeminent scavenger of the avian world. Happily enough, I soon spotted my very first one, perched atop a rickety wooden fence gate, contemplating the sunny snow-blanketed countryside on the coast of Normandy in Etretat  …

Well, I wasn't actually there, but did make the sighting through this 1869 painting by Claude Monet, The Magpie, currently on view at the Fundación Mapfre in Madrid.

The snowy scene is part of the wonderful “From Manet to Impressionism: A Modern Renaissance” show which opened in mid-January and will be gracing Madrid’s magnificent "museum mile" until April 22nd. Apparently, the Musée d’Orsay in Paris, home to the world’s greatest Impressionism collection, is partly closed to undergo major works before it reopens to celebrate its 25th anniversary in March 2011. So the museum has now arranged for many of its essential works to leave Paris, some for the first time. A good 90 or more are on view in the Madrid show (fresh in from Australia before moving on to San Francisco). This unique and perhaps never to be repeated opportunity includes works by Cézanne, Degas, Manet, Monet, Pissarro, Bazille, Millet, Renoir, Rousseau, Sisley, Toulouse-Lautrec, and others.

Obviously, the show is a joy and deserves a book. I am sure I will post more on a few of the masterpieces that I found especially striking. But today and in future posts (because this has become rather too long) I wanted to discuss this lonely magpie. The painting caught my eye immediately, although I have to confess that when I first glimpsed it from a distance, I thought I was seeing a Sisley (who is also well represented in the show with his own snowscape).

Claude Monet (shown to the right in a portrait by Renoir which is also part of the Madrid exhibit) painted The Magpie between 1868 and 1869, and it is widely considered one of the first Impressionist paintings, although it predates the first Impressionist show and the very name by five years (one of the names these painters were using amongst themselves was 'the Intransigents'). He submitted the work to the Académie des Beaux-Arts to be exhibited at the 1869 Paris Salon, but it was rejected. The Paris Salon was the all-powerful arbiter of official taste and had by that time begun making a routine of rejecting the daring new works by a group of artists that had not yet been dubbed Impressionists – Monet, Renoir, Sisley, Bazille, Pissarro.

Indeed it was the Salon's 1863 rejection of Edouard Manet's Le déjeuner sur l'herbe (Luncheon on the Grass — shown below), along with works by many other artists, and the ensuing controversy, that would come to mark a turning point of sorts. The Salon expressed its refusal to accept Luncheon on the Grass in rather abrasive terms, in large part focused on the impropriety of depicting a nude woman in other than a historical or mythological context and, even more vexingly, in the casual company of two clothed men. Manet began to explore other opportunities and became a rallying point and inspiration for the small but committed group of artists who would give the world the Impressionist movement in the years that followed. The Madrid exhibit begins and ends with Manet, highlighting his role as the first and prime mover for the group and an important early source of leadership, encouragement and even economic support.

Something was already astir in the Parisian art world, as evidenced by the fact that the Salon des Refusés (Salon of the Refused or Rejects), which Emperor Napoleon III decreed be held in 1863 as a show for the unusually large number of paintings rejected by the Académie that year, actually drew more visitors than the regular Salon.

Since this is becoming a rather long post, I will break here and return to our magpie in part 2 in the days to come. I will close by embedding below a brief video (in English) on the exhibit. Enjoy ...

Willow wades in and apprentice alchemist finds gold ...

Thanks so much, willow (Life at Willow Manor), for being the first to sign up in response to my comical pitch for followers for this new blog. As a token of my appreciation, apart from emblazoning your name on the 'honor roll of discerning geniuses in the kindness of strangers category', I got in touch with jazz guitarist Stanley Jordan and asked him to kindly strum "willow weep for me" in your honor. You can see the results below — about as happy, boisterous and virtuosic a version of this standard as I could ever hope to find, just the right thing to shake off some of the chill from yesterday's icy poem.

One of my favorite renditions of this ballad is by the great tenor sax raconteur Dexter Gordon. I looked for a video of Dexter's version without luck, but I trust you will enjoy Mr. Jordan's rendering of the old classic.



And the alchemist will be touched to find gold on our pillow, specifically, Joan Gold, who has also joined in. Joan is a Brooklyn-born artist, who lived for more than 20 years in Venezuela and has for many years now resided in northern California (in Eureka, to be exact, a name that in an alchemist's imagination rhymes with gold). She uses her blog as venue for showing "the small, very personal paintings" she does not exhibit on her website, which has many of her recent paintings, a biography and video interview.

The blog also features Joan's writings and reflections on art and life. Her latest entry, About Beauty, includes some quotes on the topic. One I particularly like is from Anaïs Nin: "We don't see things as they are, we see things as we are". It reminds me of one of the central points Roger Scruton makes in his recent book Beauty that whenever we discuss a thing of beauty, more than describing the object of our attention, what we are really describing is our encounter, our experience of it.
I enthusiastically recommend both her blog and website.

Full disclosure: apart from being a talented artist, a courageous and beautiful spirit and wonderful person, Joan Gold is also my aunt and someone I love and admire very much.

Art work: Above, Piante Promise 2009. Here, Joan Gold before her work TimeOff.