How Many Flower Posts Is Too Many?

Yet another soothing visit to the Botanical Gardens to mitigate a less-than-soothing visit to the dentist, the gist of which was so incisively captured by May Gibbs in 'The Banksiamen Tooth Extractor' (from 'The Adventures of Bib and Bub' - my first book) ...









I suspect this justification is entirely successful - so ...










The answer therefore to the opening question about too many posts must be:

'Any more posts than the number of times I have to see my own particular tooth-extractor'!

Don't you think!

Aggressive and Demanding Flowers

We were walking home today through the Botanical Gardens - camera deeply and happily buried in my backpack.

But, since last week, a whole new bunch of different mostly flowers had burst into bloom, and were now ferociously demanding to be snapped ...
















Finally, after all these aggressive little floras had had their rather indecent way with us, we managed to make our escape from the gardens ...


Maybe a new way home next week!

Just In the Shadow of Fame?

Yesterday I came across a documentary on the Paris Opera Ballet, in the course of which Kyra Nijinsky talks about her father, Vaslav Nijinsky, who, as everyone knows, was the greatest male dancer of the Ballets Russes ...

In 'Le Dieu Bleu'

With Tamara Karsavina in 'Le Spectre de la Rose'

In 'Giselle'

In 'Scheherazade'

For a time the ballerino was the lover of the founder of that company, Serge de Diaghilev ...

... and, in the interview, the animosity of daughter (and mother) towards the impresario is more than palpable.

I recall from Richard Buckle's definitive book 'Nijinsky' that Vaslav had had a number of male lovers or patrons before Diaghilev - but was sexually disinterested, in general. So I suspect that his marriage to Romula Pulszky was something conventionally stable to grab onto as he descended into the madness which completely claimed him several years later.

Kyra had somewhat of a career as a dancer and I became aware recently that her special resemblance to her father had been exploited in a photo (or series of photos?) of her in one of his greatest roles, 'Le Spectre de la Rose' ...

Kyra Nijinsky in 'Le Spectre de la Rose'

Vaslav Nijinsky in 'Le Spectre de la Rose'

With all this material floating round in my my mind today, I was thinking that while Kyra's life could be judged from the point of view of her father's success it might be much more profitably approached from what she achieved.

Which brings me back to the documentary.

As well as being interviewed, it shows Kyra in another of her roles - that of some kind of Russian ballet expert/adviser - here in the mounting at the Paris Opera Ballet of a new production of the 'Polovtsian Dances' from the opera 'Price Igor'.

In the following clip, she seems to be teaching or perhaps more likely refining some steps with sexy Patrick Dupond ...


... in his role as the chief warrior ...

So I see Kyra Nijinsky as a big somewhat dominating personality that found a way of making an interesting life from some opportunities that came her way.

Ok, so what are we all going out to achieve tomorrow!

Noel Coward and 'Nina'

Never been particularly keen on Noel Coward - I'd seen a few of his plays ('Private Lives', 'Design for Living' and 'Blithe Spirit') and, if I thought anything, I guess it would've been he was second rate Oscar Wilde.

And it wasn't him not being hairy-chested and 'blokey' (like me) - just an aversion to the exaggerated and bitchy thing, all the worse for being dressed up in a certain class elitism.

But yesterday I had a new respect for Coward as a writer and performer after seeing and hearing his 1955 performance of 'Nina' - the wickedly clever lyrics and their delivery pithy sparkle and explode like noisy fireworks, for example ...

She said with most refreshing candour
That she thought Carmen Miranda
Was subversive propaganda

... and ...

She said that love should be impulsive
But not convulsive

Still chuckling ... how bout you?

Villa Escudero and Strange Pre-Historic Plastic Fish

In 2004, we were in the Philippines for three and a half months and our trusty 'Lonely Planet' guide took us to Villa Escudero, two-three hours by bus from Manila, depending on the traffic.







The Villa is in fact the center piece of a working coconut plantation founded in 1872 by the Escudero family - one of whose descendants can still be seen patrolling round the grounds in his motorized wheelchair accompanied by attendants and servants.







Part of the Villa's current income is derived from a tourist resort that has been developed long side it and on the river.





From the front gate you are taken by carabao-drawn cart ...







... to your bungalow ...





... which overlooks the water ...







... which is full of strange pre-historic 'plastic' fish (above) ... and more ordinary koi carp ...







Unexpectedly, the most interesting aspect of the villa is it's museum, a real C19 'cabinet of curiosities' full of historical mementos, old photographs and oddities crammed into dusty old glass cases.



Including, even more surprisingly and unknown to me, examples of one of the pre-colonial written scripts, Babayin, which had been derived from an ancient Kavi script of Java ...

Babayin Script 'Ang Ama Namin' (1593)

Predictably, the use of these scripts was gradually discouraged (or repressed) in the time after 1521.



But were still known and practised at the end of the century, as this example of 'Ang Ama Namin' shows.



Being a total novice, calligraphy-wise, I was and still am primarily reacting to the extraordinarily decorative quality of the script!



I see a feature wall ... better not go there!

Art Conditioning Life

Two years ago and late at night, we were in a bar in the provinces in the Philippines - looking out over the deserted road below ...


... and - gradually- I became mesmerized by the scenes opposite ...


... though I wasn't sure exactly why ...


... beyond, partly, the obvious fascination of being aware of my seeing life conditioned through art ...

Edward Hooper 'Nighthawks' (1942)

... but it was also that the scene provoked a whole raft of comfortably uncomfortable emotions that I didn't want to examine - just indulge!

BTW, the photos are enormous files and explode up if you click on them - and their haunting qualities are even more intense.