Tuesday, December 29, 2009

New Discoveries

Life has a way of spilling over and washing away time spent on reading and blogging, and I have been particulary adrift with living of late. Always better to live life than to read about it. I have, however, made a few discoveries to share this holiday season.

I watched and enjoyed a French film called Jean de Florette, in which Gerard Depardieu plays a city tax collector who moves to the country after inheriting his grandfather's farm in Provence. Jean's is a soul full of music and poetry. He is in love with his life and with his new surroundings. He has grand plans for the farm, which are foiled by two neighboring farmers. The film ends abruptly and needs to be followed by a direct viewing of part two, Manon of the Spring. My disk from Netflix, however, would not play side two, so I am left hanging.


In the realm of music discoveries, my yoga teacher introduced me to a new-to-me pop artist, Kate Earl from Chugiak, Alaska. I bought her self-titled album from itunes and particularly like Melody and Nobody. Have a listen: http://popup.lala.com/popup/432627054054098921.


On the literature front, I have just begun to read the poetry of Anna Ahkmotova. Here is one of my favorites:

Along the Hard Crust

Along the hard crust of deep snows,
To the secret, white house of yours,
So gentle and quiet –
we both are walking, in silence half-lost.
And sweeter than all songs, sung ever,
Is this dream, becoming the truth,
Entwined twigs’ a-nodding with favor,
The light ring of your silver spurs...
Translated by Yevgeny Bonver, July, 2002
Edited by Tatiana Piotroff, September, 2002


Reading has not ceased completely. During our recent snowstorm I read The Dark is Rising by Susan Cooper, which was a perfect read for a snowstorm. I found it to be well-written (for its genre) with a plot I enjoyed enough to read the others in the series soon. Currently I am in the midst of a work of nonfiction entitled The Nothing That Is -- A Natural History of Zero by Robert Kaplan, a book which is interesting enough to deserve its own blogpost at a (I hope) not too much later date.

A Kind of Healing

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