tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1248503935075362425.post4837098700942865720..comments2024-03-26T07:58:59.761+00:00Comments on I'll think of something later: Winter blooms and summer nostalgiaDavidhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14506881804082382739noreply@blogger.comBlogger7125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1248503935075362425.post-10463575949466664712016-01-19T10:53:48.015+00:002016-01-19T10:53:48.015+00:00The Lyon light festival looked amazing from photos...The Lyon light festival looked amazing from photos, too. But no pics can quite convey the grandeur of the Weestminster Abbey effect. I wrote a piece for The Arts Desk, since resident art critic had been walled up at home, on the Lumiere experience, as far as I could experience it, and the Abbey shot leads, with other good pics in a slideshow. I'll be doing my own on the blog eventually as they didn't include Cedric Le Borgne's supernatural Les Voyageurs in St James's Square or the carnivalesque floating fish in Piccadilly. Overall, despite individual disappointments and overcrowding at Kings Cross which made me turn back, a wonderful weekend.Davidhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/14506881804082382739noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1248503935075362425.post-12286639865225161502016-01-19T10:47:45.720+00:002016-01-19T10:47:45.720+00:00The photos I've seen of Westminster Abbey illu...The photos I've seen of Westminster Abbey illuminated remind me of seeing the same effect at Chartres about ten years ago. The west front of the Cathedral was illuminated (to the sound of Zadok The Priest), as was the north façade, re-creating as far as possible the colours which would have painted the stonework. There were other bits of town lit up with moving footage telling the history of Chartres, and Église Saint-Pierre de Chartres was also lit up - there are some photos on Wikipedia. It really is a wonderful effect and lets us see medieval architecture as colourful as it would have been in its day. Catrionanoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1248503935075362425.post-87288596661270922602016-01-17T23:33:24.297+00:002016-01-17T23:33:24.297+00:00I'd never heard of Dan Jones. I see he's a...I'd never heard of Dan Jones. I see he's a TV historian in a leather jacket. Well, if he writes well, so much the better - I often read so-called popular historians. John Julius Norwich wrote a very good book about Shakespeare's Kings. <br /><br />I also imagine Wagner's Flower Maidens drifting half-girlishly, half-sensuously, around those walled gardens in what Auden called 'the sexy airs of summer'. Of course John Luther Adams' piece at Cambo was essentially the arpeggios of the Rheingold Prelude without the interesting bits that develop out of them. We could have had the Rhinemaidens in the stream.Davidhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/14506881804082382739noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1248503935075362425.post-23624076220139354782016-01-17T23:16:55.057+00:002016-01-17T23:16:55.057+00:00Ah, David, perhaps you'll be even more exasper...Ah, David, perhaps you'll be even more exasperated when I tell you that we so thoroughly enjoyed the HD screening of the RSC's Henry V that J is coming in to NYC especially, and we've shelled out (considerable) shekels to see the Henry IVs live, not to mention that, as it's in a BAM theater with no elevator, in order to get to our front row mezzanine seats we must climb almost as many stairs as to the top of St. Paul's (which, long story shortened, we did long ago with J carrying a crate of avocados all the way up and down). Now, I don't know my Shakespeare terribly well, though I have seen most if not all of the history plays in various versions before, but J does and is able to quote lines from them at will. Our prediction is that it's highly likely we will both enjoy the Henry IVs thoroughly, too. Just think of us as 16th C groundlings. (I am, however, certain we would have loved the Lloyd/Walter Henry IVs also.) What's particularly amusing to me about our exchange here is that, while I had no hesitation noting we were going to those plays, I was quite hesitant to admit to you that I ma reading Dan Jones's book.<br /><br />I look forward to seeing more Lumiere photos, and love your choice of the Trout Quintet. Just the right thing.Susan Scheidhttps://prufrocksdilemma.wordpress.com/noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1248503935075362425.post-45108093700952424962016-01-17T22:53:32.975+00:002016-01-17T22:53:32.975+00:00I'm just back from the last-night experience o...I'm just back from the last-night experience of Lumiere, Sue. Simply had to turn back from the Kings Cross adventure - the logjam in the tube passageways before even reaching the light was too awful, so I turned back. But the Westminster Abbey facade was the absolute highlight, and I'm glad I walked under the sky-jellyfish at Oxford Circus on my way to Grosvenor Square, where the aquarium-in-a-phonebox was a jolly squidge, everyone very good-humoured. I persuaded The Arts Desk to put up a gallery tomorrow with a bit of text from me.<br /><br />For me, the Crail shots have to go with joyous Schubert, possibly the Trout Quintet.<br /><br />DON'T put yourself through the RSC Henry IVs (are they coming to New York?) This was the worst Shakespeare I can remember. J fled at the first interval; I had to stay for the whole experience. Dreadful verse speaking, Sher shockingly raspy and unfunny, a few redeeming cameos in Part 2, the whole staged like the sort of heritage-pageant Shakespeare that I thought had died a death in the 1970s. Until the new head's arrival, the Globe has done good period-dress Shakespeare, but this was just awful. Sorry. I feel very strongly about it and anyone who thought it was great just doesn't know what good theatre is. <br /><br />On the other hand I think you and yours would have loved the all-women prison Henry IVs, condensed and directed by Phyllida Lloyd with Harriet Walter only one delight among many (the Lady Percy was amazing). <br /><br />Now - deep breath, calm down - I often think of the skating on your canal, Will, and I remember shots you and Laurent took when you had a deeper freeze than us. I have to say Kew yesterday was eerily ravishing - and the birds were all out in force, especially the parrots and the woodpeckers. I confess I assembled the summer pics as much for selfish reasons as for giving pleasure to others, though I'm glad if they have.Davidhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/14506881804082382739noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1248503935075362425.post-79378587478655071192016-01-17T22:40:55.300+00:002016-01-17T22:40:55.300+00:00Many thanks for bringing some sunshine into our dr...Many thanks for bringing some sunshine into our dreary winter here. True that it arrived late - we had rain not snow for Christmas - but it has arrived with a vengeance if not with the bitter cold that we experience last year. Sadly - for the skaters if not for the rest of us - it has not been cold enough to open the Canal outside our window yet. Last year set a record for the number of days the 10 km stretch was open for skating, races and other festivities - this year may set another record for the fewest days it has been open.<br /><br />Meanwhile a photo essay journey with you has brought some warmth into the day. 1000 grazie... Willymhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/03652532356102638621noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1248503935075362425.post-68108831195477107172016-01-17T18:13:17.930+00:002016-01-17T18:13:17.930+00:00I had spotted something about the Lumiere London p...I had spotted something about the Lumiere London project—an interesting idea, and also interesting that it has become a victim of its own success for a bit. I remember well the February in NYC when Christo installed his Orange Gates in Central Park. Some objected, as some always do, and I can be skeptical of such spectacles as well, but this one, I think, lifted most everyone's spirits in the midst of the monochrome of winter's gloom.<br /><br />Similarly, it's a real pick-me-up out of winter doldrums here to see your photos of summertime color. (The winter blooms out of phase are of course more worrisome.) I wonder, what music would go best with these photographs—I'm thinking something French, though that's likely because Poulenc has been on the stereo into overtime innings lately here. I'm listening right now to Elizabethan Consort Music 1558-1603 (Jordi Savall), a nice accompaniment, if historically out of phase, to a lit fire and my current reading, The Plantagenets—a bit of a potted history, but within that, well done, I think, and in any case it gives me a good overview preparatory to seeing the RSC's Henry IV Part 1 & 2 later this year.<br />Susan Scheidhttps://prufrocksdilemma.wordpress.com/noreply@blogger.com