Sky Watch Friday

The pink of the sunrise reflects what we can see of the river from our doorstep. And that is exactly where I was standing on that frosty morning in December. My last SkyWatch shot of last year.

Photographs of international skies can be savored by clicking here and looking for the list of entries

Whatever sky you're looking at, may peace be with you and with yours, whererever you can find it.

Love,

Pagan Sphinx

A Call for Nudes

Does anyone have anything to submit for tomorrow's Evening Nudes? Calling one and calling all.  And please, don't anyone mention Olympia. ;-)

Oh, and this little bit for you to consider

Gauguin's Postcards: The naked truth about women in Polynesia by Sarah Unger

What's Goin On

SG2 home for holiday break

Good news from Boston:  my daughter, SG2 (21), a junior at BU, majoring in journalism was offered a paid internship at The Boston Globe, working the city desk. She had mixed feelings about it when trying to make the decision of whether or not to accept it and after her first day (yesterday) she's feeling even more insecure about her ability to handle such a fast-paced news environment. I'm trying to counsel and guide her, as I'm sure her dad is.

She was in tears today, which always wrecks me! Help me out and send good vibes out to my girl, okay?

:-)

All the love,

Pagan Sphinx

Pagan Sphinx Entertainment Highlight - NRBQ

This one's for Bob.  ;-)  Let's dance!

A Reply to Giovanfrancesco's Comment

 If your profile were not private, I would have exposed you. But you wouldn't  dare leave a comment like that while maintaining any kind of visibility because mysogynists are always cowards.



So in response to your revolting opinion and word choices regarding the poem by Margaret Atwood, I quote the last two words of it:

Get stuffed

Ruby Tuesday

Ruby Retrospective

2009

 Mary hosts Ruby Tuesday weekly from her blog Work of the Poet


click images for better viewing

 January

My front yard, overlooking the Connecticut River

western Massachusetts

 February
Portrait of Barak Obama

by a five-year-old   
(cute, huh?)

Old Barn

Sunderland, Massachusetts

 March
My Buddy Omar 

(friends' dog)

April

Tulips around the maple tree in my yard

 May

Old Strubridge Village Doorway

Strubridge, Massachusetts

June

Asian Lily in my yard

 July

Millions of Bicycles

Barcelona, Spain

July
Zona Oeste, Portugal

August

Lawn Ornament

Nova Scotia 

September

Our favorite local orchard

South Deerfield, Massachusetts

October

Leaves in a fountain

Boston, Massachusetts

 November

LP's Birthday Pie
(it's raspberry-blueberry, in case you're wondering)  ;-)

December

Sinister Clowns

photograph from Mass MoCA

North Adams, Massachusetts

Pagan Sphinx Entertainment Highlight and Music for Sunday

 First, a young Jeff Bridges (with Cybil Shepard and others) in the great 1971 film The Last Picture Show



 And then as The Dude in The Big Lebowski (a Coen Brothers film) with music by Kenny Rogers and The First Edition (that's the "music for Sunday" part.  ;-)

Art Trigger

A reaction to Linda's (and she is indeed, linda) comment about A Modern Olympia, featured in this week's Friday Evening Nudes. I don't especially love the painting but I found it interesting that a painting with such a title would be painted. Sort of like a popular song remake, rarely as good as the original. Who knows? Well, someone must know, but I don't.    ;-)  I don't think Olympia looks herself at all in Cezanne's version.

 A Modern Olympia

Paul Cezanne

Anyway, that triggered the image of the Olympia by Manet. My favorite nude of all time.

 

And because it's been too long since I posted any poetry, a repeat of the poem by Margaret Atwood, my favorite writer and thinker

Manet’s Olympia

By Margaret Atwood

She reclines, more or less,

Try that posture, it’s hardly languor.
Her right arm sharp angles.
With her left she conceals her ambush.
Shoes but not stockings,
how sinister.  the flower
behind her ear is naturally
not real, of a piece
with the sofa’s drapery.
The windows (if any) are shut.
This is indoor sin.
Above the head of the (clothed) maid
is an invisible voice balloon:   Slut.

But.  Consider the body,

unfragile, defiant, the pale nipples
staring you right in the bull’s eye.
Consider also the black ribbon
around the neck.  What’s under it?
A fine red threadline, where the head
was taken off and glued back on.
The body’s on offer,
but the neck’s as afar as it goes.

 This is no morsel.

Put clothes on her and you’d have a schoolteacher,
the kind with the brittle whiphand.

 There’s someone else in this room.

You, Monsieur Voyeur.
As for that object of yours
she’s seen those before, and better.

 I, the head, am the only subject
of this picture.
You, Sir, are furniture.
Get stuffed

   

 

Shadow Shot Sunday

A little Note: I created a photo blog a while back called The Pagan's Eye, where I posted photos I've taken: a slight nod to my creative side and a wink to my flirtation with  digital polaroids.  I haven't been taking many in recent months due to busy-ness with work, school and family. I just noticed that the last photo I posted at The Pagan's Eye was from November 11. The space from that past-time has given me time to think about whether I want to keep a photo blog just for those photo themes (or memes).

It got to be addicting with a different theme for every day of the week:  Ruby Tuesday, Mellow Yellow Monday, SkyWatch Friday, etc. (My apologies for not linking to the bloggers who host them weekly.)  I think I am going to leave up that blog as a diary of what has caught my eye but resume posting entries to the photo memes on this blog. Only less of them. Mary the Teach's two memes - Ruby Tuesday and Window Views and Doorways, are really fun and Mary is a very cool lady. And SkyWatch Friday because it is just as vast as its name-sake, with skies from all over the globe, represented. And last but not least, Shadow Shot Sunday, which is hosted by Hey Harriet - the Photo Surrealist of the blog universe!  Thanks Tracie!

Contemporary Art Shadow Shots
taken at Massachusetts Museum of Contemporary Art
Mass MoCA
the wall drawings are by American artist Sol Lewitt

for Shadow Shot Sunday

 

The Friday Evening Nudes

Raoul Duffy

Fauvist

Maurice Denis

 Symbolist

Armande Guillaumin

Impressionist

The Delvaux below meets a request by libhom, who loves the Surrealists

Paul Delvaux

 A Modern Olympia

Paul Cezanne 

Post Impressionist

Pagan Sphinx Entertainment Highlight - Benny and the Jets

 I like the frames in this video of Bernie Taupin, the lyricist of those great, early Elton John songs.

While I don't hold out much hope for world peace anymore, I will continue to strive to find peace in myself. 

Good 2010 to you!