Adieu Februar

The last twenty-four hours of the twenty-eight day month. And a right-nice twenty-eight days it's been.

• Starting February being iced in and re-memorizing a Langston Hughes poem--ending this weekend out and about Fort Worth enjoying the warm weather.
• Watching the celebration of Ronald Reagan's 100th b-day on Feb 6th while running on a treadmill--seeing Reagan's photo on a sign at mile 21 yesterday on my marathon route with the words "Mr. Gorbachev: Tear Down this Wall!"
• Buying the rest of the Laura Ingalls Wilder series to round out our collection.
• Listening to and reading Our American Cousin, the play Lincoln was attending the night he was shot.
• Enjoying the kids' Valentine's gifts especially Calvin's DVD of West Side Story which we watched this weekend over two nights. (And hearing Lelia compare and contrast it with Romeo and Juliet which she saw at the Dallas Opera last week on a field trip. And hearing Wesley compare it to Hugo's Hunchback of Notre Dame.)
• Letting Winslow Homer teach us about skies and clouds on the 24th--seeing an original Winslow Homer while we were in Forth Worth this weekend at the Amon Carter Museum.
• Remembering the art of Grant Wood on the 13th--seeing an original Grant Wood Parson Weem's Fable at the Amon Carter Museum. This one was more exciting, I think, than the Homer painting they had. It had a little for everyone. The kids loved finding details they hadn't seen in the on-line viewing. For example, the cherries lining the curtains and that the face of George Washington was an adult face on a child's body. I enjoyed the hermeneutical lessons exemplified in this painting--which I'm still processing and hope to incorporate into my teaching at some point in the future. 

• And it's not quite over, if you have a chance, watch the Senate's annual reading of George Washington's Farewell address today on C-SPAN 2. Or read it together with the family tonight. 

Winslow Homer, The Sky, and the Glory of God



Breezing Up by Winslow Homer first exhibited in 1876

We have all experienced at least a few times in our lives, I hope, a sky so vibrant and stunning it nearly took our breath away. My first year at sea I found myself entranced watching the sun melt into the water on the horizon. Every day after working in the engine room it was typical for the black gang to emerge and stand on the deck just watching the sky, the water and the way that the two created unique harmonies based on the mood of each. And on more than one ocassion in the perfect stillness of the Med I would take my pillow and sheet to the bow of the ship and sleep outside under the stars just aft of the forward anchor windlass.

So stunning, in fact, were the sky-scenes that I bought a video camera just to capture these scenes before I set out for my second year. I shot hours of sunrises, sunsets, and cloud scenes. It was a rude awakening, however, as I popped in tape after tape once I got home that my efforts had been futile. In fact, based on that experience, I have always assumed that trying to capture the beauty of the sky was impossible--until this week that is. . .

I happened upon a Leo Tolstoy work this week, "The Raid," in which he starts Chapter Four this way:

"The sun was midway across the sky. Its hot rays piercing the incandescent air, beat down upon the dry earth. Overhead, the dark blue sky was completely clear, although the base of the snowy moutnains was already draped in white and lilac clouds."

Lilac clouds. Can't say my "sky-palette" had lilac. And yet--I could see it perfectly in my mind's eye. On a drive home later in the week I mentioned this to the family and Calvin said that Homer Winslow also had particular thoughts about the sky. He was referring to an article he recently stumbled onto in a back issue of National Geographic (Dec 98). Here is what he read:

"Homer painted in daylight long before it became standard practice. Others painted blue skies. "It looks like the devil," said Homer, who avoided them, filling his skies with gray, yellow, pink, white--anything but solid blue. Others depicted the horizon with a straight line. "Horrible," said Homer. He broke his horizons with dots of light, giant waves, plunging boats, and mountains."

The ancient prophet David has taught me to look at the sky and confess that the Heavens Display the Glory of God. The modern artists Tolstoy and Homer have reminded me how to look . . . frequently . . . deeply . . . and with an eye for detail at the display. In honor of artists like Winslow Homer (whose birthday is today, February 24th, 1836) take a step outdoors today. Even if its raining or snowing--especially if it's raining or snowing. Add another another color to your palette. Contrary to the cliche, the devil is not in the details--he's in the monochromatic view. God is in the details.

 

Can you Handle a little Händel?



Full-size Handel statue, 1738

A very, very good chance you have heard Georg Friedrich Händel's work if you've gone to a movie in the past twenty years. Händel was born on this date--Februrary 23rd--1685. Never a bad idea to revisit one of his more well-known works--Hallelujah chorus from Messiah, Water Music, Music for Fireworks. 

Or try a new piece like "Let the Bright Seraphim" from the Samson oratorio. (Performed in the link below by soprano Kathleen Battle and trumpeter Wynton Marsalis.)

Let the bright Seraphim in burning row,
Their loud uplifted Angel-trumpets blow:
Let the Cherubic host, in tuneful choirs,
Touch their immortal harps with golden wires.



Ansel Adams



Self-Portrait, Monument Valley, Utah

 Born February 20th, 1902. The Ansel Adams Gallery,  is offering 10% off his products this weekend. Also check out the gallery of a couple of thousand of his works on the Center for Creative Photography website run by the University of Arizona.

May you Love Whom You Please . . .

 . . . And Please Whom You Love.

Hoping a few of Cupid's arrows hit their target today.

Remembering Grant Wood

Though best known for his painting American Gothic, Iowan Grant Wood was a prolific artist in many mediums. He represents a style of art known as regionalism. 



The Iowa state quarter is based on his painting Arbor Day.



Abraham Lincoln and Our American Cousin

Calvin came up with a fun way to celebrate Lincoln's birthday. We are listening to Our American Cousin which is the play that Lincoln was watching the night he was assassinated. It's a comedy about an aristocratic English family who is visited by a cousin of the American branch of the family to collect his inheritance. The plot is quite simple and a most of the humor is just right for the kids. (When is a dog's tail not a tail? When it's a wagon!) It helps that we are reading along as we listen. After we finish listening to the play tomorrow, I think we'll read through Lincoln's first inaugural address.

POTUS 40 turns 100

I watched a bit of the celebration of Ronald Reagan's 100th b-day celebration on CNN while I was on the treadmill yesterday. Perhaps the most amusing part was the end to Gary Sinise's speech when he said: "You know being here it doesn't feel like he's gone. It doesn't feel like one hundred years." Wow! I didn't realize Gary Sinise was that old!

Ronald Reagan was the president from the time I was Lelia's age (10)until I was in college. So, of course, I am saturated with many memories of his presidency. I remember the day the Iranian hostage situation ended. I remember what I did when I found out he had been shot. I still have the photograph I took of his boyhood home in Dixon, Illinois. I remember standing in the outfield of Forest Park's little league fields with my elementary school class and watching the presidential motorcade heading down the Eisenhower Expressway into Chicago.

And since it was Reagan who was responsible for my teenage  Jelly Belly obsession (cherry, watermelon, blueberry were my favorites), we made a trip to our local Kroger yesterday afternoon to get a stash. After dinner last night we found Ronald Reagan's first inaugural speech on-line. Everytime he made reference to the United States or America we each snagged a bean. [Since we still had quite a few left over, we finished them off as we listened to the SuperBowl.]

For inquiring minds: The stamp above is being released by the US Postal Service this week in an event in Dixon, IL which you can watch live. Being an on-again-off-again stamp collector, I do intend to purchase a few. Then, I'll write letters to each of my kids and put them in envelopes with the Reagan stamp which I'll send to Dixon, IL to get a first-day cancellation. Pretty nice little momentos for them as they get older, I think.

Langston Hughes

Lelia writes: Today I memorized this poem.

Democracy

By: Langston Hughes

Democracy will not come
today, this year

nor ever through

compromise and fear

I have as much right as 

the other fellow has

to walk with my own two feet 

and own land

I tire so of hearing people say 

Let things go their course 

tomorrow is another day 

I do not need my freedom when I am dead

I cannot live on tomorrow's bread

Freedom 

is a strong seed

planted 

in a great need 

I live here, too.

I want freedom

just as you

 I think this poem means that everybody is the same. Everybody is equal. All people are supposed to have freedom. Langston Hughes wrote this poem like he was talking to a white man. All people should not be treated a certain way because of the color of their skin.

Febrero

It's here! It's here! February . . . Febrero . . . Février . . . Februar . . . Feberwary. And since we're iced in, why not take a little time to plan our month:

February 1st: Langston Hughes. Listen to a Yale lecture on him today and then read something by him. 

February 4th: Rosa Parks. Wesley's has volunteered to post something on Rosa Parks' b-day.

February 6th: Ronald Reagan. We haven't recognized a president yet this year but we've got a few in February. Reagan's birthday is fun because it gives us an excuse to eat jelly-bellies. Last year we just went to our local Kroger where they have bins full of them and let each kid get a bagful. I think we'll try something a bit diferent this year. Also, the USPS is issuing a Reagan stamp which goes on sale February 10th.

February 7th: Laura Ingalls Wilder whose Little House on the Prairie books seems to get mentioned at least once a month in our home preceded by "Well you know how they used to do it . . .?

February 11th: Thomas Edison--any bright ideas?

February 12th: Honest Abe.

February 14th: The Feast Day of Saint Valentine. I think you know what to do here.

February 22nd: Every year on George Washington's birthday in the United States Senate, his Farewell Address is read aloud. If you can, watch it it C-SPAN 2.

February 23rd: Georg Frederic Handel. Get ready for another day of music.

February 26th: Perhaps read a-chapter-a-day in February of Les Misérables by Victor Hugo. They really don't make novels (or attention spans) like this anymore!

February 27th: H. W. Longfellow. Which just happens to be the Middle School that two of my children will have attended.