Jacqueline Du Pre and Elgar Cello Concerto 1st Mov.

If you ever saw the movie Hilary and Jackie which came out a few years ago, you might recall this piece which figured very prominently in the movie.

The movie (which Zexiv remembers seeing with Puff on the ship during their honeymoon cruise to Alaska), is based on the life of the 2 Du Pre sisters both of whom were talented musicians. One of them, Hilary (Rachel Griffiths) ends up playing flute for a community orchestra while the other Jackie (Emily Watson) continues on to become a world famous concert cellist. It shows the contrast in the lives of both; how Hilary appears happy and content in the simpler life she chose while Jackie, despite her fame and success, never seems to find real happiness. The film also shows the close relationship between both sisters; at one point Hilary apparently allows Jackie to have an affair with her husband to help her through a nervous breakdown. Later, at the height of her career, Jackie is stricken with multiple sclerosis, and soon has to stop playing the cello as the disease progresses. She dies in the end at the age of 42.

Jacqueline Du Pres was well known for her performance and interpretation of this work. It is a very moving and emotional piece. If you listen to it you can almost hear the drama of her life.

P.S. Zexiv and I start our photography for the fall this weekend, with a trip to Victoria with Puff to see the Titanic exhibit at the museum.

Hooray for the Silent Movie

I found this really funny video of Charlie Chaplin - taken I believe from his 1931 movie, City Lights - in YouTube a while ago.

It reminds me of some of the old movies they used to show in this old popular pizza parlor in the home country many years ago, back in the days when birthdays were celebrated with styrofoam hats (I forget what you call them; they looked like one of those hats popular in the 1920s) and they played banjo music.

If they could only bring back the silent movie again. Like classical music, it is universal in appeal and transcends all language barriers. Much better than a lot of the trash being produced nowadays.

Acting must have been a lot more challenging then as it involved a lot of pantomine. Can you imagine a world where you were accompanied wherever you went by music (varying in tempo and mood depending on the circumstance) and you couldn't talk but had to act out everything? Maybe we're on to something ...

Thanks, Charlie Chaplin for the laughs ...

More Books to Read

A trip to New York just isn't complete without the usual escapes to the local book shops. In the past Zexiv liked to always go to the large Barnes and Noble near Lincoln Center on the West Side, where the smell of new books was to him like that of freshly brewed coffee, and spend a few quiet afternoons there browsing before returning on his last day to make his final selections. About a year ago though he was influenced by sister Grasshopper to try Stand on Union Square, and he discovered a whole new world of used, out-of-print, and hard-to- find books he had barely known had existed. Yes, many of their books may not have that nice new book smell (although they do offer quite a number of brand new books at generously discounted prices) of freshly brewed coffee anymore, but old and rare books can have a charm of their own and can really spice up one's bookshelf. The hardbound books are especially of very good value, and most are in quite good condition. For the occassional brand new paperback, we would still go to Barnes, but we try to limit most of our book purchases these days, especially of hardbound books to this humongous (they claim 18 miles of books!) bookshop.

On this particular trip we came back with four really great finds. We hope to review them in detail sometime in the near future. They are as follows:

1. The Remains of the Day by Kazuo Ishiguro

It is a bit of a challenge to find good literature being produced today (which is why most of the books we read are by authors who have long passed on), but this book won the Booker Prize in 1989. It was actually recommended to us by Zexiv's friend Red Laser's brother a number of years ago. Zexiv has read portions on it in various trips to Chapters in Vancouver and he finally decided he should get the book. It is about a very proper English butler, who in his twilight years makes a rare trip to the countryside and gets a chance to reflect on the life he has lead and on the true nature of a man he had dedicated most of his life to serving. Zexiv likes the style of writing of the author very much. We found this in Barnes and Noble. The book is apparently not being sold at this time brand new in amazon.com.

2. The Image and Other Stories by Isaac Bashevis Singer

We already have other collections of short stories by this Polish- born Jewish writer, as well as a number of his novels, so it was a pleasure to discover there were still a lot more books of his to be found, albeit the out-of-print sort, at Strand. Like other used books by this author we bought on a previous trip to this store, this was hardbound and in pretty good condition. It was also a really good bargain at about $6 or $7. Isaac Bashevis Singer wrote most (or all?) of his stories in Yiddish and won the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1978. His short stories, featuring mostly tales of Jewish people in small villages of Poland, before World War 2, or in the big city of New York, where he immigrated in the 1930s, are generally quite good and very hard to put down.

3. Dinosaurs: From Allosaurus to Tyrannosaurus by Gerrie McCall

We never know what to get as a souvenir at a museum shop (a T-shirt versus a magnet versus a DVD), and museum books, since they're often the coffee table type are not usually cheap. On a last minute visit to the main museum shop of Zexiv's favorite New York Museum, The American Museum of Natural History, however we found this really great and very reasonably priced hardbound little book, with short writeups and key information and illustrations on about 300 dinosaurs, from the Permian to the Quaternary period. We already have 2 other dinosaur books - one by the AMNH itself and another by National Geographic - and thought this would make a great addition to our existing collection ... after all, you can never have too many dinosaur books, can you? An excellent reference material for the armchair paleontologist of any age!

4. The Complete Peanuts: 1953 to 1954

A brand new book from Stand - this is an advance Christmas gift from Zexiv's mother (who was with us in the trip to the store) and so we have decided to leave it unopened and wrapped in plastic for now, although the urge to open it is oh so very strong. We enjoyed the first book by Fantagraphics Books - The Complete Peanuts: 1950-1952 (a gift from Puff) - and we hope to eventually collect all books in the series during this lifetime (after which we hope to get started on the Fantagraphics books on Dennis the Menace :)). These are books you will always keep and can read over and over again. You can never go wrong with Peanuts.

That's about it. These should hopefully keep us in bright spirits in the long rainy and cold months ahead ...