It is with great pleasure that Dot and I announce the arrival of our second grand-child, Ella Castle, born on 30 May at 8.25 pm Santa Clara (California) time or 31 May at 1.25pm Eastern Standard Time (Australia) or 4.25am UK Summer Time.
I have just talked with Emily and Greg by phone and the baby is doing fine. She was 4lb 9 oz (or 2.055 kg) at birth, 18" long (45.7 cm) and, in Emily's word, beautiful. I believe that she was delivered by Cesarean Section, but that is still to be confirmed. Emily was tired and a little sedated, of course, but still lucid and very happy. Ella required no specialist medical treatment and was sleeping alongside.
More details, including pictures, will come soon. So, we were spared a fourth June birthday celebration! I, Max and Dot's brother, Dick, are the others.
AS
Tuesday 31 May 2011
Sunday 15 May 2011
Cosmic Coincidence
At a little after 5am this morning I was outside in -7C temperatures watching Jupiter, Venus and Mercury rise just above the eastern horizon. Twelve hours later, at a little after 5 pm I was in UNE's Madgwick Hall listening to the thunderous end of another celestial work - in more ways than one - and the outside temperature had reached 15C. That's a 22C daily range! What caused the thunder inside? Well, it was the conclusion of Haydn's brilliant oratorio, the Creation, an event that preceded this morning's planetary extravaganza by about 13 billion years.
The Armidale Symphony Orchestra has rarely, if ever, exceeded the quality of this afternoon's concert, performing just the one two hour long work. They fielded amonst 50 musicians, many of whom I've known personally for decades, playing the complete suite of instruments directed by the score, including a harpsichord which had a key continuo role. And the quality of their ensemble and bit-part playing matched Haydn's great score, with its many subtleties such as attempts to portray the entropic chaos before the big bang and the mysteries of the early universe.
The Creation also makes large choral demands and Armidale was up to that task as well, fielding a choir of almost 80 persons, many of whom I also know ... including one of my doctors. Alas, two of the three soloists were imported for the occasion, with only Bethany Shepherd, the soprano, having local connections. The choir and soloists also discharged their roles very creditably under the tutelage of Wendy Huddlestone, the wife or Dot's former, but long retired, boss! Wendy might have retired from her music teaching career at Armidale High School 11 years ago, but she kept the ensemble of nearly 130 musicians under tight control and kept a cracking pace. Indeed she made the choral climaxes truly exciting and vibrant, far from the often flagging tempi of amateur orchestras. No wonder, then, that the applause at the end went on for a long time. The audience of maybe 250 people was thrilled by the classy performance.
For the record, Haydn's Creation was inspired by listening to Handel's oratorios, including the Messiah, in Westminster Abbey, and by his meeting with the Astronomer Royal, Herschel, who had recently discovered Uranus. The first public performance was in 1799 and it became an instant hit, but I doubt if it were much more polished than today's Armidale performance. If you ever get the chance, which may be unlikely given the rarity of performance, please try to attend. You'll be charmed and entertained. How can a town of 25,000 people can keep on performing major and demanding works in the classical repertoire - another was Mahler's Resurrection Symphony - based largely on its own home-grown and high quality talents. I'll let you, dear reader, figure that one out!
The Armidale Symphony Orchestra has rarely, if ever, exceeded the quality of this afternoon's concert, performing just the one two hour long work. They fielded amonst 50 musicians, many of whom I've known personally for decades, playing the complete suite of instruments directed by the score, including a harpsichord which had a key continuo role. And the quality of their ensemble and bit-part playing matched Haydn's great score, with its many subtleties such as attempts to portray the entropic chaos before the big bang and the mysteries of the early universe.
The Creation also makes large choral demands and Armidale was up to that task as well, fielding a choir of almost 80 persons, many of whom I also know ... including one of my doctors. Alas, two of the three soloists were imported for the occasion, with only Bethany Shepherd, the soprano, having local connections. The choir and soloists also discharged their roles very creditably under the tutelage of Wendy Huddlestone, the wife or Dot's former, but long retired, boss! Wendy might have retired from her music teaching career at Armidale High School 11 years ago, but she kept the ensemble of nearly 130 musicians under tight control and kept a cracking pace. Indeed she made the choral climaxes truly exciting and vibrant, far from the often flagging tempi of amateur orchestras. No wonder, then, that the applause at the end went on for a long time. The audience of maybe 250 people was thrilled by the classy performance.
For the record, Haydn's Creation was inspired by listening to Handel's oratorios, including the Messiah, in Westminster Abbey, and by his meeting with the Astronomer Royal, Herschel, who had recently discovered Uranus. The first public performance was in 1799 and it became an instant hit, but I doubt if it were much more polished than today's Armidale performance. If you ever get the chance, which may be unlikely given the rarity of performance, please try to attend. You'll be charmed and entertained. How can a town of 25,000 people can keep on performing major and demanding works in the classical repertoire - another was Mahler's Resurrection Symphony - based largely on its own home-grown and high quality talents. I'll let you, dear reader, figure that one out!
Saturday 14 May 2011
Planetary Alignment
I have had a frustrating couple of days because one of the great celestial displays has been denied me, despite my best intentions. For the first time in over a century, four planets in the solar system - Jupiter, Venus, Mercury and Mars - have collected in Y-shaped fashion in one small corner of the sky. The southern display over the east coast of Australia has been especially good because it's late Autumn and the nights are long. Since the display occurs just before dawn, the extra period of dark is a great help. So, too, is the generally crystal clear atmosphere.
Well, that's the theory, but Armidale's weather has deteriorated markedly over the last couple of days. We've had the first blast of winter and, although the days are still quite good at 13C, there is a lot of misty cloud hanging around, especially at around dawn. I'm typing this at nearly 7.30 am and the cloud is slowly clearing to a blue sky - but much too late for planet-gazing and I'm in danger of missing my chance. This is a pity, because the next such display is apparently scheduled for 2056 and my chances of seeing it are slim. I'd be about 111 at he time.
So, I attach a couple of images of what I would have seen with a clear sky. The images were posted on the web by Sydney residents. The first shows Jupiter, Venus and Mercury (the small blob) in V formation. The second adds Mars a fair way below. You can see the glow of dawn in the second and can appreciate the limited opportunity to see the display just as it rotates above the horizon. Both yesterday and today I arose shortly after 5am. Yesterday, I jumped in the car and drove around trying unsuccessfully to find a suitable hole on the clouds Today, I went outdoors and surveyed the cloudy skies before giving the game away.
Postscript: 15 May 2011: The sky cleared tonight and I leapt out of bed at 5am to scan the horizon for this celestial display. It was a beautiful sight and crystal clear - very much like the second of the pictures.
AS
Well, that's the theory, but Armidale's weather has deteriorated markedly over the last couple of days. We've had the first blast of winter and, although the days are still quite good at 13C, there is a lot of misty cloud hanging around, especially at around dawn. I'm typing this at nearly 7.30 am and the cloud is slowly clearing to a blue sky - but much too late for planet-gazing and I'm in danger of missing my chance. This is a pity, because the next such display is apparently scheduled for 2056 and my chances of seeing it are slim. I'd be about 111 at he time.
So, I attach a couple of images of what I would have seen with a clear sky. The images were posted on the web by Sydney residents. The first shows Jupiter, Venus and Mercury (the small blob) in V formation. The second adds Mars a fair way below. You can see the glow of dawn in the second and can appreciate the limited opportunity to see the display just as it rotates above the horizon. Both yesterday and today I arose shortly after 5am. Yesterday, I jumped in the car and drove around trying unsuccessfully to find a suitable hole on the clouds Today, I went outdoors and surveyed the cloudy skies before giving the game away.
Postscript: 15 May 2011: The sky cleared tonight and I leapt out of bed at 5am to scan the horizon for this celestial display. It was a beautiful sight and crystal clear - very much like the second of the pictures.
AS
Sunday 8 May 2011
Mothers Day 2011
Today is Mothers Day, at least in Australia. Dot received a large van Gogh-like bouquet of flowers from Em and Beck. I use that description purposefully because the tulips were in the artist's favourite colour, yellow and the rest of the bunch were Irises, just as in one of his most famous paintings completed while he was living at the asylum at Saint Paul-de-Mausole in Saint-Rémy-de-Provence in the last year before his death in 1890. That painting is now supposedly at the J. Paul Getty Museum in Los Angeles, but you could be mistaken for thinking that it's in our dining area!
While we've been talking about illusions, I'll pop a question. I presume most of my readers have visited some of the world's famous art galleries like, for example, the Louvre, the Musée d'Orsay, the Pompidou Centre, the Tate Gallery (and the Tate Modern), the Rijksmuseum, the Uffizi, the Metropolitan Museum in New York, or the Hermitage in St Petersburg. I've visited them all. Well, the New England region stages a great art display once year, though perhaps not quite in the same league. Have any of you heard of the Currabubula Art Exhibition, now in its 48th year, which donates receipts to the Red Cross? Well we headed off there today, a round trip of about 280km from Armidale ... about 90 minutes away. Currabubula is hardly a global metropolis! In fact it's a tiny place. The whole district - including farming population - had only 389 residents in 2006. I doubt if the village is home to more than 200 people! The picture shows the main street of the CBD - actually it's just about the only street of any importance.
The exhibition is shown in the small village hall, not ideal conditions. And the artists are probably not household names like Leonardo, Rembrandt, Monet or Picasso, although their works were produced all over eastern Australia. Less convenient still, the organisers managed to hang no less than 667 work on the hall's walls and on temporary display boards placed in the middle of the narrow building. Needless to say, the pictures were crammed in as my own exhibits show below! When we got there in late morning, there must have been upwards of 150 people in the hall - it's a very popular event. So it was difficult to stand (or sit) in any comfort in what resembled a densely packed scrum. Most galleries have abundant space for their displays and some, like the Rijksmuseum's display of Rembrandt's Nightwatch, have rooms housing just one work with tiered seating to view critical works in relaxed comfort.
Most of the works were technically competent, and some showed considerable creativity in design or use of colour. However, the most prominent genres were Australian rural landscapes, animals (horses, sheep and poultry), and Parisian or Venetian street scenes - the former painted on rainy nights! No great blobs of colour here, or deformed women, or anything quasi-scientific like the decaying cat I once saw on video at the Tate Modern. Oh well, it was fun seeing an event we'd long heard about but never visited.
AS
While we've been talking about illusions, I'll pop a question. I presume most of my readers have visited some of the world's famous art galleries like, for example, the Louvre, the Musée d'Orsay, the Pompidou Centre, the Tate Gallery (and the Tate Modern), the Rijksmuseum, the Uffizi, the Metropolitan Museum in New York, or the Hermitage in St Petersburg. I've visited them all. Well, the New England region stages a great art display once year, though perhaps not quite in the same league. Have any of you heard of the Currabubula Art Exhibition, now in its 48th year, which donates receipts to the Red Cross? Well we headed off there today, a round trip of about 280km from Armidale ... about 90 minutes away. Currabubula is hardly a global metropolis! In fact it's a tiny place. The whole district - including farming population - had only 389 residents in 2006. I doubt if the village is home to more than 200 people! The picture shows the main street of the CBD - actually it's just about the only street of any importance.
Most of the works were technically competent, and some showed considerable creativity in design or use of colour. However, the most prominent genres were Australian rural landscapes, animals (horses, sheep and poultry), and Parisian or Venetian street scenes - the former painted on rainy nights! No great blobs of colour here, or deformed women, or anything quasi-scientific like the decaying cat I once saw on video at the Tate Modern. Oh well, it was fun seeing an event we'd long heard about but never visited.
AS
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